PRO-PALESINE activists have staged a protest inside the National Galleries of Scotland with a list of those killed in Palestine being updated during the action.
Protesters from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign were joined by Edinburgh University Justice for Palestinians and Artworkers Scotland for Palestine on Friday afternoon, after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Palestine.
The action is part of a series of public actions to demand that "Scottish cultural institutions end their complicity with the genocidal actions of the Israeli state".
The coalition is primarily urging Edinburgh-based investment firm Baillie Gifford to divest of its £10 billion worth of investments linked to Israel.
Baillie Gifford has reportedly sponsored exhibitions at the National Galleries since 1993 and there has been a Baillie Gifford director on the board of the National Galleries’ independent fundraising body, the NGS Foundation, since at least 2012.
Former director at Baillie Gifford, Nigel Morecroft, is currently a director of the NGS Foundation.
The National Galleries of Scotland confirmed that rooms protesters are in, 17 -19, have been closed and the remainder of the gallery is open to visitors.
A spokesperson from SPSC said: “The Palestinian people in Gaza are being slaughtered and their homes and civil infrastructure decimated by Israel’s genocidal attack.
"As citizens of Israel, Palestinians are being arrested and harassed by genocidal mobs, and in the Occupied West Bank Palestinians face Israeli military raids, destruction, mass arrests, torture and killing, on top of the escalation of violence by fundamentalist settlers.
READ MORE: ICJ: Israel ordered to prevent genocide in Gaza by UN's top court
"This is no time for silence, and it is incumbent on us all to stand up to genocide and make sure we are not complicit in these crimes against humanity – cultural institutions are not exempt from this duty and responsibility.
"We call on them to stand up for equality, justice and freedom now which means boycotting state-sponsored Israeli bodies and groups and divesting from complicit companies.”
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