Boycott Israel campaign targets London's Hatton Gardens

London's Hatton Gardens is being targeted this weekend to highlight the deceptions of the Kimberley Process, which tracks the trading of rough diamonds for illicit purposes but excludes Israeli Blood Diamonds. The international Boycott, disinvestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaign is being joined by Palestinian groups to raise awareness about Israel's huge diamond industry funding for its illegal occupation and human rights abuse. Sean Clinton, who has been leading the Boycott Israeli Diamonds campaign in Ireland, said that both jewellers and the public at large were being targeted at Hatton Gardens on Saturday because it was “one of the major hubs of the global diamond industry.” “While there is some public awareness about the trade in blood-tainted, rough diamonds from Zimbabwe, the media in general ignores the far larger trade in blood tainted diamonds from Israel,” Clinton told IRNA. “According to evidence presented at the London session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine last year, the Israeli diamond industry generates about $1 billion in funding for the Israeli military each year,” he said. “So when someone buys a diamond from Israel they are helping to fund war crimes and other human rights violations in Palestine.” The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme was launched in 2001 to prevent rough diamonds being used to fund illicit wars and human rights abuses but ignores Israel's trade as the world’s largest exporter of cut and polished diamonds. Clinton, who is a council member of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said it was a “bogus” system of warranties” introduced by the World Diamond Council. It was adopted by retail jewellers to give the “illusion that cut and polished diamonds are subject to the same human rights standards applied to rough diamonds used by rebel groups…which is completely false and misleading,” he said. “Jewellers claim that diamonds from Israel are 'conflict free', but the term conflict free is not defined in any legislations and is open to whatever interpretation jewellers want to apply.” Clinton, a Limerick-based researcher, has published several articles, highlighting the deception of the Kimberley Process. “Consumes rightly expect that if a diamond is conflict free none of their money will end up funding human rights violations anywhere,” he said. “This sleight of hand by jewellers is facilitating the contamination of the entire diamond market with Israel blood diamonds under the cloak of the 'conflict free; label,” he told IRNA. Earlier this year, Clinton became embroiled in a controversy with Retail Jewellery after the British magazine was forced to withdraw its publication from a major exhibition in Switzerland for including a letter he wrote about Israeli Blood Diamonds. Magazine editor Laura McCreddie also had to issue an unprecedented apology for publishing the letter after an outcry from representatives of the Israeli diamond industry. The Irish researcher also accused NGOs and other groups promoting ethical diamonds of being complicit in the “charade” about Israel's diamond trade and said it should not go unchallenged. “Last week, leading advocates of ethical jewellery met with the 'ethics committee' of the British Jewellers Association and it appears that the issue of human rights violation funded by cut and polished diamonds was never mentioned,” he said. “It appears that the concerns of the advocates of ethical jewellery are limited to how diamonds are sourced and that if they are funding human rights violations further up the supply chain they turn a blind eye,” Clinton said.