The Workers' Commissions of the Canary Islands (CCOO Canarias) has expressed in a press release its "outright opposition" to the basketball game scheduled for October 14 between CB Canarias (Lenovo Tenerife) and the Israeli team Bnei Herzliya, corresponding to the Basketball Champions League. Therefore, they demand "the immediate suspension of the match as a sign of ethical coherence and solidarity with the Palestinian people."
The union considers "it unacceptable to hold a sporting event that whitewashes the State of Israel while it continues to commit genocide against the Palestinian civilian population. We cannot look the other way or pretend that sport is a haven of neutrality when horror, killings, and impunity prevail before the eyes of the world."
The union calls on the Canary Islands institutions, the Tenerife Island Council, the La Laguna City Council, and the International Basketball Federation to "act responsibly and suspend the match out of respect for human rights and the victims of Gaza." "Holding this match would not only be a lack of sensitivity, but an offense to thousands of people murdered, displaced, and tortured by the Israeli army, as already denounced by the UN," it continues.
Likewise, CCOO Canarias asks fans and citizens to "not go to the Santiago Martín pavilion if the match is not suspended," and to "show their rejection of this barbarity with a civic and forceful response: do not participate, do not legitimize, do not look the other way." Thus, they add that "sport cannot be used as a showcase for regimes that violate human rights. Silence and indifference are forms of complicity."
CCOO Canarias demands that institutions and sports clubs "act with dignity and responsibility, demonstrating that the Canary Islands will not be complicit in the horror or the suffering of the Palestinian people."