Pride is a protest.
Pride is fighting for our rights.
And for Hidayah, Pride has meant representing, empowering and bringing together queer Muslims of various backgrounds and all walks of life.
Yet we have increasingly found that Pride has become widely commercialised, particularly in recent years, and its true essence has been forgotten.
We call for the organisers of Manchester Pride to suspend all sponsorships with organisations supporting the apartheid of the Palestinian people, such as the headline sponsor, Booking.com (a corporation that has listings in the occupied West Bank in Palestine). We call on Manchester Pride to cut ties with corporations that have applied to march like Barclays (which has financial ties to arms companies that sell weapons to Israel). At the time of writing this statement, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been brutally murdered by the Israeli regime, and over 16,000 of them were children. We at Hidayah are strongly and unequivocally against the genocide happening in Palestine at the hands of Israel. Participation in a parade alongside corporations with blood on their hands is unconscionable.
We have cosigned an open letter from No Pride in Genocide and second their demands for Manchester Pride to drop any sponsor on the BDS list and refuse entry to the parade from any corporation on the BDS list. We call for Manchester Pride to agree to independent vetting of existing and future corporate sponsors, and to not partner with any corporation that profits from any conflict around the world. More details about the specific conditions can be found in the link above.
We will continue to condemn the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and continue to be outspoken in raising awareness within the LGBT community. The genocide in Palestine is inexcusable. As a group made up of Muslims and non-Muslims, we are unified in our stand with Palestine and the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, which is being repeatedly infringed by the Israeli government. Hidayah has already made changes to the way we work and the systems we use to ensure we are not engaging with corporations on the BDS list, and we will continue to do so as much as possible.
Internally, there has been a lot of discussion about how best to proceed as an organisation with this event, to ensure that we can raise as much awareness as we can about Palestine and raise awareness for our queer Muslim community. We have been keen to engage in good faith with Manchester Pride, given we have marched previously and were planning to do so this year, and we have contacted them to this effect. Their statement thus far has been lukewarm at best, with no solid commitment to dropping corporations on the BDS list. We reiterate all that was said by No Pride in Genocide in their response.
With this in mind, if the above demands are not met, Hidayah LGBTQI will be boycotting Manchester Pride with immediate effect and will not be marching this year or in the future. We strongly encourage other organisations to do the same.
We will still be holding a lunch on the day, as we still want to serve our queer Muslim community in Manchester to centre and celebrate our Hidayah family. Existing attendees will be informed of our change in plans and we will confirm our presence at a counterprotest once we have more details.
Hidayah is committed to supporting and uplifting our queer Muslim community through our Wellbeing service, our community hubs established nationwide in the UK and our outreach work to other charities, health organisations and businesses. You can find more information on our website.
