Aunque introducir una bandera de una nación no es considerado un delito, la naturaleza de los adversarios del Celtic podría ser interpretada por la legislación escocesa como un “incitación al odio contra un grupo de personas en base a su grupo de pertenencia y origen étnico” y por tanto posibilita el arresto del portador.

A pesar de esta amenaza, la Green Brigade, histórico grupo del Celtic, ha siempre mostrado su apoyo a los derechos de los pueblos oprimidos y para esta ocasión ha organizado un evento fuera de Celtic Park donde serán distribuidas cientos de banderas de Palestina para ondear durante el partido.

Comunicado (LINK):

As you all know Celtic have been drawn with an Israeli football team who under UEFA’S own rules should not be allowed to participate in this competition due to the system of apartheid laws and practices including religious and ethnic based colonisation, military occupation and segregation of what remains of Palestinian land and over 90 laws which discriminate against indigenous Palestinians who make up 20% of the population of current day Israel.

Come gather at the entrance of The Celtic Way where we will be distributing free Palestine flags to those who will fly them. We will not be pushing them on those who do not want to participate, we respect your choice as fans to simply watch the game and support our team. We hope in return those fans will respect in turn that for many, when someone is representing Israeli state institutions it is sadly never merely a game, football, UEFA and Celtic FC are being used to whitewash Israel ‘s true nature and give this rogue state an air of normality and acceptance it should not and cannot enjoy until it’s impunity ends and it is answerable to international law and faces sanctions for the countless UN resolutions it had breached.

In support of the Palestinians we Celtic fans invoke our democratic rights to display our opposition to Israeli Apartheid, settler – colonialism and countless massacres of the Palestinian people, such as the one carried out in besieged Gaza in the summer of 2014 by showing the Palestinians and the world where we stand. We stand for justice, for freedom and end to all forms of racism and oppression. Our combined histories of people drawn from Ireland, rural Scotland and the many other places were New Scots hailed from into a city in which we Glaswegians fought long and hard for workers rights and social justice are the spring from which our internationalist solidarity with the Palestinians flows like it did with the Spanish people fighting fascism in the 1930’s or black South Africans oppressed under white supremacy and Latin Americans under US backed dictatorships in the 1980’s.

Throughout these years the Palestinians struggled and died while the world looked elsewhere. No more is this the case and around the world the inspiring and unstoppable Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has grown and grown and global civil society, people like us, are finally making Israel accountable. We are part of that movement and until there is end to the brutal occupation and medieval siege of the West Bank and Gaza, until the Palestinian citizens of current day Israel have the chains of apartheid lifted from them and until all Palestinian refugees are allowed to return to their homeland we will always be visually and openly in support of the Palestinians and opposed to their Israeli colonisers and oppresses. We are with you Palestine ..You Will Never Walk Alone.

Así fue la respuesta de Celtic Park a las amenazas de sanción y a la prohibición de banderas palestinas: