A campaign to persuade Edinburgh City Council to embrace ethical investment and sell around £2 million worth of shares in an engineering firm is gathering momentum.
The Scottish directors of Amnesty International, ASH, and environment group People and Planet, have all signed a letter supporting the campaign to get the council to sell its BAE Systems shares.
The call comes after a report from Campaign Against the Arms Trade, CAAT showed the council held £2m of shares in BAE Systems - a company which, campaigners say, has supplied weapons to some of the world's most brutal regimes including Indonesia, Zimbabwe, and Colombia.
Campaign spokesperson Dariush Bazazi said: "Most councillors opposed the war in Iraq, yet freedom of information requests show that they are reaping the profits by investing in arms companies such as BAE Systems. Edinburgh University has had an ethical investment policy for several years now, administered by the same company that the council uses, so the switch would be relatively easy to make."
George Monbiot author, academic and environmental and political activist, is also among those to join the Edinburgh Ethical Investment Campaign. Campaigners say the council's investment is helping fund the war in Iraq and provide weapons for dictatorships.
Mr Monbiot said:
"At present, the council's money is being used to underwrite the means by which large numbers of people are killed or mutilated. If I were drawing a council pension I would be extremely unhappy about the idea that my money was being squeezed out of other people's blood."
The Labour party's representative dealing with investments has flat out refused to invest ethically after the election on May 03. In a statement to the press she said this is not something she would do.
An online blog for the campaign has been set up at www.ethicalinvestmentedinburgh.blogspot.com
