Achi news desk-
Two figures dressed as the Grim Reaper watched over lines of child-sized coffins outside the SEC’s Annual General Meeting in Glasgow on Thursday.
Black “oil slick” silent performers from Extinction Rebellion were among those taking part, along with the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Christian Climate Action, Fuel Poverty Action, Scottish Friends of Palestine, and Biofuelwatch.
Jen Newall, a former climate scientist and now an eco-strategist from Scotland’s Extinction Rebellion (XR), said: “I’m speaking at this demonstration today to remind people of their power and agency – encourage anyone who’ n banking or has shares with them. Barclays to look deep within and consider whether they can really accept contributing to these issues by supporting Barclays and their terrible history.”
READ MORE: Student hunger strike ‘last resort’ to get Scottish university to listen to Gaza
Protesters listened to speeches and chanted “Barclays divest, we won’t stop, we will not rest” as well as the pro-Palestinian chant “from the river to the sea”.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “The only way to get Barclays to do the right thing is to draw public attention to their role in facilitating Israeli genocide and hit their profits.”
Barclays said it recognized the profound human suffering caused by the conflict in Gaza.
In a statement on his website, he said: “We have been asked why we invest in nine defense companies that supply Israel, but this misconstrues what we do.
“We trade in shares of listed companies in response to an instruction or demand from clients and that could mean we hold shares. We do not make investments for Barclays and Barclays is not a ‘shareholder’ or ‘investor’ in that sense in relation to these companies.
“A related claim is that we are investing in Elbit, an Israeli defense manufacturer that also supplies equipment and training to the UK armed forces.
“For the reasons mentioned, it is not true that we have made a decision to invest in Elbit. We may hold shares in relation to client-driven transactions, which is why we appear on the share register, but we are not investors.”
Barclays said it has policies on a range of issues including climate change, human rights and the defense and security sector, and uses these policies to evaluate clients and transactions.
On the issue of oil and gas, the bank said that it believes that the energy system of the future must offer clean, reliable and affordable energy to everyone, but the change to that system cannot happen overnight.
He said: “For this transition to be fair and orderly, Barclays must play a dual role: funding tomorrow’s energy system, while continuing to fund companies that meet the world’s current energy needs.
“We are taking a thoughtful and considered approach to supporting a changing energy sector, focusing our capital and resources on those energy companies that are investing in and scaling up clean energy, with more scrutinizing those developing new oil and gas projects – which could represent more transformation. risk as well as locking in longer term emissions.”
