RBS AGM surrounded by Public Shareholder protesters
Protesters around the UK besieged RBS yesterday on the day of its AGM calling for an end to financial backing for fossil fuels driving climate change
Public Shareholder protesters gathering outside RBS AGM in Edinburgh yesterday
Image © Daniel Fisher
MC member Alex Wood makes his point from ‘tarsands digger’ outside RBS Threadneedle St yesterday
P&P and WDM members protest outside RBS in London
Image © World Development Movement
People & Planet students from all over the UK converged outside the Edinburgh International Conference Centre with environmental, human right and anti-poverty groups. They were dressed as Public Shareholders with placards calling for RBS to stop funding blood oil, as the UK taxpayer now owns 84% of RBS shares.
Protesters were joined by Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, an indigenous Canadian activist, who spoke out against the tar sands projects destroying her community at a Public Shareholders meeting held after the AGM:
“Our land isnt just being taken away from us, its being destroyed. This is cultural genocide, and RBS is complicit.”
Eriel who’s from Alberta - the ground zero of Canada’s tar sands projects and Vedanta mining activist, Simon Chambers, both went in to the agm and questioned RBS Chair Sir Phillip Hampton. Eriel said:
“My community is suffering at the hands of many of these corporations. These are contributing to elevated rates of cancer, other diseases like leukaemia, lymphoma, lupus and respiratory diseases. How can RBS sit back and say that they can contribute to financing these projects that are killing my community?”
Hampton responded that RBS involvement in tar sands was “absolutely tiny” but a recent report published by PLATFORM clearly shows at least $2.5billion used by RBS in backing tar sands firms since being bailed out by taxpayers.
This morning all the NGOs who are working on this campaign, included People & Planet’s director Ian Leggett, met with Sir Philip Hampton in Edinburgh to demand tougher action and RBS withdrawal from blood oil. More on the outcomes of that meeting soon.
The protests received widespread coverage including a great video on the BBC, photos in the Independent, Guardian and Metro.
