The Scottish Parliament has voted for the rapid suspension of riot gear, tear gas and rubber bullet exports to America.
The motion was successful. Backed by 52 votes to 0 with 11 abstentions, the parliament also called for the establishment of a slavery museum in Scotland to “address our historic links with the slave trade.”
Following the death of George Floyd, protests erupted in different cities worldwide, with police officers often using violence in an attempt to silence the protesters.
In recent weeks, video footage hit the internet, and law enforcement officials can be seen pressing their knees into protesters’ necks, pushing elderly people to the ground, and using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.
Scottish Green Party MSP Patrick Harvie proposed the successful amendment, and calls for an “immediate halt” of UK exports of riot gear, rubber bullets and tear gas to the US.
In the Independent Report, Harvie said: “Those weapons of oppression are being used by a racist state and it is unacceptable for us to be exporting them, putting those weapons into the hands of people who will brutalize marginalized communities,” he said after the vote.
“It’s important that we stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement.”
Harvey continued: “In the weeks since George Floyd’s brutal murder the world has been watching the appalling systematically racist police brutality and the systematically racist political establishment in the US that underpins that inequality.”
“The Black Lives Matter movement has been inspiring and it needs to be heard right around the world: that racism exists in this country as well,” he said.point 257 |
“I’m delighted that today the Scottish Parliament agreed on a Green amendment in an anti-racism debate calling for an establishment of a Museum of Slavery to really shine a light on this country’s grim past connections with slavery and how the inequality of that history perpetuates even now.point 255 |
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According to export license records, the US is one of the world’s largest buyers of UK arms.