Shareholder activists target Barclays AGM

On Thursday 23 April 2015, several protests were held outside the gates of the Barclays Annual General Meeting at the Royal Festival Hall. Several activists bought shares and attended the AGM in order to ask questions. Anti-militarist activists held a protest calling on Barclays to divest from the arms trade. One activist read out an alternative chairman's speech to the queue of shareholders waiting to pass through security. He was roughly carried away from the entrance by Festival Hall security guards. A press release from the Stop Barclays Coalition states: " Barclays is the named shareholder in several major arms firms including Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin: * Lockheed Martin is the world's largest arms company. Their products include Hellfire missiles, Apache attack which have been used in Iraq, and F-16 fighter aircraft which have been used by the Israeli military in attacks on Gaza.