Contact: John Harrington – 707.252.6166
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2006
Napa, California
Shareholders Call on Technology Companies to End Support of Human Rights Abuses
Harrington Investments, Inc. (HII) announced that the Napa, California socially responsible investment advisory firm has filed shareholder resolutions with Oracle Corporation, Cisco Systems Inc., and Microsoft Corporation asking that they stop selling products or services to governments that utilize the technology to violate human rights.
According to the U.S. State Department, the People's Republic of China is an example of a government involved in human rights abuses. China's government is being assisted by technology provided by U.S.-based companies:
- Oracle has admitted to providing products to China's police and military.
- Cisco has admitted to selling routers to the Chinese government that are used to block dissident websites.
- Microsoft has admitted to closing down a dissident's blog upon the request of the Chinese government.
"U.S.-based technology companies are increasing sales of their products and services to brutal authoritarian governments, often directly to the police and military, where the technology is used to violate human rights," said John Harrington, President and CEO of HII. "These companies also provide assistance and training to government employees. Clearly they know how their technologies are being used."
Harrington continued by saying, "Not unlike the days when U.S. companies strategically, financially, and economically underpinned the white minority apartheid government of South Africa, it's 'business as usual' in totalitarian-controlled China, where American companies ignore the fact that their products and services assist the government in apprehending, incarcerating, torturing, and often murdering Chinese citizens who oppose the brutal dictatorship. Not a lot has changed in the corporate modus operandi, that is, the need to make as much money as quickly as possible, regardless of the consequences."
Harrington concluded by saying, "Shareholders are almost totally separate from control and have little influence on corporate management. However, we have a right to raise human and labor rights issues that may have a long term deleterious impact on our company. This is especially important as customers begin to distance themselves from corporations that have a history of supporting governments engaged in the brutal suppression of citizens advocating democratic change."
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