Amnesty Students March for an Arms Trade Treaty

Here is a blog by Molly Robertson from Amnesty’s Queen Margaret University Student Society, writing about the hugely successful student march that took place on Edinburgh’s iconic Royal Mile on 12 May 2012.    

When the Amnesty group at Queen Margaret University, which I am a part of, received information about the Arms Trade Treaty campaign, quite a lot of information came as a surprise.  It is a surprise for example, that an Arms Trade Treaty doesn't already exist, when there are treaties for the sale of bananas, and dinosaur bones! 

We decided to put our all into raising awareness about this issue, and understood that there needed to be pressure put on all political parties for Scotland to back a bulletproof arms treaty; one which couldn't be loopholed, which could remain for years to come.

The day before the march, I started to feel nervous as it was raining cats and dogs and I worried this would dampen the spirit on the day, but I was wrong!  As well as members of QMU's Amnesty, members from Glasgow's Amnesty group also made it down, as well as students from Edinburgh.  We started outside the City Chambers, on the Royal Mile, handing out information about the ATT, talking to people inquisitive about our gravestones (props which read “1500 people a day are killed by arms”).

We marched down the Royal Mile, to Parliament, handing out leaflets, and pledge cards as we walked.  It was a fantastic sunny day, we received quite a few signatures from the public on the pledge cards, and discussed the issue with other protesters who we met at parliament.  I hope that even though the march wasn't quite as big as we'd intended, the message we were trying to spread was heard.