By NCPPR, Special for USDR
At todays Apple shareholder meeting in Cupertino, California, shareholders will vote on a resolution submitted by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a shareholder, requiring Apples management to prepare a report identifying Apples criteria for operating in regions with significant human rights violations.
Apple operates in 17 nations in which homosexual activity is illegal. In four of those, it is punishable by death. Women have almost no rights in numerous countries in which Apple does business. A female could not even drive a shipment of iPhones to Apples sales location in Saudi Arabia, or work there without a males permission.
Apple CEO Tim Cook emerged as a civil rights activist in the spring of 2015, writing an op-ed in the Washington Post, saying he did so, on Apples behalf, in the hopes that many more will join this movement against discrimination.
At Apple, Cook added, we are in business to empower and enrich our customers lives. We strive to do business in a way that is just and fair.
The National Center for Public Policy Research proposal takes Mr. Cook seriously by asking Apples management to issue a report to shareholders on the companys business operations in regions with systemic human rights violations.
As Mr. Cook himself wrote, Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at stake, its time for all of us to be courageous.
The National Center for Public Policy Research asks all Apple shareholders to vote for proposal #7.
For more information about this shareholder proposal, including Apples efforts to fight it before for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, please read our February 23 press release.
To read the full text of the National Centers shareholder proposal, download Apples proxy statement here and go to page 62. Apples statement of opposition to our anti-discrimination proposal, which concludes, the requested report is unnecessary and would not provide meaningful information to shareholders, can be found on page 63.