BERLING (Dispatches) -- Under pressure from rights activists, German weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch says it will end its sales to war zones or the parties that are corrupt and breach democratic standards, including the regimes in Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The company announced its new policy in its most recent annual report, stating that it will now only sell to "green countries” and those that met Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index as well as the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index. The bans list also includes Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia or any African countries.