"The arms trade is out of control"

Amnesty International and Oxfam approached people in Oxford's Cornmarket to have their picture taken in a "shooting gallery", to form a visual petition against the sale of weapons to war-torn countries.

Claire MacRae, from Amnesty International's Oxford Group, said: "The aim is to collect a million images worldwide by 2006, and 50,000 within the UK by next March."

Amnesty International's Oxford City Centre Group, Oxford University Student Group, Oxford Brookes Student Group and Headington Group worked on the stall on Saturday.

'Spare a couple of minutes'

Nick Sykes, chairman of the Oxford group, said: "The arms trade is out of control.

"One person dies every minute from armed violence and yet will still continue to flood war-torn countries with guns.

"An International Arms Trade Treaty would stop the UK or any other country selling weapons to the countries where they do the most harm.

"We hope that people in Oxford will spare a couple of minutes to join the photo petition and help control the deadly arms trade."

The Control Arms campaign was jointly launched last week by Amnesty International, Oxfam and International Action Network on Small Arms (Iansa), and is backed by TV presenter Jamie Theakston following a recent visit to Uganda.

'Strictest export controls'

On Friday the campaign accused the UK Government of abandoning a manifesto pledge to clamp down on British arms dealers trading overseas.

But the government says it is has introduced some of the world's strictest export controls and new legislation to be introduced by the end of the month will make it impossible for British arms brokers to sell long-range missiles and instruments of torture to anyone.

But trying to place strict controls on small arms abroad dealing was not practical.