People have protested in more than 100 German cities against yet another rail consignment of nuclear waste as police and other authorities broke all kinds of constitutional rights to ram it through in wintry chaos to the Baltic seaside resort of Lubmin.
Four caskets (CASTORS) of waste, created in Germany but taken to France for processing, was railed through the two countries from Cadarache to Lubmin on the Baltic coast, right in the middle of a popular seaside tourist region.
The local Anti-Atom-Bündnis Nordost gave a very positive summing up of clearly grown protest against senseless and superfluous nuclear waste transportation to the “temporary” Lubmin storage hall. It said there were vigils, protest actions, flashmobs and demonstrations in more than 100 cities.
The protest movement has reached the entire country, the activist organisation writes. The times of secretive, quiet waste transports to the Baltic Coast are over. “People are putting up determined resistance to the federal government and the four big electricity corporations just sitting on the nuclear waste dilemma – there is no safe way to store atomic waste!”
“Instead, there is a growing number of engaged people ready to take their protest against atomic policy to the streets and rails. Between Greifswald and Lubmin several hundred people took part in a peaceful squat blockade on the private railway line of Energiewerke Nord (the local power company). With straw cushions, blankets, hot tea and good mood the demonstrators went to the rails in the early morning to oppose with civil disobedience the energy policy of the federal government and the CASTOR transportation it entails.
“With this transport the politicians have broken their word. The Lubmin interim storage was meant only for waste from the nuclear power stations in Lubmin and Rheinsberg and was forced through despite many objections. The decision to keep transporting nuclear waste to the Baltic has caused a massive loss of trust.
“‘With its dishonesty, pure lobbyism and short-sighted energy policy the federal government will shipwreck,’ says the spokeswoman of Anti-Atom-Bündnis Nordost, Adelwin Bothe.
“The Anti-Atom-Bündnis Nordost has received undreamt-of support from the population in recent weeks and months. Doors and gates were opened to the movement. Several hundred residents made their guest rooms available and tended to demonstrators with food donations and hot drinks; without that the protests would not have been possible on this scale.
“At the same time we are horrified at the grave breaches of constitutional rights committed to enforce this transport – as happened with previous ones. In the Greifswald/Lubmin area the right to freedom of movement, the right to assemble, freedom of the media and the right to inviolability of the body were simply abrogated.
“Some examples:
- Medics were not allowed through to the Robin Wood blockade and other actions;
- medics were stopped from driving on and repeatedly searched;
- officially licensed vigils were nor freely accessible to assembly participants;
- people in a vigil at Stilow, for example, could not be supplied by protest kitchens and in some cases were or are without food for 24 hours;
- journalists kept on being obstructed in doing their job and were unable to pass their information on in good time;
- participants in a squat blockade near Brünzow were detained for up to 5½ hours in the open air in a snowstorm, although a court has ruled that people detained must be presented to a judge within two hours for a ruling on whether the detention is legitimate;
- several villages (including Vierow, Kemnitzerhagen, Stilow) and several trunk roads were barricaded shut by police for several hours. Residents, journalists, medics and protesters could not reach their destinations, the constitutional right to freedom of movement was brteached by interior minister Caffier (Christian Democrat) and the police leadership;
- police from the state of North-Rhine Westphalia threatened demonstrators with torture grips if they did not move on voluntarily.
“Without these abrogations of basic rights and breaches of the law by police leaders and the interior ministry show clearly that CASTOR transportation cannot be carried out under democratic and law-governed conditions.
“We demand from the federal government and all state governments the immediate implementation of a transport moratorium for radioactive materials of all kinds and to keep it in force until all atomic installations are switched off and a suitable final repository for all radioactive materials is ready to operate.
“We extend our thanks for this huge support and to all who took part in the protests despite the icy winter weather.”
NIXSPAM.anti-atom-hro@systemausfall.org http://www.lubmin-nix-da.de
Other IndyMedia reports on this, in German: http://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/30819