Good and bad news for Gorleben activists

Good and bad news for Gorleben: a court has thrown out a case against anti-nuclear activists, rubble from a dissembled nuclear plant is to be put in what Gorlebeners deride as a “potato barn” in the north German village.
The x1000-malquer protest organisation reports that the Hanover court quashed fine proceedings against four activists who last November blockaded Castor casket transport to the Gorleben “interim storage”, a thin-walled prefabricated hall. (See  http://de.indymedia.org//2003/11/67094.shtml.)
The four accused had managed to stop the transport with a sit-down blockade near Rohstorf, in the county of Lüneburg. The court action was a challenge to fines of € 168.10.
The female judge quashed the case with the argument that she did not see the Eisenbahn, Bau- und Betriebsordnung (EBO, the Railway, Construction and Operation Order) fulfilling the purpose of guarding the safety of rail traffic.

On the day of the blockade no regular rail traffic took place on the line between Lüneburg and Danneberg, the route always taken by the nuke trains.
The disorderly conduct case was preceded by a criminal investigation quashed by the Lüneburg state prosecutor because of “minor guilt” and passed back to the Hanover border police base.
The Hanover judge described the EBO as a "special paragraph for the Castor [nuclear waste] transports” which only continued to exist “to reward the border police for their diligence”.
She emphasised the responsible and moderate behaviour of the activists.

”This vindicates the strategy of the activists in the orbit of the non-violwent campaign X- 1000mal quer to create public awareness of the unsolved problems of nuclear waste disposal,” said the group.
“The purpose of my appeal was to express that I deem my actions to be legitimate and am not prepared to have the matter shoved on to the formal level,” said the accused Wolfgang Hertle after the hearing. “I’m sure this judgment won’t remain unchallenged but it’s good that the subject gets aired publicly this way.”

The quashing must be seen as a signal pointing the way not just for still pending court hearings, but for the general right to demonstrate against Castor transports, says the group’s press release.
“It remains to be seen whether the judges in Hanover will abide by this interpretation in their rulings.”
More hearings are listed for 21 July, 1 p.m.; 22 July, 10.30 a.m.; 26 July, 12:00 noon; 2 August, 12:00 noon; 4 August, 12:00 noon; 24 August, 2 p.m., all at Amtsgericht Hannover/Altbau, im Volgersweg 1 (ask receptionist for the rooms). On the 21st of July 11 accused will have their day in court.

More information is available from press spokesman Boris Kruse, 0162/6 45 12 42, Holger Isabell Jänicke, legal self-help, 0170/7 09 29 50 - Gregor Hackmack, legal self-help, 0162/8 44 44 95.


And now the bad news, posted at  http://germany.indymedia.org/2004/07/87795.shtml by the Gorleben civic action group, BI Umweltschutz Lüchow-Dannenberg.

They cite plans to cart to the Gorleben storage site the radioactive rubble from the demolition of the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power station, about 125 km northwest of Frankfurt on Main.

“87 tonnes of low- to medium-active rubble is to be brought from Rhineland-Palatinate to the Gorleben potato barn,” says their posting.

“The sender of the radiating cargo is the Mülheim-Kärlich nuclear power station that was taken off the grid in 1988 after only 13 months of operation. After the Rhineland-Palatinate environment minister, Margit Conrad (Social Democrat), issued the first demolition permit, the operator RWE announced that work would begin any day now. In this first phase the rubble is to roll to Gorleben.

“The BI will resist this. It is yet again more than plain how planless and muddle-headed the ‘disposal policy’ is,” says the media release.

“An interim storage has been applied for for Mülheim-Kärlich. It makes no sense for the waste to roll right across Germany despite this. The announcement by [Environment Minister] Jürgen Trittin that the construction of interim storages near the power stations would do away with nuclear waste transport is thus proved farcical.”

The government was keeping silent about there being no comprehensible storage concept at all for low- to medium-active nuclear waste, says the group.

They note that the work on the salt mine to explore Gorleben as a final dump is still stopped. The minister has just toled Spiegel magazine that other locations will be explored.

“And so every nuclear waste transport to Gorleben increases the likelihood of it becoming the final dump,” summarises a group spokesperson.

The Rhineland-Palatinate environment minister was also trying to put lipstick on the pig by claiming “this opens the last chapter in the never-ending story of Mülheim-Kärlich,” as she told a local newspaper.

e-Mail::  bi-luechow@t-online.de

At the same post, schwuppsie comments: “The tactic is clear, isn’t it? If Gorleben doesn’t get approved for the high-level waste, at least some of the costs are to be recovered by disposing the low-level waste there. It’s going to be highly interesting where the substitute prospecting is going to happen. Maybe in the Black Forest?”