Another court win for anti-nuclear activists
Germany’s supreme court has again ruled that police broke the law when seizing anti-nuclear protesters five and a half years ago, but a spokesman expects the police to keep doing the wrong thing, anyway.
Another court win for German anti-nuclear activists
Diet Simon
Germany’s supreme court has again ruled that police broke the law when seizing anti-nuclear protesters five and a half years ago, but a spokesman expects the police to keep doing the wrong thing, anyway.
The case involves four complainants who were in a group of nine people on seven motorbikes taking part in protests against another consignment of highly radioactive nuclear waste to the northern village of Gorleben on 13 November 2001.
The constitutional court, Germany’s highest, has now ordered the Lüneburg regional court, which has jurisdiction for Gorleben, to declare illegal the seizure and detaining of the four by police.
The media spokesman of the Gorleben resistance, Francis Althoff, says in a release that it emerges clearly from the order now made by the Lüneburg court that the illegality of the seizure was due mainly to the failure of police to immediately present the protesters to a judge.
"Instead of creating clarity, the outcome probably means continuing seizures and legal actions against them in the ‘special law zone Gorleben’," criticises Althoff.
He notes that litigation by his group, the Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg (BI), is still pending in the supreme court challenging zones 70 kilometres long and up to a kilometre wide in which demonstrations are banned when nuclear waste is railed and trucked to Gorleben.
Protesters have won a string of judgements against illegal police actions in connection with the annual transports.
When recycled waste comes back to Germany from La Hague in France up to 20,000 police are assigned in the wider Gorleben area alone to guard its passage into a storage hall.
Usually demonstrators are injured in clashes with police. For a report on the most recent consignment see
http://de.indymedia.org/2006/11/161877.shtml. Other Gorleben court stories are at Woman prefers jail to anti-nuclear fine ( http://de.indymedia.org/2005/08/126483.shtml), Court: Years of illegal Gorleben detentions ( http://de.indymedia.org/2005/04/110836.shtml), Court overturns some Gorleben demo curbs ( http://de.indymedia.org/2004/11/97371.shtml), Court halves fines, blockade "mildest means" ( http://de.indymedia.org/2004/10/96747.shtml) and First Castor acquittal in Hannover ( http://de.indymedia.org/2004/10/95982.shtml).
Back to the latest case:
The Lüneburg order took a years-long odyssey through various court levels to achieve.
On 13 November 2001 police stopped the loose group of nine on their bikes at about 11.18 p.m. some 500 to 1,000 metres from the L 256 trunk road near the village of Laase.
The subsequent checking of IDs far removed from the no-go zone was agrued as a “general traffic check”. Although the assigned officers remonstrated against it in radio traffic, the police site management ordered the seizure of the group.
The nine had to push their motorbikes for half an hour to Laase, where they were then parked away. Subsequently the group were taken into the no-go zone, curiously near a sit-down road blockade.
"It was incredibly absurd to see how a large number of people could move about freely in the no-demo zone without being bothered by the police whereas just a few metres beside them we were arbitrarily robbed of our freedom,” recalls a local woman who was in the group.
At about 0.50 a.m. on 14 November prisoner vehicles arrived in the village and from 2 a.m. took control of 64 people held there. After the seized persons were transported at about 4.10 a.m. to a prisoner holding point in another village, body searches down to the underwear were carried out.
There was no presentation to a judge, which is legally required for a detention, because the local court had shut down at 10 p.m. the previous night. Nor did police make any attempt to obtain a judge’s order.
The release of the detainees, held in collective cells on insulation mats and finding a damaged, leaking drinks canister, began only at 8 a.m., after the nuclear waste had been delivered to the storage hall.
For more information contact Francis Althoff 05843-986789
Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg e.V.
Drawehner Str. 3 29439 Lüchow
www.bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
Büro: Tel: 05841-4684 Fax: -3197
büro@bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
Pressesprecher: Francis Althoff 05843 986789
presse@bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
Diet Simon
Germany’s supreme court has again ruled that police broke the law when seizing anti-nuclear protesters five and a half years ago, but a spokesman expects the police to keep doing the wrong thing, anyway.
The case involves four complainants who were in a group of nine people on seven motorbikes taking part in protests against another consignment of highly radioactive nuclear waste to the northern village of Gorleben on 13 November 2001.
The constitutional court, Germany’s highest, has now ordered the Lüneburg regional court, which has jurisdiction for Gorleben, to declare illegal the seizure and detaining of the four by police.
The media spokesman of the Gorleben resistance, Francis Althoff, says in a release that it emerges clearly from the order now made by the Lüneburg court that the illegality of the seizure was due mainly to the failure of police to immediately present the protesters to a judge.
"Instead of creating clarity, the outcome probably means continuing seizures and legal actions against them in the ‘special law zone Gorleben’," criticises Althoff.
He notes that litigation by his group, the Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg (BI), is still pending in the supreme court challenging zones 70 kilometres long and up to a kilometre wide in which demonstrations are banned when nuclear waste is railed and trucked to Gorleben.
Protesters have won a string of judgements against illegal police actions in connection with the annual transports.
When recycled waste comes back to Germany from La Hague in France up to 20,000 police are assigned in the wider Gorleben area alone to guard its passage into a storage hall.
Usually demonstrators are injured in clashes with police. For a report on the most recent consignment see
http://de.indymedia.org/2006/11/161877.shtml. Other Gorleben court stories are at Woman prefers jail to anti-nuclear fine ( http://de.indymedia.org/2005/08/126483.shtml), Court: Years of illegal Gorleben detentions ( http://de.indymedia.org/2005/04/110836.shtml), Court overturns some Gorleben demo curbs ( http://de.indymedia.org/2004/11/97371.shtml), Court halves fines, blockade "mildest means" ( http://de.indymedia.org/2004/10/96747.shtml) and First Castor acquittal in Hannover ( http://de.indymedia.org/2004/10/95982.shtml). Back to the latest case:
The Lüneburg order took a years-long odyssey through various court levels to achieve.
On 13 November 2001 police stopped the loose group of nine on their bikes at about 11.18 p.m. some 500 to 1,000 metres from the L 256 trunk road near the village of Laase.
The subsequent checking of IDs far removed from the no-go zone was agrued as a “general traffic check”. Although the assigned officers remonstrated against it in radio traffic, the police site management ordered the seizure of the group.
The nine had to push their motorbikes for half an hour to Laase, where they were then parked away. Subsequently the group were taken into the no-go zone, curiously near a sit-down road blockade.
"It was incredibly absurd to see how a large number of people could move about freely in the no-demo zone without being bothered by the police whereas just a few metres beside them we were arbitrarily robbed of our freedom,” recalls a local woman who was in the group.
At about 0.50 a.m. on 14 November prisoner vehicles arrived in the village and from 2 a.m. took control of 64 people held there. After the seized persons were transported at about 4.10 a.m. to a prisoner holding point in another village, body searches down to the underwear were carried out.
There was no presentation to a judge, which is legally required for a detention, because the local court had shut down at 10 p.m. the previous night. Nor did police make any attempt to obtain a judge’s order.
The release of the detainees, held in collective cells on insulation mats and finding a damaged, leaking drinks canister, began only at 8 a.m., after the nuclear waste had been delivered to the storage hall.
For more information contact Francis Althoff 05843-986789
Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg e.V.
Drawehner Str. 3 29439 Lüchow
www.bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
Büro: Tel: 05841-4684 Fax: -3197
büro@bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
Pressesprecher: Francis Althoff 05843 986789
presse@bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
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Ergänzungen
Nicht Baustopp aufheben, sondern stilllegen!
Gorleben: "Nicht Baustopp aufheben, sondern stilllegen"!
Die Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg (BI) begrüßt zwar die
von Umweltminister Gabriel angekündigte alternative Endlagerstandortsuche,
fordert aber, den Baustopp (Moratorium) in Gorleben keinesfalls in einem
Tauschgeschäft aufzuheben. Gabriel hatte gegenüber der Hannoverschen
Allgemeinen Zeitung (05.04.07) angekündigt: "Wenn die CDU/CSU die neue
Standortsuche mitträgt, werde ich das Gorleben-Moratorium, also die
Unterbrechung der Arbeiten im Erkundungsbergwerk, sofort aufheben. Das
ist ein faires Angebot."
Der Sprecher der BI hingegen mahnt: "Ein politischer Tauschhandel kann
nicht die Grundlage für einen ernsthaften Umgang mit hochradioaktivem Müll
sein. Bereits seit Anfang der Achtziger Jahre ist wissenschaftlich belegt,
dass der Gorlebener Salzstock mangels eines abdichtenden Deckgebirges
den Atommüll nicht vom Eintritt in die Biosphäre abhalten kann. Auf sechs
Quadratkilometern ist dieses Deckgebirge löchrig und teilweise gar nicht
vorhanden, sodass über Wasserwege radioaktive Stoffe in die Umwelt
gelangen werden", erläutert der BI-Sprecher. "Wegen dieser lange
bekannten und unveränderbaren geologischen Tatsachen braucht es
keinerlei weiteren Untersuchungen in Gorleben mehr, der Standort gehört
aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht stillgelegt".
Zudem befürchtet die BI als weiteren Schritt im politischen Tauschgeschäft
die Einrichtung eines Untertagelabors im Salzstock "als weiteren Türöffner"
für das Atommüllklo. Ausgerechnet die Gesellschaft für Nuklearservice,
deren Tochterfirma BLG das oberirdische Gorlebener Zwischenlager
betreibt, kündigte bereits im letzten Jahr an, über Stiftungsprofessuren an die
TU Clausthal solch ein Projekt finanzieren. Prof. Klaus Kühn von der Uni
Clausthal erläuterte diese Pläne in einem Interview mit der örtlichen Elbe-
Jeetzel-Zeitung. Kühn attestierte bereits jahrelang als zuständiger "
Sicherheitsexperte" dem absaufenden Endlager Asse II bei Wolfenbüttel und
dem einstürzenden Endlager Morsleben bei Helmstedt eine angebliche
Sicherheit.
"Aus der Tatsache, dass Gorleben ein Atommüllklo mit Klospülung nach
oben wäre, müssen nun endlich auch politisch die notwendigen
Konsequenzen gezogen werden", fordert der Sprecher der BI und kündigt
Proteste gegen die Aufhebung des Moratoriums an.
Francis Althoff 05843-986789