Gorleben nuclear train on protester's death day

international | environment | other press

Friday September 23, 2005 16:17

by diet simon

- the struggle against nuclear waste -

Gorleben, northern Germany, 23 September - - Opponents of nuclear energy say they have information that the next train of 12 caskets of highly radioactive waste will leave a plutonium factory in France on 6 November for a storage hall near this village.

Francis Althoff, a spokesman for the Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg (BI, Civic Action Initiative for Environmental Protection), says they are especially incensed that the 7th of November is the anniversary of the death of a French nuclear opponent who tried stop a similar train in France last year.

Air turbulence caused by the train travelling at 98 km/h sucked 21-year-old Sebastian Briat under and he was run over. The French state attorney is still investigating the precise circumstances.

It has long been known that on the anniversary of Briat’s death memorial functions are to be held near the railway lines in Germany and France.

Althoff accuses those responsible for the transport of “mind-boggling indifference”. He says it’s “the worst imaginable affront to speed Castor transports with police guards through these mourning gatherings”.

The BI sees confirmation of the transport planning in police offering free passage chits on application for the 7th and 8th of November.

The protest group says this indicates that along the last 70 kms of the casket run gatherings are again to be banned in a wide area between Lüneburg and Gorleben.

Lawsuits against these general decrees and for preserving the basic right to demonstrate are still to be ruled on by courts, including the federal constitutional court, the country’s highest. They were filed after previous waste deliveries to Gorleben.

“Although it has been known since the early 80s that the planned final storage [a salt mine built for the purpose] cannot prevent radioactive materials from entering the biosphere, continuing transportation of atomic waste products to the above-ground interim storage hall in Gorleben makes Gorleben ever more likely to become the final nuclear waste toilet,” comments the BI spokesman.

Anger has been additionally stoked, he says, by the federal environment ministry recently confirming to the Lüchow-Dannenberg county authorities that the overburden on the Gorleben salt dome does not act as a protective barrier.

In another development, state security police in the Gorleben area had to return things they had taken away in a big police raid in August on the homes of two journalists and office of "anti atom aktuell”, a resistance newspaper. A court in Lüneburg had ruled the police action to be illegal. A report in German is at
http://germany.indymedia.org/2005/09/128592.shtml.

For more on the resistance to last year’s Castor train go to http://germany.indymedia.org/ and at the “SUCHE” spot in the left column enter Briat or Gorleben in the first window, then click “Suche starten”. The coverage will be in English and German. “Mehr/weiter” (bottom right-hand corner) takes you to following pages, “Zurück” takes you back.

Google turns up images of Castor caskets and trains at its Images search function.

Francis Althoff 05843 986789
bi-presse@t-online.de

Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg
Drawehner Str. 3 29439 Lüchow
Tel: 05841-4684 Fax: 3197
www.bi-luechow-dannenberg.de

e-Mail:: KEINSPAM.bi-presse@t-online.de | Homepage:: http://www.bi-luechow-dannenberg.de | Anschrift:: Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg, Drawehner Str. 3, 29439 Lüchow | Telefon: : Althoff 05843 986789

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Gorleben nuclear train on protester's death day