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Another court win for German nuke opponents
Diet Simon - 09.07.2006 09:00
Germany’s supreme court has again faulted police and lower courts over the detention of anti-nuclear activists at a 2001 protest action near the Gorleben waste dump.
The supreme court ruled the detention of motor cyclists close to midnight a breach of the constitution because no judge was involved.
Truckloads of nuclear waste were being taken to a storage hall in the village of Gorleben in northern Germany at the time.
The ruling four and a half years after the event is dated 2 June this year. The supreme court’s (Bundesverfassungsgericht) file number is 2 BvR 2118/05).
The court ruled that even at night, during waste transports and the mass demonstrations against them judges needed to be on hand to make on-the-spot service rulings.
Carrying camping gear, the plaintiffs were stopped on their motorbikes by police on 13 November 2001 at 11.18 p.m. outside a zone in which demonstrations were banned and taken to a prisoner collection facility, where they were held for eight hours. Judges had knocked off work at about 10 p.m..
The supreme court also reminded lower ones that they were responsible for hearing complaints about the legality of police actions, including the legality of body searches. The lower courts also had to examine whether such detentions were not equivalent to surrogate punishment.
The case had gone to and fro between courts at various levels.
"It is shocking how hard it is for citizens to resist curtailment of their guaranteed constitutional rights during the state-of-emergency when nuclear waste is transported,” said a spokesman for the
Bürgerinitiative Lüchow-Dannenberg (BI), the main umbrella group for the Gorleben resistance.
"Only through our unshakable patience – on the roads, along the rails and in the courts – will we be able to assert our basic rights in resisting atomic power, including the right to the inviolability of our bodies,” the spokesman added.
Contact: Attorney Ulrike Donat, 040 / 39 10 61 80
Dieter Metk (BI), 05841 / 6451
Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow Dannenberg
Drawehner Str. 3 29439 Lüchow
Tel: 05841-4684 Fax: 3197
www.bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
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| Read more about: natuur, dier en mens | | supplements | | More European and US nuclea news | Diet Simon - 10.07.2006 09:32
In other German nuclear news, it’s just been coincidentally revealed that for years nuclear transports have been rolling through the Trier region along the Moselle and Rhine Rivers.
As a train stopped at a freight siding of the oldest German city to change locomotive drivers, workers at an adjoining scrap yard reported radioactivity registered by a large-area detector. It turned out to be a consignment of uranium hexafluoride from Pierrelatte in southern France to Germany’s only uranium enrichment plant at Gronau. A local newspaper reported that only insiders knew previously that such rail transports run regularly through the region, although anti-nuclear groups made this known three years ago and considered blockades. Insiders say the trains run about every two weeks and local authorities know about them. Police admit that the trains get special protection but would not reveal details. A railway spokesman said transports of uranium hexafluoride are not dangerous. “These are special containers protected against all possible influences,” said Railion spokesman, Egbert Meyer-Lovis.
Massive US expansion
The trinational Urenco company enriching uranium at Gronau, nearby across the border in Holland and in Britain, will gain massively from the expanding US civilian nuclear industry. So will the German electricity transnationals, E.ON and RWE, owners of a third of Urenco.
Planned or already ordered in the US are new nuclear power stations, two spent fuel recycling plants, a final waste storage and a uranium enrichment factory.
The contract for the enrichment plant has gone to the consortium Louisiana Energy Services, in which the German-Dutch-British Urenco has a major stake. Also partners of Louisiana Energy Services are British Nuclear Fuels, operator of the scandal-prone recycling plant at Sellafield in northern England, and several smaller US firms.
So far only one old uranium enrichment plant is working in the US. Many American power stations get their fuel from abroad. Gronau, whose capacity is being tripled, is to supply to the US in future.
The international connections of the nuclear industry also become evident in other aspects of the US programme. The administration recently contracted Uranium Disposition Services to build and operate two recycling plants in Paducah, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio. Uranium Disposition Services is consortium which includes the French nuclear corporation Framatome ANP.
President George W. Bush has approved the construction of a final nuclear waste repository
in the Yucca Mountains in Nevada. Both houses of Congress agreed. Starting in 2010 the dump is to take in 70,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste.
Enrichment plant for France
And in France, work will start this summer to pave the way for construction of a €3 billion enrichment plant at Tricastin in the south. The announcement by the Areva group followed a signing ceremony in Paris formally establishing the 50-50 joint venture Enrichment Technology Company (ETC) by Urenco and Areva.
A memorandum of understanding leading to the joint venture was signed between Areva and Urenco in October 2002. ETC's establishment follows competition clearance from the European Commission and completion of inter-government agreements between Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France.
Initial production is due to begin in early 2009 with a gradual increase in capacity up to 2017. Construction is expected to take about 10 years. "The characteristics of the centrifugation process will make the new plant even more effective in terms of safety and the environment," Areva said. "The technology also offers the advantage of using 50 times less
electricity than gaseous diffusion. Furthermore, it does not require water
from the (river) Rhone for the cooldown phase."
Chernobyl photos
The Ukrainian journalist Elena Filatova has several times visited the evacuated zone around Chernobyl and taken powerful photographs. Her reportages “Ghost Town” and “Land of the Wolves” are at www.elenafilatova.com. Filatova made large-format pictures available to the German anti-nuclear group Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Staufen. The exhibition has been on continuous show since March in eight locations and has left deep impressions everywhere. It is available for further lending from 15 July. Details from Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Staufen, c/o Andreas Runge, Bötzenstraße 49, 79219 Staufen, tel.: 07633/808300,
 runge-andreas@t-online.de.
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