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Germans protest to stop nuclear train

Press TV – November 6, 2010

Demonstrators in Germany have been met by riot police as they attempt to stop a train carrying 123 tons of radioactive nuclear waste from France into Germany.

Tens of thousands of people gathered at the north German town of Gorleben to protest the arrival of the highly-radioactive nuclear waste.

Meanwhile, police forces used truncheons and mace against an estimated 150 activists who were attempting to dig a hole under a railway track to prevent the shipment.

Some of the protestors threw stones at security forces, while others blocked the road using tractors.

Around 16,500 police officers have been sent to quell the unrest, DPA reported.

Other reports indicated that trains were delayed as the activists chained themselves to the tracks. According to AFP, they were eventually removed and arrested by the police.

“This nuclear convoy, the most radioactive ever, exposes the population to excessive risks. There is a risk to lives in the short term in case of an accident, but also a long-term risk to their health,” a spokesperson for the anti-nuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire (Get out of Nuclear) said.

The waste is being shipped from La Hague in France by the state-controlled nuclear engineering company Areva.

Chancellor Angela Merkel labeled the move by the activists as, “not a peaceful demonstration, but a criminal offence.”

The so-called Castor trains — cask for storage of radioactive material — have been met by mass demonstrations for the past 30 years. The protests began when they first started to dump nuclear waste at the Gorleben facility.

Eleven steel containers holding the nuclear waste are expected to reach their destination on Sunday.

The protests are also directed at Merkel’s center-right government, which recently passed legislation to extend the life span of Germany’s 17 nuclear power stations beyond the previous deadline of 2022.

November 6, 2010 - Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power, Solidarity and Activism

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