News from anti-nuclear protests in the Wendland

GreenPeace Protestors Protest Nuclear Waste

From: http://germany.indymedia.org/

A short summary of the protests in the Wendland region of Germanyt in the past few days. Activists have chained themselves to railway tracks to hold up nuclear waste transports for as long as possible.

News from anti-nuclear protests in the Wendland

The transport cask of nuclear waste, castor, has reached the Wendland region in North-Eastern Germany after a journey from La Hague across the border at Lauterbourg, Kehl to Luneburg.

People have chained themselves to the train rails and are causing long delays for the nuclear waste transport to Gorleben. Some people are chained inside plaster, one person even inside concrete. It will take a very long time to clear the rail tracks. It is going to be a long night. 5000 people protested in Dannenberg. There are 15000 police occupying the Wendland.

Earlier, the police evicted several camps in the Wendland region. Today they attacked the protesters in the Nahrendorf camp very brutally, and several protesters were injured. All the camps in the Wendland region received severe restrictions that they were not allowed to set up tents for people to sleep in, which meant that the protesters had to sleep outside in the open fields in the freezing cold weather. Last week it was even snowing here. But the protesters are very determined despite the brutal attacks of the police during ther protests. 300 people from the camp at Wendisch Evern were arrested and then released much further away from the site. So the protesters arranged a shuttle service back to the camp. Some of the activists are also sleeping in churches in the surrounding villages (well, not at the moment of course, they are all on the fields and railway tracks).

On Saturday, 17000 people protested in Luneburg. Farmers also joined the protests in the past few days with tractor blockades.

At an activists meeting in the camp of Wendisch Evern today, one woman said: We must expect to be beaten up by the police and to be arrested. "If we take our toothbrush with us", she exclaimed to the activists, "then we show that we expect to be arrested. They can take everything but the toothbrush off us when we are in prison. So the toothbrush is our strongest weapon!"

ENDS

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