German riot police physically removed thousands of anti-nuclear protesters from railway tracks today and detained 1,300 to enable an atomic waste shipment from France to continue to a temporary storage faciilty.
Hundreds of officers started hauling 5,000 protesters from the tracks near Dannenberg in the north of the country in the early hours, according to police spokesman Stefan Kuehm-Stoltz.
Those who resisted were detained and are being brought before judges, Mr Kuehm-Stoltz said. It was not clear how many were still being held this evening.
The activists had occupied the tracks that will be used by a shipment of nuclear waste on its way to a storage site near Gorleben after being reprocessed in France.
A group of four protesters used a pyramid-shaped concrete structure to attach themselves to the track, requiring a diligent dismantling operation.
Some 500 people gathered around the activists on the tracks, and a sit-in of several hundred protesters also popped up near the Gorleben facility.
Police clashed with two groups of protesters who hurled stones and fireworks at officers.
Several officers were injured and at least 10 people detained, according to Mr Kuehm-Stoltz.
About 150 people were injured as police dispersed some protests with tear gas and batons on Saturday.
The activists say the waste containers and the temporary storage facility near Gorleben are not safe, noting that Germany has no permanent storage site for the waste, which will remain dangerous for thousands of years.
The train carrying the shipment of 11 containers of waste reprocessed at France's La Hague facility entered western Germany on Friday after delays in France, where activists staged rallies and damaged tracks in a bid to block its journey.
The shipment paused overnight south of Hamburg and is expected to reach its destination today, far behind schedule.
Around 20,000 German police officers have been mobilised to secure the train.
Opposition to nuclear energy has intensified in Germany since fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine drifted over the country.
The annual shipment from France has become a traditional focal point for protesters."
Quoted from http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/112454
From my point of view, those activist are just too radical, or they just think they are Magneto(from X-men) that they can stop a train with their magnetic powers~ but they are too weak that they needed 5000 of them there to stop a train. hahaha. jokes aside. Apparently, the activist were lucky that the train did not run according its schedule, and if it does, we can expect some scene from the movie Unstoppable. Besides that, the news article said that the activist did not just staged rallies but they damaged the tracks of the train too! That's just plain stupid, don't they think where their taxes goes to? Part of it goes to the maintenance of the tracks of course. But they can say, "I pay my taxes so I have the right to destroy things," but how about those who are neutral to nuclear power? They too pay taxes for that tracks~ anyway, the government now have to squeeze more tax money from the people just repair the tracks they damaged. Good job activist.
Since the train stopped, what if the nuclear waste shipment was sent by airplane instead? would they tie themselves to the clouds in hoping to stop the shipment? >XD
Last but not least, some of the activist clashed with the police. Why do they always need to clash with the police? Can we just live in peace? A note to activist, don't be too radical with your ideals, even if your voices aren't heard. Try other peaceful method, not all can be solved with violence.
Nuclear power is a clean and safe energy. I admit that the waste is highly radioactive but with proper insulation, the radioactive can be easily contained.
That's all from me, no matter how hard you try to explain the good stuffs about nuclear power, haters will be haters. They are lucky enough that Okuu didn't do a carpet bombing of nuclear warheads on the tracks where they tied themselves to stop the train >XD. PS: Okuu is cute in the picture below >XP
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