Following on from a court case which WISE Amsterdam won in November 2000, the owner of the shut-down Dodewaard nuclear power plant (GKN) and the owner of the Sellafield reprocessing plant (BNFL) took the case to appeal. The appeal was heard on 30 May 2001.
Today came the verdict: The Amsterdam Court rejected the appeal and confirmed the earlier verdict; WISE may continue carrying out action “in an insistent way” against transports of spent fuel to the Sellafield reprocessing plant.
And rightly so.
Pre-emptive bans on action just aren’t on. Direct actions are an essential component of the means available to social movements to fight against injustice. The transports are carried out on the basis of reprocessing contracts that remain secret — the Dutch parliament has never seen the contracts.
Reprocessing is the most polluting part of the nuclear cycle. The Netherlands are partly responsible for the serious pollution of the seas around Britain with radioactive substances. Sellafield has an impressive and notorious record of accidents, falsification of quality controls, mismanagement, cost overruns, illegal discharges and deception.
Actions against nuclear transports are not an end in themselves but a means to bring an important issue to public attention. If our parliament fails to do that, we are ready to lend a hand.
Actions will go on — reprocessing must stop.
For more information, contact:
Peer de Rijk
+31 20 612 6368 (WISE Amsterdam office)
+31 6 20 000 626 (mobile)
+31 20 671 7542 (home)