PR:German Grohnde NPP blockaded

Media Release – for immediate publication Sunday October 2, 2011

Hundreds of anti-nuclear activists demand the remaining NPP to be closed

German Grohnde NPP blockaded
Grohnde / Germany Several hundreds of people protested today, Sunday October 2, 2011 in Grohnde (Lower Saxony). After a demonstration the access roads to the NPP are blockaded by climbing activists who abseiled from a highway bridge. They are supported by some 50 activists blockading the road and an operating track with a sit-in. A second access road is blocked by an announced and permitted anti-nuclear concert in front of the atomic power station. Though police new about the action day, they could not prevent the blockades.

The protesters don't accept the German nuclear policy that only closed the eight oldest atomic power plants in reaction to the Fukushima catastrophe. Instead, they want all nuclear facilities including the remaining nine atomic reactors, a uranium enrichment facility, fuel element factory and other nuclear sites to be closed immediately. According to the German atomic policy the Grohnde NPP is supposed to be kept in operation even longer than stipulated in the former nuclear phase-out law. Thus, for the Grohnde NPP the so-called German phase-out means a lifetime extension.

“According to the old nuclear phase-out law Grohnde was supposed to be closed in 2018. The German 'phase-out of atomic power' commits the NPP's lifetime to be extended to 2021,” the anti-nuclear organizer and journalist Falk Beyer says. “A nuclear catastrophe as it happens at the moment at Fukushima is possible in every single atomic power station. The consequence of the worst nuclear disaster ever must be the immediate closure of all atomic plants – of course not only in Germany, but worldwide.”

The same weekend a conference of the anti-nuclear movement of Germany took place in Göttingen. Topics were the international support of anti-nuclear movements in other countries, the strategies after the so-called German phase-out, the proposed Castor transport of high level radioactive waste to Gorleben in the federal state of Lower Saxony and other themes. Activists of this gathering are supporting the blockades in Grohnde and are calling out for an action day on March 11, 2012 in memory of the Fukushima disaster.

Photos and updates about the Grohnde NPP blockade are available at http://nuclear-heritage.net.

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This media release is provided by the "Nuclear Heritage Network". It is an international network of anti-nuclear activists. This informal alliance supports the worldwide anti-nuclear work. The Nuclear Heritage Network is no label, has no standard opinion and no representatives. All activists of the network speak for themselves or for the groups they represent.