Support Portuguese anti-GM activists.

All over Europe, cit­i­zens engage into civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action in resis­tance against cul­ti­va­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops. Only in Por­tu­gal, peo­ple that have applied this strat­e­gy are offi­cial­ly labeled as ter­ror­ists. Please help pulling the Por­tuguese activists out of their iso­lat­ed posi­tion and express your sol­i­dar­i­ty by sign­ing the peti­tion!

SIGN PETITION

All over Europe, cit­i­zens engage into civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action in resis­tance against cul­ti­va­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops. Only in Por­tu­gal, peo­ple that have applied this strat­e­gy are offi­cial­ly labeled as ter­ror­ists. Please help pulling the Por­tuguese activists out of their iso­lat­ed posi­tion and express your sol­i­dar­i­ty by sign­ing the peti­tion!

SIGN PETITION
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http://gopetition.com/online/21252.html

ON WEBSITE
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http://solimove.liveinfo.nl/
On our web­site you find arti­cles exam­in­ing clos­er the action of Movi­men­to Verde Eufemia and the results it pro­duced. We also elab­o­rate on the ques­tion of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and ter­ror­ism, and pro­vide infor­ma­tion about the shape of resis­tance against GM in Europe. We invite every­one, both por­tuguese cit­i­zens and mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in our dis­cus­sion. Our web­site has por­tuguese and eng­lish trans­la­tion.

CONTACT US
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solimove@googlemail.com
If you have ideas for sup­port or have ques­tions, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us.

BACKGROUND
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One year ago, the Por­tuguese Movi­men­to Verde Eufemia (MVE) went into an action of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. In a sym­bol­ic but deter­mined act they destroyed less than 1 hectare of the first field of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied corn in the region of the Algarve, pre­vi­ous­ly declared GMO Free Zone by local author­i­ties.

In the days fol­low­ing the action, the wide media atten­tion MVE received insti­gat­ed a large polemic, res­onat­ing into lay­ers of the gen­er­al pub­lic, the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment itself, aca­d­e­mics and even the gov­ern­ment. Nev­er did any envi­ron­men­tal action achieve so much atten­tion in the recent his­to­ry of Por­tu­gal.

The ini­tial media high­lights were not so much on the sub­ject of the action, the pres­ence of GMO in Por­tu­gal, but rather on the spec­tac­u­lar nature and the ille­gal aspect of it. How­ev­er in a sec­ond phase atten­tion shift­ed as well to the debate on GMO, and its dan­gers. For that rea­son alone, the action of MVE was con­sid­ered by many peo­ple with envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns as a great suc­cess.

Because of that suc­cess, the cur­rent Por­tuguese gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble for a pol­i­cy in favour of GMO has respond­ed strong­ly in an attempt to iso­late the activists of MVE and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions strug­gling against GMO, through a strat­e­gy of crim­i­nal­iza­tion. This strat­e­gy came to the point of even label­ing the action as a ter­ror­ist act (Europol EU Ter­ror­ism Sit­u­a­tion and Trend Report 2008). Some peo­ple that have been brought in rela­tion to the case by the police are there­fore fac­ing the risk of being pros­e­cut­ed with­in this con­text of ter­ror­ism. In gen­er­al, it became hard­er to act against GMO in Por­tu­gal. Indi­vid­u­als or orga­ni­za­tions who attempt, run a high risk of being under sus­pi­cion and sur­veil­lance by author­i­ties.

One year lat­er, the oppor­tu­ni­ty of the anniver­sary of this con­tro­ver­sial but influ­en­tial action is used to launch SoliMoVE, Grupo de Sol­i­dariedad com o Movi­men­to Verde Eufemia. The objec­tives of Solimove are:

* To show all actors involved in the debate that the action of MVE is not an iso­lat­ed case in the Por­tuguese his­tor­i­cal con­text, and cer­tain­ly not in the cur­rent inter­na­tion­al con­text, where these types of actions are com­mon, par­tic­u­lar­ly against the cul­ti­va­tion of GMOs.
* To build under­stand­ing of the term civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, its val­ue as an active and engaged form of civ­il soci­ety par­tic­i­pa­tion, and its neces­si­ty in safe­guard­ing the peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment from the threat of genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.
* To pro­vide an inter­na­tion­al plat­form for any indi­vid­ual or orga­ni­za­tion, wish­ing to express its moral sup­port towards MVE and its action.
* To defend the free­dom of expres­sion of all cit­i­zens against GMOs.

solimove@googlemail.com
http://solimove.liveinfo.nl/