Author: earthfirst

Edit­ed direct action high­lights from http://www.castor.de/ticker/index_en.html —

Tues­day, Novem­ber 11, 2008
20 hours lat­er than planned, after many con­vinc­ing, cre­ative block­ades, the CASTOR road trans­port reached the Gor­leben inter­im stor­age depot at 00:39 am on Tues­day 11 Novem­ber

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Mon­day, Novem­ber 10, 2008
10:33 pm The water can­nons in Laase are to pre­vent peo­ple mov­ing into the 50m no-go zone and onto the road.
10:16 pm Sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple are on the trans­port route in Laase. Police are using water can­nons.
10:13 pm In Grip­pel the last activist was removed from the pyra­mid.
10:02 pm Colour­ful activ­i­ty by 100 peo­ple in Laase to the left and right of the route.
10:01 pm Grip­pel: The last per­son is still chained to the pyra­mid and there are still 150 peo­ple present. The mood is good and there’s good music.
9:53 pm Only one trac­tor still stand­ing in the way in Quick­born. It’s lost a wheel. Police are using heavy equip­ment. It’s esti­mat­ed on loca­tion that it will take 30 min­utes until the north­ern route (via Quick­born) is com­plete­ly free.
9:40 pm In Grip­pel only one pyra­mid with one per­son chained on is left on the road. In Quick­born two trac­tors are left on the road that seem to be caus­ing the police some prob­lems.
7:44 pm Dear peo­ple, we’ve man­aged to make this the longest CASTOR trans­port ever. Super!!!!! Stay cool, we have plen­ty to cel­e­brate.
6:07 pm Press release by the Lüchow-Dan­nen­berg Farm­ers’ Emer­gency Asso­ci­a­tion Against Nuclear Pow­er. The chained-on demon­stra­tors in Grip­pel demand nego­ti­a­tions. After 8 peo­ple chained them­selves to two con­crete blocks in Grip­pel on the CASTOR truck­ing route, the detach­ment of the pro­test­ers from the blocks is prov­ing very dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing for the police. It’s esti­mat­ed that the pro­ce­dure could take sev­er­al hours. The chained peo­ple, mem­bers of the Lüchow-Dan­nen­berg Farm­ers’ Emer­gency Asso­ci­a­tion Against Nuclear Pow­er, want to nego­ti­ate with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Low­er Sax­ony state gov­ern­ment, say a state sec­re­tary.
5:45 pm In Grip­pel at the pyra­mid block­ade police have detached the first per­son from the pyra­mid. The top of this pyra­mid was not sawn off.
5:33 pm In Grip­pel the top has been sawn off the pyra­mid point­ing to Gar­tow. It didn’t pro­vide the police with any clues. Nor can the pyra­mids be moved because the chained-on arms would be bro­ken. A plan to lift them was giv­en up.
Around 5:11 pm all Robin Wood activists at the waste com­pound were tak­en out of the trees by police.
4:13 pm From the Robin Wood rope bridge 300 metres from the stor­age com­pound are sus­pend­ed not 2 but 6 activists.
4:08 pm Police have car­ried off all the sit­ters out­side the waste com­pound. But the trac­tor is still there with two peo­ple chained to it.
4:02 pm The work on the con­crete pyra­mids in Grip­pel is pro­gress­ing poor­ly. A sec­ond demo­li­tion team is brought in. The peo­ple are as good as pos­si­ble under the cir­cum­stances.
3:22 pm In the block­ade at the waste com­pound three peo­ple have chained them­selves to a trac­tor.
2:56 pm Grip­pel: The gen­er­a­tor is work­ing again and police are prepar­ing to illu­mi­nate the action. 350 peo­ple still there.
2:53 pm Quick­born: Still 25 trac­tors on the road, 100 peo­ple, increased police pres­ence. The climber is off the ele­vat­ing truck but it took the police a long time. Two new activists sus­pend­ed in trees.
2:50 pm Noth­ing mov­ing at the reload­ing crane. The car­ry­ing peo­ple out of the block­ade at the sor­age com­pound is pro­ceed­ing only slow­ly. The pyra­mids in Grip­pel with the peo­ple chained to them are still on the road.
2:41 pm The gen­er­a­tor of the police in Grip­pel has bro­ken down, leav­ing the drill stuck in the pyra­mid.
2:38 pm In Grip­pel police begin drilling open the con­crete pyra­mids.
2:06 pm In Grip­pel police built a roof for the farm­ers chained to the con­crete pyra­mid. Sit-down block­aders were not to stay there and were removed by police.
1:40 pm The climber on the ele­vat­ing truck has chained him­self on.
1:40 pm In Quick­born a climber has climbed from a trac­tor onto the ele­vat­ing truck of the police. The police have been busy with this activist for a con­sid­er­able time and now needs anoth­er crane to get him off the ele­vat­ing truck.
11:20 am Police have made the 3rd call to vacate the area at the stor­age com­pound.
11:17 am In Grip­pel stand two con­crete pyra­mids with four peo­ple chained to each. Cur­rent­ly there are 30 to 40 peo­ple there to sup­port them. Vis­i­tors should bring cof­fee and cake and per­haps an umbrel­la.
11:11 am In Grip­pel mem­bers of a farm­ers resis­tance group have chained them­selves to con­crete pyra­mids.
11:10 am In Laase 150 peo­ple are mov­ing in the direc­tion of the dike.
11:06 am At the block­ade of the stor­age com­pound police have made the sec­ond call to vacate the area.
7 am Now about 1,000 peo­ple sit­ting out­side the waste stor­age com­pound in Gor­leben.
Report in Eng­lish on block­ades on the tracks at Har­lin­gen http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231949.shtml.
Claims of extreme police bru­tal­i­ty in break­ing up block­ades under cov­er of dark­ness,
beat­ing peo­ple with trun­cheons with­out warn­ing and pur­su­ing them up to 150 metres into woods at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231982.shtml.
00:03 am: The three CASTOR occu­piers were arrest­ed.

===

Sun­day, Novem­ber 09, 2008
11:52 pm Bru­tal dis­per­sal with gas at one of the Tol­len­dorf block­ades. First Aiders and lawyers are not being allowed through.
11:39 pm Three peo­ple are sit­ting on the first CASTOR cas­ket.
11:16 pm The peo­ple tak­en by police out of the demo in Tol­len­dorf were tak­en behind police bar­ri­cades into a cor­don. The mood is relaxed. In the cor­don the clowns are danc­ing. One can approach up to 50 metres out­side the cor­don.
10:21 pm In Dums­dorf 30 peo­ple are in a sit-down block­ade.
22:11 pm The Robin Wood activists were removed from the Old­en­dorf Bridge, they were not injured.
9:40 pm Robin Wood has two actions. The first is at Old­en­dorf Bridge. Police threat­en to cut down the two activists there. The oth­er is in Wendisch Evern , where par­al­lel to the track a large ban­ner was hung.
9:19 pm 500 peo­ple sit­ting down at rail km 188.
9:04 pm 50 clowns on the track in Grün­hagen.
8:57 pm Two activists are hang­ing from the Old­en­dorf Bridge, a third has just been led off by police.
8:52 pm Trac­tors are parked in Quick­born so that a car can still get through, but no CASTOR trucks.
8:12 pm Police have removed two peo­ple chained to the track near Eich­dorf and are tak­ing them to the pris­on­er col­lec­tion point.
6:54 pm Around 6:15 pm route B126 in Met­zin­gen at the snack stand was not pass­able. There was fire on the road.
6:18 pm The two activists in Lüneb­urg are still hang­ing in tra­vers­es next to the track. But police high res­cue spe­cial­ists are get­ting ready to remove them.
6:17 pm 60–70 peo­ple on the Old­en­dorf Bridge. In Met­zin­gen tires are burn­ing on the fed­er­al road. There is no more get­ting through there on fed­er­al route 216.
6:03 pm The block­ade in Gedelitz at the Free Repub­lic of Wend­land man­aged to force the Ham­burg police unit with its heavy gear such as water can­non to retreat all the way through the vil­lage.
5:33 pm At the dwarves par­ty of Wider­Set­zen are 400 peo­ple. The mood is good and no dis­per­sal is in sight.
5:27 pm Between Eich­dorf and Nahren­dorf 25 peo­ple are sit­ting on the rails. No police present. And at rail km 202 (i.e. fur­ther west) 70 peo­ple are on the tracks.
5:22 pm In Har­lin­gen between rail kms 187 and 188 a giant par­ty is going on with sev­er­al hun­dred dwarves.
5:15 pm “Wider­set­zen” is back on the rails in Har­lin­gen with about 150 peo­ple, this time at rail km 188.1.
4:53 pm 50 peo­ple at a chain-on action by two peo­ple at km 198.2 in Eich­dorf.
4:30 pm There is a sit-down block­ade between Old­en­dorf a.d. Göhrde and Eich­dorf with more than 100 peo­ple.
4:22 pm There are again two block­ades in Har­lin­gen. A new one is at rail km 188.5.
4:15 pm The block­ade at Har­lin­gen at km 187.8 has been com­plete­ly dis­persed.
4:13 pm Clar­i­fi­ca­tion: The dam­age to rails at Grün­hagen is in Coun­ty Lüchow-Dan­nen­berg, NOT in Grün­hagen on the ICE express route Uelzen – Lüneb­urg.
3:12 pm Near Tol­len­dorf at Km 188 about 100 peo­ple have made it on to the track.

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Sun­day, Novem­ber 09, 2008 at 15:02:08 (CET)

PEOPLE HURT NEAR TOLLENDORF: A block­ade- action near Tol­len­dorf faced strong repres­sion by the police. Hun­dreds of peo­ple met in Tol­len­dorf today at 7.30 to con­tin­ue to the tracks, where the Cas­tor-trans­port is sup­posed to go through lat­er in the after­noon. We walked in a huge queue along the for­est-path, leav­ing behind us minor tree-blokades for the police-vans. After walk­ing about a 1km,there was a road in front of us .There, a lot of police was stand­ing already, about 20 metres apart. There was no oth­er choice than try to get run­ning thourough the lines. Lots of peo­ple in front of us made it, but we saw some peo­ple get­ting caught or being pushed back by the cops. The more we wait­ed, the hard­er it was to get through, because more police-vans were arriv­ing all the time. So, the cat and mouse ‑game start­ed. I saw a police reach­ing to a per­son in front of me and I ran across. There was noth­ing to be done for the peo­ple who could­nt get across. Some of them tried oth­er routes. So, we con­tin­ued towards the tracks, that were real­ly close to us already. But, the police was there wait­ing for us wear­ing full riot-gear and hav­ing water­tanks in the back­round. We got set­tled to the tracks as fast as we could, block­aders spread the huge plas­tic-mate­r­i­al to cov­er them­selves, and we began dig­ging the stones off the side of the tracks to get bet­ter resis­tance posi­tions… And after announc­ing three times the ille­gal­i­ty of our action, the cops attacked. They used vio­lent force and start­ed hit­ting peo­ple with batons. Many got some severe pain from pep­per-sprays, which was being done straight into indi­vid­u­als’ faces. Water tanks were being used con­stant­ly. We got back to the tracks a few times until it was impos­si­ble to stay, due to the seri­ous police-vio­lence. So hun­dreds of peo­ple retreat­ed and got scat­tered in the for­est; some ready to look for oth­er ways to get to tracks, some head­ing back to their camps to gain more pow­er for the oth­er block­ades of today. We havent giv­en up. The resis­tance con­tin­ues! (Tak­en from http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231840.shtml.)

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12:50 pm The rail between Lüneb­urg and Dan­nen­berg has been bent up at km 190.4 (ner­ar Grün­hagen). Track work­ers are at the loca­tion and esti­mate that the repair could take quite some time.
12:15 pm The stor­age com­pound is block­ad­ed. Sheet­ing was erect­ed as roofs. About 250 peo­ple there. Also trac­tors. Mood is good. A cul­ture pro­gramme is being organ­ised. It is still easy to get through.
INJURIES FROM POLICE HORSE, BATONS, PEPPER SPRAY:
10:51H: The horse pro­ces­sion has start­ed, 25 hors­es and 25 cyclists tak­ing part. Many police present. Mood is good.
10:49h: The news con­fer­ence of the block­aders of Berg will be at 1.30 pm in the Kul­turhaus Mika­do in Karl­sruhe. At the assem­bly and vig­il in Gov­elin one per­son was injured when kicked by a police horse. The injured man suf­fered a cra­nial bruise and a tor­so injury. He is being tak­en to hos­pi­tal. Sev­er­al peo­ple were injured by police batons or pep­per spray.

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Sun­day, Novem­ber 09, 2008 at 08:43:20 (CET)

08:26 H: The Robin Wood peo­ple hang­ing in trees out­side the waste com­pound are well. The Red Cross is keep­ing them sup­plied with hot drinks. Every­thing is peace­ful. The Robin Wood activists sus­pend­ed them­selves yes­ter­day evening while peo­ple gath­ered to sit down out­side the com­pound to block it. 500 peo­ple have arrived in Tol­len­dorf. It report­ed that the two men and a woman who had chained them­selves to the rail­way track have been arrest­ed by fed­er­al police. Before that they were med­ical­ly exam­ined. Police had pro­tect­ed them against the cold with foil. The woman was the last to be cut from the con­crete block after almost 11 ½ hours chained to it. A police spokesman quot­ed a doc­tor as say­ing her con­di­tion is prob­lem-free. Four oth­er demon­stra­tors who were also at the block­ade point at mid­day were first car­ried away by police and lat­er let go.

—

REPAIRS NEEDED: 00:53 am Before the CASTOR train can move on, the rails and the track bed have to be restored. It’s not known at this point how long that will take.
ALL THREE CUT FREE: 00:25 am The last of the three pro­test­ers who had chained them­selves to a con­crete block under the rail tracks at Berg has been cut free.
00:06 am A video of the block­ade of the Gor­leben stor­age com­pound is view­able at http://www.graswurzel.tv/index.php?mov_id=43&PHPSESSID=b83e29fde90c2638c12cd3d9b382bf4f
00:04 am CASTOR train still stopped at Berg because one per­son remains chained to a con­crete block under the rails.
00:03 am Still 600 peo­ple squat­ting out­side the stor­age com­pound, sur­round­ed by many trac­tors.

===

Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 10, 2008

THE LAST FEW HOURS OF SATURDAY as report­ed on the Ger­man Day X newswire:
11:34 Four Robin Wood activists sus­pend­ed over the road between Gor­leben and the stor­age com­pound about 7 metres from the ground.
10:29 pm Block­ade of the inter­im stor­age com­pound con­tin­ues. 500 peo­ple and 12 trac­tors there. Good mood. Lots of police but hold­ing back.
9:57 pm After nine hours no end in sight to block­ade of the CASTOR train at Wörth near the French bor­der. Fed­er­al police at 9:30 pm, almost nine hours after the block­ade began, man­aged to release the sec­ond of the three chained-on peo­ple from the mas­sive con­crete block, said to be as big as one cubic metre. The train with 11 CASTOR cas­kets was due in Wörth at 1:40 pm. It’s been stuck in Lauter­bourg across the bor­der in France since 1.15 pm. The NDR broad­cast­er has a pic­ture of the block­aders at
9:44 pm Sig­nalling cables of the rail­ways were set on fire in the morn­ing at Hofgeis­mar, near Kas­sel. Police sus­pect a con­nec­tion with the CASTOR trans­port. In Wies­baden-Schier­stein tires were set on fire near cable cab­i­nets. Train ser­vices were can­celled until the after­noon.
8:51 pm Still 500 peo­ple and 12 trac­tors blockad­ing the stor­age com­pound.
6:43 pm Police have cut the first of three chained pro­test­ers from the con­crete block in Berg.
5:56 pm 500 peo­ple at the sit-down block­ade of the stor­age com­pound, more com­ing.
5:55 pm A female pro­test­er hand­cuffed to a tree by police in Karl­sruhe was released by court order. The court ruled there was no rea­son to hold her. She and two oth­er peo­ple had demon­strat­ed at mid­day in Karl­sruhe-Mühlburg on a track near the rail­way line against atom­ic pow­er. The CASTOR train was due to pass there in the evening. +++++++ 5:52 pm 60 activists, includ­ing clowns of the Clowns Army, are with the chained-on peo­ple in Berg for sup­port.
5:50 pm The two men and a woman chained to the rail­way track at Berg had face masks put on them at 4:47 pm

—

Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 08, 2008 at 16:39:55 (CET)

Ger­man Rail reports delays in train traf­fic in north Ger­many caused by arson attacks on rail­way instal­la­tions in Bran­den­burg and dam­age done to sig­nalling equip­ment. Repairs would take until the late after­noon.

—

Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 08, 2008 at 16:11:42 (CET)

TRAIN STILL STOPPED: The three activists locked to a con­crete block are still stop­ping the CASTOR train from con­tin­u­ing its jour­ney. Police have not yet suc­ceed­ed to cut the demon­stra­tors out. They’re work­ing with elec­tric ham­mer drills to try to break open the con­crete. The train is still stopped in the French bor­der sta­tion Lauter­bourg, about four kilo­me­tres from the con­crete block.

Novem­ber 08, 2008
CASTOR-BLOCKADE WITH CONCRETE BLOCK NEAR WÖRTH: A group of young peo­ple at about 12.45 pm Sat­ur­day made the rail­way line unpass­able for the Cas­tor train short­ly after it crossed into Ger­many, 500 metres north of Berg sta­tion. Three men and women fas­tened their arms in the mas­sive block placed under the track sleep­ers. The train has been stopped for now.

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Novem­ber 06, 2008
BLOCKADES HAVE BEGUN: The rail­way line used to take nuclear waste into the Wend­land was sym­bol­i­cal­ly block­ad­ed at three over­pass­es on Thurs­day by abseil­ers. Police seized and held a promi­nent French woman climber in “pre­ven­tive deten­tion”, a law that has been ruled invalid by the high­est court. The envi­ron­ment organ­i­sa­tion Robin Wood sus­pend­ed three abseil­ers from three bridges between Lüneb­urg and Wendisch Evern, say­ing they would stay there until the waste train came or police removed them. The French activist is used to being under per­ma­nent police sur­veil­lance because of her fre­quent spec­tac­u­lar climb­ing actions. On Thurs­day evening dozens of sup­port­ers demon­strat­ed for her release out­side the Lüneb­urg police direc­torate.

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Novem­ber 05, 2008
TRAIN STOPPED BY PROTEST: Three high school pupils stopped a train bring­ing the spe­cial trucks for the Cas­tor trans­port to Gor­leben for half an hour near Hitza­ck­er on Mon­day by sit­ting on the rails. They had to be car­ried away by police. About 100 demon­stra­tors were near the track. Police were report­ed to be con­fused at first until they asked for rein­force­ments, which took half an hour to arrive. The three were encir­cled by police and had their IDs tak­en down. Pic­tures at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231196.shtml

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GREENPEACE ACTIVISTS OCCUPY DUMP TOWER: 40 Green­peace activists occu­pied a wind­ing tow­er of the Asse II nuclear dump near Wolfen­büt­tel on Wednes­day morn­ing (pic­tures at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231338.shtml), attach­ing a ban­ner that said nuclear waste must be removed from the for­mer potash mine, which is heav­i­ly tak­ing water. The action is to last sev­er­al days. Police have not demand­ed that the pro­test­ers leave the tow­er and so far every­thing has been peace­ful. From Jan­u­ary the mine, which was con­sid­ered a mod­el for Gor­leben, is to be con­trolled by a dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ment author­i­ty, the Fed­er­al Agency for Radi­a­tion Pro­tec­tion. Back­ground on Asse II at http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/nuclear-worries-increase-german-waste-dump-mine-floods and http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/german-nuclear-dump-was-illegal-start.

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ATTACKS ON POWER COMPANY’S VEHICLES: The «Ham­burg­er Mor­gen­post» news­pa­per has pub­lished text pur­port­ing to claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for attacks on vehi­cles of the Vat­ten­fall pow­er com­pa­ny con­nect­ed with the Cas­tor trans­port. Win­dows of a car were dam­aged and both front tyres stabbed. Police say they have no claims of respon­si­bil­i­ty for two oth­er attacks. In one case a vehi­cle loaded with four gas bot­tles was set on fire, caus­ing an explo­sion that injured no one. But the pres­sure wave was said to have caused tens of thou­sands of euros worth of dam­age. Five vehi­cles were total­ly destroyed and a near­by build­ing dam­aged. Police were able to stop anoth­er arson attack on a Vat­ten­fall vehi­cle when a wit­ness called them after see­ing the attempt. Police assume all attacks were car­ried out by the same group of peo­ple.

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POLICE IN GÖTTINGEN ROUGHED UP TWO ANTI-NUCLEAR ACTIVISTS who had hung a ban­ner about the com­ing Cas­tor trans­port over the entrance to the local rail­way sta­tion. One had his wrists painful­ly twist­ed, the oth­er was clapped in hand­cuffs imme­di­ate­ly. Police went to the home of one of them search­ing for the ban­ner. The activists com­ment that it’s inter­est­ing to see how ner­vous police can get about a ban­ner and how they fear pub­lic scruti­ny. Pic­tures at http://de.indymedia.org/2008/11/231320.shtml.

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