nuclear-news

German government under pressure from huge anti nuclear rallies

Demonstrators in Germany Demand End of Nuclear Power, New York Times, By JUDY DEMPSEY, April 25, 2011 BERLIN — An estimated 120,000 people demonstrated across Germany on Monday, protest organizers said, demanding an end to nuclear power and increasing pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to speed up the closing of the country’s 17 nuclear plants.

Demonstrations that take place each year over the Easter holidays have tended in the past to be pacifist, for instance, calling for the end of the war in Afghanistan. But this year, because of the 25th anniversary of the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, in addition the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, the rallying theme was nuclear power.

Some of the biggest protests took place in the western state of Lower Saxony, where, according to the organizer’s spokesman, Peter Dickel, more than 20,000 demonstrators gathered near the Grohnde nuclear plant.

In the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, 17,000 protested at the Krümmel nuclear plant, Mr. Dickel said.

In Bavaria, which has three nuclear plants, more than 15,000 people gathered near the Grafenrheinfeld power plant and thousands of others marched toward the Isar 1 and Isar 2 plants. “We are many, we will be more and we will not keep quiet until the last nuclear power plant is shut,” said Martin Heilig, an organizer of the demonstrations there…….http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/world/europe/26iht-germany26.html

April 26, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, politics