Monthly Archive for March, 2012

Bernard Pierre Wolff / Getty Images

Copyright © 2012 The Telegraph, Calcutta, India
Chennai, March 27:
The hunger strike by the protesters against the Kudankulam nuclear power station was withdrawn this evening.

Members of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy, led by convener S.P. Udayakumar, had been on hunger strike at Indinthakarai village, 3km from the plant, for the last 10 days after the Jayalalithaa government announced on March 16 its decision to have the plant commissioned.
The state government had also clamped prohibitory orders in four villages around the plant and arrested 80 people for staging a roadblock near the site.

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[March 24] 17th day of people’s war against blast/ 13 times of blast-the 2nd biggest after March 21

Only a day after March 23 when the Prime Minister Office and Jeju Island government made an agreement to go through layout verification process on the docking capacity of 150,000 ton cruise ships in the so called civilian-military dual use port, though based only on the simulation result analysis by the Ministry of National Defense, the navy enforced blast on the exposed rock parts of the Gureombi-13 times, starting at 3:50pm, March 24.

Activists struggle to remove razor wire and enter naval base construction site. Jejusori.net photo.

by Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa, the Nuclear Resister

Despite growing condemnation at home and abroad, Korean navy contractors backed by hundreds of special police brought in from the mainland to repress local protest have for the last two weeks been dynamiting the unique volcanic coastline on Jeju Island to prepare the site for construction of a new navy base. The area near Gangjeong village is known as the Gureombi for its rounded rock forms that have long been regarded by locals as sacred. Scores of people – from local residents to church and NGO leaders and international observers – have been arrested, beaten, jailed and some deported during that time.

photo by Felice Cohen-Joppa

On March 21, the last of a group of 13 nuclear disarmament activists arrested at a July 5, 2010 action at the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee went to court.  David Corcoran was sentenced to 150 hours of community service, a $1000 fine and 2 years of probation.  Three dozen supporters in attendance at the hearing applauded when he walked out of the Chicago courtroom.

The July 2010 action culminated the Resistance for a Nuclear-Free Future gathering, marking the 30th anniversaries of Nukewatch, the Nuclear Resister and the Plowshares Eight.

Information about the gathering and action can be found here.