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Departure (loading) at Valognes 19:47 (GMT+1) Friday, 10 November

Arrival at Lauterbourg (French border) scheduled for 14:32 (GMT+1) on
Saturday, 11 November German border crossing at Worth-am-Rhine

Protest briefs

Akte-niX 13 Nov (translated by Diet Simon)

One thing has got clear: the resistance against the nuclear industry and Castor transports LIVES and can’t be silenced. How lively the resistance was, is shown by the following collation of protest briefs. It makes no claim to completeness and 100% accuracy but was put together with a clear conscience and to the best of my knowledge. People numbers and times are approximations.

10 November

• 11:30 Lüchow/Wendland c. 1,000 people take part in a demo by schoolchildren.
• 12:30 Bremen demo by c. 500 people in the city centre.
• 17:00 Hanover lantern march demo by c. 200 people.
• 19:00 Lüneburg demo by c. 400 people.
• 19:00 Dannenberg/Wendland c. 400 people demonstrated at the Castor reloading crane.
• 19:30 Pudlitz/Wendland 36 tractors und c. 300 people block a road.
• 19:47 La Hague / France: Castor train sets out.
• 22:00 Metzingen/Wendland anti-nuclear activists block the road.

11 November

Night in Normandy/France: Straw dummies on the railway track stop the Castor train twice.

• 01:25 Serqeux/Normandy: Rail blockade by French activists.
• 09:38 Conflans/France: Because of protest action I n Nancy, the Castor train is put on a different route than the one planned. The first time this has happened in France.
• 15:00 Gorleben: 3,000-7,000 people and 200 tractors at the start-up rally.
• 15:00 France: The Castor train is now two to three hours behind schedule.
• 15:15 Wörth am Rhein: 25 anti-nuclear activists demonstrate on a road bridge.
• 15:45 Hoenheim/France warning vigil by French anti-nuclear protesters.
• 17:00 The train crosses the German-French border two and three quarter hours late.
• 19:00 Metzingen/Wendland "lantern procession" blockade by c. 400 people on the federal road.
• 19:30 Stutensen/near Karlsruhe blockade stopped the train 25 minutes.
• 20:30 Oftersheim/Mannheim 11 activists block the rail track, stopping the Castor train for about an hour.
• 21:20 Göttingen: Warning vigil at the railway station by c. 50 people.
• 22:40 Darmstadt: Castor stops because of fireworks at the rails.
• 22:40 Wendland: Police discover railbed hollowed out by water.

12 November

• 09:30 Göhrde/Wendland: "Rally Monte Göhrde" c. 200 people repeatedly block the rails.
• 10:30 Posade/Wendland: 300 anti-nuclear activists block the rails.
• 10:30 Neetzendorf/Wendland: 60 anti-nuclear activists block the rails.
• 11:00 Dannenberg/Wendland: 100 anti-nuclear activists in a bicycle demo to Gorleben.
• 11:00 Leitstade/Wendland: 30 anti-nuclear activists block the rails.
• 11:30 Nahrendorf/Wendland: Rails blocked by objects, Castor train stops briefly.
• 11:30 Dannenberg/Wendland: 100 anti-nuclear activists at the “sitting test” in front of the reloading crane and c. 200 others no longer allowed inside.
• 11:45 Dannenberg/Wendland: 700 people on the southern route of the road haulage stretch.
• 12:30 Rail route/Wendland: Small blockades keep stopping the Castor train again and again.
• 12:45 Leitstade/Wendland: 4 Robin Wood activists hang by ropes over the Castor route, stopping the train for more than an hour.
• 13:00 Harlingen/Wendland: People again and again keep blocking the rails.
• 15:45 Dannenberg/Wendland: After many small and big blockades the Castor train has reached Dannenberg. Lüneburg’s police chief Niehörster says so far the protests have caused delays of four hours.
• 17:30 Dannenberg/Wendland: 350 people in a non-violent sit-down blockade on the northern route.
• 17:30 Dannenberg/Wendland: 350 people in a non-violent sit-down blockade on the southern route.
• 18:00 Splietau/Wendland: 300 people at a rally.
• 18:15 Gorleben/Wendland: 50 people in a sit-down blockade on the road near Gorleben.
• 19:30 Klein Gusborn/Wendland: Blockade by a concrete pyramid to which four people are chained.
• 21:00 Langendorf/Wendland: Another concrete pyramid with four chained-on activists.
• 22:20 Langendorf/Wendland: 200 metres beside the pyramid another pyramid action with eight people chained on.
• 23:15 Seybruch/Wendland: 4 activists chain themselves in a pipe under the road.
• 23:30 Splietau/Wendland: Another concrete pyramid with four chained-on people.
•  
• 23:30 Dannenberg/Wendland: 800 sitting people blocking the north and south routes.
• 23:30 Wendland: Several registered and/or spontaneous demonstrations along the route.

13 November

• 00:40 Dannenberg/Wendland: The Castor truck convey is ready to move but blocked.
• 01:00 Laase/Wendland: 200 sitting people blockading.
• 02:30 Gorleben/Wendland: 100 people protesting.
• 03:00 Gorleben/Wendland: 4 Greenpeace activists hang in the trees along the route.
• 04:30 Dannenberg/Wendland: Only now the convoy can move out.
• 04:45 Quickborn/Wendland: People jump onto the road and briefly stop the transport.
• Shocking: 167 people injured, among them 146 demonstrators injured by police…

Sources:

Eyewitnesses

Newswire and reports of the umbrella group BI Lüchow-Dannenberg: www.castor.de

Newswire of www.ContrAtom.de

Radio reports: Radio Freies Wendland, Radio Flora , etc. Press and news agency reports e.g. http://news.yahoo.de

Media releases of the police: www.polizei.niedersachsen.de/castor

Additions/comments by others

13th - 23:47 egal adds that at midday on the 12th a large barricade of trees was built on the railway track and the track was hollowed out. Police present were kept away with stones, fireworks and signalling munitions. Suddenly there were two clamps and brake shoes on the rails. As is usual in the Wendland, tracks alongside the rails and road stretch were made impassable for police from time to time with large and small barricades. In the early hours of the 13th there were burning barricades of tyres and wood on the southern road route. Here, too, police hurrying to the scene were attacked.

dabeigewesene posted on the 13th 23:53 that she saw two such actions Sunday morning in which trees near the railway line were felled. Despite cop presence this probably succeeded a few more times, it was still early and the cops were overstretched.

“Pretty good stuff,” read a post at 01:21 on the 14th, “but where are the times like 1997?”. “Is it that the cops have just learnt a lot more, have more technology, and so on, or have we just got fewer? I think there were more than 10,000 people on the road in front of the crane in 1997. Just the x-1000malquer blockade on its own held the road convoy up for more than nine hours. The Wendland as a whole was impassable for some time. Despite the most brutal violence and the use of at least four water cannon the cops needed nine hours to clear the route. For about a kilometre the road was filled with a sit-down blockade.”