Walkers end 200km walk with symbolic blockade at Doel nuclear power plant in Belgium for Chernobyl 20+
1 million petition campaign launched in Belgium

Doel - Antwerp, 26th April 2006 - This morning members of For Mother Earth and Les Amis de la Terre Belgique, the Belgian representatives of Friends of the Earth International, ended a 200km anti-nuclear walk at Doel nuclear power, near Antwerp in the north of Belgium. The walk and the actions at Doel support the Europe-wide campaign to collect 1 million signatures to halt EU investments
in nuclear power. Over 300.000 signatures have been collected so far.

The walk began on 15th April at Tihange nuclear power plant in the south of Belgium. A group of 80 people from Belgium, Finland, Britain, Portugal, France, Germany and Kazakhstan, walked the last 8 km from Kieldrecht to Doel in a torch-lit procession. They arrived at Doel nuclear power plant at 23 minutes past midnight, exactly 20 years after the explosion of reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The commemoration included a symbolic die-in, a fire-show, yellow radioactive waste barrels, activists dressed
in white radiation suits, and distress flares.

Later in the day, activists from the walk held a symbolic blockade of the nuclear power plant, and entered into dialogue with the workers entering the base during the morning shift change, from 7am to 9am.

The organisers of the anti-nuclear walk demand the immediate phase-out of nuclear power, and call for greater investments to be made in energy saving and renewable energy.

1 million signature petition

The walk and the actions at Doel support the Europe-wide campaign to collect 1 million signatures to halt EU investments in nuclear power. The million signature campaign is organised by the biggest coalition of anti-nuclear groups that Europe has seen for a long time[1]. The organisers of the petition hope that the EU leaders will phase-out nuclear power, and scrap the "Euratom" treaty that promotes nuclear power within the EU, if 1 million EU citizens demand it with their signature. The massive number of signatures will demonstrate the strength of public opinion against nuclear power to the EU institutions and the governments of the member states. The European petition
campaign is organised by Atomstopp (Austria), Friends of the Earth Europe, GLOBAL 2000 (Austria), Sortir du Nucléaire (France), WISE (Netherlands) and Women for Peace (Finland) and is supported by more than 150 NGOs.

The petition can be signed online:
http://www.motherearth.org/tour/petitie.php

The walk has drawn attention to the many problems related to the use of nuclear energy including: reactor safety; the unresolved problem of nuclear waste storage; the high costs of atomic energy; the growing terrorist threat against nuclear power stations; human rights violations due to uranium mining and the storage of nuclear waste on the lands of Indigenous Peoples; and the proliferation of civilian nuclear technologies to military programs. It also draws attention to viable renewable energy projects, which demonstrate that
nuclear power is not necessary. An exhibition has travelled with the walkers to inform the public on these issues.

Nine very useful fact-sheets on nuclear energy have been produced in Dutch and French:
French http://www.motherearth.org/tour/tour_fr.php#fiches
Dutch http://www.motherearth.org/tour/tour_nl.php#fiches

For more information: www.motherearth.org/tour

More nice pictures
http://www.foeeurope.org/
http://fme.sincerethought.org/gallery/v/2006/chernobyl

Friends of the Earth Flanders & Brussels (formerly For Mother Earth) is a member of Friends of the Earth International