NEWS RELEASE
From the office of the Green MEPs


August 3rd, 2004

EURO-MPs RISK ARREST TO HALT WORK ON NEW NUKE FACTORY

TWO Euro-MPs risk arrest after pledging to join a campaign of non-violent direct action to halt construction of a laser facility for testing 'the next generation of nuclear weapons' at the atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire.

Green Party MEPs Caroline Lucas (South-East England) and Jean Lambert (London) have joined more than 30 peace campaigners - including CND Chair Kate Hudson and veterans of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp - in agreeing to physically obstruct and prevent construction of the planned 'Orion' Laser Facility when work starts next year.

Caroline Lucas, who was arrested in 2002 for 'breaching the peace' during a non-violent demonstration at the Trident nuclear Submarine base in Faslane, Scotland, said: "This proposed facility is an assault on local health, local democracy and world peace.

"It breaches the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and flies in the face of the International Court of Justice's 1996 ruling that the use or threat of nuclear weapons would be unlawful.

"I will be pursuing all legal means to 'block the builders' and prevent the construction of the Orion Laser facility at Aldermaston - or anywhere else."

Their decision to join the 'block the builders' campaign comes as the world mourns the anniversary of the dropping of the first nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 7th, 1945.

Jean Lambert, who visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and met relatives and survivors of the blasts which brought us into the nuclear age, said:

"I have seen at first hand the devastation caused by nuclear weapons - and the human price still being paid more than half a century on.

"The Government's commitment to nuclear weapons is an extraordinary and counterproductive waste of money too: there are so many better things we could be spending our money on to contribute to world peace than finding better and more efficient ways to blow ourselves up.

"As long as the Government remains committed to researching and developing new nuclear weapons systems, and as long as the international institutions and agreements fail to stop it, I will remain an active campaigner in the non-violent resistance to this unlawful escalation of Weapons of Mass Destruction."

The proposed Orion laser facility is designed to replicate the conditions of a nuclear explosion in a 100-metre building and is expected to play an essential role in the testing of new nuclear weapons, currently being designed in the US.

The non-violent 'block the builders' campaign has been initiated by the Aldermaston Women's Peace Campaign, which has joined 90 local authorities in calling for a full public inquiry into the Orion facility - a demand which the government has so far ignored.

A spokesperson said: "The developments [at AWE] should be subject to both public and parliamentary scrutiny. If the Government won't let either the public or parliament discuss its plans then we will use all non-violent means at our disposal to stop this facility being built.

"The Government has strenuously denied any plans to build new nuclear weapons - but, after Iraq, why should anyone believe anything it says about Weapons of Mass Destruction?"

ENDS

For more information please contact Ben Duncan on 020 7407 6280, 07973 823358 or at press@greenmeps.org.uk