Benedikt Harlin

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Benedikt Härlin (also Benny Härlin , born January 1, 1957 in Stuttgart ) is a German journalist and former politician ( Greens ), son of the journalist Peter Härlin .

Berlin and European Parliament

Benedikt Härlin has been one of the editors of the magazine radikal since 1977 and founded the “newspaper cooperative” in 1978, an association of alternative magazines in Berlin. In the same year he participated in the establishment of the Alternative List for Democracy and Environmental Protection and the Self-Help Network . Since 1980 he has worked for the Berlin section of the daily newspaper . He processed his experiences as a squatter in several articles in the Kursbuch and (together with Michael Sontheimer) in the book Potsdamer Straße - Sittenbilder und Histories .

Along with Michael Klöckner he was in 1983 as a press law in Charge of the radical arrested. In the process in 1984 before the Berlin Court Harlin were as publisher and Klöckner for journalistic and accounting activities at radically sentenced to prison, each two and a half years without parole. The judges considered this to be an advertisement for a terrorist group as well as an invitation to and approval of criminal offenses . The course of the trial and the verdict met with public criticism and was described as a “deliberate example” and “threat to freedom of the press”. In particular, the behavior of the chairman judge Dieter Palhoff was criticized. In 1984 the Greens included Härlin in their electoral list for the European Parliament (EP). In May 1984 he was elected and a member of the "rainbow faction" (forerunner of the Greens / EFA ). By being elected to the EP, Härlin and Klöckner enjoyed immunity and did not have to serve prison sentences. The judgment was overturned in 1990 by the Federal Court of Justice.

Against green genetic engineering

During a stay in the United States, he met Jeremy Rifkin , from whom he first heard about green genetic engineering . After his return, Härlin became the loudest critic of green genetic engineering in the EP. He led parliamentary initiatives to at least temporarily enforce a complete ban on the release of genetically modified organisms in Europe, but these failed. In 1986 Härlin was one of the co-founders of the “genetic ethical network”.

In 1990 Härlin left the EP and returned to Germany. In the 1990s he initially worked for Greenpeace magazine , then office manager for Greenpeace in Berlin and did campaign work against environmental toxins . When transgenic plants were first approved for import into Europe in 1996, Härlin concentrated again on genetic engineering. He convinced his initially skeptical colleague at Greenpeace of the idea of ​​taking action against genetic engineering. His vision was to raise public opinion against genetic engineering and its producers in order to stop the technology. Härlin was hired to lead the first campaigns by Greenpeace. When the first shipments of transgenic plant products arrived in the port of Hamburg in autumn 1996, they were received by Greenpeace activists who tried to prevent docking and rolled out posters against the import of transgenic plants.

Harlin was also involved in the creation and further development of the Cartagena Protocol for Biosafety.

He has been working for the Agriculture Future Foundation since 2002 , is the initiator of the Save Our Seeds initiative, which campaigns against genetic engineering in seeds, and the Golden Bantam campaign , organized the Planet Diversity congress and organizes regular meetings of GM-free regions in Europe. From 2004 to 2008 he represented the North American and European non-governmental organizations on the board of directors of the World Agricultural Report and is a member of the International Commission on the Future of Food.

Publications (selection)

  • Ed .: Netzwerk Selbsthilfe e. V., editor: Benny Härlin: 1 year network self-help. Rotation, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3-88384-002-5 .
  • with Michael Sontheimer : Potsdamer Strasse. Morals and stories. Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-88022-274-6 .
  • Peaceful Coexistence? Agriculture with or without genetic engineering . In: Genopoly: the risk of green genetic engineering. Ökom, Ges. Für Ökologische Kommunikation, 2003, ISBN 3-936581-05-3 (Volume 81–82 of Political Ecology), pp. 81–86.

Movies

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 20 years radical
  2. ↑ taz archive
  3. ↑ Documentation of the RBB, with interview Benny Härlins
  4. ↑ From house to house - Berlin movement studies (excerpt). (PDF) In: Kursbuch , 65
  5. ^ Benny Härlin, Michael Sontheimer: Potsdamer Straße - Sittenbilder and stories (excerpt). Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-88022-274-6
  6. ↑ In the sharpest way . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1984 ( online ).
  7. ^ A b c Daniel Charles: Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food. Basic Books, 2001, ISBN 0-7382-0291-6 , pp. 205-208.
  8. ↑ genetic ethical network
  9. ^ Poison in the building . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1996 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Harlin, Benedict
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Harlin, Benny; Haerlin, Benedict
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and politician (Greens), MEP
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart