Field clearance
The term field liberation describes euphemistically among environmental activists the targeted destruction of genetically modified plants, especially on experimental fields. Some proponents of genetic engineering speak dysphemistically of field destruction .
Overview
From a legal point of view, a field exemption fulfills the criminal offense of property damage and, in the case of fenced fields, also of trespassing . The activists consider the uprooting of genetically modified plants to be legitimate because of the possible threats to health and the environment . Some actions are publicly announced in advance and the participants consciously accept possible penalties. There are also secret actions.
In the opinion of GM critics, the occupation and destruction of fields have contributed significantly to the public debate about genetic engineering. After fields were cleared, many fields were fenced off; some are guarded by floodlights, cameras and / or security guards.
The opponents of genetic engineering usually organize themselves in so-called resistance camps that are located near the fields. Greenpeace has organized campaigns in which genetically modified plants were not torn out, but marked with tape and safety warnings in a publicly effective way.
history
Outside Germany, field exemptions were or are widespread, for example in France, India or South America. In Germany, forms of protest such as lobbying, collecting signatures or postcard and e-mail campaigns dominated.
In the mid-1990s, a field in Hesse was secretly destroyed; In the Wetterau and elsewhere, gene test fields were occupied several times. A few years later, the protests and actions focused on experiments with genetically modified plants at the University of Giessen at the Rauischholzhausen research station and on numerous arable fields.
In France, the activist José Bové founded the faucheurs volontaires movement. Bové was sentenced to four months in prison in 2005 for clearing the field. The judgment became final in February 2007. In another trial, Bové was sentenced to a fine of 180 daily rates for the destruction of GM maize plants of the now banned MON810 variety on July 30, 2006 .
In 2005 the organization Gendreck weg , founded by beekeepers and farmers in Germany, called for a public field clearance in Strausberg for the first time . Whitsun 2006 there were field exemptions in Giessen and Oberboihingen. Then the initiative "Gendreck weg!" during protests against the cultivation of GM maize in July 2006 in Zehdenick, despite a large police presence, a field with around 80 people. 24 people were arrested and another 64 were taken into police custody.
The number of field destruction increased significantly in 2006 and 2007. The first actions had turned the idea of direct action into political action. After initial distancing from the established environmental associations and genetic engineering-critical institutes, a supportive attitude spread.
In April 2007, 250 activists from the organization mutatoes.org destroyed a field near the English city of Kingston upon Hull on which normal beans were planted; they wrongly assumed that a potato release experiment was being carried out there.
In 2007, unrecognized, highly protected test fields were destroyed, for example in Groß Lüsewitz (east of Rostock) and Gießen . The latter was sentenced in September 2008 after a trial with six months' imprisonment without parole. One of the accused was excluded from the trial and all questions relating to genetic engineering were banned.
At the end of June 2008, a group of activists in the Gers and Haute-Garonne departments destroyed two parcels of MON810. According to Monsanto , this was the first time that one hundred percent of the test fields she sown in the spring were destroyed.
In June 2009 the Magdeburg Regional Court sentenced six opponents of genetic engineering to pay damages. In April 2008, they broke into the test site of the Leibniz Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research and destroyed a test field with genetically modified wheat. The IPK put the damage at 245,000 euros, of which the court recognized 104,000 euros as "conclusively proven". The applications of two opponents of genetic engineering for legal aid were rejected because of "wanton behavior".
In July 2009, two actors were sentenced by the Kitzingen Local Court for property damage to 1,350 euros and 675 euros.
After a field occupation announced on the Internet, in September 2009 the Magdeburg Regional Court prohibited two opponents of genetic engineering from entering the fields. In the event of a violation, there is a risk of fines of up to 250,000 euros or six months in prison. In March they had destroyed a fence in an action.
In October 2009, two field destroyers were convicted for the first time in a Giessen court. One was sentenced to six months' imprisonment without parole and a second field destroyer was sentenced to four months probation. The fields they destroyed belonged to the University of Giessen and barley was grown on them.
Another field destroyer began his sentence in November 2009, having recently been released from prison.
In November 2010 six people were sentenced by the Aschersleben District Court for property damage to fines of up to 300 euros each.
criticism
The TE-SAT report of the European police authority Europol in 2008 for the first time listed a field clearance in Portugal as a “terrorist attack” by so-called “environmental terrorists”. The report lists an unspecified number of other incidents caused by animal rights and environmental extremists, which, however, have not been classified as terrorist attacks. In political and legal circles, the classification of a field exemption as terrorism is controversial.
In order to make the scientific evaluation impossible, environmentally harmful substances such as heating oil were also used in Germany.
The violence against a security guard while entering a fenced area in June 2009 in Sagerheide was sharply condemned by the Environment Minister Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .
Web links
literature
- Franz Seifert: Diffusion of a radical protest method Open field destruction in France, Spain and Germany , SWS-Rundschau (2012) 52 (3), pp. 249–70.
Footnotes
- ↑ a misleading term - the plants are destroyed; Farmland is indestructible
- ↑ On the history of direct actions against genetic engineering
- ↑ (September 5, 2008)
- ^ Field clearance 2006 in Giessen
- ↑ Opponents of genetic engineering succeed in partially destroying the field ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Transgen.de, July 30, 2006. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
- ^ Jens Blankennagel: Opponents of GM maize celebrate success Berliner Zeitung, August 1, 2006. Accessed on September 12, 2012.
- ^ Hugh Muir: GM protesters pick wrong field in bid to disrupt potato trial The Guardian, April 25, 2007.
- ^ Test field destruction in Gießen 2007
- ^ Test field destruction in Gießen 2007
- ↑ France: The law on genetically modified organisms (OGM) is facing a test of its legal resilience ( memento of October 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) French Embassy in France, Department of Science and Technology in Berlin, September 3, 2008.
- ↑ Destruction of wheat experiment: opponents of genetic engineering have to compensate damage ( memento of the original from July 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Transgen.de, June 12, 2009. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
- ^ Genmais: Field Liberator Condemns Mainpost, July 22, 2009. Retrieved September 12, 2012.
- ↑ Regional court forbids entering test fields Proplanta.de, September 28, 2009.
- ↑ Much protest and little insight into the genetic engineering process in Giessen Information Service Genetic Engineering, October 10, 2009.
- ^ Opponents of genetic engineering in custody ( memento from November 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 3, 2009.
- ^ Anna Wieder: Opponents of genetic engineering sentenced to fines Taz, November 26, 2010.
- ↑ TE-SAT 2008: EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (PDF; 872 kB) Europol, 2008. p. 40.
- ^ Oil attack on test field Biosicherheit.de, April 23, 2006.
- ↑ Test fields for genetic engineering destroyed again: "The attack has a new quality" ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Transgen.de, July 3, 2009.
