Popular initiative "For health care in mobile communications"
The referendum "For health care in mobile communications!" Was a referendum in Bavaria that took place in July 2005.
background
Due to the in the opinion of the initiators not properly researched possible dangers of passive radiation exposure from cell phone masts and end devices, a state-wide referendum took place in Bavaria in July 2005, after real estate agents in particular came to the conclusion that apartments in the direct vicinity of cell phone masts were worse off let them market and lose their value. Numerous citizens and residents also feared damage to their health, in particular from passive mobile phone radiation, including cancer and tumor diseases.
At that time, checking the neighborhood for cell phone transmitters was made much more difficult after cell phone base stations were attached to the roofs of private homes or installed invisibly under roofs and in window arches.
On June 30, 2005, there was a press release according to which a hidden mobile radio transmitter on the city administration building was camouflaged as a fireplace in the Bavarian town of Sulzbach-Rosenberg .
The spokesman for the Amberg-Sulzbach action group, Klaus Mrasek, who was involved in initiating the popular initiative “For preventive health care in mobile communications!”, Was appalled by the deception of the citizens; In a public announcement, he said that one had to ask whether the city would openly inform prospective tenants and buyers about existing and hidden transmission systems, and that the economic benefits for the cell phone companies were unacceptable: Since cell phone transmitters below ten meters do not currently have building permits needed, they could be installed anywhere without citizen participation. With appropriate camouflage, the cell phone transmitters remained completely invisible to the neighbors, but rarely without any health effects.
Millions of citizens in Bavaria are subject to the building permit bureaucracy. Five large corporations in the mobile communications industry, on the other hand, enjoyed the privilege of not having building permits. The construction projects of the vast majority of the citizens (extensions, winter gardens, dormers, etc.) are unproblematic in terms of health and have little effect on the value of the neighboring properties, but still have to be approved by a building permit.
On the other hand, the construction projects of the mobile phone companies are highly problematic in the opinion of many medical professionals; They also reduced the value of the neighboring properties - and yet strangely enough, no building permit is currently required up to the ten-meter limit, no public city council meeting to decide on the building application, and no neighborhood participation is necessary.
The popular initiative for health care in mobile communications wants to put an end to this privilege of mobile communications companies. The building permit process brings mainly public and neighborhood participation. Everyone who wants to rent or purchase a property must have the right to find out what channels, even hidden ones, are already available and what is planned in the vicinity of their apartment.
Result
The referendum failed because the required 4.3% of the votes of the voters were undercut by more than half.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Referendum “For health care in mobile communications!” - Result of the referendum on the website of the Bavarian State Office for Statistics, accessed on April 26, 2017