2009-03-19
The international coalition Shut down NATO (NATO-ZU) sent a letter to Strasbourg police commissioner Hartmann on 17 March, to inform him about the „actions of civil disobedience in relation to the NATO summit, planned on 4 April“.
NATO-ZU/Shut down NATO is an international coalition of organisations and individuals from the peace movement and part of the coalition „Block-NATO“ and the international protest movement "No-to-war – No-to-NATO" (www.no-to-nato.org).
In the open letter also says that the coalition wants to show that NATO goes over corpses, and that we will confront this policy. With our action, we want to remember the past and future victims of NATOs wars and of military armament, and want to express very clearly, which interests are being pursued with NATOs strategies.
The action will be provocative but nonviolent. „In the case of legal charges, we will put forward our legal view also in court and in doing so will enrich the public debate. According to our legal view, civil disobedience in most cases cannot only be justified morally/ethically, but also legally“, the authors of the letter continue.
It is important to the coaltion to stress that „the groups which participate in NATO-ZU/Shut down NATO have a long tradition of actions of civil disobedience“. The „nonviolent character of our action“ is to be communicated to the police, together with a request for a meeting with the interest „to avoid a violent escalation“.
The Open Letter
http://wri-irg.org/node/6968
Coalition NATO-ZU:
http://www.natozu.de/
Media contacts:
Deutsch - presse@nato-zu.de
English - Andreas Speck (WRI) – andreas@wri-irg.org
francais - Hans Lammerant: hans@vredesactie.be
19th March 2009