Draft:Platform Against Nuclear Dangers

Resistance Memorial − WAA construction fence at Mozartplatz (Salzburg)

Platform Against Nuclear Dangers (PLAGE) is a nonprofit organization in Salzburg and belongs to the Anti-nuclear movement in Austria.

History

edit

The PLAGE was founded on May 20, 1986, shortly after the Chernobyl disaster (April 26, 1986), as a Salzburg platform against the Bavarian Wackersdorf reprocessing plant (WAA).[1] By 1987, 120,000 Salzburg signatures had been collected against the nuclear reprocessing plant (a total of almost 900,000 objections, of which 453,000 were from Austria). In the spring of 1989 the decision was made not to build the reprocessing plant. After the WAA collapsed in 1989, the platform was renamed Platform Against Nuclear Dangers (PLAGE).[2] Today the platform also supports renewable energies.

Anti-WAA Memorial

edit
 
Inscription 1: Anti-WAA monument
 
Inscription 2: Anti-WAA monument

In 2000, PLAGE erected the resistance monument against the WAA at Mozartplatz in Salzburg. "The Fence of Capital Offence" should commemorate the successful resistance to the WAA 1985-1989 - a civil protest movement, which crossed national frontiers and party lines.

Inscription 1:
The Fence of Capital Offence*
To Commemorate:
The successful resistance to the "nuclear state" 1985 - 1989
A civil protest movement, which crossed national frontiers and party lines
The prevention of nuclear reprocessing at Wackersdorf in Bavaria, Germany
The actions of free citizens, active politicians, committed public figures, including Robert Jungk and Archbishop Karl Berg, and the "Unknown Resister"
Erected by: The Salzburg Platform Against Nuclear Perils (PLAGE)
* The fence, which made a fortress of the Wackersdorf construction site, became a symbol of the arrogance of power and of police state methods in the "nuclear state".

Inscription 2:
Nuclear Resisters Monument
Never before had there been such a massive transnational resistance movement to a technocratic superproject. More than 420.000 German and 420.000 Austrian written objections wrought the downfall of the project. Austria´s antinuclear foreign policy was born here. This was a critical blow against the plutonium industry and its attendant problems:

Awards

edit
  • 1991 PLAGE was awarded the Konrad Lorenz prize (the highest environmental prize given in Austria).[3]
  • 1993 In the Guinness Book of Records with the longest banner in the world (10.6 km; action against the Temelin nuclear power plant on Austria's border; over 10,000 Austrians involved)[4]
  • 2011 Nuclear-Free Future Award for the commitment of PLAGE activist Heinz Stockinger[5]
  • 2020 European Solar Prize - Category "Media and Communication" - Short video "Quit EURATOM"[6] - PLAGE criticises existing European treaties, first and foremost EURATOM, under which all EU Members pay for nuclear research whether or not they operate plants.[7]

References

edit
edit