October 29, 20009
Contact: Kate Watters: 703-299-0854
kate@crudeaccountability.org
Andrey Zatoka, environmentalist and civil society leader from Turkmenistan, was convicted of assault and sentenced to five years in prison by a judge in Dashovuz, Turkmenistan on October 29, 2009.
On October 20, 2009, Andrey Zatoka was arrested by the police in a Dashovuz bazaar, after he was attacked by an unknown man while buying groceries for his birthday. When Andrey approached the police for help, they arrested him instead of protecting him. Following his arrest, Andrey’s wife, Evgeniia Zatoka, has been denied the right to see her husband.
“Andrey’s arrest is a miscarriage of justice,” said Kate Watters, Executive Director of Crude Accountability. “Andrey has committed no crime. We appeal to the international community, to the US and Russian governments and to the OSCE to raise Andrey’s case with the Turkmen authorities. If the US, Russia and OSCE had sent observers to Andrey’s trial, as the international human rights community appealed to them to do, perhaps the outcome would have been different. It appears that the west has traded away protection of human rights for access to hydrocarbons.”
Andrey’s arrest and sentencing are the culmination of a three year long exercise in intimidation and harassment by the Turkmen authorities. He was arrested in December 2006 and charged with hooliganism as he attempted to board a plane in Dashovuz, on his way to Moscow. That charge was then changed to possession of dangerous substances after a vial of snake venom was found in his apartment. Andrey spent 46 days in prison before he was let go on a suspended sentence. In September 2007, Andrey was amnestied by President Berdymukhammedov. However, he has been denied the right to leave Turkmenistan since his arrest. Andrey holds joint Russian and Turkmen citizenship.
Andrey is the founder of the Dashovuz Ecology Club, one of Turkmenistan’s oldest and most respected environmental nongovernmental organizations, which was shut down in 2003 when the Turkmen government cracked down on civil society, changing the NGO law and making it virtually impossible to register a public organization with the government.
For more information about Zatoka’s case see www.crudeaccountability.org/en or www.azatoka.org.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
NO! to Belene coalition (BeleNE!) and urgewald
Press Release
28 October 2009
German Energy Giant RWE Withdraws from Bulgarian Nuclear Power Plant
Berlin / Sofia - In a letter to the Bulgarian Energy holding, the German company RWE today announced its withdrawal from the controversial Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) in northern Bulgaria. RWE cites doubts about the project’s profitability as the major reason for the company’s retreat.
“For the past 18 months, we’ve been pointing out to RWE that Belene is a high-risk project in terms of safety, economics, environment and corruption,” says Heffa Schücking from the German environment NGO Urgewald. “It sure took the company a long time to face up to the facts,” she comments. RWE’s decision comes in the wake of a broad grass-roots campaign of German environment organizations against RWE’s investment plans in Belene. Some 30,000 German citizens sent letters and petitions to RWE’s CEO asking him to withdraw from the project. Several of the company’s major investors also spoke out against the plan to invest into a NPP in an area of high seismicity in a country with low nuclear standards and high corruption.
“This is the beginning of the end of Belene,” says Petko Kovachev from the Bulgarian Green Policy Institute. “After 12 international banks decided to decline financing for the project in 2006 and 2007, RWE was Belene’s last hope,” explains Kovachev. RWE was slated to provide 49% of the project’s equity and its decision to withdraw sends out a clear signal to investors and banks regarding the project’s questionable economics.
“This is a huge success for civil society and nuclear safety in Europe,” says Albena Simeonova from the BeleNE! (No to Belene) Coalition in Bulgaria. Simeonova, who traveled to Germany last Spring to speak at RWE’s annual shareholder meeting, adds: “RWE never should have become involved in the crazy plan to build Russian nuclear reactors in an earthquake area. We are happy to hear that they have finally withdrawn from this dangerous project and hope that our own Government will now follow suit.”
Background:
Construction of the Belene nuclear power station started in 1985. From the beginning, there was controversy around the seismic risks as a large earthquake hit the region in 1977 and killed over 120 people only 14 km from the planned NPP site. The project was halted in 1991, and finally dropped in 1992 due to its environmental and economic risks. In 2003, however, the Bulgarian government restarted the project and in 2006, it decided to build two completely new reactors at the Belene site. The tender for construction was won by the Russian firm Atomstroyexport to build an AES-92 nuclear power station with two VVER 1000/466B reactors. This is a first of a kind reactor that has no operational record elsewhere in the world. The new Bulgarian government, which came to power in July 2009, is currently re-evaluating the project. Although it has also raised doubts concerning the project’s economic feasibility, the current government has nonetheless commissioned a consultant to help private investors for Belene.
Belene is estimated to cost around 10 billion Euros. In 2006, Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and 10 further large commercial banks all turned down applications to finance the project. In 2008 and 2009, several large energy companies also turned down invitations to become investors into the project.
For more information contact:
Heffa Schücking, heffa@urgewald.de , Tel: (49)-160-96761436
German Energy Giant RWE Withdraws from Bulgarian Nuclear Power Plant
Berlin / Sofia - In a letter to the Bulgarian Energy holding, the German company RWE today announced its withdrawal from the controversial Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) in northern Bulgaria. RWE cites doubts about the project’s profitability as the major reason for the company’s retreat.
“For the past 18 months, we’ve been pointing out to RWE that Belene is a high-risk project in terms of safety, economics, environment and corruption,” says Heffa Schücking from the German environment NGO Urgewald. “It sure took the company a long time to face up to the facts,” she comments. RWE’s decision comes in the wake of a broad grass-roots campaign of German environment organizations against RWE’s investment plans in Belene. Some 30,000 German citizens sent letters and petitions to RWE’s CEO asking him to withdraw from the project. Several of the company’s major investors also spoke out against the plan to invest into a NPP in an area of high seismicity in a country with low nuclear standards and high corruption.
“This is the beginning of the end of Belene,” says Petko Kovachev from the Bulgarian Green Policy Institute. “After 12 international banks decided to decline financing for the project in 2006 and 2007, RWE was Belene’s last hope,” explains Kovachev. RWE was slated to provide 49% of the project’s equity and its decision to withdraw sends out a clear signal to investors and banks regarding the project’s questionable economics.
“This is a huge success for civil society and nuclear safety in Europe,” says Albena Simeonova from the BeleNE! (No to Belene) Coalition in Bulgaria. Simeonova, who traveled to Germany last Spring to speak at RWE’s annual shareholder meeting, adds: “RWE never should have become involved in the crazy plan to build Russian nuclear reactors in an earthquake area. We are happy to hear that they have finally withdrawn from this dangerous project and hope that our own Government will now follow suit.”
Background:
Construction of the Belene nuclear power station started in 1985. From the beginning, there was controversy around the seismic risks as a large earthquake hit the region in 1977 and killed over 120 people only 14 km from the planned NPP site. The project was halted in 1991, and finally dropped in 1992 due to its environmental and economic risks. In 2003, however, the Bulgarian government restarted the project and in 2006, it decided to build two completely new reactors at the Belene site. The tender for construction was won by the Russian firm Atomstroyexport to build an AES-92 nuclear power station with two VVER 1000/466B reactors. This is a first of a kind reactor that has no operational record elsewhere in the world. The new Bulgarian government, which came to power in July 2009, is currently re-evaluating the project. Although it has also raised doubts concerning the project’s economic feasibility, the current government has nonetheless commissioned a consultant to help private investors for Belene.
Belene is estimated to cost around 10 billion Euros. In 2006, Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and 10 further large commercial banks all turned down applications to finance the project. In 2008 and 2009, several large energy companies also turned down invitations to become investors into the project.
For more information contact:
Heffa Schücking, heffa@urgewald.de , Tel: (49)-160-96761436
Albena Simeonova, tel.: +359.888 215 268
Petko Kovachev, petkok@bankwatch.org , +359.888 420 453
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Let's Celebrate!
We are happy to announce the birth of the first English language blog for the Green Policy Institute in Bulgaria.
We will keep you informed about developments in the 'Bulgarian Green Think Tank' as they occur.
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