Greens Do Not Support Lab Raid

green-party

Mon Jan 14 2002 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

Greens Do Not Support Lab Raid

Monday, 14 January 2002, 11:47 am
Press Release: Green Party

The Green Party wishes to make it perfectly clear that it neither supports nor endorses in any shape or form last week's raid on experimental GM potato crops at Lincoln, Greens Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said today.

"Non-violent direct action is sometimes justified," said Ms Fitzsimons, "under conditions where the law has failed to protect society from a potential danger and where people have no other recourse than to take action. The UK courts have recognised this, in releasing without penalty activists who uprooted open-field GE crops which posed a danger to the environment and other farmers.

"However, the Lincoln crops were being grown in a contained environment and we do not believe the action taken was either justified or appropriate."

"I am appalled that some sections of the media have chosen to link the Greens to this action, disregarding continued statements that we had no knowledge of the attack, that we had no idea who was responsible and that we did not support it," Jeanette Fitzsimons said.

"Sections of the media appear to have confused our sympathy for the motivation behind threats of direct action, with support for such action.

"As we have long warned, the depth of feeling in the community at the Government's failure to end the business and scientific community's potentially disastrous liaison with environmental release of genetic modification will inevitably result in eruptions of popular anger against high-profile targets.

"The Green Party regrets that those responsible for the Lincoln attack chose to direct their anger against experiments being conducted in a contained, laboratory environment."

Ends

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