When activists attack...
Email Print
...and you're a security guard hired to defend a government field trial in Germany, it seems the best advice is to act like French police. That's right. Two guards hired by Ladenburg-Neubotzheim to "guard" a field trial of GM maize on government property have been found guilty of unlawful restraint, property damage, and assault, and given hefty fines.

The guards, "Dimitry L." and "Viktor S.", waved batons at the would-be vandals who arrived at the field trial on September 7 last year. As a result, Victor -- though now unemployed -- must pay 50 days' income to the court as punishment. Dimitry, also unemployed, must pay 120 days' income, because he also used rude language and knocked a camera out of the hands of an unnamed journalist.

The journalist professed outrage upon learning that minister of agriculture Peter Hauck was sympathetic to the plight of the guards, and that a farmer from Schriesheim sent the guards a gift to thank them for defending  the experimental plants.

The court found that being hired by the government to defend a field trial on government land was not a defense to charges of defending it. The decision has been appealed to a higher court.

Share: