GMOs: 58 voluntary reapers relaxed in Chartres
The 58 anti-GMO activists tried in correctional in Chartres for having mowed a plot of transgenic corn on August 18, 2007 in Poinville (Eure-et-Loir) were released Thursday, less than two weeks after the vote by the Parliament of a law suppressing mowing.
In announcing the judgment, the president of the court Denis Roucou reported a "largely motivated decision", but did not specify the reasons. The prosecution did not immediately say whether it intended to appeal.
The relaxed Reapers let their joy burst out, coming out of the courtroom with cries of "We won! We won!".
"Our demands have been recognized by justice. We know why we are fighting and why we are going to continue the fight. We need as many citizens as possible to stand up against GMOs," Jean-Marie Loury told AFP, one of the voluntary reapers.
"This decision shows that the law voted by the deputies on GMOs is out of play," he also said.
The Parliament adopted on May 22 the very controversial law on GMOs, which transposes a European directive of 2001 and recognizes "the freedom to consume and to produce with or without GMO" in France.
In Chartres, the hearing was held fortuitously that same May 22, the day of the adoption of the law establishing a crime of mowing, but whose implementing decrees have not yet appeared.
A first hearing, on October 9, 2007, was postponed at the request of the prosecutor Philippe Peyroux, "taking into account" the planned meeting of the "Grenelle of the environment, the conclusions of which could be of a nature to enlighten justice".
Seven months later, whatever the case, the prosecutor of the Republic of Chartres had requested sentences of 3 months imprisonment suspended and 500 euros fine against them. He also demanded an additional fine of 300 euros for 23 of the 58 reapers, who had refused a DNA sample while in police custody.
The defense had pleaded acquittal. Addressing the judges, Me François Roux had called for "the fight for rights, freedoms and for the protection of (their) independence vis-à-vis the State", and to fight "against those who want to confine the action of judges to that of robots ".
One of the reapers' lawyers, Me Jean-Paul Susini, welcomed the decision, stressing: "we have worked well, it is a decision that goes in the direction of history, it will certainly weigh on the trial which is being held at this very moment in Toulouse ".
Forty-one reapers, including José Bové, are currently on trial in Toulouse by the criminal court for "destruction of the property of others committed in a meeting", after having pulled up several hectares of GMO corn (Mon 810) in July 2006 in Ox (Haute -Garonne). Five of them appear for "serious damage to the property of others committed in a meeting" in Daux (Haute-Garonne).
The debates with the witnesses should take place Friday morning, followed in the afternoon by the pleadings and the indictment of the prosecutor, specified the president Guillaume Roussel.
In 2003, reapers had already been released to the correctional system at Versailles. In December 2005, the jurisdiction of Orléans issued an identical opinion. On appeal, the reapers have so far been condemned.
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