16 months in prison for protesting against ‘fracking’
in wells of ‘fracking’ in the US spend up to a 770% more water than in 2011
A british judge has decreed the start-immediate freedom of the three activists who had been sentenced to prison sentences of up to 16 months for protesting against one wells for “fracking” in the immediate vicinity of Blackpool. The magistrate Ian Burnett considered that the penalty for the breach of public order was “manifestly excessive” and the three ecologists (Rich Loizou, Simon Belvins and Richard Roberts) out of the jail at the end of six weeks.
The case had attracted international attention, since it was the first time since 1932 that are jailed environmentalists in the United Kingdom for participating in street protests. During the appeal came to light, the bond of the judge who imposed the 16-month sentence, Robert Altham, with a company created by his own father (JC Altham & Sons) and in direct relationship with the energy giant, Centrica, which has invested tens of millions of euros in the impulse to “fracking” in the Uk.
After a moratorium of several years, due to the supposed relationship of “fracking” with small earthquakes and the pollution of acuíera, then “premier”, David Cameron gave the green light to the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing for the extraction of shale gas in the 64% of the English countryside.
The protests of neighbours and the actions of the local Governments delayed however the first surveys until this week, when the company’s Crew confirmed the start of its “horizontal scan” in Peston New Road, which in three months will be fully operational.
it Was precisely in the well of Pesto New Road where the three ecologists, the condemned was initially to a term of 16 months in prison, joined the protest against the company Cuadrilla’s pasaod 25 July and staged a sit-in of 100 hours to try to block the start of the surveys. Some 300 people have been arrested so far by the protests, to which has been added in the last few days the fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood.
Rich Loizou, one of the three sentenced, he expressed his intention of returning to action at the same time to recover the freedom along with his two colleagues. “People violate the law because he feels a moral obligation to prevent the expansion of fossil fuels should not be sent to jail”, he proclaimed Loizou against dozens of activists who received him with posters “Freedom to political prisoners of “fracking”.
