At least seven people, among them elderly, were injured when riot police beat young and old protesting the installation of wind turbines project on the island of Tinos in the central Aegean Sea. Hundreds of locals had gathered at the port of the island in the early morning hours of Wednesday awaiting for the cranes for the transport of wind turbines components that had arrived with a ferry form the mainland.
When the cranes started to leave the ferry, fully equipped police forces started to beat the protesters who had formed a “chain” with their bodies.
Video: A woman is heard shouting it “Stop it! Stop it!” as riot police beats local protesters – exclusive by cyclades24.gr
“They beat the elderly, girls and farmers, people who are not accustomed to contact with violence and who held a peaceful demonstration; they [police] behaved as if we were the gangs of New York,” a local resident told newspaper efsyn.
Among the injured was the 72-year-old former mayor of Tinos, who suffered a head injury from a police baton as he was trying to help a young woman who was also injured.
Police officers had arrived on the island with the sole purpose to facilitate that the project proceeds according to plan, as there has been strong reaction by the local population.
Locals consider the installation of the wind turbines as an “environmental crime.”
On Sept 11, at the request by 16 residents, a court issued an interim order that the transit permits for vehicles that transport the components for the wind turbines was temporary suspended at least until September 27. However, the cooperating companies had previously requested the revocation of the interim order, which was accepted by the court, efsyn reported.
As of Monday, by order of the Police from the neighboring island of Syros, access to the road leading to the mountain was blocked “for security reasons” in order to transport the wind turbine components.
The ferry with the cranes arrived on Tuesday night and the hundreds of protesters who gathered at the port saw that it was cordoned off with ropes, while police and Coast Guard vehicles and dozens of men in uniforms were preventing people from passing through.
Another group of protesters continued to be at the Tripotamos intersection, initially preventing the cranes from driving up to the mountain.
Wednesday dawn , the armed police forces who were accompanying the cranes began to beat protesters with batons and shields.
Three of the seven injured protesters had to be taken to the Health Center. Among them was the 72-year-old former mayor of the island, Nikiforos Deladouras, who was beaten on the head with police clubs.
“He was down with blood on his head when we saw another protester next to him standing motionless in the street, with the policeman above him beating him furiously,” eyewitnesses described the incident to efsyn.
“They beat up old people, girls and farmers, people who are not used to being in contact with violence and who are protesting peacefully and behaving as if we were the New York gang. It is shocking that it happens – and has happened repeatedly – that you are beaten with metal clubs”, protesters said.
“The atmosphere in the local community is heavy and tense, as these images and the bodily harm our protesting fellow citizens suffered by the police forces are unprecedented for the society of Tinos that has a deeply peaceful culture,” the mayor of Tinos, Giannis Siotos, said in an open letter to the Ministry of Citizen Protection and the local police authorities. He demanded that similar incidents do not happen again.
It is not the first time riot police proceeds with violence against protesters on Tinos and probably won’t be the last one until the project is concluded.
pictures. efsyn, avgi, tinostoday
Why are they protesting clean energy?
Well, as a tourist I would not prefer to stay in a hotel near a wind farm, thank you. They are a blight on the landscape. Wind turbines and solar panels are not really carbon neutral when you consider extraction and mining of the raw materials to manufacture, set up and maintain them, almost all of which use enormous quantities of fossil fuels. They will also last only ten years or so and must be discarded, which is a problem for the environment. Neither are electric vehicles more carbon neutral than combustion engines, as demonstrated by a group of German engineers. The energy used in your house or an industry heats the planet to the same degree no matter where it comes from. It’s good money for the so-called “green industry”, that’s about it.
You clearly do not understand. The heat created from energy is NOT what is causing global warming ….it is the co2 in the atmosphere which traps the sun’s heat. The co2 is paid back in approx 4-6 months by wind turbines and thereafter for 30-50 years they deliver free clean energy! They are also recyclable! it is really simple but so many people do not want to get it. I love watching wind farms working and would gladly stay in one! Have you ever seen what comes out of a power station? Have a look one day and then decide. You really need to double check your facts…….. they are incorrect.
The old saying: everywhere else but NOT in my backyard! Ok, windturbines make noice and they are very visuable but they creates clean energy and a windy island as Tinos would benefit from them! Less electricity cuts to begin with….
Thats nonsense. It isn’t so clean energy. Inform yourself about wind farms and how much energy is necessary to take them “alive”, especially when there is not enough wind. Even though the systems have to “renewed” normally every 10 till 15 years. Imagine you are on an island, with a haslot of salt water in the air… corrosion is coming very fast. There are so many reports and even studies that Wind energy isn’t the “green” energy the politics wanted us to believe. And some “green industries” are the same companies like the “old” fossil companies. Shell invests billions in the sector… The other aspect: It destroys natural beauty and it destroys nature. Do you ever hear of infrasound? Do you know how many birds will get effected by the sound of the wind turbines? Inform yourself!
If you look up the carbon footprint of windturbines and fossil fuel plants (life cycle assessment) you will find that wind turbines have far less (about five to 26 grams of CO2-equivalent per kilowatt-hour) grams of carbon dioxide-equivalent then their counterparts like gas or coal plants (440 to 760 g CO2e/kWh – 930 to 1,050 g CO2e/kWh) There is an other fact that is the difference between fossil fuels and wind turbines. A coal or natural gas plant burns fuel — and releases carbon dioxide — every moment that it runs. By contrast, most of the carbon pollution generated during a wind turbine’s life occurs during manufacturing. Once it’s up and spinning, the turbine generates close to zero pollution.
As for environmental impact, yes the placements must be considered thoughtfully in respect for wildlife but so must it be with coal, gas, nuclear energy.
It is good to inform yourself to get the facts, but not by just reading spectacular headlines or posts on facebook.
I should have been there but can’t fight for earth
,earth will eventually win anyway.
Those things are eyesore and polluting, massive landfills are filled with those wings which can’t be broken down or reused.
Clean energy doesn’t exist anyway, if you need to produce something to collect it it isn’t clean.