Coal blockaders in court
Press Release: Save Happy Valley Christchurch
Thursday May 3rd
FOR IMMEDIATE USE

Three Save Happy Valley Christchurch activists appeared this morning (Thursday May 3rd) in the Christchurch District Court and to plead not guilty to "interferes with a rail line" (Simon Riddell and Gregory Curline) and "communicating with a prisoner" (Anna-Claire Hunter, for passing a bottle of water to Riddell and Curline) in relation to a blockade of a coal train on Sunday April 29th.

The three vowed to fight their charges, and the approximately $30,000 in reparations being sought by Toll NZ and the Fire Service from Curline and Riddell.

"It is a dire indictment of the New Zealand justice system that protesters standing up against state-sponsored environmental destruction face such a ridiculous reparations claim,"stated Anna-Claire Hunter. 'The real criminal and irresponsible behaviour is that of Solid Energy's and their continued environmental destruction mining practices."

"Why do victims of burglary and other crimes have to wait days for police action when the police responded in unnecessarily large numbers to a peaceful and orderly demonstration?" asked Gregory Curline, " This only shows that the profits of big businesses such as Solid Energy are considered far more seriously than ordinary people by the Police."

"Solid Energy plans to destroy entire ecosystems, including pristine Great spotted kiwi/Roa habitat. Kiwi are predicted to be extinct on mainland New Zealand by 2050, so surely the Labour Government should be doing everything in their power to protect this iconic species, not allowing their own coal mining company to potentially kill them," said Save Happy Valley Christchurch spokesperson Graham Jury.

"This must be the end of the line for coal mining in this country," said Gregory Curline, "Solid Energy are a rogue state owned enterprise who are responsible annually for mining coal which will create carbon emissions roughly equivalent to the annual emissions from all domestic land transport. Until that situation changes our protests will continue."

The three face their next court appearance at 10am on July 10th.

ENDS

© Scoop Media