Jailed campaigner to run for Greens
Greens leader visits animal rights activist in jail.
Dr. Martin Balluch to run in election.
Vienna. Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen has asked imprisoned animal rights campaigner Dr. Martin Balluch to run for the party in the 28 September election.
After 100 days on remand custody with out concrete charge or evid- ence, Van der Bellen visited Dr. Balluch in prison to invite him to run as an independent candidate.
Balluch will be elected at the Green Party congress on 7 September. Van der Bellen said, "I have invited Balluch to run as a candidate for the Green party, he will be given a place high up on the list of candidates.”
He went on to say that "this unbelievably precise thinking intellectual has been held now for over 100 days in prison. The Mafia- law being used against animal protectionists goes far outside what is admissible.”
Van der Bellen described Balluch’s candidateship as "An expression of apprec- iation for the work of non-governmental organ- isations.”
Dr. Balluch is an established intellectual who worked alongside physicist Steven Hawking for eight years at Cambridge Uni- versity.
Dr.Balluch’sorganisation, the VGT (Society against Animal Factories), secured a ban on battery hens in Austria that will come into force next year. He claims his imprisonment is a government reprisal on behalf of Austrian hen farmers. He said, "Sitting here in my jail cell it’s hard not to think of Guantanemo bay. I am not a criminal. The government just don’t like change and that is what our organization represent to them. They want to destroy us."
Printausgabe vom 01.09.2008
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