War and Wave of Repression against Austrian Professionals and Activists

New 'Guantanamo Bay' in Vienna / Austria

ALERT: 08. June 2008 (18th day of the hunger-strike!)

Ten innocent animal-rights professionals and activists are held already now since nearly three weeks arbitrarily in the dungeons of Vienna under trumped up charges and without any concrete evidence being provided by the state authorities concerning any wrongdoing.

The health of those on hunger strike is deteriorating rapidly!

The head of the registered animal-rights charity VGT (http://www.vgt.at), Dr. Dr. Martin Balluch, is already so weak that he had to be transferred into the sick-bay of that Austrian detention centre, where he is held without any evidence concerning the official charge. As from coming Monday he might have to be put on a life-saving drip and be force-fed.

Balluch, a world renowned and passionate advocate of public education and legislative change has a double PhD in physics and philosophy and is a former colleague of Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

Like in the other 9 cases, also his lawyers were not even given the possibility to have the legally guaranteed full access to the court and prosecution files.

The Austrian state is far off its own constitution, its laws and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, ECOTERRA Intl. and many other human rights organizations are very concerned and all animal-rights organizations worldwide are outraged about the state of affairs in Austria.

For three of the detainees the remand prison detention has been extended - the other seven still were not even given a hearing.

The kangaroo-court in Vienna ordered now for all 10 detainees to be kept for up to 4 more weeks in remand prison.....


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Mail the Authorities

Online Petition

Source: full text
Author: Wikileaks

Other EVANA-articles about this topic:
Austria/Martin Balluch: My message to the international animal rights movement (en)

Austria: Write letters of support to ten animal welfare workers (en)

Austria: Petizione on-line contro le operazioni arbitrarie di polizia contro gli animalisti (it)

Austria: Dichiarazione di Amnesty International (it)

Austria: Who's being caged? (en)

Attivisti austriaci ancora in prigione (it)

Comunicato ufficiale degli attivisti austriaci (it)

(en)

Raid all'alba contro gli attivisti animalisti in Austria (it)

Wave of Police Repression in Austria (en)