Beyond Nuclear has organized a workshop panel at PowerShift 2013, to be held in Pittsburgh next weekend. Entitled "Nuclear power's human rights impacts," the panel will include Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps as moderator, and panelists Leona Morgan and Yuko Tonopira.From uranium mining to milling, processing, enrichment, and fuel fabrication, to atomic reactor operations and radioactive waste dumping, nuclear power massively violates human rights, often of low income and people of color communities, especially indigenous peoples.
This panel will feature spokespersons of communities directly impacted, and what can be done to help them resist. This panel will be framed in the context of a United Nations Special Rapporteur’s report on the human rights impacts of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, and how its findings can be used to protect the lives, health, and rights of vulnerable populations worldwide, such as children, pregnant women, and the elderly.
Leona Morgan serves with the MASE Coalition (Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment), as well as WMAN (Western Mining Action Network)/CARD (Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive Dumping). She will discuss uranium mining impacts on indigenous nations in the southwestern U.S.
Yuko Tonopira serves with Todos Somos Japon. She will discuss the impacts of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe on more than 150,000 evacuees from the region, as well as on the workers at the severely radioactively contaminated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant site.
This environmental justice workshop will take place on Sunday from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM.
Beyond Nuclear will also have an information table on Saturday, from 11 AM to 5 PM, and will take part in Monday's Day of Action.
Beyond Nuclear took part in the 2009 and 2011 PowerShifts held in Washington, D.C. In February 2009, Beyond Nuclear organized a panel of indigenous people from across the world who resist uranium mining.
Beyond Nuclear just updated its pamphlet about uranium mining's impacts on human rights.:
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/human-rights-whats-new/2013/10/10/nuclear-powers-human-rights-violations-at-powershift-2013.html
