British Nuclear Fuels Ltd is attempting to stifle public debate by seeking injunctions today in the United Kingdom and France to prevent Greenpeace protesting against a secret shipment of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium fuel from Europe to Japan, the environment group reported today.Two British freighters, the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, are due to leave the port of Barrow in northern England imminently to undertake the transport to Japan. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) is seeking an injunction in the High Court in London today to prevent Greenpeace interfering with the shipment. This will be the 10th injunction BNFL has sought against Greenpeace in the past decade. BNFL has also taken legal action in France, and a hearing of a wide- ranging injunction being sought by the company, with a penalty of 1 million francs, will be held in the French port of Cherbourg at 2 pm this afternoon. A French court earlier this week granted an injunction to the French reprocessing company COGEMA, providing a 100,000 francs ($US15,000) penalty for any Greenpeace activist found within 100 metres of the convoy carrying the plutonium fuel.
