Woman shot in nuclear protest

Press, 5 June 1979, Page 8

Woman shot in nuclear protest

NZPA-Reuter Tudela (Spain) One woman has been killed and several people injured during clashes between security forces and anti-nuclear demonstrators in Tudela, in northern Spain. A police spokesman said a Venezuelan-born woman, Ladis del Estal Terreno, had been killed accidentally when a young paramilitary Civil Guardsman had inadvertently fired his sub-machine-gun while avoiding an attack by demonstrators. Miss del Estal Terreno, who was hit in the head, was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. After her death demonstrators chanting “police assassins” clashed with police for more than three hours. The local town council condemned “provocative and repressive action by the security forces” and also blamed the provincial gover-nor-general, calling for his resignation. It also called for a general strike in protest over the killing. Demonstrators had blocked traffic by sitting across the town’s main street in protest against earlier police action. Security forces had broken up an anti-nuclear meeting with rubber bullets and smoke bombs. The rallv was part of a country-wide protest at the

construction of nuclear power stations in the northern Basque country. Demonstrations in other areas of Spain went off without incident.

In Shoreham, New York, about 500 anti-nuclear demonstrators have been arrested after they scaled fences to occupy the construction site of a Shoreham nuclear-power plant. They were among 15,000 who staged a protest in the rain as part of a nation-wide demonstration against nuclear energy. A spokesman for Long Island Lighting Company, which is building the plant, said several people had been injured when demonstrators toppled a fence on to a television crew and security officers. In Ohio, about 3000 peaceful demonstrators gathered near the construction site of a nuclear power plant east of Cleveland. In Indiana, the police arrested about 100 people when they attempted to occupy the construction site of a nuclear power plant some 140 km south-east of Indianapolis on the banks of the Ohio River. In the northern part of the state, anti-nuclear demonstrators gathered in Michigan City to protest against a nuclear plant being built there.