14 DAY TRIAL // Just recently, Russia's Prime Minister decided that is was high time to pay a visit to Belarus, in order to discuss plans for building a new nuclear power station on its territory.
Seeing how, in the aftermath of the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, quite a lot of people are dead set against this rather old-school energy source, mainly as a result of the threats it poses to the environment and public health, it was to be expected that some would try to overturn the PM's decision.
Thus, Greenpeace informs us that a group of journalists and environmentalists attempted to address Dmitry Medvedev, present him with a petition and ask him to give up on the idea of building new nuclear reactors in Belarus.
According to the same source, not only were these green-heads not allowed to voice their complaints in an official context, but two of them were also arrested.
More precisely, Andrey Ozharovsky and Tatjana Novikova were accused of resorting to inappropriate language when trying to get their message across, something that is punishable by law.
As far as Greenpeace is concerned, these arrests can and should be qualified as a violation of one of the most basic human rights: that of free speech.
Things are further complicated by the fact that Russia presumably adhered to the UN Human Rights Charter, and therefore needs to be well aware of the importance of individual freedom.
It seems to us that, as of recently, several national governments and average folks have been involved in quite a battle of wills, meaning that whilst high officials push for nuclear energy as an easy means of meeting electricity demands, more and more people argue against using this power source.
Not long ago, we reported on how the reopening of one of China's nuclear plants sparked major protests around the country.
From where we stand, neither those in favor, nor those against anti-nuclear power are completely right or wrong in their claims, which is why it would perhaps be best to try and find some middle ground to settle this pressing issue.