We accept responsibility for the consequences of our action, and have in the past had volunteers imprisoned for long stretches of time. In the case of Fernando Pereira, a Greenpeace photographer on board the Rainbow Warrior, who was murdered by the democratically elected French government, a life has been laid on the line in a peaceful protest against French nuclear testing. With GM financiers entrenched deep within the corridors of power, only the actions of campaigners like Greenpeace offer the British people any hope that the public interest can be upheld. It may be that in a few years' time the UK public will be able to vote for a government committed to banning GM field trials, should that option be on the ballot slip. In the meantime, irreversible genetic pollution is seeping into our countryside and contaminating our food.
Active citizenship keeps democracy healthy and responsive.
Democratic governments should listen to it, not fear it. The Government should also stop hiding behind the mask of science. There are many scientific arguments which show that unleashing unknown agents into the environment is risky. Greenpeace is not, and never has been, against science. We have no objections to GM research, especially in the medical field, providing it is in the laboratory, in a contained environment.