page_title: Anti-nuclear movement
section_title: Large protests
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-nuclear movement / Activities / Large protests
caption_attribution_description: English: Demonstration against nuclear tests in Lyon, France. Français&#160;: Manifestation contre les essais nucléaires, Lyon, France.
context_page_description: The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, or international level. Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Peace Action and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The formation of green parties in the 1970s and 1980s was often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics.
  Scientists and diplomats have debated nuclear weapons policy since before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The public became concerned about nuclear weapons testing from about 1954, following extensive nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1963, many countries ratified the Partial Test Ban Treaty which prohibited atmospheric nuclear testing.
context_section_description: In 1971, the town of Wyhl, in Germany, was a proposed site for a nuclear power station. In the years that followed, public opposition steadily mounted, and there were large protests. Television coverage of police dragging away farmers and their wives helped to turn nuclear power into a major issue.  In 1975, an administrative court withdrew the construction licence for the plant. The Wyhl experience encouraged the formation of citizen action groups near other planned nuclear sites.
  In 1972, the nuclear disarmament movement maintained a presence in the Pacific, largely in response to French nuclear testing there. New Zealand activists sailed boats into the test zone, interrupting the testing program. In Australia, thousands of people joined protest marches in Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney. Scientists issued statements demanding an end to the nuclear tests. In Fiji, anti-nuclear activists formed an Against Testing on Mururoa organization.
  In the Basque Country (Spain and France), a strong anti-nuclear movement emerged in 1973, which ultimately led to the abandonment of most of the planned nuclear power projects. On 14 July 1977, in Bilbao, between 150,000 and 200,000 people protested against the Lemoniz Nuclear Power Plant. This has been called the "biggest ever anti-nuclear demonstration".
  In France, there were mass protests in the early 1970s, organized at nearly every planned nuclear site in France. Between 1975 and 1977, some 175,000 people protested against nuclear power in ten demonstrations. In 1977 there was a massive demonstration at the Superphénix breeder reactor in Creys-Malvillein which culminated in violence.
  In West Germany, between February 1975 and April 1979, some 280,000 people were involved in seven demonstrations at nuclear sites. Several site occupations were also attempted. Following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, some 120,000 people attended a demonstration against nuclear power in Bonn.
  In the Philippines, there were many protests in the late 1970s and 1980s against the proposed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, which was built but never operated.
  In 1981, Germany's largest anti-nuclear power demonstration protested against the construction of the Brokdorf Nuclear Power Plant west of Hamburg. Some 100,000 people came face to face with 10,000 police officers.
  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the revival of the nuclear arms race, triggered a new wave of protests about nuclear weapons. Older organizations such as the Federation of Atomic Scientists revived, and newer organizations appeared, including the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign and Physicians for Social Responsibility. In the UK, on 1 April 1983, about 70,000 people linked arms to form a 14-mile-long human chain between three nuclear weapons centres in Berkshire.
  On Palm Sunday 1982, 100,000 Australians participated in anti-nuclear rallies in the nation's largest cities. Growing year by year, the rallies drew 350,000 participants in 1985.
  In May 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster, clashes between anti-nuclear protesters and West German police were common. More than 400 people were injured in mid-May at a nuclear-waste reprocessing plant being built near Wackersdorf. Also in May 1986, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people marched in Rome to protest against the Italian nuclear program, and 50,000 marched in Milan. Hundreds of people walked from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1986 in what is referred to as the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.  The march took nine months to traverse 3,700 miles (6,000 km), advancing approximately fifteen miles per day.
  The anti-nuclear organisation "Nevada Semipalatinsk" was formed in 1989 and was one of the first major anti-nuclear groups in the former Soviet Union.  It attracted thousands of people to its protests and campaigns which eventually led to the closure of the nuclear test site in north-east Kazakhstan, in 1991.
  The World Uranium Hearing was held in Salzburg, Austria in September 1992. Anti-nuclear speakers from all continents, including indigenous speakers a
caption: Demonstration in Lyon, France in the 1980s against nuclear tests
exif: {}