Among the five defendants, one of them was released while the other four saw their sentences accompanied by a ban on going to Deux-Sèvres for two years.
Four “anti-basin” activists were sentenced to two to six month suspended prison sentences by the Niort court on Friday for damage or violence committed during a rally against a water reservoir site in September 2021.
At the time, a few hundred opponents of the “mega-basin” projects, these reserves aimed at storing water in winter to redistribute it in summer, had invaded a construction site in Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon (Deux- Sèvres) in order to denounce a “Hold-up of water”. Three gendarmes were injured during this demonstration.
Five defendants appeared before the Niort court. One of them was released while the other four saw their sentences accompanied by a ban on traveling for two years either to Deux-Sèvres or to the towns of Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon and Sainte-Soline, scene of another large-scale gathering in the department at the end of October 2022.
Associations denounce “unworthy justice”
Thursday, in another case relating to water reservoirs intended for agriculture judged before the court of La Rochelle, five months of suspended prison sentence were required against two men for degradations committed in Cram-Chaban, in Charente Maritime , in November 2021.
They are accused of having sheared and cut with cutters or scissors the tarpaulin used to retain water from a reserve. Judgment was reserved for March 2.
This “basin” is part of a set of five set up in 2010 for a group of thirteen farmers in the north of the department. After several years of legal proceedings, their exploitation is now prohibited.
At the end of these two trials, associations which had mobilized to support the defendants denounced Friday evening the judgment rendered in Niort and “unworthy justice”, calling for a new mobilization on March 25 in the department.
