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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (57835)	11/19/2002 11:31:32 AM
From: Condor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

France Sentences Militant Farmer By VERENA VON DERSCHAU 11/19/2002 10:18:36 EST PARIS (AP) - France's highest court on Tuesday ordered an anti-globalization activist to serve 14 months in prison for destroying two fields of genetically modified crops. Jose Bove, a militant sheep farmer, was in his southern France hometown of Millau when the verdict was announced and not immediately jailed. The Court of Cassation confirmed a decision by a Montpellier appeals court sending Bove to prison for six months for destroying a genetically modified rice field in 1999, and revoking an eight-month suspended sentence in a 1998 case. Bove's attorney, Francois Roux, said he would appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights. However, the appeal will not keep Bove out of jail. The French court also rejected the appeal of two other activists, Rene Riesel, given the same sentence as Bove, and Dominique Soullie, given a six-month suspended sentence. Soullie was the only one of the three present for the verdict. Bove's crusades against globalization have taken him around the world. He first gained attention for leading a group of protesters in dismantling a McDonald's restaurant under construction in Millau, near his sheep farm, in August 1999. He went to jail on June 19 to complete a 61-day prison term for that act, but benefited from a presidential pardon - a Bastille Day tradition - and was given an early release on Aug. 1. Bove opposes what he calls "foul food" - including genetically modified crops and McDonald's-style fast food that has become mainstream in France and the rest of Europe. Last spring, he met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah in defiance of Israeli soldiers who had surrounded Arafat's compound. Israel then ordered Bove deported.