Iceland Review
07/26/2007
The aluminum company Alcan in Iceland has decided to sue activists who, on behalf of the campaign group Saving Iceland, broke into Alcan’s premises in Straumsvík, near Hafnarfjördur, on Tuesday and chained themselves to machines.
“To get the kids out, the company’s equipment had to be damaged,” Alcan’s finance director, Sigurdur Thór Ásgeirsson, told Morgunbladid. “They had chained themselves to a gate, rails and machines, and because the chains were around their necks we didn’t dare saw them off.”
Ásgeirsson added the smelter’s operations had been delayed because of the protests.
Alcan’s lawyers were asked to review the case yesterday and in the following days it will be decided how many protesters will be sued and on which charges. Thirteen individuals, most of them foreign citizens, were arrested on Tuesday, and about 20 protesters in total participated in Saving Iceland’s actions on Alcan’s premises.
The 13 protestors who were arrested have now been released. According to police, the case is still under investigation and the individuals may be facing deportation.
According to law, foreign citizens can be deported if they have been convicted for a crime or served a sentence in another country, if the crime they were convicted of would result in imprisonment in Iceland for more than three months.