Standing room only for indigenous speakers in Washington, DC

It was standing room only when Beyond Nuclear brought a team of speakers to Washington in February, 2009 to address the human rights abuses caused by uranium mining - and in particular the disproportionate targeting of indigenous peoples. The speakers included the actor, James Cromwell, Dr. Bruno Chareyron, (French nuclear engineer); Sidi-Amar Taoua (pictured left, a Touareg from Niger), Mitch (Aboriginal, Australia), Manny Pino (Acoma Pueblo), Jenny Pond (filmmaker, Poison Wind) and Nat Wasley (Beyond Nuclear Initiative, Australia). (Read transcripts).They drew standing room only crowds at their opening panel session at the 12,000-strong PowerShift 2009 youth conference with audiences turned away as fire code rules for the room were exceeded! Beyond Nuclear staff members were panelists and two additional packed-to-capacity PowerShift panels on nuclear energy and Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter conducted a solo workshop there that also had to turn people away due to overflow capacity. The speakers also held a press conference at the National Press Club and a Hill briefing and met with a dozen legislative offices on Capitol Hill. Pond's film, Poison Wind - describing the impact of uranium mining on Native American communities in the American Southwest, was screened at the 14th St. NW location of Busboys and Poets along with two short documentaries from Al Jazeera detailing the plight of the Touareg in Niger.