by Sylwia Gorska
Few weeks ago, while staying in a beautiful village Papradista, 60 km from Veles, I had a chance to meet Igor Smilev and heard his story about the struggle for closing the lead and zinc smelting factory located within the city of Veles, whose operation has had devastating effects on people’s health. Igor is an environmental activist the leader of Green Power and citizen of Veles. In 2002 he and his friends contributed towards shutdown of the factory, in 2011 they organized one of the biggest protest in Macedonia against restarting of the factory. There have been a lot of studies on environment and people’s health, they all show that we can easily name the consequences of the factory an “environmental genocite”. I recommend watching a movie “Topilnica Good Veles Kaput” on youtube, words of a German engineer, who said them when he realized what his project had done to all the area and people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InXnVghBT2A&feature=relmfu
Unfortunately for some money will be always much more important event then human lives. One of the director of the corporation that intends to restart the factory had filed a lawsuit against Igor for “endangering security”, “unauthorized recording”, “slander” and “insult”, requesting EUR 20,000 damages.
The case will be held on the 9 of May in Veles. Igor has a lot of friends, inhabitants of Veles and international organizations, giving him support. Let’s hope it will be enough to win this absurd case. I don’t see any other possibility. If he wins he plan to give the money to hospitals, especially gynecological departments, since in Veles was the highest level of miscarriages and anomalies of human embryos. On this day a big protest is planning. All the inhabitants of Veles and other cities will give support to Igor and fight for a normal life.
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