(April 6, 1990) The "fischen-affair" (affair of files) became the subject of emotional debates in Switzerland after a parliamentary commission announced, at the end of last year, that the Swiss security police has been involved in surveillance and collecting data - on a large scale - on Swiss citizens. Anti-nuclear activists have been among those included in this surveillance.
(330.3303) WISE Amsterdam - Two members of Parliament, PM Eulen and PM Weder, were among those who found themselves of interest to security police. On asking for access to his file (which is, for ordinary citizens, extremely difficult), PM Eulen found that he had been registered in police files for the first time back in the 1950s as being affiliated with the movement against atomic weapons, and for the last time in 1986 as being affiliated with the antinuclear movement. Likewise PM Weder found himself registered as being affiliated with the antinuclear movement. He was quoted as having approved of illegal actions, although he in fact had declared exactly the opposite. The commission's announcement also mentioned that the federal police had registered the names of participants of a seminar on "Les Alpes comme filiales des centrales nucleaires", held in Salecina (Switzerland) in 1986.
An example of just how the data collected on anti-nuclear activists is being used is illustrated in the case of a police report on a solicitor which was received by the "Verkehrsverein Oberhaufen". The solicitor was being considered by the "Verkehrsverein Oberhaufen" for the post of baths superintendent. The report this body received remarked that it was doubtful that the solicitor would be ideal for the post as he "seems to be an opponent of nuclear power plants..." It seems that, during a festival, the solicitor had exploded a model of a coolant tower which he had himself made.
Source: Anti-Atom, no. 9, March 1990
Contact: Conference Swisse pour l'Arret des Centrales Nucleaires, case postale 6307, 3001 Berne, Switzerland, tel: 013/25 16 11.