Agence France Presse | September 1, 2003
A French judge on Monday barred high-profile anti-globalization campaigner Jose Bove -- recently released from prison -- from attending the upcoming World Trade Organization summit in Mexico.
The judge in the southern town of Millau followed a recommendation made last week by the public prosecutor, who requested that Bove's application to leave the country for the Cancun summit be rejected.
"The situation of Mr Bove, like any other person placed in a conditional release program by prison officials, remains that of a prisoner. It's from this legal viewpoint that I ruled," judge Xavier Puel told AFP after the decision.
Bove, who has called for widescale protests ahead of the September 10-14 WTO summit, was released from prison a month ago after serving six weeks of a 10-month sentence for two counts of destroying genetically modified (GM) crops.
His sentence was reduced after a partial amnesty by French President Jacques Chirac, and a judge ruled he could serve the rest of his term under a conditional release program.
But the militant sheep farmer needed legal permission to travel abroad.
Bove's attorney, Francois Roux, told AFP that he would seek to appeal the ruling, but conceded that his client would not be in Cancun in time for the start of the summit next week.
"I regret that non-governmental organizations, on the eve of an extremely important summit, will be deprived of the presence of a man like Jose Bove, who is a recognized expert on the WTO," Roux said.
At a three-day rally in southern France last month, the 50-year-old campaigner called for demonstrations to begin on September 6, four days ahead of the WTO talks.
"We must mobilize to make sure that the Cancun summit is a failure, to put the 146 member governments under citizen's arrest so that they can't sign an agreement in Cancun," Bove told thousands of activists on the Larzac plateau.
Ministers from the Geneva-based WTO's 146 member states are to meet in Cancun to review progress in the so-called Doha Development round of trade liberalization talks.Agence France Presse:
