TETRA: Say no to an unsafe technologyfind out more information about TETRA

TETRA, Human Rights and Life Choices. A government and an industry against you.

 

The right to choose

We do not have the right to choose everything in life, of course not. One person’s right to do anything, however, affects the next person’s right not to be influenced by it.

This is why smoking is banned in many places now. Similarly, my right to eat crunchy nut cornflakes is tempered by the note on other cereal packets from the same production line, that they may contain nut traces. Society has developed ways to protect the vulnerable whilst not unduly restricting the activities of the rest.

 Read what some vulnerable people experience

A Government mantra

This Government firmly believes we want choice. Choice of which schools to send our children to, which hospital to select for treatment, and which nursing home for the best elder care.

However, we do not have any choice in whether our preferred shool has a TETRA or other mobile mast erected next to it. We have no say whether our preferred hospital has a TETRA or other mobile mast on its roof. We have no say about whether our preferred nursing home has a TETRA or other mobile mast in its grounds.

Above all, we have no choice if any operator decides to erect a mast on or near our home. Whether you rent or own, are in sheltered accommodation or a rural des. res., if a mast goes up, this government says to you: tough!

By mid-2003, the Mobile Technology Health Research (MTHR) Group estimated that 43 per cent of people in the UK were living within 500 metres of a mobile phone mast. In some cities, there is a mobile phone transmitter every 50 metres.

 Read about planning

The disincentive to finding out

Why has no-one yet gone to the European Court of Human Rights? Why have so few people been recompensed for loss of value to property, or property that has become unsaleable? Why has no-one been compensated for being made ill, or being made electro-sensitive as a result of a TETRA or other mobile mast? The simple reason is that there is no legislation. There are only exposure guidelines, which this site and many others argue vociferously to be irrelevant. Therefore, in any court, the burden of proof is on the offended party.

The moment the correlation and causation is recognised, the whole scenario changes. People wake up to the fact that masts really can affect people’s lives, and health and well-being. Property values are affected, litigation begins, human rights are asserted and the whole industry is thrown into disarray. Is it any wonder no-one seems to want to find out more about the reports of adverse affects of any kind from TETRA? Or from 3G? or even, over time, from ordinary mobile phone masts?

This is the context of your choice about TETRA masts near you, and about using TETRA handsets: plenty of scientific concern, no research before its use.

In the 2001 National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) document entitled ‘Possible Health Effects from Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA)’, paragraph 11 on ‘Biological Effects’ says: ‘There do not appear to be any studies on people that provide direct information on health effects of exposures to RF fields at about 16Hz modulation.’

It also states: ‘Although, when viewed as a whole, the epidemiological research that has been carried out does not give cause for concern, it has too many limitations to provide assurance that there is no hazard.’

In paragraph 122, under the heading ‘Epidemiology’, it goes on to state: ‘No epidemiological study as yet has explored the risks associated with systems such as TETRA which use RF radiation modulated frequencies around 16Hz.’

 Read about research: where do TETRA or base stations feature?

Your choice?

Many people have been told how important Airwave is, how it will save lives and make the country a safer place. No: this says nothing about Airwave. A new communications system of any variety will do the same. So would more policemen, using existing systems with added encryption. It contravenes human rights to say: you shall have this TETRA mast, you must have it, wherever the operator wants it, despite the fact that no-one can offer firm reassurance that it will not, and cannot, affect you adversely.

 There are too many questions to be answered

And what about the choice of police employees in the equipment they wear and use all day? There is no health and safety advice apart from the exposure guidelines that are contested, so they are legally unprotected.

 Read about the precautionary story so far

Professor Colin Blakemore, a member of the Stewart Inquiry and head of the Medical Research Council, has concluded that ‘there is no real reason to worry about TETRA. It is certainly no greater risk than a mobile phone.’ Some reassurance! More to the point, I can decide whether or not, in what way (hands-free, shielded etc.), or how much to use a mobile phone. What do I do when a base station is attached to my home? Move at my own expense? And find wherever I move the same can happen gain?

And the right to protest

You can see for yourself how hard we have tried to communicate, offer our communities for investigation, asked straight questions for straight answers – and not got them. You can see how we have dug into the research in our spare time, made formal objections and spent our days in planning inquiries. You can see how much we have really tried to find out, engage our protective agencies, MPs and government ministers.

We feel as if our right to protest is treated as irrelevant and simply as a nuisance. For how much longer will protest even be allowed? We aren’t pulling masts down, but we are angry because our human rights are being violated and our choices removed. For how much longer will even this kind of protest be allowed? Read this article (August 2004) in the Guardian:

 A threat to democracy

 Lost democracy, violated rights, and a real personal dilemma

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TETRA and you TETRA and the police TETRA and health Follow our summaries for a quick introduction to TETRA and Airwave
 

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