Post date: Jul 27, 2012 11:55:54 AM
LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (JULY 27, 2012) (REUTERS) - Protesters against Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the Olympics staged a "die in" demonstration outside the Olympic park on Friday (July 27).
Protesters say Dow Chemical should not have been admitted as an Olympic sponsor because the company did not compensate victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas leak in India.
Around 20 people donned shrouds and lay on the ground as they continued their campaign against the US company.
Spokeswoman Meredith Alexander said Dow Chemical should not have been chosen as an Olympic sponsor as they have not properly compensated victims of the Bhopal gas leak tragedy in India.
"The Bhopal Medical Appeal has come to the very gates of the Olympic park to remind everyone of Dow Chemical's toxic legacy. Dow has spent millions as a sponsor of the Olympics but what they are trying to do is hide the truth of themselves as a company. Dow is the company now responsible for the Bhopal tragedy which saw more than 20,000 killed and half a million exposed to poisonous gas. Dow has completely failed to take responsibility to give full and fair compensation to the victims and to clean up the site which has lain covered in poison for almost three decades."
Although Dow had nothing to do with the initial disaster in 1984, it later bought the company ultimately responisble, Union Carbide Corporation. UCC's Indian subsidary, Union Carbide India Limited, ran the Bhopal plant when gas leaked from it, killing thousands of people and injuring up to half a million others.
Pressure group The Bhopal Medical Appeal say Dow should now shoulder the blame, and financial payouts it has offered victims and their families are not big enough.
Although police watched the protest unfold, they did not intervene.
A similar demonstration in Trafalgar Square last week led to seven arrests for suspected criminal damage.