Anti-nuclear protests in Germany

Anti-nuclear protesters sleep and rest on the railway tracks during a blockade near Harlingen Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

Anti-nuclear activists react as German riot police try to remove them from the railway track in the small village of Leitstade near Dannenberg Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

Police officers stand guard next to activists from the group Widersetzen blocking the railway tracks the nuclear waste train is going to travel along in Pussarde, Germany Photograph: Miguel Villagran/Getty Images

Police officers detain an anti-nuclear activist next to the village of Leitstade near Dannenberg Photograph: Pawel Kopczynski/Reuters

German riot police wait in line before they remove hundreds of anti-nuclear activists from the railway tracks in Harlingen Photograph: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Police clear a road block made up of a car and bales of straw put up by activists in Metzenburg, Germany Photograph: Kay Nietfeld/EPA

Hundreds of anti-nuclear activists sit on the railway tracks in Harlingen near Dannenberg Photograph: Christian Charisius/Reuters

Police carry away an anti-nuclear demonstrator who blocked the rails near Harlingen Photograph: Jens Schlueter/AP

Anti-nuclear protesters sleep wrapped in blankets as they are held by police in a temporary open air detainment centre as the castor train with nuclear waste is awaited in Harlingen Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images

A castor nuclear waste container is unloaded from a train on to a special flat-bed truck at the embarking station in Dannenberg. The controversial shipment of 11 castor containers with spent German nuclear fuel arrived in Dannenberg from France and will be loaded on to trucks before transportation to the nearby Gorleben intermediate storage facility in northern Germany. Photograph: Ralph Orlowski/Reuters

Anti-nuclear protesters in a temporary detention camp near Harlingen. German police arrested the activists after their railway blockade Photograph: Jens Meyer/AP

Anti-nuclear protesters wake up at their blockade after sleeping on the road leading to the storage facility in Gorleben Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images

Police officers stand in front of containers carrying nuclear waste as they arrive in Dannenberg, northern Germany Photograph: Michael Probst/AP

Anti-nuclear activists protesting against the transport and storage of nuclear waste read newspapers as they wake up at their blockade after sleeping on the road leading to the storage facility in Gorleben Photograph: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images