Action day for persecuted eco-activists in the US

This Sat­ur­day (14th June), there will be an inter­na­tion­al action day for the, by now numer­ous, eco-activists who are cur­rent­ly impris­oned in the US.

The repres­sion against peo­ple car­ry­ing out direct actions in the Unit­ed States con­tin­ues to rise. The most recent con­vic­tion in a series of sen­tences is that of Eric McDavid, who was sen­tenced to more than 19 years in prison ( http://supporteric.org/). He has actu­al­ly nev­er car­ried out any actions, but was alleged­ly part of a group that (accord­ing to a police infor­mant) was plan­ning them. He was sen­tenced on grounds of a wit­ness state­ment of this police infor­mant, who had not only infil­trat­ed but actu­al­ly steered the group, and received at least 75.000 USD for her “work”. Eric is 19 years old. Because he refused to “con­fess” or coop­er­ate in the inves­ti­ga­tion, he received this incred­i­bly high sen­tence.

Eric’s con­vic­tion is only one of many exam­ples. Many more peo­ple are per­se­cut­ed and pros­e­cut­ed and con­se­quent­ly threat­ened with life in prison. The pros­e­cu­tions start­ed when North Amer­i­can author­i­ties start­ed an offen­sive against the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment; the result­ing inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tions were lat­er referred to by activists as “green scare” (see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare). A court case is cur­rent­ly held against Marie Mason, for exam­ple ( http://freemarie.org/). Bri­ana Waters has already been found guilty and is await­ing her sen­tenc­ing in prison ( http://supportbriana.org). Tre Arrow ( http://trearrow.org/) is also fac­ing tri­al after he was extra­dit­ed from Cana­da. Although Tre Arrow “con­fessed”, in the hope for a low­er sen­tence, he has refused to pro­vide the author­i­ties with infor­ma­tion about oth­ers.

Many are already sen­tenced and impris­oned, many oth­ers could face new inves­ti­ga­tions and pro­ce­dures at any point in time. The threat for rad­i­cal activists is enor­mous, espe­cial­ly when con­sid­er­ing that home secu­ri­ty leg­is­la­tion has turned the US into a police state (see www.greenscare.org for back­ground infor­ma­tion).

Direct action

Those pros­e­cut­ed are accused of hav­ing tak­en part in actions car­ried out in the col­lec­tive names of ELF (Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front) or ALF (Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front. No one ever got hurt in any of the actions, which were gen­er­al­ly relat­ed to fight­ing cli­mate change and the intro­duc­tion of genet­ic tech­nol­o­gy.

The 14th of June has been declared inter­na­tion­al day of action by the cam­paign sup­port­ing the first eco-activist to be impris­oned, Jef­frey ‘Free’ Luers. His cam­paign also shows that inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty actu­al­ly works. He was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to a hor­ren­dous 22 year impris­on­ment (his “crime”: set­ting fire to three SUVs owned by a car deal­er). In appeal, the sen­tence was reduced to ten years. Jef­frey, who has been in prison since 2001, is expect­ed to be released at the end of 2009! (see http://freefreenow.org/ for more infor­ma­tion).

One of the biggest prob­lems in resist­ing this extra­or­di­nary lev­el of repres­sion by the state is the Amer­i­can jus­tice sys­tem, which rewards peo­ple who make state­ments incrim­i­nat­ing them­selves and oth­ers. Some of those accused also did this, and part of this “evi­dence” has been proven to be incor­rect, and yet was reward­ed with con­ces­sions in sen­tenc­ing. Some of these snitch­es are there­fore either not sen­tenced, or free after a short­er prison term, even though they were accused of the same “crimes” as those who are spend­ing decades in prison. These peo­ple are of course not sup­port­ed by sol­i­dar­i­ty cam­paigns.

Oth­ers have decid­ed to con­fess and coop­er­ate in the pro­ce­dure against them, yet have refused all oth­er form of judi­cial coop­er­a­tion. And then there’s the brave ones, who have denied all charges and all forms of coop­er­a­tion. These peo­ple are of course faced with the harsh­est forms of repres­sion, and are in most need of sup­port.

What to do?

Those accused, their friends and their fam­i­ly wel­come inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty very much. Pub­lic­i­ty about their plight is also very impor­tant. It should be con­sid­ered, how­ev­er, that those accused, espe­cial­ly when they are in the mid­dle of a tri­al, are some­times not wait­ing to be linked to wild actions which are used by the pros­e­cu­tion to crim­i­nalise them even fur­ther. Finan­cial sup­port is also wel­come, for the indi­vid­ual tri­als as well as for the gen­er­al cam­paigns. A small cam­paign office that man­ages a high work load with lit­tle means is the CLDC ( http://cldc.org/).

Daniel McGowan ( http://suportdaniel.org), one of the many vic­tims who was sen­tenced (to sev­en years), declares in one of his newslet­ters why the work of the CDLC is so impor­tant ( http://supportdaniel.org/blog/?p=33).

Fur­ther­more, it is impor­tant to send let­ters, post­cards and books to the pris­on­ers. The North Amer­i­can prison con­di­tions are, how­ev­er, very strict (and here also, pris­on­ers might not want to be linked to ille­gal polit­i­cal actions). Also, do not for­get to pro­tect your own pri­va­cy ( http://security.resist.ca/).

And 14 & 15 June is time for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions!
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/05/375753.shtml

More infor­ma­tion:

http://greenscare.org/
http://midwestgreenscare.org
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/greenscare/
http://www.ecoprisoners.org/
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/
http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/
http://breakthechains.info/
http://www.earthfirstjournal.org/
http://www.whosarat.com/