earthfirst – Page 119

Climate activists’ convictions quashed

The convictions of 20 climate activists were quashed by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday. The 20 had been convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, in December last year. However, revelations about the withholding of evidence gathered by undercover police officer Mark Kennedy led to the Director of Public Prosecutions requesting an independent review into the safety of the prosecutions. Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, said the convictions had been a miscarriage of justice.

On the IMC newswire: Climate activists’ convictions quashed | HM Court of Appeal: Lord Chief Justice Appeal Judgement on Ratcliffe20 | NottinghamshirePolice extremely disappointed shame | Ratcliffe power station protesters cleared on appe | Ratcliffe Crown Court Trial ‘Collected Report’ PDF

Previous features: Guilty verdict in Ratcliffe trial | Ratcliffe Trial: Week 2 | Ratcliffe Trial: Prosecution Opens | Ratcliffe Conspiracy Trial Begins | Mass Arrest of 114 Climate Activists in Raid

Activists’ statement

We are 20 of the 114 people who were preemptively arrested near E.ON’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power station over two years ago. During our trial last year we argued that our plan to safely shut down the power station was necessary in order to protect the ever escalating numbers of people dying as a result of climate change. We later found out our trial was rigged by the police and CPS to get convictions.

Through placing undercover officers in our movement, using mass preemptive arrest and rigging our trial, the state has deliberately attempted to silence dissenting voices. This quelling of dissent, now repeated in the young people facing prison for protesting against the attacks on public services, is fundamentally undemocratic. It is yet another example of those in power protecting their own interests. Whether it’s E.ON Energy or News International, the government and police have a track record of colluding with big business. We need to look at the root causes of climate change, and ask why the profits of corporations such as E.ON are being prioritised over future generations, and the millions already on the front line of our changing climate. Taking action on climate change is not an act of moral righteousness, its about protecting our future. History is full of examples of ordinary people acting to defend their rights and those of others, and we need a strong movement of people doing just that. Winning this appeal is just one small victory in the fight against the systemically political nature of policing. We stand in solidarity with all those have suffered injustice from the state or face repression for daring to take political action.

Links:

Ratcliffe on Trial

The full judgment

DPP announcement of independent inquiry

Nottinghamshire Police statement

GM wheat gets the chop, Australia

Update: offices raided week after decontamination / French scientist discovers signs of toxic effects relate

Update: offices raided week after decontamination / French scientist discovers signs of toxic effects related to eating GM foods / action video

14 July 2011

Greenpeace activists, including one mother who wants to protect her family, have stopped a GM wheat experiment outside Canberra this morning.

Two women used whipper snippers to remove a controversial genetically modified (GM) wheat crop before day break.

The activists constructed a decontamination area to safely dispose of the untested and potentially unstable GM organisms.

Safety in question

The activity follows the revelation that Australia’s peak scientific body, CSIRO, is conducting the world’s first human feeding trials of GM wheat, without adequate safety testing.

“This GM wheat should never have left the lab,” said activist and mother, Heather McCabe. “I'm sick of being treated like a dumb Mum who doesn’t understand the science. As far as I’m concerned, my family's health is just too important. GM wheat is not safe, and if the government can't protect the safety of my family, then I will.”

CSIRO’s wheat experiment came under recent scrutiny when eight international scientists and doctors questioned the ethics and scientific rigour behind it. In an open letter the scientists questioned the safety of human feeding trials planned for later this year in which Australians would be fed GM wheat from the Canberra based trials.

Conflict of interest

On 30 June, CSIRO rejected a Freedom of Information request by Greenpeace which requested further information to ensure the safety of the human feeding trials, along with transparent information about the commercial partnerships CSIRO has with foreign biotech companies to commercialise GM wheat.

In a July report – Australia’s Wheat Scandal Greenpeace detailed a major conflict of interest at CSIRO. Two directors of the biotech giant Nufarm – the distributor of Monsanto’s products in Australia – also sat on the CSIRO board at the time of the wheat experiment’s approval. View the infographic detailing the connections

GM wheat has already been rejected in Canada, North America, Russia and the EU. The CSIRO is being used as a front for foreign biotech companies; this has compromised its research and put Australia’s multi-billion dollar wheat industry at risk.

Inevitable contamination

All of the evidence shows that GM can’t be contained in the field. Greenpeace has taken action to protect our food supply being contaminated by experimental GM wheat. Now the Australian Government must step in and protect the health of Australian people.

“We had no choice but to take action to bring an end to this experiment,” said Greenpeace Food campaigner Laura Kelly. “GM has never been proven safe to eat and once released in open experiments, it will contaminate. This is about the protection of our health, the protection of our environment and the protection of our daily bread.”

Trials of potentially unstable GM wheat strains are currently planted in five states and territories across Australia

TAKE ACTION: Tell the government to end its controversial GM wheat trials

READ THE REPORT: The biotech takeover of our daily bread

MORE INFORMATION: Follow the story so far

No TAV: renewed violent clashes in the Susa Valley

On 22nd July people tried taking the fences to the work-site down, and the police used water cannons. Tensions have been mounting in previous days. Much tear gas has been used, stones thrown, with water cannons also used to put out the fires set under the fences.

Videos

Come up to Rossport! Shell Starts Work on onshore pipeline

22nd July 2011

Shell have brought a digger and a port-a-cabin into the existing temporary compound in Aughoose. This is in preparation to start building a permanent compound in Aughoose from which they hope to start digging the tunnel for the pipeline which will connect Ballinaboy refinery to the 70 kms of offshore pipeline. They will come in full force on Monday 25th July, please come up to Mayo and show your support! A mass day of action is planned for Friday 29th July, but come up any time.

There were over 70 IRMS (Shell’s private security company) present to secure the two tractors with trailers bringing in the equipment. The private security blocked off about 300 metres of the public road to allow the tractors to enter the compound. Seven people from the Rossport Solidarity Camp ran down to try and intervene but a long line of IRMS had the road blocked off, and several people were assaulted by IRMS on the public road. Two people had to receive medical attention. One person has made a statement to the gardaí regarding the assaults, but the gardaí were quite reluctant to receive the statement.

The digger and the port-a-cabin entered the compound, however within 15 minutes over 20 protesters from the camp and local residents had gathered outside the compound, and no further work was carried out for the rest of the day.

Many of the IRMS security members seem to be new, and earlier this week members from the Rossport Solidarity camp observed a group of 12 IRMS members who seemed to be on their first shift. People went up to talk to the security guards, explaining to them why people are against the Shell project and talking to them about why they are there protesting. Many of the new security guards were visibly uncomfortable, and seemed quite affected by what they were hearing.

This over-show of force today may have been some sort of training session for the new IRMS security before the real work starts on Monday. When dealing with some of the protesters who had been speaking with the security guards, it was obviously much more difficult for them to use the force they’d been ordered to use on people. One protester from the Rossport Solidarity Camp explained that “it felt so much more empowering to talk to them on a human level and tell them why I was there, than to get beaten up by them. When the lads I’d been speaking with were ordered to remove me, they were barely able to touch me. It was a completely different experience than I’ve had with IRMS in the past.”

This activity on Friday follows a week of continuous actions at the Bord na Móna site in Shramore outside Bangor Erris. Shell intends use this site to store the 125,000 tonnes of peat meant to be removed from the bog at the Aughoose site. The 500,000 tonnes of peat removed from the Ballinaboy refinery site in 2006/7 was stored at Shramore. In the past few weeks private contractors have been extending the road network at Shramore to accommodate the Shell project. This week protesters from the Rossport Solidarity Camp have turned their attention to the Bord na Móna site and have been occupying trucks and diggers, blocking the front gates with concrete lock-ons, and putting barricades in the roads on-site. Here is a brief run-down of the week:

Tuesday: Four people put their arms into concrete lock-ons in front of the gate at the Shramore site, blocking work for three and a half hours. No arrests were made.

Wednesday: About 20 people entered the Shramore site, climbing on top of trucks and diggers to stop them working, blocking the front gates, and generally shutting down all works on site. The gardaí arrived on scene but eventually left without making any arrests.

Thursday: Work started at about 3pm at the Shramore site, and work was stopped about 30 minutes later. Protesters chained the gate shut to prevent trucks from delivering the gravel needed to extend the road network on the site. The vehicles within the site which were active were all successfully occupied, including three trucks, two diggers and one crane. The occupation continued for the rest of the working day, no arrests were made.

Friday: Work started just after 7:30am but was promptly halted by protesters blocking the front gate and subsequently occupying the few machines which had started work. Just before midday word arrived that work at the Aughoose site had begun, so most people left. Those who stayed saw that work did not start up again till about 2pm and by 3:30pm another group of protesters had returned to halt works again for the rest of the day.

In conclusion, very little work was accomplished at Bord na Móna’s peat depository site in Shramore this week. Shell began work in Aughoose on Friday, and the local community is gearing up for a fine resistance next week when Shell comes in full force. Get up here and show your support! A day of mass action is planned for Friday the 29th of July, but come up sooner if you’re able.

To get in touch with the camp: 00353 85 114 1170 or rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

Calais: “Welcome to Fortress Europe” action

Sat 23rd July 2011

This afternoon over a dozen No Borders activists blocked both vehicle entrances into the City Europe compound, stopping shoppers and screening those trying to enter with rules almost as arbitrary as those used at real borders… checking the colour of their cars, stopping people wearing hats or glasses or with too many people in the car, seeing as Fortress Europe was getting full.

While people shouted ‘contrôl frontière ici’ vehicles refused entry were directed to Coquelles detention centre on the street opposite. After only several minutes some people trying to enter became very irate at the inconvenience this mock border control was causing to their afternoon shopping. However many people were receptive to the demonstration and its purpose and lots of leaflets explaining the situation in Calais were distributed, with people taking on board the point of the action.

Security and police arrived soon after and removed the barrier at one gate. Activists in high-visibility jackets continued to control and direct traffic for half an hour before being forced into the car park.

This fake ‘control zone’ demonstration mimics the farce of ID and border controls that segregate and persecute people because of their race, nationality and income.

Refugees here are being subjected to policies aimed at driving them underground and making them invisible. This normalization of state violence has been put in place by British and French governments. These people have often been displaced by the policies of these governments and are living not just the pain of the loss of the lives they left behind and the fear and uncertainty for their futures.

Unlike a demonstration preventing people from entering a shopping complex, the European policy of border closure is denying people the chance to escape danger and misery. During the last months an estimated two thousand refugees fleeing the war in Libya have drowned in the Mediterranean and rather than sending rescue boats, Frontex the European border force, has sent boats to push refugees packed into boats back to the Libyan coast.

In Calais over the last few weeks there has been a step up in the offensive against migrants starting with the eviction of Africa House – the shelter and home of around 100 people with and without papers – with mass evictions and the destruction of peoples homes and personal belongings.

After forcefully making people homeless, every place people move to, to eat, rest or sleep, has been subject to mass raids and constant harassment, leaving people with literally nowhere left to go.

No Borders denounce the compliance of the police and the municipal services with such barbaric orders and denounce the complicity of those who witness this and yet remain unquestioningly silent. We are all human. We must challenge the hypocrisy and segregation that border controls create.

No borders, no nations, stop deportations.

Another attack on mining interests in the Philippines

MANILA : Suspected communist rebels in the Philippines attacked a mining company compound, while in another incident the rebels clashed with soldiers, the military said on Thursday.

GMA News reported that Major John Andrada, spokesman for the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, said about 40 New People’s Army (NPA) rebels on Wednesday attacked the compound of Drill Corp., a sub-contractor of Philex Mining Corp., in Nabulao village in Sipalay City in the central island of Negros. He said the rebels disarmed a security guard and burned the workers’ quarters as well as the personnel carrier truck.
According to Andrada, the rebels fled using a company’s vehicle, which was later found burned.
The Visayan Daily Star reported that the attack was an attempt to force the mining company to pay revolutionary taxes. Priest-turned-rebel Frank Fernandez said in an earlier statement that the revolutionary movement has been ordered to launch military and political struggles, aimed at stopping the ongoing mining explorations and operations of several mining companies that have pending mining rights applications in Negros.
He claimed that massive mining operations in the mountains of Negros Occidental and Oriental have already covered 40 percent of the total land area of the island, or 80 percent of the total agricultural land, adding that there is a possibility that Negros may soon be transformed into a desert…..

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/philippines-communist-rebels-attack-mining-firm/

Activists Occupy Montana Capitol Building vs Tar Sands

Breaking News: Activists Occupy Montana Capitol Building Demanding Governor Schweitzer Publicly Oppose Keystone XL Pipeline and Tar Sands Megaload Shipments

Activists from across the nation and around the world join Montana and Idaho residents in demanding that Schweitzer finally stand up to “Big Oil.”

Breaking News: Activists Occupy Montana Capitol Building Demanding Governor Schweitzer Publicly Oppose Keystone XL Pipeline and Tar Sands Megaload Shipments

Activists from across the nation and around the world join Montana and Idaho residents in demanding that Schweitzer finally stand up to “Big Oil.”

On the morning of July 12th, six activists from Earth First! and Northern Rockies Rising Tide have risked arrest by occupying Governor Schweitzer’s office in an act of non-violent civil disobedience. The activists have locked their arms in a mock oil pipeline made out of PVC plastic pipe. In the wake of the Silvertip spill, Governor Schweitzer has publicly chastised Exxon Mobil, while simultaneously continuing to promote the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, megaload shipments bound for the Alberta Tar Sands and other extreme fossil fuel projects throughout the state.

“If the Governor has his way, Montana will be transformed into what is essentially an energy extraction colony for Big Oil. The Silvertip spill is simply a short preview of what this would mean for the lives and livelihood of all Montanans,” says Great Falls native Peter Dolan, one of the eight occupying the office.

Activists inside the Capitol are also demanding that Schweitzer stand up to TransCanada and other international criminal organizations by publicly opposing Alberta Tar Sands exportation. This project is widely known as the most destructive energy process on the planet by leading environmental organizations. According to a recent report by University of Nebraska-Lincoln engineering professor John Stansbury, neither TransCanada nor the regulators evaluating the proposed Keystone XL pipeline have properly considered the risks. Stansbury said TransCanada underestimated both the frequency of spills on the pipeline and the severity of the worst-case scenario spills.

“As the recent ExxonMobil pipeline disaster has made clear, Governor Schweitzer is attempting to turn Montana into an extraction state, while at the same time publicly proclaiming his supposed support for clean energy, protecting the environment and building healthy communities. It’s one or the other. You can’t be clean and dirty at the same time,” according to Bozeman’s Erica Dossa, who also took part in the action.

Earth First! was named in 1979 in response to a lethargic, compromising and increasingly corporate environmental community. Earth First! takes a decidedly different approach towards environmental issues by using all the tools in the toolbox, ranging from grassroots organizing and involvement in the legal process to civil disobedience. Northern Rockies Rising Tide is the Missoula based chapter off the international, decentralized, grassroots movement Rising Tide. They are an all-volunteer network of groups and individuals who promote local, community-based solutions to the climate crisis and take direct actions to confront the root causes of climate change.

Northern Rockies Rising Tide –

Fighting for things in the Northern Rockies

www.NorthernRockiesRisingTide.org

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_vd4QC_rB4

HELENA, Montana—Check out this new short film from the Earth First! occupation of the Montana capitol against the Tar Sands and other industrial energy infrastructure in the Northern Rockies, following the 2011 Round River Rendezvous.

Five people locked down, 20 danced on the governor’s table, 70 people occupied the office, business as usual was disrupted! If you can, please consider donating a bit of money to the arrestee’s legal fund HERE

Squattastic meeting, Sun 17th July, organise vs. new anti squat law

On Wednesday, the government launched its consultation paper on criminalising trespass and squatting.

Its time to organise the rebel alliance. Come to the next www.squattastic.blogspot.com meeting this Sunday 17th July, 2-6pm at 11 the ‘well furnished squat’ 11 terrace rd hackney e9.

On Wednesday, the government launched its consultation paper on criminalising trespass and squatting.

Its time to organise the rebel alliance. Come to the next www.squattastic.blogspot.com meeting this Sunday 17th July, 2-6pm at 11 the ‘well furnished squat’ 11 terrace rd hackney e9.

This proposed new law may affect our rights to protest and occcupy spaces,as well as posssibly affecting students,workers occupations,tenants,charities,housing groups and squatter homeless.

www.squattastic.blogspot.com (for squatters /underground networking)

www.squashcampaign.org (for public,media and overground outreach)

Network it, defend the last of our rights while we still have them.

Huntington Lane court papers served – Eviction Imminent

July 12, 2011
The camp site has been served a court notice earlier today with summons for a hearing on the 15th of July – this Friday.

Court time is @ 10.am, The Telford County Court, Telford Square, Malinsgate, Telford,TF3 4JB

July 12, 2011
The camp site has been served a court notice earlier today with summons for a hearing on the 15th of July – this Friday.

Court time is @ 10.am, The Telford County Court, Telford Square, Malinsgate, Telford,TF3 4JB

We are sending an URGENT CALL OUT for as many people as possible to come down and support us in whatever way they can!

http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com

Camp Frack – Weekend of 17th-18th September 2011

Join the resistance to the “fracking” invasion! Stop the massive expansion of shale gas extraction in the UK! We need renewables and powerdown – not another source of fossil fuel!

Camp Frack will take place adjacent to the UK’s first fracking operations at Singleton, near Blackpool (nearest train station Poulton Le Fylde). It will be organised with the support of a local farmer who is providing the land. It will involve locals, grassroots groups, individuals and NGO’s in workshops and discussions on shale gas and on forming effective UK wide resistance against it. It will involve raising local awareness about the problems with shale gas and an action day of protest against the drilling activities currently in progress in the Blackpool area.

More details will be circulated in August regarding venue etc. To be kept up to date or for any questions email campfrack@gmail.com

on why to oppose fracking and potential drilling sites in the UK, see http://nofrackinguk.com/

http://www.campaigncc.org/fracking