Author: earthfirst

Eight arrested as Shell begin winching operation in Rossport

Late Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea.

Shell winch boatLate Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea. The resis­tance last­ed for 2 hours and was cheered on by a huge local crowd who had gath­ered in sup­port along the cliffs and beach.

Yes­ter­day evening at Glen­gad, eight Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed for oppos­ing the lat­est work being car­ried out by Shell. At approx­i­mate­ly 7pm a barge began work pulling a winch­ing cable into the land­fall area at Glen­gad. This is one of the most cru­cial stages in the off­shore pipeline that can be dis­rupt­ed.

Three squadrons of Shell to Sea ves­sels took to the water to stop the work. They were opposed by fif­teen Shell, Navy and Gar­daí boats. Despite this the winch­ing work was delayed for one and a half hours while Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel worked with Shell secu­ri­ty in arrest­ing sev­en peo­ple from the water. Sub­se­quent­ly an eighth Shell to Sea pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed out­side the gates of the com­pound under the Pub­lic Order Act. All have been released with­out charge.

Dur­ing this action all of the S2S Fleet were rammed by Gar­da or Shell boats, with the excep­tion of the S2S safe­ty boat which was threat­ened with ram­ming by the Gar­daí boats before she with­drew. All of Shel­l’s ‘safe­ty’ boats had Gar­da per­son­nel on board and the Gar­dai, Navy and Shell worked togth­er through­out.

One of those arrest­ed Mary Camp­bell stat­ed “Despite being opposed by 9 Gar­da and Navy boats, we were still able to stop work for one and a half hours. Our com­mu­ni­ty is tak­ing on the might of both Shell and the State but the bat­tle is far from over. We will con­tin­ue to resist this project. There is no con­sent.”

The Shell to Sea ves­sels seized by the Gar­daí and Navy dur­ing the protest were The Niamh Cinn Óir, The Maedbh, The Michael Davitt, The Luke Kel­ly, The Ron­nie Drew, The Robin Hood and The Hypa­tia.

At present, the winch­ing oper­a­tion is only part com­plet­ed. It can’t be pre­dict­ed exact­ly when they will attempt to com­plete the work due to stormy weath­er con­di­tions. Gales are fore­cast for the next few days. How­ev­er, the work WILL hap­pen as soon as the weath­er is fine. There is still time to get to Mayo! Check out www.coribsos.com for more info and www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/ for trav­el and acco­mo­da­tion info

GRASS: The Battle For Wembley Park Sports Ground Video

On Mon­day 4 August 2008 the Grass Roots Alliance for Social Sports (GRASS) was forcibly evict­ed from the Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground in rough scenes and under sketchy legal grounds.

GRASS evictionOn Mon­day 4 August 2008 the Grass Roots Alliance for Social Sports (GRASS) was forcibly evict­ed from the Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground in rough scenes and under sketchy legal grounds.

Using an exist­ing evic­tion order from the Tent City Occu­pa­tion and an evic­tion order on the Sports Ground busi­ness­es, Brent Coun­cil forcibly evict­ed the GRASS pro­tes­tors. Then the coun­cil turned on the four squat­ters in the house on the site, evict­ing them with­out any pri­or notice — some­thing maybe the Brent Squat­ters Asso­ci­a­tion should look into.

A video of the evic­tion from that morn­ing can be found here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mWEt6DUZM

An indepth report is here.

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/09/smash-school-privatisation-battle-for.html

The day panned out caus­ing end­less dis­rup­tion for Brent Coun­cil, as they grew increas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed at the pro­tes­tors con­tin­u­ous actions to halt the start of work on the tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion for the Ark Wem­b­ley Park Acad­e­my, which is due to open at the start of term in Sep­tem­ber.

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk

Irish Navy flees from Shell to Sea inflatable boats

3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Approaching navy boat3.09.2008
Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in inflat­able Kayaks braved strong winds and rough seas whilst approach­ing the Irish Navy Gun­boat sta­tioned off the coast, to estab­lish com­mu­ni­ca­tion with it’s Cap­tain.

Today at 1.30pm, eight Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in sev­en inflat­able kayaks braved force 5–6 norther­ly winds and 6 foot waves, to attempt com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Irish Gun Ship, the Le Orla.

Con­cerned by the arrival of a sec­ond Navy ves­sel into Broad­haven Bay, the Shell to Sea crew of the Gran­u­aile (part of the Emer­ald Squadron), attempt­ed to speak to the Cap­tain of the Le Orla.

Fol­low­ing the Cap­tain’s fail­ure to respond to Shell to Sea’s last attempt to estab­lish con­tact on Sat­ur­day, today’s mes­sage was relayed in both Irish and Eng­lish to ensure it would be under­stood. The Cap­tain was asked to declare the Navy’s inten­tions in the bay and why a sec­ond ship had been deployed.

No response was received, instead, the ship fired up its engines, weighed anchor and fled the area.

Maebh Hall, one of the crew in the Emer­ald Squadron, said ” I could­n’t believe it. We approached this huge mil­i­tary ship in a few inflat­able boats, and they ran scared. Its crazy here, there’s now two navy ships act­ing for Shell in our bay. Will they with­draw the army from Chad and bring them in next?”

ENDS

http://www.corribsos.com/

Direct Action Camp in the squatted forest near Frankfurt/Germany

The for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land.

Kelsterbach tripodsThe for­est of kel­ster­bach near the air­port of frankfurt/main is occu­pied now since three month. Fra­port (the cor­po­ra­tion run­ning frank­furt air­port) is plan­ning to build a new run­way on this place, cut­ting down every tree on 300ha of land. In total some­thing about 100.000 trees would have to fall for the prof­it of an enor­mous inter­na­tion­al act­ing cor­po­ra­tion. For the peo­ple of this region it will mean twice the flight move­ments per year, at least to a lev­el of one move­ment every 45 sec.

In the first week of sep­tem­ber there will be an action camp on the site of occu­pa­tion, from where we´re going to start count­less direct activ­i­ties in the forests, the streets and the ter­mi­nals.

Pro­gramme
the camp will be an DIY camp, we will pro­vide a kitchen, food and all what is nec­es­sary to cook, but we are not enough peo­ple to cook alone, so we will do this alto­geth­er. The action camp starts mon­day 1.9.08 an will end on sun­day 7.9.08.

Mon­day: 10:00–12:00 Prepa­ra­tion of for­est excur­sions
13:00–17:00 For­est excur­sions
17:00 Info meet­ing
20:30 three months of for­est occu­pa­tion, dis­cus­sion
Doc­u­men­ta­tions of the resis­tance against
Start­bahn 18 West in the 1980´s

Tues­day 10:00–12:00 action train­ing:
dif­fer­ent tech­niques and strate­gies
per­for­mance dur­ing actions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 walk­a­bout in the camp
dis­cus­sion: luxus for every­body
stan­dards of live in a suit­able world
16:00–18:00 direct action plan­ing
dif­fer­ent block­ade tech­niques +
cre­ative activism
19:00–20:30 Cas­tor 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
mobi­liza­tion for Cas­tor 2008
20:30 nasty tricks of police and jus­tice

Wednes­day
10:00–12:00 hut build­ing
cli­mate pro­tec­tion and veg­an­ism
walk­a­bout in the for­est
paint bombs and cre­ative beau­ti­fi­ca­tion
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 direct action train­ing
lock-on´s, tri-pods, radiobal­let, …
16:00–18:00 open street map
19:00–20:30 Kli­macamp 2006 (Cine Rebelde)
20:30 con­cert (?)

Thurs­day 10:00–12:00 inten­si­fi­ca­tion of our action prepa­ra­tions
13:00–14:00 dai­ly prepa­ra­tions for actions
13:30–14:00 ev. coor­di­na­tion meet­ings
14:00–16:00 cli­mate pro­tec­tion from below
16:00–18:00 poems
mas­sage
19:00–20:30 anti-gmo field occu­pa­tions
Docu, film, dis­cus­sion
20:30 The fourth world war (big noise)

Fri­day action day meet you at the air­port
20:30 Poet­ry slam (?)
open stage
cin­e­ma

Sat­ur­day 10:00–12:00 local and inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing
ev. found­ing of a rising.tide net­work ger­many
13:00–16:00 drum ses­sion against fra­port
and train­ing at the lake
16:00–18:00 antifas­cists for­est excur­sions
19:00–20:30 Film about Julia But­ter­fly Hill
20:30 con­cert

Sun­day 10:00–12:00 Kli­macamp 2009
info about the prepa­ra­tions
found­ing of a Rhein-Main Group
13:00–15:00 Freiräume
15:00 mil­i­tant resis­tance against big play­ers
with exam­ples from Start­bahn West and Anti AKW
excur­sion to Start­bahn West
19:00–20:30 eval­u­a­tion
20:30 Par­ty

There is a for­est full of room for your work­shops, films, music and for you!

What to bring: Sleep­ing stuff
Tents
climb­ing equip­ment
and all you can´t miss in a for­est

How to find us:

by train
from frank­furt or mainz with the S‑Bahn to kel­ster­bach
out of the rail­way sta­tion you go left fol­low­ing the rüs­selsheimer straße about 2km with the rail­way on your left
at a cross­ing out of the city you go again left and pass under the rail­way, ignore the road on your right and take the next park­ing place on the right, fol­low the signs

by car
Autoroute 3 Kel­ster­bach
Kel­ster­bach Stadt­mitte
pass through town direc­tion Raun­heim
first cross­ing after you´ve left the town you go left and take the first park­ing on your rigtht
fol­low the signs

waldbesetzung@riseup.net
http://www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

Earth Liberation Prisoners — September 2008

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.

Spir­it of Free­dom

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.

Spir­it of Free­dom
(August 2008)

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!”
(For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.

There are also a num­ber of non-list­ed pris­on­ers, who are not list­ed either by their own choice, or because they betrayed their fel­low activists and became infor­mants. And remem­ber these num­bers do not include those peo­ple who are either under House Arrest or on Bail pend­ing Tri­al. Nor do they include the activists whose loca­tions are cur­rent­ly unknown and who are described by the police as “on the run”. See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing. Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing of six and a half years impris­on­ment hav­ing reached a non-coop­er­a­tion plea-bar­gain with the author­i­ties who accuse him of involve­ment in two arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ‘02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, FCI Terre Haute, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. At the moment Daniel is in tran­sit as he has been ordered to appear before some Grand Juries. Daniel is refus­ing to answer the Grand Jury ques­tions and is gain­ing addi­tion­al prison time because of this (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters, 36432–086, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Exeter, 30 New North Road, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4EX, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment. (Mel is a veg­an).

Mar­tin Bal­luch, (JA Josef­s­tadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Mar­tin is a veg­an)

Christoph, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Christo­pher does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Christoph is a veg­an).

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Jake is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Rod is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS. (Don is a veg­an).

Jür­gen Faul­mann, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Jur­gen is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Josh is a veg­an).

Felix Hnat (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Felix is a veg­an).

Jan, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an ‘s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Jan does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Jan is a veg­an).

Kevin Kroem­mer, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Kevin is a veg­an)

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HM Prison Blak­en­hurst, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Kevin is a veg­an).

Leo, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an ‘s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Leo does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Leo is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Chris­t­ian Moser, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Chris­t­ian is a veg­an).

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Heather is a veg­an).
Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

Sabine, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Sabine does not wish to have their full name pub­lished. (Sabine is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

Elmar Völkl (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Austrian’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Elmar is a veg­an).

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack. (Diet unknown).

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic. Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish. (Diet unknown).

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland. Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self. (Tomasz is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they didn’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA. Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE

MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp4321@hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail
yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
elp4321@hotmail.com
http://spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Common Ground Community Garden Celebrates Success with Party on 6 September!

After a year and half of green-fin­gered, com­mu­ni­ty-spir­it­ed direct-action, we — the organ­is­ers of Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den — are cel­e­brat­ing suc­cess … and we invite all our friends,

Common Ground fete flier frontCommon Ground fete flier backAfter a year and half of green-fin­gered, com­mu­ni­ty-spir­it­ed direct-action, we — the organ­is­ers of Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den — are cel­e­brat­ing suc­cess … and we invite all our friends, neigh­bours and sup­port­ers to join in the fun!

Since open­ing the gar­den in May 2007, we have resist­ed being crim­i­nalised while fight­ing for green, com­mu­ni­ty-man­aged space in our neigh­bour­hood. Since turn­ing a coun­cil owned derelict plot into a beau­ti­ful com­mu­ni­ty gar­den, we and our neigh­bours have ignored injunc­tions, protest­ed evic­tion attempts and even faced arrest. But final­ly, we have not only def­i­nite­ly won new sites for at least one com­mu­ni­ty gar­den, but Com­mon Ground itself has been grant­ed a legal license! Suc­cess*!

Read­ing Grass­roots Action (RGA)** who run the gar­den, have been work­ing with Kates­grove Res­i­dents Asso­ci­a­tion (KRA) and have man­aged to agree the license for Com­mon Ground with Read­ing Bor­ough Coun­cil (RBC), which sees the gar­den being insured by KRA and re-opened to the pub­lic until the coun­cil demol­ish the exist­ing build­ings***. We have also vis­it­ed three sites in Kates­grove which could be used for one or more long-term gar­dens. We have cho­sen our pre­ferred sites and hope to agree terms as soon as pos­si­ble****.

To cel­e­brate this suc­cess, we will be hold­ing one more com­mu­ni­ty event at Com­mon Ground Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den on Sat­ur­day 6th Sep­tem­ber — and this time we have the full con­sent of the coun­cil! The event, run­ning from 2–9pm, will fea­ture fun for all the fam­i­ly such as games includ­ing a raf­fle, face-paint­ing, fresh food and drink and a live graf­fi­ti exhi­bi­tion pro­duced by local artists. In addi­tion, we will have diverse acoustic music from acts includ­ing Lon­dons ‘Babar Luck’ and ‘The King Blues’ as well as oth­er local acts. And of course, vis­i­tors will be able to find out more about what else we are up to and get involved in the new com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in Kates­grove.

We would real­ly love to wel­come every­body to the gar­den one last time and thank every­one who has sup­port­ed the project, so we hope to see you there!

But thats not all… Sup­port­ers of Com­mon Ground are organ­is­ing an all-night after par­ty at a near­by venue! There will be a room for band (punk, ska etc) and a room for DJ’s (hiphop, drum n bass, dub­step, tech­no etc) and con­firmed acts include Bro­ken Note and the Bath Dub Soundsys­tem. See you there!

Thanks,
‘Com­mon Ground’, part of ’Read­ing Grass­roots Action’.

NOTES FOR THE EDITOR:

* Whilst we are cel­e­brat­ing, we want to thank every­one who has sup­port­ed us for mak­ing this project a seri­ous of suc­cess­es from day one. Com­mon Ground has always been about bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er, mobil­is­ing peo­ple into tak­ing action to improve our com­mu­ni­ty with­out wait­ing for those in pow­er to do it for us (we reck­on you might wait for ever oth­er­wise!). It has been about a small piece of land tak­en back under com­mu­ni­ty con­trol and used to ben­e­fit the neigh­bour­hood, in con­trast to the usu­al sit­u­a­tion where resources are used sole­ly to make prof­its and ben­e­fit boss­es and share­hold­ers. In this way, Com­mon Ground was a suc­cess every time peo­ple joined us to ignore injunc­tions, each time we saw off evic­tion days, each time peo­ple took the ini­tia­tive to work in their gar­den. It has been a suc­cess as it was respect­ed by young peo­ple, as it was enjoyed by local work­ers and fam­i­lies and as diverse peo­ples — from squat­ters and anar­chists to res­i­dents of all back­grounds — had con­ver­sa­tions we wouldn’t oth­er­wise have had. So, thank you!

** Read­ing Grass­roots Action (RGA) aims to help increase the col­lec­tive pow­er of ordi­nary peo­ple like our­selves, improv­ing our liv­ing and work­ing con­di­tions and cre­at­ing new demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions which act as exam­ples of the world we want to see. We are guid­ed by our hope of one day liv­ing in a soci­ety of gen­uine free­dom and equal­i­ty, with all resources com­mon­ly owned and demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly organ­ised by every­one for every­one. Sev­er­al peo­ple involved in Com­mon Ground were already RGA mem­bers and in April 2008 the groups became one and the same, with RGA look­ing for­wards to help­ing cre­ate a long-term com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in Kates­grove and mov­ing on to tack­le oth­er cam­paigns in Read­ing. If inter­est­ed in join­ing or sup­port­ing RGA, peo­ple are encour­aged to email us at rgacollective(AT)hotmail.co.uk.

*** The build­ings from Crown Street round to the begin­ning of Sil­ver Street have unfor­tu­nate­ly been left by RBC to fall into a state of dis­re­pair over the last few years. We would pre­fer them to be ren­o­vat­ed, as we believe they could be brought back to life as good-look­ing and use­ful build­ings. How­ev­er, RBC wish to demol­ish them as soon as pos­si­ble, as they hope to sell yet more pub­licly owned land to a pri­vate prop­er­ty devel­op­er.

**** RBC have offered three poten­tial sites which could be used for green, com­mu­ni­ty space in Kates­grove. Of these, the site on the cor­ner of Southamp­ton Street and the one on the cor­ner of Elgar Road are our favourites. Over the next few months, RGA and KRA will work to agree terms with RBC in order to gain access one or both of these sites. We appeal to the local com­mu­ni­ty, and to any­body who sup­ports this project to get in touch, and any help with work or dona­tions would be very wel­come!

rgacollective@hotmail.co.uk
http://www.rgacollective.org.uk

Support Portuguese anti-GM activists.

All over Europe, cit­i­zens engage into civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action in resis­tance against cul­ti­va­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops. Only in Por­tu­gal, peo­ple that have applied this strat­e­gy are offi­cial­ly labeled as ter­ror­ists. Please help pulling the Por­tuguese activists out of their iso­lat­ed posi­tion and express your sol­i­dar­i­ty by sign­ing the peti­tion!

SIGN PETITION

All over Europe, cit­i­zens engage into civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action in resis­tance against cul­ti­va­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied crops. Only in Por­tu­gal, peo­ple that have applied this strat­e­gy are offi­cial­ly labeled as ter­ror­ists. Please help pulling the Por­tuguese activists out of their iso­lat­ed posi­tion and express your sol­i­dar­i­ty by sign­ing the peti­tion!

SIGN PETITION
———————
http://gopetition.com/online/21252.html

ON WEBSITE
——————–
http://solimove.liveinfo.nl/
On our web­site you find arti­cles exam­in­ing clos­er the action of Movi­men­to Verde Eufemia and the results it pro­duced. We also elab­o­rate on the ques­tion of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and ter­ror­ism, and pro­vide infor­ma­tion about the shape of resis­tance against GM in Europe. We invite every­one, both por­tuguese cit­i­zens and mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in our dis­cus­sion. Our web­site has por­tuguese and eng­lish trans­la­tion.

CONTACT US
——————–
solimove@googlemail.com
If you have ideas for sup­port or have ques­tions, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us.

BACKGROUND
———————–
One year ago, the Por­tuguese Movi­men­to Verde Eufemia (MVE) went into an action of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence. In a sym­bol­ic but deter­mined act they destroyed less than 1 hectare of the first field of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied corn in the region of the Algarve, pre­vi­ous­ly declared GMO Free Zone by local author­i­ties.

In the days fol­low­ing the action, the wide media atten­tion MVE received insti­gat­ed a large polemic, res­onat­ing into lay­ers of the gen­er­al pub­lic, the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment itself, aca­d­e­mics and even the gov­ern­ment. Nev­er did any envi­ron­men­tal action achieve so much atten­tion in the recent his­to­ry of Por­tu­gal.

The ini­tial media high­lights were not so much on the sub­ject of the action, the pres­ence of GMO in Por­tu­gal, but rather on the spec­tac­u­lar nature and the ille­gal aspect of it. How­ev­er in a sec­ond phase atten­tion shift­ed as well to the debate on GMO, and its dan­gers. For that rea­son alone, the action of MVE was con­sid­ered by many peo­ple with envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns as a great suc­cess.

Because of that suc­cess, the cur­rent Por­tuguese gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble for a pol­i­cy in favour of GMO has respond­ed strong­ly in an attempt to iso­late the activists of MVE and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions strug­gling against GMO, through a strat­e­gy of crim­i­nal­iza­tion. This strat­e­gy came to the point of even label­ing the action as a ter­ror­ist act (Europol EU Ter­ror­ism Sit­u­a­tion and Trend Report 2008). Some peo­ple that have been brought in rela­tion to the case by the police are there­fore fac­ing the risk of being pros­e­cut­ed with­in this con­text of ter­ror­ism. In gen­er­al, it became hard­er to act against GMO in Por­tu­gal. Indi­vid­u­als or orga­ni­za­tions who attempt, run a high risk of being under sus­pi­cion and sur­veil­lance by author­i­ties.

One year lat­er, the oppor­tu­ni­ty of the anniver­sary of this con­tro­ver­sial but influ­en­tial action is used to launch SoliMoVE, Grupo de Sol­i­dariedad com o Movi­men­to Verde Eufemia. The objec­tives of Solimove are:

* To show all actors involved in the debate that the action of MVE is not an iso­lat­ed case in the Por­tuguese his­tor­i­cal con­text, and cer­tain­ly not in the cur­rent inter­na­tion­al con­text, where these types of actions are com­mon, par­tic­u­lar­ly against the cul­ti­va­tion of GMOs.
* To build under­stand­ing of the term civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, its val­ue as an active and engaged form of civ­il soci­ety par­tic­i­pa­tion, and its neces­si­ty in safe­guard­ing the peo­ple and the envi­ron­ment from the threat of genet­ic con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.
* To pro­vide an inter­na­tion­al plat­form for any indi­vid­ual or orga­ni­za­tion, wish­ing to express its moral sup­port towards MVE and its action.
* To defend the free­dom of expres­sion of all cit­i­zens against GMOs.

solimove@googlemail.com
http://solimove.liveinfo.nl/

Today’s news from Glengad, Erris, Co. Mayo

August 31, 2008
A lunchtime Gar­da vis­it to Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp & evening block­ade of Shell com­pound

Shell to Sea camp incursionAugust 31, 2008
A lunchtime Gar­da vis­it to Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp & evening block­ade of Shell com­pound

Today’s main news events from the epi­cen­tre of resis­tance against Shell — a vis­it about lunchtime from the Gar­da brass (plus lack­eys inc. rov­ing video oper­a­tor), lat­er a prac­tice run for the Shell to Sea flotil­la, fol­lowed by a block­ade of Shel­l’s Glen­gad com­pound in the evening.

Today at about 1pm a del­e­ga­tion of Gar­dai called to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, osten­si­bly about inform­ing campers of sec­tion 8.1 of the Pub­lic Order Act. While annoyed by their pres­ence on the camp, the Gar­dai were pre­vent­ed from snoop­ing around the mar­quees, though the use of a video cam­era by Gda. Burke (old foe) to fol­low young chil­dren around roused right­eous ire in their par­ents. Once they deliv­ered their utter­ly point­less mes­sage they were escort­ed off the site to the road and their wait­ing squad car and van.

In the late after­noon, S2S Flotil­la exer­cis­es were held off the Glen­gad com­pound and the marine protest/action squadron used the fine weath­er today to sharp­en their nau­ti­cal skills. Exer­cis­es last­ed an hour, fol­lowed by a quick show­er and off to the next S2S activ­i­ty.
Shell picket
At 6:45 pm local res­i­dents and Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers mount­ed a block­ade of the gates of the Shell Glen­gad com­pound. This caught the Gar­dai off bal­ance, and they deployed only in sparse num­bers, very slow­ly, and remained firm­ly ensconced in their vehi­cles. After an hour of blockad­ing, locals and campers returned to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp for tonight’s par­ty on the fore­shore (a cel­e­bra­tion of our mutu­al capac­i­ty for resis­tance to the cor­po­rate jug­ger­naut and a bit of R&R too!).

Still no sign of the Soli­taire. The clock is well-burnt now — she remains in Killy­begs har­bour but she’s still a loom­ing threat that must be met.

The need for peo­ple to come here and help in the strug­gle to save Erris and stop the Great Gas Rob­bery remains urgent. Come to Glen­gad if you can!

http://www.corribsos.com

BIA vans trashed

On the night of Fri­day 29th August the region­al head­quar­ters of the Bor­ders and Immi­gra­tion Agency in Por­tishead were the tar­get for a response to the rou­tine vio­lence of forced removal, deten­tion and deportation.We made life more dif­fi­cult for the thugs in uni­form by putting their vehi­cles out of oper­a­tion with a volatile mix of paint strip­per on body­work, glass etch­ing flu­id on win­dows, locks gl

On the night of Fri­day 29th August the region­al head­quar­ters of the Bor­ders and Immi­gra­tion Agency in Por­tishead were the tar­get for a response to the rou­tine vio­lence of forced removal, deten­tion and deportation.We made life more dif­fi­cult for the thugs in uni­form by putting their vehi­cles out of oper­a­tion with a volatile mix of paint strip­per on body­work, glass etch­ing flu­id on win­dows, locks glued, tires burst, lights spray­paint­ed, mir­rors and wipers removed, as well as some good old fash­ioned mechan­i­cal sab­o­tage on all 7 vehi­cles in the car park. If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well. “Racist thugs work here” was the mes­sage paint­ed on the build­ing.
We stand against the state’s steadi­ly creep­ing fas­cism of racist immi­gra­tion poli­cies designed to tight­en the grip of cap­i­tal over all of our lives, of tri­alling sur­veil­lance and con­trol tech­nolo­gies such as ID cards and bio­met­ric pass­ports first on for­eign­ers before impos­ing them on every­one, of the cre­ation of a sub class whose repres­sion jus­ti­fied by media hys­te­ria and the pow­ers that be. In sol­i­dar­i­ty, for a response to every abuse and for fight­ing back in the social war.

Urgent Update — Navy arrive to protect Shell — Beach on lockdown illegaly

August 29, 2008
Urgent call­out for sup­port

In the past two hours a mass of State and Shell secu­ri­ty has assem­bled in Broad­haven bay includ­ing a heav­i­ly armed navy ves­sel.

This is to pro­tect the first attempt at lay­ing the off­shore sec­tion of pipe.

LE OrlaAugust 29, 2008
Urgent call­out for sup­port

In the past two hours a mass of State and Shell secu­ri­ty has assem­bled in Broad­haven bay includ­ing a heav­i­ly armed navy ves­sel.

This is to pro­tect the first attempt at lay­ing the off­shore sec­tion of pipe.

The Gar­dai sealed a sec­tion of beach beside the camp ille­gal­ly for an hour before retreat­ing and now rear­riv­ing.

The bay is awash with secu­ri­ty ves­sels, gar­dai water units and also a large Navy ves­sel, pos­si­bly “The Orla” which is armed with a canon and small­er guns.

This is the largest recent attempt at crush­ing any resis­tance to the Shell project.
There is also a heavy Gar­da pres­ence on land with pro­test­ers being intimidated,filmed and harassed.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty need­ed!

—
Anti-shell flotilla
Today’s activ­i­ty off Glen­gad marks yet anoth­er esca­la­tion of the state’s response to protests against the destruc­tion of Erris and the Great Gas Rob­bery. The arrival in the bay of the LE Orla about 12 pm today with her 39 crew onboard may be intend­ed to show the Irish peo­ple that the state will tol­er­ate no protest or action by any­body, not least Ireland’s cit­i­zens, against Shell’s plans.

The involve­ment of the Naval Ser­vice in the ‘polic­ing’ of Broad­haven Bay for Shell is a first for Ireland’s navy – the first time one of their ships has been called upon by the Gar­dai as ‘back-up’ for a police oper­a­tion against protests.

Accord­ing to a Defence Forces spokesman, the LE Orla (which was for­mer­ly a British naval gun­ship patrolling Hong Kong) ‘was request­ed by Gar­daí as back-up at Broad­haven Bay, Co Mayo. It is there as an aid to the civ­il pow­er. It was request­ed to assist Gar­dai and pro­vide them with a plat­form at sea.’

When asked if an Irish naval ship had been involved in a sim­i­lar oper­a­tion before, he replied: ‘Not to my imme­di­ate knowl­edge.’

He added: “The Naval Ser­vice has been in dis­cus­sions with the Gar­dai about this oper­a­tion. Any oper­a­tion we under­take will be with the Gar­dai. We will not be involved in any oper­a­tion inde­pen­dent­ly of the Gar­dai.’

Shell sub­con­trac­tor activ­i­ty in the bay has increased today, espe­cial­ly with the deploy­ment of the winch­ing barge today to some­where near its oper­at­ing posi­tion when the Soli­taire comes. News this morn­ing is that the Soli­taire has left Killy­begs har­bour and is some­where on the high seas between there and Broad­haven Bay. Its arrival there is expect­ed tomor­row at the lat­est. Locals and Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp res­i­dents are on high alert, and if peo­ple can come over the next 24 hours to help peo­ple in the effort to stop Shell on the beach and in the bay they will meet with a very big wel­come indeed!

Defence Forces spokesman quotes via www.breakingnews.ie

—–

So heres the lat­est after a long and tense day here in the wild west from today.

The police pres­ence was increased this morn­ing in the area,both on land and water,that was the indi­ca­tion that some­thing was about to hap­pen

At around mid­day the dredger plat­form was towed in.

Peo­ple then start­ed to assem­ble from the var­i­ous points in the area and about 40 cops then went onto the beach and said noone was allowed to go there as it was a\ “restrict­ed area”.
The legal­i­ty of this move was chal­lenged in front of the TG4 cam­era and after half an hour the cops fucked off.and loi­tered there­after for a few hours

The winch ves­sel was then towed across the bay

Just as they were about to go in the winch ves­sel turned around and head­ed back to the pier at Ballin­glass — seem­ing­ly just a prac­tice run who knows.

All this time there were about 5–7 secu­ri­ty and Gar­da water unit boats patrolling the bay as well as the L.E Orla ‚a Navy bat­tle­ship with a big fuck off can­non on the front as well as small­er weapon­ry.

This is a full scale state and cor­po­rate assault on the bay,make no mis­take.
The Solitaire,the main pipe-lay­ing ship which Shell only have for a lim­it­ed peri­od etc is still in Killybegs,but is rumoured by both TG4 and RTE to be leav­ing Sat­ur­day morn­ing.
Sev­er­al Erris fish­er­men are still at sea stand­ing guard over their lob­ster pots which Shell must remove to com­mence work.

They are fac­ing extreme intim­i­da­tion.

Hope some of ye can make it down or maybe do an action where ye are.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty.