Citex Squat Amsterdam Illegally Evicted

27.05.2008
The Citex squat in Ams­ter­dam has recent­ly been ille­gal­ly evict­ed.

27.05.2008
The Citex squat in Ams­ter­dam has recent­ly been ille­gal­ly evict­ed.

On fri­day night, there was a birth­day par­ty. The police claim that there was a noise com­plaint from a neigh­bour, and asked for the iden­ti­ty papers of a per­son in the squat. They have no legal right to ask for this since the space was not pub­lic space but a res­i­dence . After­wards, they tried to arrest this per­son. The per­son was de-arrest­ed and took inside by the squat­ters. From this point on, the police esca­lat­ed the sit­u­a­tion, lead­ing to the evic­tion of the entire block of 4 hous­es and the citex social spaces. 51 peo­ple were arrest­ed and rough­ly treat­ed. Cur­rent­ly , there are a few peo­ple still inside prison, but most peo­ple have been released. On Sun­day, there was a demon­stra­tion that first passed by the heav­i­ly guard­ed (with dogs) citex-block, where it was made clear that we were not hap­py. Lat­er, win­dows of the may­or’s house (Job Cohen) and of city hall were smashed. The pre­vi­ous night, the win­dows of the hous­ing com­pa­ny were also smashed. Because this was an unex­pect­ed evic­tion (citex is still in legal process­es and the court results are due on thurs­day), all peo­ple’s belong­ings were still inside. On Mon­day, the peo­ple could luck­i­ly get their stuff back through a mov­ing com­pa­ny who took it out. The peo­ple were not allowed inside, and there was secu­ri­ty, dogs and police all over the area. Riot police and under­cov­er police (civil­ian clothed arrest teams) arrived many times for no clear rea­son except to pro­voke.
For more updates and sto­ries look on www. indy­media. nl.
Most sto­ries are in dutch for now, eng­lish ver­sions will come soon.
An eng­lish per­son­al account of some­one http://leightoncookie. blogspot. com/ and a pol­ish account http://www. indy­media. nl/nl/2008/05/52573. shtml are avail­able.

Keep your­self updat­ed, the strug­gle con­tin­ues!!
You can’t evict ideas, squat­ting con­tin­ues!!!

Bike Lanes on Bloor — 1,200 take to their bikes in Toronto

On Sun­day May 25th 2008 more than one thou­sand cyclists of all ages joined in Toron­to’s biggest ever ped­al-pow­ered parade, ring­ing their bells all the way from High Park to Queen’s Park.

'I love my bike' bellOn Sun­day May 25th 2008 more than one thou­sand cyclists of all ages joined in Toron­to’s biggest ever ped­al-pow­ered parade, ring­ing their bells all the way from High Park to Queen’s Park.

The sun­ny Sun­day ride was in sup­port of mak­ing Toron­to a leader in bike safe­ty by adding more bike lanes — espe­cial­ly on Bloor Street. To see a video of the ride, see www.bellsonbloor.ca

Asheville Rising Tide builds green power plant in Duke CEO’s front yard (USA)

May 25, 2008 — Char­lotte, NC

Front-yard power stationMay 25, 2008 — Char­lotte, NC
Today, activists with Asheville Ris­ing Tide broke ground on a new 800 Mw clean ener­gy pow­er plant in Duke Ener­gy CEO Jim Rogers front yard. The pow­er plant will tap into a pre­vi­ous­ly unex­plored ener­gy source known as hot air which has been found in large con­cen­tra­tions at Roger’s res­i­dence, 330 Eas­t­over Rd, Char­lotte, NC. “The hot air emit­ting from Jim Rogers mouth has been around for quite some time, but the last cou­ple of years has seen an expo­nen­tial growth of this untapped ener­gy source as Rogers parades around the coun­try call­ing for green­house gas reduc­tions while build­ing the dirty Cliff­side coal plant. This was sim­ply an oppor­tu­ni­ty we couldn’t pass up,” said Jill Rock­ing­ham, chief engi­neer for the project.

Asheville Ris­ing Tide believes that the con­struc­tion of the pow­er plant is a win-win sit­u­a­tion for the econ­o­my and the envi­ron­ment. “We are tak­ing a very dan­ger­ous and volatile gas and turn­ing it into a source for clean, car­bon free elec­tric­i­ty. The great thing about tap­ping into Roger’s hot air is that it is a tru­ly renew­able resource. At this point there appears to be an end­less sup­ply,” said, Rock­ing­ham. “Why build anoth­er dirty, expen­sive coal plant, when there are mil­lions of BTU’s of clean, cheap, ener­gy seep­ing out of their CEO’s mouth every day,” said Jake Tiller­man, Asheville Ris­ing Tide’s invest­ment rela­tions man­ag­er.

The plant has come under fire from some envi­ron­men­tal groups over con­cern of a lit­tle stud­ied ele­ment known as BS, a byprod­uct of burn­ing hot air. The hot air at the Roger’s res­i­dence has an unusu­al­ly high con­cen­tra­tion of BS and envi­ron­men­tal­ist are con­cerned over poten­tial health effects to near­by res­i­dents. “We are cur­rent­ly look­ing into ways in which to cap­ture and sequester the BS but the tech­nol­o­gy just isn’t avail­able at this moment,” said Rock­ing­ham. “We assure the envi­ron­men­tal com­mu­ni­ty that this is the last plant we build that does not have the capa­bil­i­ty of seques­ter­ing Roger’s BS. Besides, we paint­ed the plant green. That seems to be all that cor­po­ra­tions like Duke have to do to call a project sus­tain­able.”

Mexico: campesinos occupy Chihuahua gold mine

On May 24, campesinos from Eji­do Huizopa, Madera munic­i­pal­i­ty, in the north­ern Mex­i­can state of Chi­huahua, launched a protest occu­pa­tion of the Min­era Dolores com­pa­ny’s giant open-pit gold mine, which they say has been ille­gal­ly estab­lished on their lands.

On May 24, campesinos from Eji­do Huizopa, Madera munic­i­pal­i­ty, in the north­ern Mex­i­can state of Chi­huahua, launched a protest occu­pa­tion of the Min­era Dolores com­pa­ny’s giant open-pit gold mine, which they say has been ille­gal­ly estab­lished on their lands. The deci­sion to launch the block­ade was tak­en after two eji­do lead­ers, Enrique Tor­res González and José Arman­do González, were arrest­ed by Fed­er­al Pre­ven­ta­tive Police, lat­er released with­out charge. The local com­pa­ny direc­tor Car­los Gar­cía Droguett said the occu­pa­tion places at risk a $200 mil­lion invest­ment in the zone. (Excel­siór, May 29) Min­era Dolores is owned by the Minefind­ers Cor­po­ra­tion of Van­cou­ver. (GeoMex.com)

A state­ment from Eji­do Huizopa says Min­era Dolores used “tricks” to gain title to the land from “cor­rupt lead­ers” of the ejido—but nonethe­less received a per­mit from the Mex­i­can envi­ron­men­tal sec­re­tari­at, SEMARNAT. The state­ment says anoth­er of their lead­ers, Sal­vador Gai­tan, was the tar­get of an assas­si­na­tion attempt ear­li­er this year. Gait­ian, a direc­tor of the eji­do, is a vet­er­an of the 1960s gueril­la insur­gency in Chi­huahua led by Arturo Gámiz. (Received via e‑mail, May 30)

See our last posts on Mex­i­co, Chi­huahua and the min­er­al car­tel in Latin Amer­i­ca.

Min­era Dolores block­ade lift­ed

From CNN Mon­ey, June 9. Note repeat­ed and gra­tu­itous use of the word “ille­gal” to refer to the blockade—contrasting lack of any men­tion of campesino claims that the mine itself is ille­gal.

Minefind­ers Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd. (the “Com­pa­ny”) (TSX: MFL)(AMEX: MFN) reports ini­tial pro­duc­tion esti­mates for its Dolores gold and sil­ver mine in Chi­huahua, Mex­i­co, where the first gold and sil­ver pour is now sched­uled for mid July, 2008.

Man­age­ment expects gold pro­duc­tion from Dolores will be approx­i­mate­ly 40,000 ounces in 2008, 128,000 ounces in 2009 and 129,000 ounces in 2010. Sil­ver pro­duc­tion is expect­ed to be 1.0 mil­lion ounces in 2008, 3.0 mil­lion ounces in 2009, and 4.0 mil­lion ounces in 2010… Min­ing at Dolores is approach­ing a sus­tained rate of approx­i­mate­ly 100,000 tonnes per day with over 7 mil­lion tonnes of ore and waste mate­r­i­al mined at Dolores to date…

In late May an ille­gal block­ade was estab­lished on an access road to the Dolores Mine site. The major­i­ty of the indi­vid­u­als involved are believed to be from out­side of the region and include only a small fringe group from with­in the local 221-mem­ber Eji­do com­mu­ni­ty.

While Minefind­ers was on tar­get to achieve the first gold and sil­ver pour from Dolores in late June 2008, for safe­ty rea­sons the Com­pa­ny decid­ed to sus­pend con­struc­tion activ­i­ties and oper­a­tions until Mex­i­can author­i­ties safe­ly removed the ille­gal block­ade. On June 5, in response to meet­ings held with gov­ern­ment offi­cials, the block­aders re-opened the road and min­ing and pro­cess­ing oper­a­tions have recom­menced. The Com­pa­ny is con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sions with the state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ments and with the indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for the block­ade to come to a defin­i­tive long-term res­o­lu­tion. As a result of the tem­po­rary sus­pen­sion of oper­a­tions due to the ille­gal block­ade, the first gold and sil­ver pour is now expect­ed in mid-July.

“Despite the delay of the first gold and sil­ver pour due to the ille­gal block­ade, the com­mis­sion­ing at Dolores is pro­gress­ing well with con­struc­tion and oper­at­ing costs con­sis­tent with those report­ed in the Com­pa­ny’s Feb­ru­ary 14, 2008, eco­nom­ic fore­cast and reserve update,” said Mark Bai­ley, Minefind­ers’ Pres­i­dent and CEO. “We remain ful­ly fund­ed to com­plete devel­op­ment and com­mis­sion­ing of the Dolores Mine and con­tin­ue the Dolores mill pre­lim­i­nary fea­si­bil­i­ty study and 2008 explo­ration pro­grams at Dolores and else­where.”

CNN also seems not to know that “Eji­do com­mu­ni­ty” is redun­dant and does not tell the read­er the name of the com­mu­ni­ty, as “eji­do” means agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ty. The name of the eji­do in ques­tion is Huizopa.

Bite Back Magazine #13 — Out Now!

Issue no. 13 fea­tures essays by Lau­ren Gazol­la and Peter Young, a review of over 10 years of world­wide fur farm raids, a look back at 2007, news, pris­on­er let­ters, action reports from around the world and much more! 36 pages.

Bite Back Magazine #13 - Out Now! Issue no. 13 fea­tures essays by Lau­ren Gazol­la and Peter Young, a review of over 10 years of world­wide fur farm raids, a look back at 2007, news, pris­on­er let­ters, action reports from around the world and much more! 36 pages.

Bite Back #13 was pub­lished in May 2008. Get your copy today!


Bite Back is a 36 page mag­a­zine, full of direct action reports, pris­on­er news, sto­ries and pho­tos.

Sin­gle copy: $2 ($5 out­side of North Amer­i­ca)

We accept check or mon­ey order (made out to “Bite Back”), or well-con­cealed cash (equiv­a­lent amount in Cana­di­an dol­lars, Euros or Pounds is O.K.). Please mail to the address above. Please con­tact us if you would like to use a cred­it card.

ORDERING A BACK ISSUE

Back issues are $4 each. We cur­rent­ly have back issues num­bers 12, 9, 8, and 7 avail­able. Please send a let­ter describ­ing which issue(s) you would like and the nec­es­sary funds.

BE A DISTRIBUTOR FOR BITE BACK MAGAZINE!

Lit­er­al­ly every day the brave women and men of the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front are out lib­er­at­ing, smash­ing, paint­ing and burn­ing their way across the world for no oth­er rea­son than to bring us clos­er to ani­mal lib­er­a­tion!

The least we can do is sup­port their actions.

Do so by dis­trib­ut­ing Bite Back Mag­a­zine in your area! Let local activists know about actions, pris­on­ers they can write to, read heart­warm­ing and inspir­ing inter­views and sto­ries, and most impor­tant­ly show sup­port for the ALF.

$15 gets you 15 copies of the lat­est issue ($25 out­side of North Amer­i­ca). Put them on your tables, in local stores and dis­tros, or just give them out to friends.

Bite Back Mag­a­zine
e‑mail: info@directaction.info
Home­page: http://directaction.info

ALF Foie gras actions (2007 — 2008)

There are places that will not lis­ten to rea­son, con­tin­ue to sup­port an indus­try ille­gal in the UK, and cause mas­sive suf­fer­ing to geese and ducks, and for a ‘del­i­ca­cy’.

It is clear that there are places that have no lim­its to what they will place on the menu.

There are places that will not lis­ten to rea­son, con­tin­ue to sup­port an indus­try ille­gal in the UK, and cause mas­sive suf­fer­ing to geese and ducks, and for a ‘del­i­ca­cy’.

It is clear that there are places that have no lim­its to what they will place on the menu.
They will not lis­ten to pro­test­ers and cam­paign­ers, now they are hav­ing to deal with the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front, as they are real­is­ing to their increas­ing cost.

What fol­lows is a list of some of the actions report­ed to Bite­back mag­a­zine. What is cer­tain is that there’ll be more where these came from.

“Last week a group of activists paid a vis­it to Wood Hall Hotel in
Lin­ton, near York because they con­tin­ue to sup­ply their sick
cus­tomers with foie gras. Unable to resist we left them a call­ing
card on the long dri­ve­way to their coun­try retreat, inform­ing them
that we are watch­ing them and will be back as long as they con­tin­ue
to sell foie gras. As it was in foot high red paint all along the
road guests and staff alike could not miss the warn­ing.

Wood Hall, this was just a reminder that we know you are sell­ing
foie gras, and to demand you stop. Next time we will not be so
gen­tle.”
http://www.directaction.info/news_may16c_08.htm

“In the ear­ly hours of the 2nd May, in anger at Bistro Num­ber 5’s con­tin­ued sale of foie gras, Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front vol­un­teers d‑locked their front entrance, cost­ing them hours of lost rev­enue for the fol­low­ing day.
It’s high time they re-eval­u­at­ed whether prof­it­ing from ani­mal abuse real­ly is good busi­ness!”
http://www.directaction.info/news_may15c_08.htm

“Clifton Meats is a sup­pli­er of any num­ber of ani­mals that have been through the slaugh­ter­house and the inten­sive farm­ing indus­try.

On a recent night in Leeds the gate was left unlocked, we walked in and slashed the tyres on the van that was parked up, and spray­paint­ed anti foie gras and ‘meat is mur­der’ slo­gans on the sides.

Two locks on the premis­es were also super­guled.

The next time we vis­it Leeds we’ll be cruis­ing the streets of the city and sur­round­ing areas look­ing for more of your Clifton vans.

Dump foie gras!

Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front”
http://www.directaction.info/news_may14c_08.htm

“Win­ter­ing­ham Fields pro­duces 6,000 dish­es of foie gras a year for their sali­vat­ing cus­tomers. This sick obses­sion with the abuse of ducks and geese is fuelled by peo­ple like McGur­ran who insist that giv­ing peo­ple the free­dom to abuse is the right way to go about busi­ness.

Well, as of today, your din­ers will be real­is­ing the lia­bil­i­ty that serv­ing up such a heinous dish can prove.
I sus­pect the own­er of the nice car in the dri­ve won’t be going any­where for a while, until they get four new tires, and when they do get rolling they’ll be able to show off the new paint job.

‘Foie gras hell hole’ was also daubed over the restau­rant win­dows.

When your cus­tomers are decid­ing to vis­it per­haps they’ll con­sid­er that just one day, it could well be their vehi­cles get­ting the treat­ment. But, as we all know, that is NOTHING com­pared to the sheer hell that restau­rants like Win­ter­ing­ham fields choose to inflict on ducks and geese.

Until the geese and ducks are free from the gav­age sheds, we will take action,

Foie Gras Ret­ri­bu­tion Squad”
http://www.directaction.info/news_may10c_08.htm

“In the ear­ly hours of Sun­day morn­ing, ALF activists arrived at Mid­sum­mer House. This dis­gust­ing restau­rant, sit­u­at­ed on Chester­ton Road, Cam­bridge, con­tin­ues to sup­port the cru­el foie gras indus­try by sell­ing pate de foie gras.

By prof­itting from the tor­ture of ducks and geese for an unnec­es­sary and unhealthy ‘del­i­ca­cy’, Mid­sum­mer House became a tar­get for the ALF.

Slo­gans like ‘Stop Sell­ing Foie Gras’ and ‘Ban Foie Gras’ were among those spray-paint­ed on to the walls and win­dows of the build­ing. Activists glued the locks and applied paint-strip­per to door and win­dow frames and var­nished wood. Glass-etch­ing flu­id was also employed to dam­age the win­dows.

We hope this action will dis­cour­age Mid­sum­mer House from sell­ing foie gras. Any­one who choos­es sev­er­al hours of scrub­bing over a few min­utes of alter­ing a menu and call­ing a sup­pli­er real­ly does need their head check­ing.

Until all are free, Keep on fight­ing.
Cam­bridge ALF”
http://www.directaction.info/news_feb19b_08.htm

“French Liv­ing restau­rant, Not­ting­hamshire. “French liv­ing’s most loy­al cus­tomers (who eat there every sin­gle day) are also dis­gust­ed with the restraunts choice of putting foie gras on the menu.”
http://www.directaction.info/news_feb11b_08.htm

“A fly­ing vis­it to Direct Fruit Sup­plies (DFS) in Leeds led to gate locks and shut­ters being super­glued shut. Spray paint­ed mes­sages were left for all to see.

DFS is a sup­pli­er of foie gras to the cater­ing indus­try, and thanks to their web­site we have a list of their cus­tomers (some who sell this cru­el prod­uct) and they will be con­tact­ed and giv­en details of actions con­duct­ed by the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front that have occurred in defence of ducks and geese that suf­fer this appalling fate, that is just in case the vio­lent images of ducks being bru­talised is not enough for them to think deeply about the com­pa­nies they sup­port.”
http://www.directaction.info/news_dec22_07.htm

“L’en­clume sup­port the foie gras trade by sup­ply­ing this appalling prod­uct to their cus­tomers.
A sim­ple mes­sage was spray paint­ed and the win­dows had glass etch­ing cream lib­er­al­ly applied.

There is no longer a need to explain any action against a sup­port­er of this trade. It is a trade that is clear­ly unequiv­o­cal­ly bar­bar­ic.

Expect to be a tar­get.

ALF”
http://www.directaction.info/news_nov29b_07.htm

“In a series of five raids, foie gras sell­ers in the North of York­shire were blitzed…

In the ear­ly hours of a recent morn­ing, ALF activists vis­it­ed the spe­cial­ist importers and dis­trib­u­tors of the sick ‘del­i­ca­cy’ foie gras. The two cars in the dri­ve­way were paintstrip­pered, and then new spray paint was applied and all the tyres slashed.

To sup­port and pro­mote such appalling acts of vio­lence and ter­ror­ism against ani­mals, will always pro­voke a response from peo­ple who want to see an end to this dis­gust­ing trade.

www.thefatgoose.co.uk

Along with the grotesque­ly force fed fat­goose, with the ‘nat­u­ral­ly’ dis­eased liv­er, the fam­i­ly butch­ers C & G Starkey received a well over­due vis­it. This estab­lish­ment brags about how it can sup­ply all man­ner of exot­ic meats to liv­en up any din­ner table. There is noth­ing like dish­ing up suf­fer­ing and abuse to bring joy to a table. On the menu at C & G’s is foie gras and wild boar flesh, along with what­ev­er your heart could pos­si­bly desire in the exploita­tion of ani­mals. This place received a re-dec­o­ra­tion and the locks and shut­ters and doors had super­glue applied. They deserved more, much more.

www.gourmetbritain.com

Onto the Fig and Fen­nel in Wether­by, and this del­i­catessen, sit­ting in the mid­dle of town, might have thought it would be free from ret­ri­bu­tion over its sup­port for the sick foie gras trade. But no, spray paint was applied and again locks were glued. The prof­its from your del­i­ca­cy of despair are being wiped out.

The Devon­shire Arms at Bolton Abbey received a vis­it, car tyres were slashed and the hotel signs paint­ed. I don’t think your cus­tomers will appre­ci­ate your sup­port for foie gras. Either that, or they rejoice in the abuse of ani­mals. I don’t think they were rejoic­ing on the morn­ing we paid a vis­it.

www.thedevonshirearms.co.uk

The Rud­ding Park com­plex home of the Clock­tow­er restau­rant also took a hit. The heavy pres­ence of secu­ri­ty cam­eras pro­tect­ing this hotel sit­u­at­ed just out­side Har­ro­gate, left only one option… the golf course. Activists hit the golf course with gar­den forks and pro­ceed­ed to dig up the greens. And such nice greens they WERE too. Spray paint was also applied to the putting sur­face, and then the signs out­side were giv­en a fresh paint job.

These actions were ded­i­cat­ed to the end of indus­tri­alised farm­ing, we’ll be there, as you con­tin­ue down the route of self destruc­tion, every step of the way.

ALF”
http://www.directaction.info/news_sep28_07.htm

“A vis­it to Leeds in the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing led to cus­tomers of Haleys Hotel get­ting a taste of what is to come when sup­port­ing places that sell foie gras.

The cars of three vehi­cles, includ­ing a 4x4 had the tyres slashed, and an uncom­pro­mis­ing mes­sage was sprayed over the back of anoth­er.

No mat­ter what busi­ness you vis­it that sells foie gras, if you are a cus­tomer of that busi­ness then expect your (alleged) prop­er­ty to be shown con­tempt.

There is no place in the UK or any­where for the sup­port of this utter­ly abhor­rent trade.

‘Our’ gov­ern­ment sup­ports the import of foie gras due to fear of breach­ing the sick­en­ing lib­er­al trade laws they signed up to, gov­ern­ment has been shown yet again to fail us and ani­mals. Now is the time to move against this trade, to rid the UK of foie gras and bring it to an end.

Check out the under­cov­er footage and take action!

Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front’
http://www.directaction.info/news_july12_07.htm

“The Hare and Hounds Inn sup­port the sick foie gras trade by sup­ply­ing foie gras to their cus­tomers, they received numer­ous spray paint­ed mes­sages on their walls and win­dows.

Make the choice!

ALF’
http://www.directaction.info/news_july09_07.htm

“A restau­rant in the North West of Eng­land recent­ly became a tar­get for the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front. The restau­rant was spray­paint­ed and had it’s locks glued, which then became irrel­e­vant as the win­dows were put through…

The rea­sons for hit­ting the foie gras indus­try are well known, if you choose to take part in foie gras, then choose to par­take in the con­se­quences.

ALF”
http://www.directaction.info/news_may09b_07.htm

Many of the places that received a vis­it have stopped sell­ing foie gras. There can be no excuse for the extreme treat­ment of sen­tient beings. They need to be held to account for their actions.

Unti­lal­lare­free

Activists arrested for robbery of a chicken from sun valley have case dropped

Two activists that where arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the theft of a live chick­en from the Sun Val­ley Foods slaugh­ter­house in Here­ford were today told the police would be tak­ing no fur­ther action against them.

One of the activists was arrest­ed whilst leav­ing the site whilst the oth­er, who was acussed of actu­al­ly remov­ing the chick­en, vol­un­tar­i­ly attend­ed the police sta­tion at a mutu­al date.

Two activists that where arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with the theft of a live chick­en from the Sun Val­ley Foods slaugh­ter­house in Here­ford were today told the police would be tak­ing no fur­ther action against them.

One of the activists was arrest­ed whilst leav­ing the site whilst the oth­er, who was acussed of actu­al­ly remov­ing the chick­en, vol­un­tar­i­ly attend­ed the police sta­tion at a mutu­al date.

The Sun Val­ley site in Here­ford is one of the largest poul­try abat­toirs in the UK and the cost of the chick­en to them is under 50p how­ev­er this did not stop the com­pa­ny from kick­ing up a fuss but due to poor CCTV evi­dence and failed iden­ti­fi­ca­tion by wit­ness­es, West Mer­cia Con­stab­u­lary have decid­ed there is insuf­fi­cient effi­dence to pros­e­cute. Sun Val­ley are respon­si­ble for sup­ply­ing chick­en to McDon­alds and many oth­er major super­mar­ket chains; includ­ing the Co-Op Group who pride them­selves ona high eth­i­cal and ani­mal wel­fare poli­cies.

See also — http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/389024.html

West­ern Ani­mal Rights Net­work
e‑mail: info@animalliberation.co.uk
Home­page: http://www.animalliberaton.co.uk

Direct Action Greece: 17th — 22nd May

Appelate Court’s expan­sion works sab­o­taged with fire (ATHENS)
Attack against the munic­i­pal police of Ilioupoli (ATHENS)
Bank fire­bombed (LOANNINA)
Uni­ver­si­ty rec­tors elec­tions sab­o­taged (ATHENS-PIRAEUS)
Sur­veil­lance cam­eras destroyed dur­ing squaters sol­i­dar­i­ty march (ATHENS)

Fence removal, AthensAppelate Court’s expan­sion works sab­o­taged with fire (ATHENS)
Attack against the munic­i­pal police of Ilioupoli (ATHENS)
Bank fire­bombed (LOANNINA)
Uni­ver­si­ty rec­tors elec­tions sab­o­taged (ATHENS-PIRAEUS)
Sur­veil­lance cam­eras destroyed dur­ing squaters sol­i­dar­i­ty march (ATHENS)
Fenc­ing bars around the poly­tech­nic school dis­man­tled (ATHENS)
Arson­ists hit a bank (THESSALONIKI)

Appelate Court’s expan­sion works sab­o­taged with fire (Athens, 22/5/2008)
This is a trans­la­tion of a claim sent to directactiongr@yahoo.gr:

“In the dawn of Thurs­day, MAy 22, we invad­ed the con­struc­tion site of the appelate court on Loukare­os street and moved into burn­ing up three machin­ery-vehi­cles, sab­o­tag­ing the con­struc­tion of the new court build­ings. With this inva­sion we dis­man­tled the pres­tige of the ene­my, strik­ing in one of the most for­mi­da­ble occu­pied spots of the city. Our action is wil­ful, to set the jus­tice itself on fire. Its nature, its ide­ol­o­gy, its insti­tu­tions.

It isn’t just the arro­gance and venge­ful­ness of the judges, the des­o­la­tion and anger in the faces of the accused, the agony to find the mon­ey, the fear of fac­ing prison. They are all part of this, that’s for sure. Jus­tice lies in the core of democ­ra­cy. It defends with a deci­sive vio­lence, direct­ly all inter­ests of this world. It has con­science of its role, its mean­ing today. It is clothed with all the demo­c­ra­t­ic ali­bis. The rules of courts, the high-court’s opin­ions, the laws, do not sim­ply safe­guard the regime. They are unceas­ing attacks with the aim to con­trol and man­age, to sub­or­di­nate every moment of our lives. The 10.000 pris­on­ers [note: the num­ber of the greek state’s pris­on­ers], the cam­eras that got legal­ized, the strik­ers sum­moned, the asy­lum bro­ken, indi­cate them. These are not mis­takes, we don’t talk about a few judges that don’t do their job well. We talk of the mod­ern mar­tial courts that safe­guard the dom­i­nant order. We speak of judges that dis­trib­ute 50 years in prison, every day, and then watch watch Lazopou­los on their TVs [note: a greek pop­ulist come­di­an com­ment­ing on the sys­tem’s faults]. And all of these, under the wrap­per of inde­pen­dance and unselfish­ness. In order to shut up the ques­tions, to blur crit­ics, to enforce as truth, inside every­one’s con­science this truth that is revealed in the threats and guilty silences.

That’s because jus­tice, apart from a mech­a­nism of sub­or­do­na­tion, is a tool to rearrange the social rela­tions. Dis­ci­pline, a sense of fair­ness, fear, are fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of inte­gra­tion of pro­hi­bi­tions on the total­i­ty of the social body. The civ­i­liza­tion of law­full and out­law, of fair and injust, of good and evil, is a civ­i­liza­tion that muti­lates social rela­tions. Is a civ­i­liza­tion of depen­den­cy from a venge­ful jus­tice sys­tem. Its val­ues end up to sys­tem­atize jus­tice to a machin­ery of indi­vid­u­als super­vis­ing each oth­er. Inse­cu­ri­ty, snitch­ing and fear for the oth­er, con­sti­tute behav­iours of the per­fec­tion of the mod­ern pat­tern of social orga­ni­za­tion. This sys­tem is n’t applied only inside the court hous­es but also in every expres­sion of our every­day life.

The new cour­t­house halls, the new high-sevu­ri­ty pris­ons, the pro­hi­bi­tions that pro­lif­er­ate, pave the way for the future offen­sives. Against the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice, we take vengeance on this world of author­i­ties untill its total over­throw.

Coman­do “Chris­tos Tsout­sou­vis”

PS. Our every hit is a beat of our heart. And our heart beats fierce­ly close to the hearts of our cap­tive com­rades. This action is ded­i­cat­ed to Gior­gos Vout­sis-Vogiatzis, impris­oned for rob­bing the ETE bank in Gizi.

Few notes: There is an old­er action claimed for “Coman­do Chris­tos Tsout­sou­vis” in Thes­sa­loni­ki, 2007: “On Tues­day 15 May, 22 years after the assas­si­na­tion of the armed guer­ril­la Chris­tos Tsout­sou­vis by cops, and at 4:30 in the morn­ing, the Rair­Road sta­tion local orga­ni­za­tion of New Democ­ra­cy (right-wing rul­ing par­ty), was tipped with a small token of our rage (1 petrol can and 3 home gas can­is­ters were enough to nudge them reface their offices), on the last repres­sive oper­a­tions against the rebels of the whole coun­try’s pris­ons.”
Chris­tos Tsout­sou­vis was an urban guer­ril­la, mem­ber of ELA (Peo­ple’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Strug­gle) and Anti­s­tate Fight. He was mur­dered on 15 May 1985 by under­cov­er police­men in Gizi, Athens after a shootout, suc­ceed­ing though to exe­cute three of them.

»

Attack against the munic­i­pal police of Ilioupoli (Athens, 22/5/2008)
From the mass-media:

“Mess and pan­ic were caused Thurs­day night, when a group of around 20 per­sons attacked the city hall of Ilioupoli. The masked-up group suprised the police­men, throw­ing red paints and broke with stones the glass win­dows of the city hall. Then, they destroyed with batons, sticks and knifes the per­son­al car of Ilioupoli’s may­or and two patrol cars of the munic­i­pal police. Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion, the attack of these young peo­ple was a form of protest and of sup­port to two detained anar­chists. The activists left on foot, towards the cen­tral square of Ilioupoli, throw­ing behind them com­mu­niques against the munic­i­pal author­i­ty. The police forces realised a man­hunt to find and arrest any”…

Fol­low­ing is a trans­la­tion of a com­mu­nique sent to directactiongr@yahoo.gr

“We select­ed to attack on the 22th of May, against the munic­i­pal police and the city hall of Ilioupoli, as a sig­nal of sol­i­dar­i­ty to the detained anar­chists M. Tsoura­pas and Chr. Kon­tore­vithakis, accused for attempt­ing to burn up a car of the munic­i­pal police in P. Faliro, and fac­ing a jury on July, 11.

The munic­i­pal police is anoth­er repres­sive mech­a­nism in duty bound to keep the nor­mal flow of con­sump­tion and hunt­ing the so-called black mar­ket and the street-sales­men, safe­guard­ing the prof­its of lux­u­rius shops, while it con­sti­tutes yet one insti­tu­tion of polic­ing in the mitrop­o­lis, against every­day petit-delin­quent behav­iours. The per­cep­tions that con­tributed to its for­ma­tion will be always a tar­get for us, and so will be their car­ri­ers. This spe­cif­ic attack against the city hall of Ilioupo­lis is not blind at all, since this munic­i­pal­i­ty through the for­mer munic­i­pal coun­sel­lor Athana­sios Kouret­sis invest­ed in the pilot project “The neigh­bor­hood’s munic­i­pal police­man” in the foot­steps of the failed police project “The neigh­bor­hood’s police­man”. This ex-cop that par­tic­i­pat­ed in Ilioupo­lis’ city coun­sil want­ed sim­ply to con­tribute in the strenghen­ing of the cit­i­zen’s sense of secu­ri­ty, as his pro­pos­al sug­gests. We will always stand opposed and choose the offen­sive way against the dog­ma of “Secu­ri­ty, law and order” based on a total sys­tem of insti­tu­tions and per­cep­tions that eter­nal­ize the mod­ern real­i­ty. Their effort to sharp­en repres­sion and con­trol over our dig­ni­ties and our lives, will now meet with the cli­max of our attacks.

FREEDOM FOR THE DETAINED ANARCHISTS
MARIOS TSOURAPAS AND CHRISSOSTOMOS KONTOREVITHAKIS”

»

Bank fire­bombed (Ioan­ni­na, 22/5/2008)
This is a trans­la­tion of the claim post­ed on http://athens.indymedia.org

“Today dur­ing the dawn, 22/5/08, we attacked a sub­sidiary of Piraeus bank on Dodo­nis street, close to the tech­ni­cal col­lege. We hurled 4 molo­tov cock­tails at the bank’s ATM, the cam­era, and the main entrance. This attack was under­tak­en despite the con­stat patrols of the cops, who even passed by a few min­ut­ed before the attack. Mate­r­i­al dam­ages were realised against the ATM and the entrance, break­ing a piece of the glass-win­dow. This attack was clear­ly sym­bol­ic, so a total destruc­tion of the bank was not an issue. We oppose every form of polic­ing and author­i­ty and we trust in vio­lent actions to over­throw the state. Sol­i­dar­i­ty to the actions that pre­ced­ed and to those that will fol­low.

COMRADES FROM THE STREETS OF EVERYDAY STRUGGLE.”

»

Uni­ver­si­ty rec­tors elec­tions sab­o­taged (Athens-Piraeus, 22/5/2008)

Stu­dents invad­ed halls where the rec­tors elec­tions were held accord­ing to the new “frame”-law con­cern­ing uni­ver­si­ties, in the tech­ni­cal insti­tutes of Athens and Piraeus, destroy­ing vot­ing papers, tak­ing away bal­lot box­es, break­ing them or throw­ing them to garbage. Stu­dents of DAP-NDFK (rul­ing par­ty right-wing stu­dent youth) that were present, tried to guard the elec­tions process but were repelled.

In the same time, over 35 fac­ul­ties are occu­pied by stu­dent assem­blies, against the new “frame”-law appli­ca­tion.

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Sur­veil­lance cam­eras destroyed dur­ing squaters sol­i­dar­i­ty march (Athens, 20/5/2008)
Pho­tos of the march: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=868546

Sur­veil­lance cam­eras were bro­ken, dur­ing the march in sol­i­dar­i­ty to the Vil­la Amalias squat. The march was organ­ised on the occa­sion of an arson attack against the squat two days ear­li­er, and hun­dreds of peo­ple demon­strat­ed in cen­tral Athens.

»

Fenc­ing bars around the poly­tech­nic school dis­man­tled (Athens, 17/5/2008)

Pho­tos: http://athens.indymedia.org/

Accord­ing to a report from athens.indymedia.org:

“After 12 in the morn­ing, peo­ple from the poly­tech­nic school self-man­aged infos­hop left­ists, stu­dents and oth­ers, gath­ered around Zografou gate and destroyed all the extra fenc­ing bars placed by the dead to pre­vent peo­ple from enter­ing the uni­ver­si­ty late at night and dur­ing week­ends. An oth­er door was also tak­en, so peo­ple wan’t both­er to jump over fences to enter the uni­ver­si­ty when it clos­es. Lat­er on, some threw the bars at the door of the dean hall and at the dean’s office.

While this action took place, three under­cov­er police­men gath­ered out­side the gates, but left when they became noticed. A riot police brigade was set out­side the near­by police sta­tion of Zografou, and a per­son was tak­ing pho­tos of the peo­ple gath­ered from a near­by build­ing, but left when peo­ple approached the build­ing.”

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Arson­ists hit a bank (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 17/5/2008)
Respon­si­bil­i­ty claim at http://athens.indymedia.org/

“Ear­ly in the morn­ing of Sat­ur­day, we attacked the nation­al bank at Trian­dria. This action is sym­bol­ic, a sign of sol­i­dar­i­ty to the anar­chist V. Botzatzis and our three fugi­tive com­rades. No cap­tiv­i­ty can stop the war with the Exis­tent. Our rage will set their peace­ful nights on fire..”

Towards climate action in Copenhagen 2009

First inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing

We invite you to join the 1st inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen from the 13–14th of Sep­tem­ber 2008. The meet­ing aims at prepar­ing a large mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov-11 Dec 2009).

First inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing

We invite you to join the 1st inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen from the 13–14th of Sep­tem­ber 2008. The meet­ing aims at prepar­ing a large mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov-11 Dec 2009).

We stand at a cross­roads in his­to­ry. The facts are unde­ni­able. Glob­al cli­mate change, caused by human activ­i­ties, is hap­pen­ing. We all know that, world over, we’re fac­ing a man­i­fold and deep­en­ing cri­sis: of the cli­mate, ener­gy, food, liveli­hoods, and of polit­i­cal and human rights. Sci­en­tif­ic, envi­ron­men­tal, social and civ­il soci­ety move­ments from all over the world are call­ing for action against cli­mate change.

Mas­sive con­sump­tion of fos­sil fuel is one of the major caus­es of glob­al warm­ing, a prob­lem that threat­ens the lives of hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple around the world. Instead of lead­ing the way, gov­ern­ments are pri­or­i­tiz­ing eco­nom­ic growth and cor­po­rate inter­ests while ignor­ing the speed­ing train of cli­mate change hurtling towards the abyss. The cor­po­rate exploita­tion of the plan­et’s resources can­not be allowed to con­tin­ue any longer. We have pre­cious lit­tle time to react to this threat. We need action NOW to stop cli­mate change, and if the so-called ‘lead­ers’ won’t lead the way, we must.

On the 30th Novem­ber 2009, world lead­ers will come to Copen­hagen for the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (COP15). This will be the most impor­tant sum­mit on cli­mate change ever to have tak­en place, and it will deter­mine how the coun­tries of the world are going to respond to the cli­mate threat. The deci­sions tak­en there will define the future for all the peo­ple of the world. The pre­vi­ous meet­ings give no indi­ca­tion that this meet­ing will pro­duce any­thing more than emp­ty rhetoric and a green washed blue­print for busi­ness-as-usu­al.

There is an alter­na­tive to the cur­rent course and it’s not some far-off dream. If we put rea­son before prof­it, we can live amaz­ing lives with­out destroy­ing our plan­et. But this will not hap­pen by itself. We have to take direct action, both against the root caus­es of cli­mate change and to help cre­ate a new, just and joy­ous world in the shell of the old. And so, we call on all respon­si­ble peo­ple of the plan­et to take direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change dur­ing the COP15 sum­mit in Copen­hagen 2009.

The exact plans for our mobi­liza­tion are not yet final­ized. We have time to col­lec­tive­ly decide what our best course of action may be. We encour­age every­one to start mobi­liz­ing in your own coun­tries. It is time to take the pow­er back from the lead­ers not respon­si­ble enough to hold it. The pow­er is in our hands!

Prac­ti­cal infor­ma­tion

The meet­ing is free for every­one, accom­mo­da­tion and food will be pro­vid­ed by local activists. Note also that the meet­ing will be held the week­end pri­or to the Euro­pean Social Forum (ESF) in Malmö, Sep­tem­ber 17–21. Peo­ple are wel­come to stay in Copen­hagen in the inter­me­di­ate days.

Please announce your arrival to sept08@klimax2009.org. We’re hap­py to respond to any ques­tions you might have. You can also sub­scribe to the inter­na­tion­al mobi­liza­tion mail­ing list.

Please cir­cu­late, trans­late and dis­trib­ute this call wide­ly.

Cli­mate Net­work 09, klimax2009.org

Camps for Climate Action round the world…

2008 will see camps spring up around the world, inspired by the Camps for Cli­mate Action that have tak­en place in the UK, first near Drax, then Heathrow.

UK: near Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion and pro­posed site for new gen­er­a­tion — Cli­mate Car­a­van to the camp from Heathrow, 26th July-3rd August, Camp for Cli­mate Action 3rd-11th August 2008 — www.climatecamp.org.uk

2008 will see camps spring up around the world, inspired by the Camps for Cli­mate Action that have tak­en place in the UK, first near Drax, then Heathrow.

UK: near Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion and pro­posed site for new gen­er­a­tion — Cli­mate Car­a­van to the camp from Heathrow, 26th July-3rd August, Camp for Cli­mate Action 3rd-11th August 2008 — www.climatecamp.org.uk

Ger­many: Kli­macamp, Ham­burg, near a vari­ety of cli­mate crim­i­nals — 15th-28th August -
www.klimacamp08.net

Aus­tralia: Camp for Cli­mate Action, New­cas­tle coal port, north of Syd­ney — 10th-15th July — www.climatecamp.org.au

USA: West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, near Eugene, Ore­gon (28th July-4th August); South East Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, Louisa Coun­ty, Vir­ginia (5th-11th August); North­east Cli­mate Con­flu­ence, Epworth (27th July-3rd August) — www.climateconvergence.org

New Zealand: www.climatecamp.org.nz