Author: earthfirst

Tara Valley Ireland Action Stations — actions & callout for 6th/7th; route walk/action videos — 6th Sept update

22.08.2007

Cul­tur­al Con­ser­va­tion­ists stop work on Tara val­ley, Ire­lands heart of ancient her­itage, by M3 Cli­mate Crim­i­nals.

22.08.2007

Cul­tur­al Con­ser­va­tion­ists stop work on Tara val­ley, Ire­lands heart of ancient her­itage, by M3 Cli­mate Crim­i­nals.
Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Con­cern actions start ear­ly for front­line Earth defence activists.

Live­ly actions were car­ried out on the route of the pro­posed M3 motor­way being plunged through the ancient astro­log­i­cal city com­plex of Tara in Ire­land .This area is known as the Val­ley of the Kings, it is in fact old­er than the val­ley of the kings in Egypt.

Taras knowl­edge and mes­sage still await full revelation.The destruc­tion MUST BE STOPPED.

On thurs. a medi­um sized possee(12 plus) of con­cerned cit­i­zens took a route walk. This began by Inspect­ing the destruc­tion of the Lis­mullen 8,000 year old henge ( arche­ol­o­gy by record ‚draw­ing plans of where all the posts are then, bag­ging and bull­doz­ing) .

We viewed the henge from the hill­side of Rath Lugh the hill fort of the Fian­na the war­riors and pro­tec­tors of Ire­land whose grave­yards are now being des­e­crat­ed and bull­dozed.

The mag­i­cal mys­tery time trav­el­ling tour then pro­ceed­ed to Barons town and Col­lier­stown. Where a gate was block­ad­ed, songs sung and a live­ly debate was had with site secu­ri­ty. We then head­ed of at a trot fol­lowed by a very small con­tin­gent of secu­ri­ty, we kept ahead and man­aged to delay a dig­ger at work for some time till we decide to move on, the plan had been to keep mov­ing and slow up work in many places gueril­la stylee.
We took a break then rushed back onto site to stop the same dig­ger again this time for longer three peo­ple climb­ing onto the roof singing, ignor­ing the secu­ri­tys calls to get down and bang­ing on the roof of the cab till the dri­ver exit­ed left the cab. We then decid­ed to move as the Gar­dai (police) arrived (reac­tion time about 25–30 mins.)

We kept ahead of most secu­ri­ty and laughed much as their 4 wheel dri­ve got stuck in the deep mud. Mud surfers and dig­ger divers required or cul­tur­al con­ser­va­tion­ists as some media have dubbed the con­cerned cit­i­zens of the Emer­ald Isles.

We returned to the first gate and a few of us rushed into a site where about 4 dig­gers and oth­er big trucks were work­ing, Although health and safe­ty law rec­quires the machines to shut down when we are on site ‚these machines car­ried on, most turn off and are fair­ly ami­ca­ble when talked to .

Many of the secu­ri­ty work­ers and even the Guardai have expressed they do not want the road to go this way.
There is and alter­na­tive Meath Coun­ty mul­ti-way pro­pos­al which includes reopen­ing an unused rail­way, a park and ride alter­na­tive routes around the val­ley which are cheap­er and short­er.

One of the keys is cor­rup­tion: Which groups real­ly have bought up the val­ley and stand to make astro­nom­i­cal prof­its from the devel­op­ments that will be built in the val­ley.

Friends of the Fian­na Fail rul­ing par­ty it seems.In con­tra­ven­tion of Euro­pean law. As well as Cor­po­rate giants such as Dick Cheneys Hal­ibur­ton and the Span­ish mega build­ing com­pa­ny set up by Gen­er­al Fran­co called Far­rovial (Now large own­ers of Lon­dons Tube Under­ground and most of the toll motor­ways in South Amer­i­ca)

The action con­tin­ued as the gar­dai caught up and the cross coun­try run began.The younger fit­ter activis­tas man­aged to keep ahead, and the Guard on foot with 2 secu­ri­ty gave up after a few hun­dred metres of mud and rough ground, how­ev­er the next few gates to the road were cov­ered by secu­ri­ty and police vans as we tried to make our exit .So we head­ed deep­er cross coun­try and by chance came across anoth­er dig­ger on route not work­ing ‚this pro­ceed­ed to run away at slow 4mph speed we laughed and fol­lowed it 300m on there was anoth­er dig­ger which saw us, 2 face paint­ed men one in a kilt and a young women armed with a drum. This fright­en­ing spec­ta­cle caused the sec­ond dig­ger to flee at its ridicu­lous top speed we con­tin­ued to laugh.

We stopped these 2 work­ing for some time then secu­ri­ty turned up we went to leave as a sec­ond land rover screached around a cor­ner we ran. We man­aged to escape by div­ing through 2 ditch­es and 2 hedges a van full of secu­ri­ty that arrived seemed reluc­tant to fol­low the man in a kilt through a thorny hedge so close to clock­ing off time.

Our sis­ter was caught but mirac­u­lous­ly released. She was sur­round­ed by 13 secu­ri­ty who told her to come to wait for the guards. She said she would stay there let them come to her also that they could not move her and that this road was ille­gal .They said by who …she said under EU law. She said she had come to pro­tect land and ances­tors and began to ques­tion them on their actions which must have shamed them as after a few min­utes this cap­tive audi­ence of secu­ri­ty told her she was free to go.

It seems some­times the Gar­dai were reluc­tant to arrest due to media cov­er­age. But not always as over 7 have been arrest­ed par­ti­cilar­ly at the bat­tle of Sol­diers Hill 3 weeks ago. Since which most destruc­tion of ancient sites has occured. Some by bull­doz­ers in the mid­dle of the night. So we all had a a day of high adren­a­lin action and fun and escaped to resist the motor­way mad­ness cli­mate crim­i­nals anoth­er day.

On Fri­day we got up at 6.30a.m. to the sound of Trum­pet drum and calls of por­ridge and coffee..A big pos­see.
We block­ad­ed the gate of the Lis­mullen Henge as the Nation­al Road Author­i­ty spon­sored arche­ol­o­gists arrived sham­ing them. The gate hug­ging was good natured with much singing “u cant kill the spir­it of Tara” and oth­er songs. Except for when a gar­dai pushed a young Irish lad back­wards over the edge of the bridge, nar­row­ly escap­ing falling. His appar­ent crime was to ask the Gar­dai to speak to him in Gael­ic (which all Gar­dai are required to speak).

We then regrouped and got 25 of us into 5 cars and hit the gates of the Roestown site run­ning. We spread out over 7–800 m and dig­ger div­ing occu­pied 7–8 dig­gers stop­ping a total of over 15 machines from car­ry­ing on their destruc­tion and des­e­cra­tion. For pic­tures of what Roestown used to be check www.tarasolidarityvigil.net
This action was high­ly effec­tive after about an hour and a half the gar­dai got peo­ple to leave machin­ery some as slow­ly as pos­si­ble .oth­ers pre­fer­ring to pull out across coun­try.
We met up again for food at the vig­il camp then some of us head­ed to Dublin for a Green man meets the Green Par­ty action .

On Sat. there was a demo out­side the G.P.O. in Dublin hand­ing out over 600 leaflets.
All in all 3 days of high action and adven­ture. Adren­a­lin fuelled earth defense.
Very rem­i­nis­cent of Twyford Down, Sols­bury Hill and New­bury.

Tara urgent­ly needs expe­ri­enced activists. Hear the call of the Ances­tors and the Land. Net­work it NOW
Tara sup­port is crit­i­cal­ly need­ed NOW as the E.U. told Ire­land to stop build­ing in June and is tak­ing the Irish govt. to court on Aug 29th how effec­tive this will be we don’t know as always it is up to peo­ple pow­er and direct action.Ancient sites and knowl­edge being lost for­ev­er dai­ly Bulldozing.Take Action.What will we say to Future gen­er­a­tions of this time. Take action for a clean­er cli­mate. There will soon be an action to replant trees along the Tara Val­ley and ener­gise the pro­posed Unesco World Her­itage Park.

Wish List:Trees, Tarps, structures,tents, food, longer range CBs ‚binoc­u­lars, climb­ing har­ness­es and rope, tools, tech stuff,photocopying, net­work­ing, transport.skillsharing Press and media sup­port, dona­tions, phone cred­it.

Trans­port Links £16 Nat express to Dublin or £26 Rail and sail from Euston Lon­don.
Then 7 Euro Bus to Tara Cross 20–25 mins walk from Tara Vig­il camp.Get there any way u can. As soon as u can
Vig­il Camp 00353(0) 861758557
Rath Lugh Action camp 00353( 0) 867372983

www.tarapixie.net
www.savetara.com
www.circlecommunity.org
www.tarwatch.org
www.tarasolidarityvigil.net
www.indymedia.ie
www.indymedia.org.uk

Keep net­work­ing
Net­work It Speak it Text It Email It hear the call.

»»»»»»»»»»

This is a mes­sage for activists who are up for help­ing the Irish pro­test­ers in their fight to avert the new M3 motor­way away from an extreme­ly ancient site, far pre­dat­ing Ston­henge.

Irish Author­i­ties are over­rid­ing an EU con­dem­na­tion that this part of the motor­way’s con­struc­tion is ILLEGAL and are about to bull­doze a recent­ly exca­vat­ed wood­henge, details below. The deep lev­els of cor­rup­tion involved in the ‘devel­op­ment’ of this area are mind bog­gling.

There has been a small but strong protest camp at Tara since before the new year and now these amaz­ing peo­ple are cry­ing out for num­bers. I’ve lit­er­al­ly just got home to Bris­tol now and will be dri­ving back over
there in 10 days, next Tues­day. It was almost impos­si­ble to leave.

The author­i­ties are propos­ing to start dis­man­tling the henge THIS TUESDAY 28TH AUGUST in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing so please please please, if you’ve been con­sid­er­ing a trip to Ire­land go now. Even if you haven’t, despite the heart­break of what is hap­pen­ing there, you can’t help being over­whelmed with the atmos­phere of the place. It’s done me so much good to be there. There are 2 camps, one up on the hill of tara itself, and one in the woods at Rath Lugh, where the henge, known as Lis­mullin is sit­u­at­ed.

Direct action is in progress but our help is urgent­ly need­ed.

Road protests are new in Ire­land as we all know it has remained unspoiled for hun­dreds of years, so peo­ple with direct action expe­ri­ence are crit­i­cal­ly need­ed.

Nation­al Express do a fun­fare from Lon­don to Cork via Bris­tol on bus & boat from £15 each way. If there are fun­fares avail­able on dif­fer­ent routes it will offer them if you click on Europe on their home­page and put in your trav­el details.

If you take the Lon­don — Bris­tol — Cork route get off the boat at Wex­ford, take a bus or train to Dublin then the 109 bus from Busaras Sta­tion towards Navan and Kells. Tara is about 50 min­utes down this route. The dri­ver will tell you where to get off. There’s a camp phone num­ber at the bot­tom, or if you want to ask any­thing please get in touch. If you take a night cross­ing you can sleep and be at Tara by lunchtime.

If you can, please get there for Mon 6th/Tues 7th. Oth­er­wise there will be a van leav­ing Bris­tol next week, or alter­na­tive­ly, there is anoth­er wave planned for Sat­ur­day 1st Sep­tem­ber. It would be great to get a van from Lon­don and Bris­tol organ­ised. A cou­ple of surges of num­bers and a huge spread­ing the word could still avert the road plans to any of the oth­er 5, less dam­ag­ing pro­posed routes. But noth­ing i say will com­pare to the feel­ing of being there, and then under­stand­ing why we’d be doing the right thing to pro­tect it.

www.myspace.com/hilloftara
www.tarapixie.net
www.savatara.com
www.tarawatch.org

Thurs­day 16 August, pro­tes­tors walked the route of the M3 motor­way to view what destruc­tion of the ancient sites in Tara Val­ley have already dis­ap­peared. Then they decid­ed on a lit­tle direct action.

20070816_Tara_Route_Walk_Direct_Action — video/x‑ms-wmv 18M

20070816_Tara_Route_Walk_Direct_Action — video/quicktime 16M

Fri­day 17 August, the Inter­na­tion­al Cul­ture Con­ser­va­tion­ists joined the Save Tara cam­paign in a human block­ade to stop the con­struc­tion com­pa­ny-backed archae­ol­o­gists from enter­ing the site.

20070917_Human_Blockades — video/x‑ms-wmv 18M
20070917_Human_Blockades — video/quicktime 14M

At 6.30am peo­ple rose on the camp to hit the road to the Lis­mullen Henge ear­ly. Using their own bod­ies they stopped all traf­fic enter­ing the site.

The human block­ade was cheer­ful and full of good spir­it. But when the Gar­da arrived one offi­cer grabbed a pro­tes­tor and attempt­ed to throw him over the wall of a bridge.

——

Fol­low­ing the archae­ol­o­gist block­ade, the Save Tara activists and Inter­na­tion­al Cul­tur­al Con­ser­va­tion­ists invad­ed the Roestown site to halt work.

Video 20070717_Roestown_Site_Invasion — video/x‑ms-wmv 16M

20070717_Roestown_Site_Invasion — video/quicktime 13M

Quick­time ver­sion of the video.

15 Machines were halt­ed in the action, bring­ing work to a stand­still.

——

Text mes­sages received just now, Thurs­day 6 Sep­tem­ber, said more inter­na­tion­als have arrived at Tara, tripods and lock-ons are in place at Rath Lugh.

call out for a week of direct action at Hill of Tara, Ireland — starts Sat 1st September 2007

Defend Tara now!

World Her­itage site under attack

Shit is kick­ing off down at Tara/Skryne and the Val­ley of the White Mare, which is part of the ancient com­plex of TARA.

Defend Tara now!

World Her­itage site under attack

Shit is kick­ing off down at Tara/Skryne and the Val­ley of the White Mare, which is part of the ancient com­plex of TARA.

Dig­gers are cur­rent­ly on site work­ing in direct defi­ance of EU orders. Des­e­crat­ing sacred land, destroy­ing trees, carv­ing into neolith­ic hill forts and rip­ping up ances­tral graves, these bas­tards are prepar­ing the route of the M3, a four lane motor­way.

Also they have recent­ly dis­cov­ered a wood­en henge (world her­itage site) 6000BC, pre­dat­ing Stone­henge and the Pyra­mids.

HELP is des­per­ate­ly need­ed as there’s only a hand­ful of pro­test­ers doing their best to defend over 40 ancient sites along the 80km route. Please come along and con­tribute by shar­ing skills and show­ing your sup­port. Any amount of time you can give is valu­able.

The Camp needs food, finan­cial, moral and spir­i­tu­al sup­port, plus equip­ment such as tarps, mobiles, car mobile phone charg­ers, flasks and bat­ter­ies.

HOW TO GET THERE

CAR: take the N3 and then turn left at the TARA sign­post.
FERRY/BUS: get a fer­ry to Dublin fer­ry port, and then take either the Navan, Kells or Cavan bus which leave from Busarus. Get off at TARA CROSS and it is a short walk from there. Tick­ets £26 one way.
COACH: Dublin super saver 19 quid.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion: 086 1758557 (text and get a call back).

For more see www.tarapixie.net

Climate change activity reaches Stansted Airport

22.08.2007

Cli­mate camp activists tar­get Stanst­ed Air­port in an increas­ing wave of activ­i­ty. Leaflets were hand­ed out and a slo­gan attached to a wall on a main entrance/exit. Activists then left, as quick­ly as they had arrived, on pub­lic trans­port.

22.08.2007

Cli­mate camp activists tar­get Stanst­ed Air­port in an increas­ing wave of activ­i­ty. Leaflets were hand­ed out and a slo­gan attached to a wall on a main entrance/exit. Activists then left, as quick­ly as they had arrived, on pub­lic trans­port.

On Tues­day Evening, the ever increas­ing cir­cle of action reached Stanst­ed Air­port, as a group of cam­paign­ers, ini­tial­ly pos­ing as tourists, arrived at the air­port. Leaflets were dis­trib­uted around the air­port high­light­ing the risk of 90% of life on our plan­et per­ish­ing and the hypocrisy of the Gov­ern­ment on the issue. The PlaneS­tu­pid slo­gan “Cli­mate Change Kills” was also attached to a wall on a main entrance/exit in protest at both the Air­ports exist­ing con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change and the extra dam­age that would be caused if Stanst­ed suc­ceeds in get­ting its sec­ond run­way.

Local cli­mate cam­paign­er Peter Simp­son, a res­i­dent of Colch­ester and Chair of the Lib­er­al Demo­c­rat Soci­ety at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Essex, expressed his desire for the peo­ple of Essex and around the coun­try to take note of the actions at Heathrow and to work togeth­er to show the author­i­ties that we can be heard and that we can win the bat­tle to save the plan­et from run­away cli­mate change.

“The time to act is now”, he said, “peer reviewed sci­ence has shown that a two-degree increase will be a dis­as­ter for bil­lions of peo­ple, and we will all have to pay a worst price if changes we make to our liv­ing come too late.”
Cam­paign­ers have stressed that their action is how­ev­er not against indi­vid­ual hol­i­day mak­ers, but at fre­quent fly­ers and the big busi­ness­es that con­trol our way of life and our appetite for the skies.

To find out more; the web­site climatecamp.org.uk has been updat­ed with news and infor­ma­tion about the week and for the future of the mass move­ment.

Brecon Gas Pipeline Sabotaged

The Bre­con bea­cons gas pipeline works were sab­o­taged dur­ing a night action as part of the week of action against cli­mate change and in defence of the earth. Armed with only a wreck­ing bar and deter­mi­na­tion a small team was able to bypass the poor secu­ri­ty and ren­der immo­bile a total of 11 machines includ­ing tip­per trucks and exca­va­tors. Major engine and hydraulic com­po­nents were destroyed and the pipeline itself was holed in sev­er­al places.

The Bre­con bea­cons gas pipeline works were sab­o­taged dur­ing a night action as part of the week of action against cli­mate change and in defence of the earth. Armed with only a wreck­ing bar and deter­mi­na­tion a small team was able to bypass the poor secu­ri­ty and ren­der immo­bile a total of 11 machines includ­ing tip­per trucks and exca­va­tors. Major engine and hydraulic com­po­nents were destroyed and the pipeline itself was holed in sev­er­al places.
This action was car­ried out by nor­mal peo­ple and was easy to achieve oth­ers should con­sid­er sim­i­lar actions.
The pipeline is destroy­ing nat­ur­al habi­tats in order to sup­ply a fuel that we can­not burn if the life on this plan­et is to sur­vive. Con­sid­er the costs envi­ron­men­tal tax.

Wrap up of West Coast Convergence for Climate Action & actions

Between August 8th-14th, 400+ peo­ple gath­ered for the West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action. Par­tic­i­pants took part in near­ly 100 work­shops, as well as lots of games and per­for­mances.

US LNG bannerPacific Corp blockadeBetween August 8th-14th, 400+ peo­ple gath­ered for the West Coast Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action. Par­tic­i­pants took part in near­ly 100 work­shops, as well as lots of games and per­for­mances.

The event took place in Skamokawa, Wash­ing­ton in close prox­im­i­ty to a pro­posed liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG) import ter­mi­nal at Brad­wood, Ore­gon. The Colum­bia Riv­er divides Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton, and par­tic­i­pants in the Con­ver­gence learned about attempts to sus­tain the local econ­o­my of the Low­er Colum­bia Riv­er while resist­ing mas­sive fos­sil fuel devel­op­ments in the area.

On Mon­day, August 13th, Con­ver­gence par­tic­i­pants were joined by dozens of local activists oppos­ing the Brad­wood LNG ter­mi­nal. The group gath­ered on the Wash­ing­ton shore of the Colum­bia Riv­er, where hun­dreds of peo­ple live in close prox­im­i­ty to the Brad­wood LNG pro­pos­al. Using fish­ing boats, sail­boats, kayaks, and an umi­ak, par­tic­i­pants in the action crossed the Colum­bia Riv­er and occu­pied the beach at Brad­wood where North­ern­Star Nat­ur­al Gas intends to con­struct a large LNG ter­mi­nal.

On Tues­day, August 14th activists locked down in front of the Paci­fi­Corp (aka Pacif­ic Pow­er) build­ing in Port­land, Ore­gon to demand that the com­pa­ny shut down the four dams it oper­ates on the Kla­math riv­er and stop devel­op­ing coal fire pow­er plants. The pro­test­ers were joined by a ral­ly of sev­er­al dozen sup­port­ers, many of whom wore haz­mat suits paint­ed with fake blood to draw atten­tion to the poi­so­nous con­di­tions on the Kla­math Riv­er.

No one was arrest­ed at either action; it was gen­er­al­ly con­clud­ed that the com­pa­nies tar­get­ed want­ed to avoid draw­ing the addi­tion­al media atten­tion that arrests would bring.

Monday’s action also fea­tured a ban­ner hang hung on a cliff adja­cent to the Brad­wood site, show­ing a tar­get sym­bol and the words “Anoth­er LNG Dis­as­ter — What’s Your Num­ber?” The “num­ber” refers to recent­ly released clasi­fied pic­tures obtained anony­mous­ly show­ing that North­ern­Star, devel­op­er of the LNG ter­mi­nal, has num­bered every struc­ture with­in two miles. Local LNG oppo­nents first exposed this dis­turb­ing map­ping project dur­ing Clat­sop Coun­ty land use hear­ings, with one res­i­dent ask­ing, “If we’re not going to be impact­ed at all, then why is there a num­ber on my roof in this pic­ture?”

The glob­al impacts of the LNG indus­try were also a focus of the Cli­mate Con­ver­gence, where par­tic­i­pants learned that LNG is up to 40 per­cent more car­bon inten­sive than nat­ur­al gas due to its long sup­ply chain (LNG must be extract­ed as nat­ur­al gas, liq­ue­fied, shipped huge dis­tances, and ulti­mate­ly re-gasi­fied). Recent stud­ies show that LNG is com­pa­ra­ble to gasi­fied coal (aka “Clean Coal,” a true oxy­moron — see post about SE Con­ver­gence!) in its car­bon impacts. Fur­ther­more, local LNG oppo­nents shared what they had learned about the glob­al LNG indus­try, hav­ing com­mu­ni­cat­ed with oppo­nents of LNG pro­duc­ing facil­i­ties in Indone­sia and Rus­sia. In these places, the severe eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and human rights impacts of LNG devel­op­ment are mul­ti­plied many times over in com­par­i­son to the expe­ri­ence of rur­al Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton.

Beyond cli­mate change issues, the West Coast Con­ver­gence used the car­bon trail of var­i­ous ener­gy sources to put the envi­ron­men­tal, human rights, and labor prac­tices of the fos­sil fuel indus­try on dis­play. Speak­ers addressed a huge vari­ety of issues per­tain­ing to coal, nat­ur­al gas, and hydropow­er issues while oth­ers used the event to demon­strate skills and sus­tain­abil­i­ty prac­tices that can pre­clude the need for destruc­tive fos­sil fuels and hydropow­er.

The Con­ver­gence was met with strong local sup­port — near­ly 100 peo­ple from the sur­round­ing rur­al coun­ties in Ore­gon and Wash­ing­ton par­tic­i­pat­ed — and impor­tant exchanges between those fight­ing fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment on local, region­al and glob­al scales. Par­tic­i­pants came from as far south as South­ern Cal­i­for­nia and as far north as Alber­ta and Van­cou­ver Island.

Common Ground — Squated Community Garden Still Growing, Still Resisting!

2nd Evic­tion Attempt Resist­ed, Injunc­tion Bro­ken Again, New Gar­dens on the Hori­zon!

Com­mon Ground — a squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in Kates­grove, Read­ing — is still being enjoyed by the com­mu­ni­ty and still grow­ing, despite a 2nd attempt by the coun­cil to close the gar­den down and evict the gar­den­ers.

2nd Evic­tion Attempt Resist­ed, Injunc­tion Bro­ken Again, New Gar­dens on the Hori­zon!

Com­mon Ground — a squat­ted com­mu­ni­ty gar­den in Kates­grove, Read­ing — is still being enjoyed by the com­mu­ni­ty and still grow­ing, despite a 2nd attempt by the coun­cil to close the gar­den down and evict the gar­den­ers.

The coun­cil owned land, which backs onto sev­er­al derelict build­ings, was occu­pied by near­by squat­ters and local activists in Jan­u­ary this year. They spent four months trans­form­ing a rub­bish strewn junk­yard into a beau­ti­ful gar­den, rely­ing on recy­cling, dona­tions and self-organ­i­sa­tion to get the job done.

On May 19th the gar­den was opened to the com­mu­ni­ty, despite the Coun­cil obtain­ing an injunc­tion mak­ing the open­ing BBQ and acoustic music gig ille­gal. Near­ly 200 peo­ple came through the gar­den, and all were amazed at the dif­fer­ence. Since then, locals have been using the gar­den reg­u­lar­ly to relax and eat lunch in, or take the chil­dren to the play area.

In June, the Coun­cil obtained an pos­s­e­sion order for the squat­ters home and Com­mon Ground. On 20th June, despite leav­ing their home, the squat­ters, gar­den­ers, activists and local res­i­dents teamed up to resist the evic­tion of the gar­den, with a few res­i­dents being pre­pared to break the law to con­tin­ue occu­py­ing the land. Coun­cil officials/bailiffs showed up, and pret­ty quick­ly retreat­ed, leav­ing every­body to enjoy anoth­er par­ty.

In the last few weeks, the Coun­cil have unsuc­cess­ful­ly attempt­ed a sec­ond evic­tion. In late July, once again gar­den­ers, neigh­bours and activists mobilised to defend the gar­den from evic­tion, once again defy­ing the law and once again see­ing Coun­cil offi­cials retreat­ing emp­ty hand­ed. And last Sun­day, despite intim­i­da­tion as the Coun­cil threat­ened unnamed organ­is­ers with jail, sev­er­al peo­ple enjoyed a com­mu­ni­ty pic­nic and arts day in the gar­den, cre­at­ing a brand new moza­ic path­way.

Main­tain­ing the occu­pa­tion of the land is not the only suc­cess of Com­mon Ground. In a bad­ly thought out attempt to move the occu­piers, the Coun­cil offered two alter­na­tive sites. How­ev­er, when the gar­den­ers refused them, the Coun­cil were oblig­at­ed to offer them to the local res­i­dents asso­ci­a­tion. Indi­vid­u­als involved in Com­mon Ground have met with the res­i­dents asso­ci­a­tion, and it is like­ly they will help the res­i­dents to cre­ate a sec­ond and pos­si­bly third com­mu­ni­ty gar­den for the area, this time legal­ly. Direct-action gets the goods!

Even bet­ter, Com­mon Ground is appar­ent­ly inspir­ing oth­ers to take direct-action to improve their neigh­bour­hoods. On the oth­er side of a Read­ing, a lady who had been refused per­mis­sion from her hous­ing asso­ci­a­tion to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den on some of their derelict land, has told peo­ple involved in Com­mon Ground that she has now been inspired to go ahead and do it any­way! Nat­u­ral­ly, some Com­mon Ground gar­den­ers will offer advice and assis­tance with this new project.

Com­mon Ground is locat­ed through the alley­way, next to the ex-Wom­ens Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre in Sil­ver Street, Kates­grove, Read­ing, 10 min­utes from the train sta­tion. Please email katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk for more infor­ma­tion.

Resis­tance is fer­tile!

katesgrovegarden(AT)yahoo.co.uk

Southeast Convergence for Climate Action shuts down Bank of America

August 13, 2007

***5 arrest­ed protest­ing Bank of America’s invest­ments in coal and cli­mate change***

As a cul­mi­na­tion of the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, activists took a bold direct action against Bank of Amer­i­ca over con­cerns regard­ing their invest­ment through­out the coal cycle and their pro­mo­tion of cli­mate injus­tice. Although there was much spec­u­la­tion regard­ing a protest action at the Progress Ener­gy Sky­land coal-fired pow­er plant, pro­tes­tors sur­prised the down­town office of Bank of Amer­i­ca.

Bank of America climate placard
Bank of America cops
Climate Justice Now banner
August 13, 2007

***5 arrest­ed protest­ing Bank of America’s invest­ments in coal and cli­mate change***

As a cul­mi­na­tion of the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action, activists took a bold direct action against Bank of Amer­i­ca over con­cerns regard­ing their invest­ment through­out the coal cycle and their pro­mo­tion of cli­mate injus­tice. Although there was much spec­u­la­tion regard­ing a protest action at the Progress Ener­gy Sky­land coal-fired pow­er plant, pro­tes­tors sur­prised the down­town office of Bank of Amer­i­ca.

Two activists locked down inside the main lob­by and oth­er activists block­ad­ed the entrance to the down­town branch of Bank of Amer­i­ca. The protest includ­ed a large, live­ly group of con­cerned cit­i­zens dressed as canaries and polar bears. Activists car­ried signs and ban­ners that read: “Bank of Amer­i­ca Stop Fund­ing Cli­mate Change,” “Bank of Amer­i­ca Stop Moun­tain­top Removal,” “No Coal, No Nukes, No Kid­ding” “Bank of Amer­i­ca Cli­mate Crim­i­nal.”

Bank of Amer­i­ca has lent hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to com­pa­nies that run and are plan­ning to build new pow­er plants, such as Flori­da Pow­er and Light. Between 2005 and 2007, Bank of Amer­i­ca facil­i­tat­ed near­ly $1 bil­lion in loans to Massey Ener­gy and Arch Coal, two of the largest com­pa­nies respon­si­ble for the destruc­tive prac­tice of moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing. This form of min­ing lit­er­al­ly blasts the tops off of moun­tains to get at thin seems of coal that lay beneath. Moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing has per­ma­nent­ly destroyed over 500 square miles of moun­tains and buried over 1,200 miles of streams in West Vir­ginia alone.

As of 2005, Progress Energy’s Sky­land was the fifth largest pur­chas­er of Massey Energy’s coal. Progress Energy’s Sky­land plant is a pur­chas­er and burn­er of moun­tain­top removal coal as well as the largest point source of pol­lu­tion in Bun­combe Coun­ty.

Locked down

The South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action aimed to pro­mote a just, rapid, nuclear-free tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fuels; to pro­mote envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice by sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ties that are fight­ing dirty ener­gy devel­op­ments in their back­yards; and to encour­age direct actions as a means for chal­leng­ing cor­po­rate pow­er and empow­er­ing move­ments to stop cli­mate change.

“I attend­ed the con­ver­gence to build my skills for orga­niz­ing and tak­ing action on cli­mate change,” said Joey Lit­tle­ton, a con­ver­gence par­tic­i­pant. “This is a great place to network–there are activists from all over the south­east region with a wide breadth of expe­ri­ence on envi­ron­ment and social jus­tice issues. I enjoyed the strat­e­gy ses­sions; I came here to get involved with the move­ment to stop cli­mate change.”

The South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action is hap­pen­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with a Cli­mate Con­ver­gence on the west coast focused on fight­ing liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas ter­mi­nals, and in con­junc­tion with the UK Camp for Cli­mate Action tak­ing place at London’s Heathrow air­port.

“Glob­al­ly and local­ly, change will come from com­mu­ni­ties, not from benign politi­cians and cor­po­ra­tions who hope to prof­it off the cli­mate cri­sis with feel-good ‘solu­tions’ that do noth­ing to chal­lenge a fun­da­men­tal­ly unjust and unsus­tain­able sys­tem,” said Mary Olson, direc­tor of the South­east office of Nuclear Infor­ma­tion and Resource Ser­vice and co-orga­niz­er of the con­ver­gence.

Today a mas­sive police oper­a­tion was deployed in Bun­combe, Hen­der­son, and Tran­syl­va­nia Coun­ties to pre­vent activists from protest­ing a dirty pow­er plant respon­si­ble for cli­mate change. Dozens of uni­formed and under­cov­er cops sur­round­ed the site of the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action as a police heli­copter hov­ered over the site.

In addi­tion, dozens more police were deployed at Progress Energy’s Sky­land coal pow­er plant to pre­vent legit­i­mate protest against dirty ener­gy and cli­mate change. “This shows which side of the cli­mate debate the gov­ern­ment is on. They have spent tens of thou­sands of dol­lars to pro­tect the coal indus­try today. Clear­ly if the gov­ern­ment want­ed to address cli­mate change, they would be send­ing the police in to arrest the heads of Progress Ener­gy for per­pet­u­at­ing the great­est threat human­i­ty has ever faced — cli­mate change,” an anony­mous polar bear said.###

CORRECTION

We would like to clar­i­fy state­ments that were made about the Asheville Police Depart­ment (APD) using taz­ers against par­tic­i­pants in the action against cli­mate change and moun­tain­top removal at Bank of Amer­i­ca yes­ter­day.

The Cli­mate Con­ver­gence sent out a press release say­ing that peo­ple locked down inside the bank were sub­ject to elec­tro­cu­tion shocks from taz­ers, based on the accounts of wit­ness­es inside the bank. Now that the pro­tes­tors are out of jail, we have learned that this was an inac­cu­rate con­clu­sion based on rea­son­able sus­pi­cion. One pro­test­er was heard scream­ing while pinned down by large group of offi­cers and sub­ject­ed to excru­ci­at­ing pain com­pli­ance holds right after the police were heard yelling back and forth to each ask­ing “Who has a taz­er? Get a taz­er!” Many of the offi­cers on the scene were equipped with elec­tro­cu­tion devis­es, along with rub­ber bul­lets, chem­i­cal weapons, dogs, and train­ing in tor­ture tech­niques. In addi­tion, a cer­ti­fied Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cian (EMT) who attempt­ed to check on the safe­ty of the pro­test­ers after hear­ing shouts from offi­cers about taz­ers was not allowed to do so.

The APD has a his­to­ry of using taz­ers, wide­ly rec­og­nized as a form of tor­ture and the cause of sev­er­al deaths around the coun­try, on non­vi­o­lent pro­test­ers. In light of increased use of para­mil­i­tary tac­tics by local police forces in civil­ian sit­u­a­tions, such con­clu­sions are to be expect­ed. We report­ed infor­ma­tion we thought to be accu­rate at the time; in light of new infor­ma­tion, we apol­o­gize for any inac­cu­ra­cies we report­ed.

In Defense of a Liv­ing Plan­et,

###
Addi­tion­al­ly, the South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action made the fol­low­ing state­ment:

List of Demands

Rec­og­niz­ing that cli­mate change is already here, we hold cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ments account­able for the effects on com­mu­ni­ties, peo­ple and the liv­ing earth. There­fore, we demand:

1. That Bank of Amer­i­ca com­plete­ly divest from the coal indus­try and oth­er dirty, cli­mate-chang­ing ener­gy com­pa­nies.
2. A 90% reduc­tion of green­house gas emis­sions by 2050.
3. An imme­di­ate halt to any plans for new nuclear and coal pow­er plants and a com­plete redi­rec­tion of research and devel­op­ment mon­ey toward con­ser­va­tion, effi­cien­cy and clean, renew­able ener­gy projects.
4. An imme­di­ate end to moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing and oth­er forms of strip min­ing.
5. A just, rapid tran­si­tion away from fos­sil fuels and nuclear pow­er by 2020.
6. A shift to com­mu­ni­ty con­trolled, small-scale sys­tems of ener­gy pro­duc­tion, trans­porta­tion, and food pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion.
7. An end to the pri­va­ti­za­tion of the atmos­phere through mar­ket-based mech­a­nisms such as car­bon trad­ing.
8. Cli­mate Jus­tice Now!

From: The South­east Con­ver­gence for Cli­mate Action — http://www.climateconvergence.org/southeast/

Who are our mystery callers at Barnstaple Quarry?

Some­one came to call at Barn­sta­ble quar­ry aggre­gate indus­tries and cut all the elec­tric cables in the build­ing and dam­aged a pri­vate­ly owned truck, and dam­aged an office and topped up their sta­tion­ary (don’t we all nick sta­tionery from work places!)

Some­one came to call at Barn­sta­ble quar­ry aggre­gate indus­tries and cut all the elec­tric cables in the build­ing and dam­aged a pri­vate­ly owned truck, and dam­aged an office and topped up their sta­tion­ary (don’t we all nick sta­tionery from work places!)

They wiped the white board clean and wrote ‘Earth First’ but oth­er then that not much of a clue as to why any­one would want to break in to an unwork­ing quar­ry..
Any­one got a clue as to what the protest is???

I’m the [rel­a­tive of some­one con­nect­ed to the quar­ry — edit­ed out email address & exact con­nec­tion]

see you all at the cli­mate camp

🙂

[we’ve not heard report of this except through this email con­tact — check out their web­sites at http://www.aggregate.com/ and http://www.aggregate-uk.com/index.html for poten­tial rea­sons this multi­na­tion­al con­struc­tion and build­ing mate­ri­als com­pa­ny was tar­get­ed]

Spirit of Freedom (August 2007) — Produced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“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)

“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 August 2007 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. Reg­u­lar read­ers of Spir­it of Free­dom will notice that this issue of the newslet­ter is slight­ly dif­fer­ent to pre­vi­ous issues. As long-term ELP sup­port­ers will be aware, back in 2000, after the arrests & remand­ings of a group of Irish anti-road pro­test­ers ELP launched its e‑mail “Urgent ELP!” ser­vice. Over the years this ser­vice has proven very pop­u­lar with most of our sup­port­ers now receiv­ing their news via e‑mail with very few peo­ple receiv­ing the newslet­ter in its paper ver­sion. With that in mind, ELP has decid­ed to end its paper ver­sion of its newslet­ter. And because most of the “Court Reports & Legal Updates” news con­tained in Spir­it of Free­dom has already been cir­cu­lat­ed via e‑mail we are drop­ping this from our newslet­ter and from now on “Spir­it of Free­dom” will sole­ly be a pris­on­er list­ing pub­li­ca­tion. How­ev­er, to remind every­one of all the pris­on­ers we do sup­port we will be cir­cu­lat­ing the “Spir­it of Free­dom” pris­on­er list­ing on a month­ly basis, to give every­one a reg­u­lar reminder of all the pris­on­ers we sup­port. Whilst look­ing through the list, if you notice an error, please con­tact ELP and we will cor­rect it imme­di­ate­ly. In the mean­time, remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Fadal­la Idris Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Mohamed Ahmed Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #1533241 22, Den­ver Coun­ty Jail, PO Box 1108, Den­ver, CO 80201, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

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.

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.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez –Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Bet­ty Kraw­czyk, Alou­ette Cor­rec­tion­al Cen­tre for Women, P.O. Box 1000, Maple Ridge, BC, V2X 3K4, Cana­da. Serv­ing 10-months for protest­ing against the devel­op­ment of the Win­ter Olympics site on tra­di­tion­al Squamish ter­ri­to­ry

Jef­frey Luers, #13797671, OSP, 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310, USA. Serv­ing 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Ali Mohamed Alhas­sen Mas­sad (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. On Remand accused of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, MDC Brook­lyn Met­ro­pol­i­tan Deten­tion Cen­ter, PO Box 329002, Brook­lyn, NY 11232, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against a lum­ber com­pa­ny. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Jonathan Paul – See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #0707300576, San Bernardi­no CDC, 630 E. Rial­to Ave., San Bernardi­no, CA 92415, 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.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

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.

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block – See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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.

Don­ald Cur­rie TN4593, HMP White­moor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs, PE15 OPR, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Dar­ius Fullmer #26397–050, FCI Fort Dix Satel­lite Camp, P.O. Box 1000, Fort Dix, NJ 08640 USA. Serv­ing 12 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

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.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

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.

Joseph Har­ris TN5728, HMP Bulling­don, Patrick Haugh Road, Arn­cott, Nr. Bices­ter, Oxon, OX25 1WD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for dam­ag­ing the prop­er­ty of peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences.

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

Josephine Mayo PR6508, HMP Drake Hall, Eccle­shall, Staffs, ST21 6LQ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Daniel McGowan – See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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.

Jonathan Paul, c/o Friends of Jonathan Paul, PMB 267, 2305 Ash­land St., Ste. C, Ash­land, OR 97520, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Mark Tay­lor TT6636, HMP YOI Onley, Rug­by, Wark­wick­shire, CV23 8AP, Eng­land. Serv­ing four years for organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

Suzanne Tay­lor, TM7154, HMP Fos­ton Hall, Fos­ton, Der­by, Der­byshire, DE65 5DN, Eng­land. Serv­ing two and a half years for help­ing organ­ise loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

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.

Joy­an­na Zach­er – See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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.

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Bren­dan Walsh 12473–052, FCI/FSL Elk­ton, PO Box 10, Lis­bon, OH 44432 USA. Serv­ing 5 years for an arson on an army recruit­ment office in protest at the War on Iraq.

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

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion which turned into a riot.

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.

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.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

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

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

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.

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.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. 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 Grate­ford, PO Box 244, Grate­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), 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

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

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.

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

North Amer­i­can ELP Pris­on­er Fund. The North Amer­i­can ELP group has set up a fund where peo­ple can pay mon­ey, for North Amer­i­can Eco-Defence and Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers, which will then be dis­trib­uted to the North Amer­i­can pris­on­ers. For infor­ma­tion about the Fund and how to make a dona­tion please con­tact naelpsn@mutualaid.org

DEDICATION
This Edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom is ded­i­cat­ed to Bill ‘Aval­on’ Rodgers, the Amer­i­can ‘Ore­gon Defen­dant’ who end­ed his own life in Decem­ber 2005 whilst on Remand.

Climate Camp Land Occupied & directions

11.08.2007

Cli­mate Camp activists met at a half dozen loca­tions around Lon­don this after­noon, mov­ing dur­ing the evening in vans to var­i­ous sites near Heathrow.

Just after eleven the groups con­verged on a large field oppo­site the air­port. With­in minute tripods were erect­ed and occu­pied with a large ban­ner read­ing “Cli­mate Camp, No Air­port Expan­sion” slung between the two.

climate camp 07 set-up marqueeclimate camp 07 set-up FITclimate camp 07 set-up marqueeclimate camp 07 busy setting-upclimate camp 07 set-up right by terminal11.08.2007

Cli­mate Camp activists met at a half dozen loca­tions around Lon­don this after­noon, mov­ing dur­ing the evening in vans to var­i­ous sites near Heathrow.

Just after eleven the groups con­verged on a large field oppo­site the air­port. With­in minute tripods were erect­ed and occu­pied with a large ban­ner read­ing “Cli­mate Camp, No Air­port Expan­sion” slung between the two.

By 11.30 a hun­dred or so peo­ple were on the Sip­son Lane site
( http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=sipson&ie=UTF‑8&oe=UTF‑8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox‑a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wl) , half way between Sip­son and Har­ling­ton vil­lages. Vans were being quick­ly unloaded, tape was mark­ing out the bar­rios and tents were being erect­ed. Despite the pitch dark­ness kitchens were being organ­ised and a vil­lage began to take place.

Mid­night saw the arrival of the first police — does over­time kick in at a high­er rate after the witch­ing hour? Five vans lined up out­side the west gate, a cou­ple more out­side the east gate and sev­er­al saloons denot­ing the pres­ence of senior offi­cers.

A pha­lanx of cops poured on to the site and demand­ed to speak to the lead­ers. A quick call out for peo­ple to the main gate seemed to over­whelm them and they beat a hasty retreat back to the vans, a fair­ly low grade FIT team video­ing and stum­bling over the brack­en as it went.

The mood on the site is one of great ela­tion. After months of plan­ning and antic­i­pa­tion the day has final­ly arrived and the site is tak­en.

==========

The Cli­mate Camp site has been suc­cess­ful­ly tak­en!

We now need lots of peo­ple to come down and get every­thing set up.

We are on Sip­son Lane, between the vil­lages of Sip­son and Har­ling­ton, North of Heathrow.

By pub­lic trans­port:

Train from Padding­ton to ‘Hayes and Har­ling­ton’ sta­tion.

From there bus 90, 140 or H98 head­ing South. Get off at the cor­ner of Har­ling­ton High Street and walk West along Sip­son Lane about 600 metres.

OR

About a 2 mile walk — south into Har­ling­ton vil­lage then as above.

OR

Go one sta­tion fur­ther on to West Dray­ton and take the 222 bus to the West­ern (Sip­son) end of Sip­son Lane.

Loca­tion Map

Staines is quite far away — if you want to make your own way to the site don’t go to Staines!

But what we do know is that if is that if you get your­self to Staines rail­way sta­tion in West Lon­don by 10am on Tues­day 14th August, you will be greet­ed by our friend­ly wel­come team and prompt­ly trans­port­ed via a mag­i­cal mys­tery tour, to the camp! Staines rail­way sta­tion is very small so the Wel­come Desk and pick­up bus­es will be run­ning from Spelthorne Leisure Cen­tre, 5 min­utes walk from the station.(There will also be lifts to the camp lat­er in the day and through­out the week).

If you get lost try­ing to find the sta­tion or any oth­er enquiries then call 0207 3779088 . There will be some­one man­ning the phone at the Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre 10am to 6pm from 2nd August who will be able to help you.
There will prob­a­bly be police­man film­ing you at the sta­tion and else­where. Do not be intim­i­dat­ed

===

The police are very pissed off that they did­n’t find the site for around 2 hours despite being very near­by. They’re demand­ing to search every­thing enter­ing the site and even copy­ing every piece of avail­able infor­ma­tion from mobile phones, such as ser­i­al num­bers and phone num­bers stored in the address book. No news on the arrestee oth­er than that its a ‘known activist’ who the police decid­ed would make a nice token ges­ture of force. Any­one want­i­ng to get down to work on the site is very much wel­come to get down and get work­ing.

Remem­ber your legal rights & the fun I Spy card (links above & from main arti­cle

2nd Arrest

Some­one has been nicked for walk­ing on the road. Legal observers were present. Search­es becom­ing a lit­tle less thor­ough, though even the back route into the site is being heav­i­ly policed.