Charges dropped against 14-year old & dad who tied themselves to Japanese Embassy

A 14-year-old anti-whal­ing cam­paign­er arrest­ed at the Japan­ese embassy has con­demned a deci­sion to drop charges.

A 14-year-old anti-whal­ing cam­paign­er arrest­ed at the Japan­ese embassy has con­demned a deci­sion to drop charges.

Sophie Wyness was arrest­ed with her father Mar­tin, 50, after tying them­selves to a stair­case inside the Lon­don build­ing on 24 Jan­u­ary.

Crim­i­nal tres­pass charges against the pair, from Here­ford, were dropped for “evi­den­tial rea­sons”.

How­ev­er, the school­girl claimed the case was dropped to avoid dam­ag­ing com­mer­cial ties with Japan.

Sophie said: “If they have resources to spend on triv­ial pros­e­cu­tions like this, they should real­ly be putting them into the fight against Japan’s bar­bar­ic whal­ing indus­try, which is ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al law.”

A spokesman for the CPS said it had dropped the charges for “evi­den­tial rea­sons”.

He said: “After fur­ther review it was decid­ed there was no longer a real­is­tic prospect of con­vic­tion.”

But Mr Wyness, a shop work­er, said he and his daugh­ter were guilty and had gone to court expect­ing to be sen­tenced.

“This is clear­ly a trav­es­ty and is bring­ing British law into dis­re­pute.

“They’re say­ing lack of evi­dence and yet we were guilty. They have all the evi­dence they want for a con­vic­tion.”

Dis­trict Judge Quentin Pur­dy lift­ed an order at the City of West­min­ster Mag­is­trates Court ban­ning the pub­li­ca­tion of Sophie’s name, after legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion from the BBC.

After the court hear­ing Sophie and her father deliv­ered a let­ter to the Japan­ese embassy ask­ing the ambas­sador to put pres­sure on his gov­ern­ment to end whal­ing.

Secu­ri­ty staff at the embassy stopped the pair enter­ing the build­ing, but agreed to pass the let­ter on.

Sea Shepherd Launches Operation Migaloo II / Sharkwater Film released on Feb. 22 / Planktos Ocean Dumping Scheme Defeated

The Hunt for the Japan­ese Whale Poach­ers Resumes…

Press Release: 02/13/2008

After twelve days of repairs, refu­el­ing, re-crew­ing, re-sup­ply­ing and re-pro­vi­sion­ing, the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin is return­ing to the South­ern Ocean. The esti­mat­ed time for depar­ture is 2000 hours Mel­bourne time on Thurs­day Feb­ru­ary 14.

Sea Shepherd's Steve IrwinThe Hunt for the Japan­ese Whale Poach­ers Resumes…

Press Release: 02/13/2008

After twelve days of repairs, refu­el­ing, re-crew­ing, re-sup­ply­ing and re-pro­vi­sion­ing, the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin is return­ing to the South­ern Ocean. The esti­mat­ed time for depar­ture is 2000 hours Mel­bourne time on Thurs­day Feb­ru­ary 14.

“A spe­cial thank-you to Aus­tralia,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “You helped to send the Steve Irwin back to sea as a Valentine’s Day gift to the whales.”

Dona­tions of mon­ey for fuel, dona­tions of food and sup­plies flood­ed onto the decks of the whale con­ser­va­tion ship dur­ing the brief stay in Vic­to­ria dock­lands.

“We are anx­ious to return to the coast of Antarc­ti­ca,” said Sea Shep­herd cook Amber Paar­man from South Africa. “Every moment that we are not on the tail of the Japan­ese fleet means that the lives of the whales are in per­il.”

The Steve Irwin intends to harass and inter­vene against ille­gal Japan­ese whal­ing for the next four to five weeks. This should stop them to the end of the whal­ing sea­son. The fleet’s oper­a­tions were shut down for more than three weeks in Jan­u­ary. Sea Shep­herd intends to shut them down again.

“In Jan­u­ary we pre­vent­ed them from slaugh­ter­ing whales for three weeks, we cost the Japan­ese over two mil­lion dol­lars in fuel dur­ing the pur­suit and we exposed their ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties world­wide and most impor­tant­ly we got the sto­ry into the Japan­ese media. This pro­voked a real debate in Japan on the cost of whal­ing to Japan’s rep­u­ta­tion,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety does not intend to sur­ren­der the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary to the poach­ers. After this sea­son, Cap­tain Paul Wat­son is work­ing to secure a 2nd ship with the objec­tive of mount­ing a non-stop pur­suit for the 2008/2009 whal­ing sea­son.

The Steve Irwin dropped off 16 vol­un­teer crewmem­bers in Mel­bourne on Feb­ru­ary 2nd and 19 vol­un­teers have joined the crew. Eleven crewmem­bers have been with the cam­paign from the begin­ning.

The 32 crew, 8 women and 24 men return­ing to the South­ern Oceans rep­re­sent 10 dif­fer­ent nation­al­i­ties. In addi­tion to 15 Aus­tralians, crewmem­bers have joined from New Zealand, Cana­da, the U.S.A., Swe­den, South Africa, the Nether­lands, the U.K. Spain, and Japan.

http://www.seashepherd.org
================================

Award win­ning doc­u­men­tary Shark­wa­ter will have its the­atri­cal release in the Unit­ed King­dom on Feb­ru­ary 22. In the film, shark con­ser­va­tion­ist Rob Stew­art teams up with Cap­tain Wat­son and Sea Shep­herd to com­bat the shark fin mafia in Cos­ta Rica and the Gala­pa­gos.

“This is a film that will for­ev­er shat­ter the stereo­typ­i­cal myths that sur­round sharks. Where Jaws taught peo­ple to hate and fear sharks, Rob Stew­art’s pas­sion­ate mas­ter­piece will have peo­ple lov­ing and car­ing for these impor­tant ani­mals,” prais­es Cap­tain Wat­son.

Full details: www.sharkwater.com www.seashepherd.org

UK THEATRICAL RELEASE SCHEDULE
ALL VENUES PREMIERING 22nd FEBRUARY
Lon­don
Apol­lo Cin­e­ma
19 Regent Street Lon­don, SW1Y 4LR

Regions
Birm­ing­ham Show­case
Kings­bury Road (A38) Erd­ing­ton, Birm­ing­ham, B24 9QE

Bris­tol Show­case
Avon Meads, St. Phillips Cause­way, Bris­tol, BS2 0SP

Cardiff Show­case
Heol-Yr-Odyn, Park Nant­garw, Tre­f­for­est Indus­tri­al Estate, Nr Pon­typridd, CF15 7QX

Hull Odeon
Kingston Park, Kingston Street, Hull, HU1 2TX

Glas­gow East Show­case
Bar­rbridge Leisure Cen­tre, Coat­bridge, Glas­gow, G69 7TZ

Nor­wich Odeon
River­side Leisure Park, Wher­ry Road, Nor­wich, NR1 1XA

Not­ting­ham Show­case
Red­field Way, Lenton, Not­ting­ham, NG7 2UW

Leeds/Bradford Odeon
Gal­lagher Leisure Park, Thorn­bury, Brad­ford, BD3 7AT

Man­ches­ter Show­case
Hyde Road (A57), Bel­lVue, Man­ches­ter, M12 5AL

================================

Plank­tos Ocean Dump­ing Scheme Defeat­ed by Anti-Whalers

News release: Sea Shep­herd
02/14/2008

Our cam­paign against Plank­tos Inc. is over. The con­tro­ver­sial plan to dump hun­dreds of tons of iron ore dust into the ocean in a bizarre scheme to seed plank­ton blooms has been aban­doned by the Plank­tos cor­po­ra­tion of Cal­i­for­nia.

This is a vic­to­ry against a cor­po­rate car­bon trad­ing scheme that had no sci­en­tif­ic cred­i­bil­i­ty.

This is from the Feb­ru­ary 13th, 2008 edi­tion of the New York Times” ( http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/commercial-ocean-fertilization-project-
halted/index.html?ref=technology):

“Plank­tos, the Cal­i­for­nia com­pa­ny try­ing to turn a prof­it by fer­til­iz­ing the ocean with iron dust, pulled the plug on planned field tests on Wednes­day, cit­ing a lack of funds. At the com­pa­ny’s Web site, planktos.com, a sim­ple notice blamed the shut­down on a “high­ly effec­tive dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign waged by anti-off­set cru­saders.”

The busi­ness plan had been to sell “car­bon off­set” cred­its earned by trig­ger­ing blooms of phy­to­plank­ton that, in the­o­ry, would absorb a pre­dictable amount of the cli­mate-warm­ing gas car­bon diox­ide through pho­to­syn­the­sis and then sink to the seabed. The cred­its would be sold to com­pa­nies or indi­vid­u­als try­ing to com­pen­sate for unavoid­able emis­sions of car­bon diox­ide (from dri­ving, fly­ing, and the like).

Plank­ton blooms hap­pen nat­u­ral­ly when dust con­tain­ing iron set­tles on ocean waters where a lack of iron oth­er­wise pre­vents plank­ton from thriv­ing. Huge blooms have result­ed after dust from the Sahara Desert blows over the Atlantic, for exam­ple. But efforts to repli­cate the process arti­fi­cial­ly have met with strong oppo­si­tion from envi­ron­men­tal groups. The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, which for years has con­front­ed, and some­times rammed, whal­ing and fish­ing ves­sels had threat­ened to block a fer­til­iza­tion effort by Plank­tos last sum­mer near the Gala­pa­gos Islands, forc­ing it to change plans.

A num­ber of marine and cli­mate sci­en­tists have also opposed com­mer­cial fer­til­iza­tion efforts, for var­i­ous rea­sons. In a “joint pol­i­cy state­ment” pub­lished in the jour­nal Sci­ence last month, a group of researchers from around the world said trade in car­bon cred­its earned this way was pre­ma­ture “unless research pro­vides the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion to eval­u­ate risks and ben­e­fits.”

The Plank­tos ves­sel Weath­er­bird II has been stuck in port on the Por­tuguese island of Madeira after months of revised plans and failed efforts to attract more investors. Finan­cial trou­bles had been mount­ing for months. On Wednes­day, the com­pa­ny said it had called back the ves­sel and its crew.

The Plank­tos state­ment said:
“Man­age­ment has also rad­i­cal­ly down­sized the com­pa­ny’s staffing while the board of direc­tors has formed a new com­mit­tee to explore all options cur­rent­ly avail­able. Options include a pos­si­ble re-launch of planned marine oper­a­tions, pend­ing addi­tion­al financ­ing or new part­ner­ships, as well as the pos­si­ble pur­suit of oth­er promis­ing busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties in the envi­ron­men­tal sphere.
The board of direc­tors con­tin­ues to believe in the urgent eco­log­i­cal neces­si­ty of its ocean restora­tion plans and the sci­en­tif­ic spe­cious­ness of objec­tions voiced to date. How­ev­er, ide­o­log­i­cal hos­til­i­ty to and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of this work will con­tin­ue to stymie progress until the true grav­i­ty of our cli­mat­ic and ocean crises is more wide­ly under­stood.”

The Sea Shep­herd Posi­tion:
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety opposed the iron ore dust dump­ing scheme because it was con­demned by the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency of the Unit­ed States and was in fact a vio­la­tion of Unit­ed States and Inter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tions on the dump­ing of mate­ri­als at sea. The scheme was also opposed by the Gala­pa­gos Nation­al Park, the Charles Dar­win Foun­da­tion and the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment of Ecuador.

Sea Shep­herd did not make any judg­ment on the sci­en­tif­ic mer­its, if any, of the scheme. We act­ed because the dump­ing was a vio­la­tion of Ecuado­ri­an, Amer­i­can and Inter­na­tion­al law.

In August of 2007, Sea Shep­herd blocked the plan in the Gala­pa­gos. In Novem­ber 2007, Sea Shep­herd con­front­ed the Plank­tos ves­sel in Bermu­da forc­ing it to move onto Madeira.
The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety would like to thank Plank­tos for acknowl­edg­ing our oppo­si­tion as the rea­son for the aban­don­ment of this scheme.

Will dump­ing iron ore dust into the sea stim­u­late plank­ton blooms? Will increased plank­ton blooms sequester more car­bon diox­ide? We don’t know but the answers need to be found in the lab before using the liv­ing ocean as a test­ing facil­i­ty. The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety is not in a posi­tion to deter­mine sci­en­tif­ic mer­it. We can only act upon the rec­om­men­da­tions of sci­en­tif­ic bod­ies and law enforce­ment agen­cies. As a part­ner with the Gala­pa­gos Nation­al Park and the Ecuado­ri­an Nation­al Envi­ron­men­tal Police we act­ed in accor­dance to their oppo­si­tion to this scheme and we agreed with the EPA in the USA, and the Dar­win Research Cen­tre in the Gala­pa­gos, that the Plank­tos scheme lacked suf­fi­cient sci­en­tif­ic cred­i­bil­i­ty.

The Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor this kind of activ­i­ty and will inter­vene if the plans do not demon­strate test­ed sci­en­tif­ic exper­i­ments that show such plans are safe for marine life.

http://seashepherd.org

Meat on climate action in Sweden

5 Feb­ru­ary.

Meat climate Sweden action 1Meat climate Sweden action 25 Feb­ru­ary. Some 30 activists from Kli­max-Stock­holm and Green Youth staged a protest out­side the office of Swedish Meat, a major meat cor­po­ra­tion, to high­light the severe effects the indus­try is hav­ing on our cli­mate. The activists were dressed as the boss­es of Swedish Meat, while fry­ing plan­et earth in a fire exhumed by a cow. Car traf­fic was block­ad­ed for a while, before the activists enjoyed a veg­e­tar­i­an pick-nick in front of the office.

Support the Eco-Prisoners — Imbolc 2008 — they’re in there for us out here, please write

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
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)

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we enter Feb­ru­ary so we await three major events. First off, Jeff ‘Free’ Luers is due to be re-sen­tenced. We hope its good news. Sec­ond­ly, Eric McDavid is also due to be sen­tenced. As soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we urge every­one to send him let­ters of sup­port. And third­ly, the police infor­mant Jacob Fer­gu­son is also due to be sen­tenced. His cow­ard­ly deals and treach­ery means he won’t be sent to prison. But we await with inter­est to see what sen­tence this piece of scum does receive. If any­one hears, please do let ELP know. But whilst we await those three sen­tenc­ings, please don’t for­get all the oth­er eco-pris­on­ers. Remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, 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 #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, 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.

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

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.

Jef­frey Luers, #1306729, Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions, 101 West 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401–2695, USA. Await­ing resen­tenc­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

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

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh #30512–013, FCI Fair­ton, PO Box 420, Fair­ton, NJ 08320, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for set­ting fire to a McDon­ald’s restau­rant.

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.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, C.P. Pri­sion De Pam­plona, 31080, Iruna (Navar­ra), Spain.
Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

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

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.

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

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.

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing.

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

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 Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, 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.

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

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, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

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.

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.

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 that 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.

Gub­s­ki Max­im, VK‑2 — 21, Batowa str. 4, Bobruisk, 213800 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Vladislav Vladimirovich Plyashke­vich, IK-10 otryad 4, Novopoltsk‑5 Viteb­skaya oblast, 211440 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

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 Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

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

Direct action around Greece reports (1/2008) — banks, police cameras, luxury cars get it; rats saved

Attack against a bank, 14 tak­en into cus­tody (Athens, 30/1/2008)

Accord­ing to a report at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=821100

Bank windows smashedAttack against a bank, 14 tak­en into cus­tody (Athens, 30/1/2008)

Accord­ing to a report at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=821100

There was an attack with sledge ham­mers, stones and paints against the Eth­ni­ki Bank in Gizi dis­trict (were a com­pan­ion was arrest­ed after an armed expro­pri­a­tion). After they left, police spread into the area and took into cus­tody around 14 per­sons from the area.

Police cam­era destroyed, one per­son tak­en into cus­tody (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 29/1/2008)

From reports at athens.indymedia.org

Around 11:30 the pow­er sup­ply of a police cam­era was sab­o­taged in pub­lic. Riot-police­men and motor­bike cops attacked the peo­ple on their way back, and man­aged to take into cus­tody one per­son. Lat­er on two more per­sons were also tak­en to the police head­quar­ters, but set free after a few hours.


Series of incen­di­ary attacks (Athens-Thes­sa­loni­ki, 21/1/2008)

Report in eng­lish: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/21/europe/EU-GEN-Greece-Arson-Spree.php

Accord­ing to a report in “Eleft­herotip­ia” (Greek only): http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=25251808

From 12:51 to 01:18 the fol­low­ing tar­gets were attacked:

Athens:

12:51: Porsche deal­er­ship, Halandri‑4 cars dam­aged.
01:00: Eurobank open24 sub­sidiary, Ega­leo
01:05: Lux­u­rius car expo­si­tion “Car Col­lec­tion”, Nea Erithrea-16 cars and one motor­cy­cle dam­aged
01:08: Eurobank sub­sidiary, Dafni
01:08: Piraeus bank sub­sidiary, Dafni
01:09: City­bank sub­sidiary, cen­tral Athens
01:15: Eurobank sub­sidiary, Nea Filadelfia
01:17: PV MOTORS deal­er­ship, Argiroupoli
01:18: PPC crane vehi­cle, Keramikos

Anoth­er incen­di­ary device was found untouched in the entrance of an “Eth­ni­ki” bank, in Peri­s­teri, and was car­ried to the foren­sic office of the police.

Thes­sa­loni­ki:

Two arson attacks occured with­in five min­utes. A ppc car was dam­aged, as well as an ATM of Mil­len­ni­um bank in Analip­si.

Com­mu­nique sent to directactiongr@yahoo.gr:

“Last night’s series of incen­di­ary attacks against lux­u­ri­ous car deal­er­ships in Halan­dri, Kifis­sia and Argiroupoli, bank sub­sidiaries in Nea filadelfia, Dafni, Ega­leo, Ano Patisia, Dafni and in Thes­sa­loni­ki at 117, Mar­tiou Street, and against PPC (the state-run pow­er com­pa­ny) cars out­side its offices in both Athens and Thes­sa­loni­ki, is under­tak­en by the Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire Thes­sa­loni­ki-Athens.

We select­ed to strike the bank sub­sidiares because the con­sti­tute the sym­bols-tools of explo­ration and of the eco­nom­ic empire. In par­al­lel, the banks are the mod­ern day cor­po­ra­tions that accred­it with loa­nee dreams the con­sumers, so that they would beglam­our vol­un­tar­i­ly their mis­ery and their eco­nom­ic state of cap­tiv­i­ty.

We attacked the PPC cor­po­ra­tion as a response to the dozens assas­si­na­tions of work­ers that died in its work­place-pris­ons because of the lack of secu­ri­ty mea­sures, as well as for the dead­ly effects (such as can­cer) that appear at the zones around its pow­er plants.

We set on fire the deal­er­ships of lux­u­ri­ous cars that form pres­ti­gious sym­bols of author­i­ty inside the com­mod­i­ty fetishist fren­zy that has tak­en over the metrop­o­lis. We do not respect the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens’ wet dreams for a fast car in expense of the slow sui­cide offeed by the mod­ern life style.

The rev­o­lu­tion­ary char­ac­ter of an eco­nom­ic-cap­i­tal­ist tar­gets arson is n’t found only in its phys­i­cal destruc­tionm but also in the ille­gal­i­ty of the action itself. In the deci­sion to attack.

In this com­bat­ant sit­u­a­tion, there are also loss­es. Accord­ing­ly, we ded­i­cate last night’s attacks in Thes­sa­loni­ki and Athens to the empris­oned anar­chist V. Botzatzis who is accused for 3 arson attacks against 3 tar­gets, as weel as to the 3 fugi­tive com­rades accused under the same case, and that chose the way of a proud escape, than to give their­selves in.

We don’t for­get any empris­oned com­rade. We will be back soon…

Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire Thes­sa­loni­ki-Athens”


Bank fire­bombed and respon­si­bil­i­ty claim (Athens, 19/1/2008)

Accord­ing to reports (in greek) at athens.indymedia.org unknown per­sons attacked with molo­tov cock­tails a sub­sidiary of eurobank in Petralona dis­trict (Athens). Accord­ing to ANA-MPA news agency, the arson caused sev­er dam­ages to the bank. A group claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty by an anony­moys e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr stat­ing:

The “Cells of Incen­di­ary Sol­i­dar­i­ty” (Pirines Empris­tikis Alli­leg­gyis) claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for the arson at Eurobank on Tri­on Ier­arhon Street in Petralona, on Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 19, in sol­i­dar­i­ty to the empris­oned anar­chist Vagge­lis Botzatzis, accused with 3 arson attacks against gov­ern­men­tal-eco­nom­ic tar­gets and to the three com­pan­ions that are fugi­tive under the same case.

The insti­tu­tions of state-run enter­pris­es, car agen­cies and banks, have been and will be today’s tar­gets, tar­gets that every rev­o­lu­tion­ary choos­es to attack. These attack are born from a total per­cep­tion and a route of actions against the cap­i­tal­ist-eco­nom­ic dom­i­na­tion. These words here do not mean to recog­nise their-selves in a “typ­i­cal claim of respon­si­bil­i­ty” because their mean­ing is found in the trans­mis­sion of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary flame. WE ARE ON WAR. The per­se­cu­tions can­not stop the incen­di­ary actions and the rebel­lious con­sciences. Hon­our to those that in their lives, they set their own time and place, their “how” and “why”…

The ash­es of the burnt banks for the fugi­tive com­pan­ions and the empris­oned anar­chist Vagge­lis Botzatzis.

Cells of Incen­di­ary Sol­i­dar­i­ty

Note: Vagge­lis Botzatzis is an anar­chist from Thes­sa­loni­ki, in a pre-tri­al empris­on­ment in Komo­ti­ni pris­ons, accused for arsons in a french brand car yard, a mil­le­ni­um bank sub­sidiary and Pub­lic Pow­er Com­pa­ny vehi­cles. He is per­se­cut­ed based on a secu­ri­ty guard’s accu­sa­tions. Apart from him, anoth­er three anar­chists are fugi­tive for the same case.

Attacks on three banks (Athens, 17/1/2008)

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=815410
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=815788

2 year after the arrest of Gian­nis Dim­i­trakis after a bank rob­bery, on 12 o’clock, were realised three simul­ta­ne­ous attacks on three banks and an ATM in cen­tral Athens.

Piraeus Bank on 12, George Street, Atti­ki Bank on 23 Omirou Street and Eth­ni­ki bank on 30 Omirou Street, had their glass­es bro­ken and oth­er dam­ages. An ATM was also dam­aged.

There were leaflets thrown around the banks stat­ing:
2 years lat­er…
WE DON’T FORGET, WE DON’T FORGIVE
sol­i­dar­i­ty to G. Dim­i­trakis, who is empris­oned for the bank robery at Eth­ni­ki Bank on Solonos Street at 16.01.2006
Sol­i­dar­i­ty to the 3 fugi­tive com­rades

as well as “FIRE TO THE BANKS”

Lab-rats lib­er­at­ed from tech­ni­cal insti­tute (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 16/1/2007)

A report on this action can be found at athens.indymedia.org where there are also more pho­tos and a short video, as well as a text in greek, trans­lat­ed here:

“On Jan­u­ary 15th, in the Thes­sa­loni­ki TEI (tech­ni­cal insti­tute) was pro­grammed a prac­ti­cal exper­i­ment on ani­mals alive in front of the stu­dents. This hideous action would be realised if some peo­ple from Thes­sa­loni­ki was n’t mobi­lized. Around twen­ty per­sons vis­it­ed the TEI and took not only one, as it was to expect­ed, but four ani­mals (lab rats). Lat­er on the four lab rats were set free in the nature were they should be from the very begin­ing.

We know that these spe­cif­ic ani­mals will not sur­vive for a long time in the nature, since they were born in a lab. Though, we believe it is bet­ter for them to die in the nature than in a lab or a cage.”

Car deal­er­ship fire-bombed (Athens, 17/1/2008)

Source (greek only): http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=11424&subid=2&tag=8334&pubid=336523#

Two self-made explo­sive devis­es were placed under­neath two cars in a Suzu­ki deal­er­ship in Peri­s­teri, Athens. One of them explod­ed at 3:45 in the night caus­ing minor dam­ages, while the oth­er one was found untouched by the police.


Bank arson and anony­mous communique(Athens, 1/1/2008)

Source (greek only): http://news.pathfinder.gr/greece/news/449097.html

“The first fact report­ed to the police for 2008 was an arson attack 20 min­utes after mid­night at the sub­sidiary of Geni­ki Bank at 75 Kipselis street in Athens. Uniden­ti­fied per­sons plant­ed an incen­di­ary device break­ing the glass entrance door.”

Anony­mous group claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty via e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr):

“The attack at Geni­ki Bank on 1/1/2008 was in sol­i­dar­i­ty to empris­oned fight­ers.

The same time that in the city cen­tre “cel­e­bra­tions” are organ­ised to wel­come the new year we, by strik­ing, mean to prove that the flame of nega­tion won’t cease to burn nor even this new year, against any repres­sive plan.

Free­dom to Chr. Kon­tore­vithakis and M. Tsoura­pas.”

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.

Western UK sabotage for the animals

COUNTRYSIDE ALLAINCE SIGNS DESTROYED AND HUNT CARS SCRATCHED.
24 Jan­u­ary 2008
Coun­try­side allaince signs were smashed and the side of a lan­drover was scratched, anoth­er hunt car had both sides and bon­net scraped hope the respray did­nt cost too much!

COUNTRYSIDE ALLAINCE SIGNS DESTROYED AND HUNT CARS SCRATCHED.
24 Jan­u­ary 2008
Coun­try­side allaince signs were smashed and the side of a lan­drover was scratched, anoth­er hunt car had both sides and bon­net scraped hope the respray did­nt cost too much!
————–
MCDONALDS GETS THE ALF TREATMENT.
23 Jan­u­ary 2008
“MEAT IS MURDER” was spray paint­ed on the front and back win­dows of a McDon­alds in the west, just to make sure they had trou­ble open­ing on time the next day all of the locks were glued.
————–
HUNT SCUM CAR RECIEVES PASSING VISIT FROM THE ALF
22 Jan­u­ary 2008
Pass­ing mem­bers of the ALF decid­ed to make the pro hunt stick­ers on one car in the west impos­si­ble to see when the car had all its win­dows where cov­ered com­plete­ly in spray paint­ed (have fun try­ing to dri­ve it to the garage!).

Mes­sages such as “ALF” and “HUNT SCUM” were left on the side so all the oth­er hunters in the area new why it had been done.

If you sup­port the hunt you are scum, but we do appre­ci­ate it when you dis­play stick­ers let­ting us know this fact, this way we can make sure you get what is com­ing to you!

For the ani­mals!

Your friend­ly local ALFers!

Read more at http://www.animalliberation.co.uk/

Teenager arrested after tying herself to Japananese Embassy

25.1.2008
A British teenag­er has been arrest­ed after tying her­self to a stair­case at the Japan­ese Embassy in Lon­don in a protest over whal­ing, she said. Sophie said last night: “I hon­est­ly think that me hav­ing a crim­i­nal record is not a big price to pay when what the whales are going through is so much worse.”

25.1.2008
A British teenag­er has been arrest­ed after tying her­self to a stair­case at the Japan­ese Embassy in Lon­don in a protest over whal­ing, she said. Sophie said last night: “I hon­est­ly think that me hav­ing a crim­i­nal record is not a big price to pay when what the whales are going through is so much worse.”

A British teenag­er has been arrest­ed after tying her­self to a stair­case at the Japan­ese Embassy in Lon­don in a protest over whal­ing, she said.

Sophie Wyness, 14, and her father Mar­tin attached them­selves to a stone stair­case inside the embassy lob­by with cable ties overnight, say­ing it was wrong to “bru­tal­ly mur­der” whales.

Sophie said last night: “I hon­est­ly think that me hav­ing a crim­i­nal record is not a big price to pay when what the whales are going through is so much worse.”

It is not the first time the 14-year-old, who has also cam­paigned against Aus­trali­a’s nuclear pol­i­cy, has been removed from a protest but it is the first time she has been arrest­ed.

She said: “I have just been released. We have been charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass and it will go before the Attor­ney Gen­er­al, not the CPS, because of the polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions.”

The teenag­er was inspired to take action after watch­ing a film about the Green­peace ves­sel Esper­an­za — which is cur­rent­ly dis­rupt­ing the activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Ocean.

One video clip last­ing 30 sec­onds, which showed a whale being blown up, had “hit me hard”, she explained ear­li­er.

The video pushed her to stage the hour-long protest because she felt it was wrong to wrong to “bru­tal­ly mur­der” whales.

“It’s a very impor­tant sub­ject at the moment. They’re such amaz­ing crea­tures and they deserve rights and love and a bit of respect,” she said.

“I have total respect for the Japan­ese peo­ple but not what they’re doing out there with the whales.”

She said tak­ing direct action was the only way to get atten­tion on the issue.

“Hope­ful­ly it’ll get put out there and show we’re not going to sit back and let them get away with it.”

Mr Wyness said he was only involved in the protest in order to sup­port his daugh­ter and spoke of his pride that she had been so res­olute in stand­ing up for her con­vic­tions.

He said: “I was real­ly only there as back up. This was Sophie’s day.”

He added: “I am extreme­ly proud of Sophie. She is an amaz­ing, amaz­ing young woman full or courage and deter­mi­na­tion and her con­vic­tions are very strong. This doc­u­men­tary gen­uine­ly moved her to the point where she want­ed to do some­thing about it.

Quotes tak­en from thelondonpaper.com

Sea Shepherd Hostages Return Back to Steve Irwin — Lack of Cooperation May Kill the Whales

Japan­ese Poach­ers Release Sea Shep­herd Hostages
18/01/08 http://www.seashepherd.org

Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane were trans­ferred from the Yushin Maru No. 2 to the Aus­tralian Cus­toms ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking ear­ly in the morn­ing at 0200 Hours Mel­bourne time (1300 Hours GMT). The two men were trans­ferred to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin at 0930 Hours Mel­bourne time (2030 Hours GMT).

Sea Shepherd hostages returnJapan­ese Poach­ers Release Sea Shep­herd Hostages
18/01/08 http://www.seashepherd.org

Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane were trans­ferred from the Yushin Maru No. 2 to the Aus­tralian Cus­toms ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking ear­ly in the morn­ing at 0200 Hours Mel­bourne time (1300 Hours GMT). The two men were trans­ferred to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin at 0930 Hours Mel­bourne time (2030 Hours GMT).

Both men were hap­py to be reunit­ed with their ship­mates and eager to return to chas­ing the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Oceans. Both men report­ed that although they were roughed up when they first board­ed the whal­ing ship, that they were treat­ed well dur­ing their time onboard. The only injury was a bruised wrist suf­fered by Giles Lane.

“It did not take long before the whalers real­ized that they made a huge pub­lic rela­tions mis­take in keep­ing us on their ship,” said Ben­jamin Potts. “We made it clear to them that Sea Shep­herd was com­mit­ted to stop­ping their ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties.”

“Although we appre­ci­ate the con­cern that peo­ple have expressed for our wel­fare, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that this is not about us.” said Giles Lane. “It’s about stop­ping this cru­el and ille­gal whale hunt. The treat­ment that we received was triv­ial in com­par­i­son to the suf­fer­ing that the whales expe­ri­ence at the hands of the Japan­ese whalers. They may have been rough with us but at least we were not har­pooned, elec­tro­cut­ed and muti­lat­ed. This is not about us, it’s about the whales.”

The Steve Irwin is con­tin­u­ing its pur­suit of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet. “This is the 8th day that whales have not been killed,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Every day that we stop the whalers is a vic­to­ry. We will con­tin­ue to inter­vene, harass, block, and obstruct the whalers at every oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

The Steve Irwin is present­ly at 59 Degrees 46 Min­utes South and 85 Degrees 59 Min­utes East and on the tail of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.
http://www.seashepherd.org/migaloo/video/2008–01-18_video_clip_05_Sea_Shepherd_crew_members_released_back_to_the_Steve_Irwin.wmv

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“With “allies” like the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and Green­peace, it is becom­ing increas­ing dif­fi­cult to keep the Japan­ese fleet from killing whales,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Aus­tralian Cus­toms delib­er­ate­ly led us away from the fleet and Green­peace is guard­ing the coor­di­nates like the crown jew­els to pre­vent us re-locat­ing the fleet.”

Lack of Coop­er­a­tion May Kill the Whales
From onboard the Steve Irwin in the South­ern Oceans (18/01/08)

The Aus­tralian Cus­toms and Fish­eries Patrol ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking has thrown the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin off the trail of the Japan­ese fleet.

After pick­ing up the two Sea Shep­herd crewmem­bers from the Yushin Maru No. 2 the Ocean­ic Viking noti­fied the Steve Irwin to head for a ren­dezvous point a few hours away.

This was unusu­al con­sid­er­ing that the Yushin Maru No. 2 was only about ten miles away at the time. The Steve Irwin was forced to stop tail­ing the Yushin Maru No. 2 to meet up with the Ocean­ic Viking. This allowed the whaler to head off in an unknown direc­tion to rejoin the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru.

After drop­ping off Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane, the Ocean­ic Viking head­ed off in a direc­tion away from the Japan­ese fleet. The fleet then appar­ent­ly changed course and has now been lost from Sea Shep­herd. Green­peace tag­ging along with the Nishin Maru has report­ed that the catch­er boats have met back up with the main fleet.

Although Sea Shep­herd has been relay­ing the posi­tion of the catch­er boats to the Green­peace ship Esper­an­za for the last three days, Green­peace refus­es rec­i­p­ro­cate and refus­es to reveal the present loca­tion of the fleet.

“With “allies” like the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and Green­peace, it is becom­ing increas­ing dif­fi­cult to keep the Japan­ese fleet from killing whales,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Aus­tralian Cus­toms delib­er­ate­ly led us away from the fleet and Green­peace is guard­ing the coor­di­nates like the crown jew­els to pre­vent us re-locat­ing the fleet.”

Com­pli­cat­ing the search is the fact that the Japan­ese have sent a new ship the Fukoyoshi No. 68 to shad­ow the Steve Irwin at all times. The ves­sel is not part of the whal­ing fleet. It’s a large Japan­ese drag trawler. It does not have any fish­ing gear onboard and seems to have more elec­tron­ic gear than nor­mal for a fish­ing ves­sel. This ship is appar­ent­ly report­ing the Steve Irwin’s posi­tion to the Japan­ese fleet.

Sea Shep­herd has shut down whal­ing for a week. Unless the Steve Irwin can find the fleet soon, the killing will begin again. The Ocean­ic Viking will take pic­tures of dying whales and Green­peace will hang ban­ners, take pic­tures and con­tin­ue on with their inef­fec­tive stunts. They will not stop the killing.

“If whales begin to die with­in the next few days, I will hold Green­peace and the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “They know we can stop the killing because whales don’t die when Sea Shep­herd arrives. By lead­ing us off the tail of the whalers and refus­ing to coop­er­ate on coor­di­nates they are delib­er­ate­ly help­ing the whalers to escape from Sea Shep­herd and to resume the slaugh­ter of the whales. I under­stand that Green­peace needs kill footage and images of “hero­ic eco-war­riors” buzzing about in inflat­a­bles but that does not stop the har­poons. Our very pres­ence will deter the Japan­ese from killing whales. Sea Shep­herd is the best weapon that Green­peace can use to stop the resump­tion of whal­ing. By with­hold­ing coop­er­a­tion they are con­tribut­ing to the death of the whales. If any whales are killed with­in the next week I will hold Green­peace respon­si­ble for their deaths because they have the pow­er to coop­er­ate with Sea Shep­herd to pre­vent the killing from con­tin­u­ing.”

The Steve Irwin is con­duct­ing heli­copter sur­veil­lance patrols to re-locate the whal­ing fleet. The fleet should be with­in two hun­dred miles of Sea Shep­herd.

http://seashepherd.org

Whalers Hand Activists Over To Australia’s Ship

17th Jan­u­ary: the activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — were detained Tues­day after board­ing the har­poon ship to protest Japan’s whal­ing pro­gramme. They were hand­ed over to Aus­tri­ali­a’s ‘Ocean Viking’ ear­li­er today.

Operation Migaloo (Sea Shepherd)
Steve Irwin Sea Shepherd boat & helicopter
17th Jan­u­ary: the activists — Aus­tralian Ben­jamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35 — were detained Tues­day after board­ing the har­poon ship to protest Japan’s whal­ing pro­gramme. They were hand­ed over to Aus­tri­ali­a’s ‘Ocean Viking’ ear­li­er today.

A Japan­ese whal­ing ship late Thurs­day hand­ed over to an Aus­tralian cus­toms ves­sel two anti-whal­ing activists who climbed aboard two days ear­li­er, an offi­cial from Japan’s Fish­eries Agency said.

Aus­tralia sent the cus­toms ship, the Ocean­ic Viking, to the Japan­ese whal­ing ship in a bid to end the stand-off involv­ing the activists of the mil­i­tant Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety.

“Two Sea Shep­herd activists who intrud­ed onto the Yushin Maru No 2 and have been in cus­tody on the ship were hand­ed over to the Ocean­ic Viking char­tered by the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment,” Hidea­ki Oka­da, a whal­ing offi­cial at the Fish­eries Agency in Tokyo, told AFP ear­ly Fri­day.

More at http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gzy-7LzEluJCEYZWmJXa_MiYpOcQ and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7193212.stm

Hope­ful­ly they will be returned back to Sea Shep­herd’s ‘Steve Irwin’ very soon, that is the plan.

Back to destroy­ing whal­ing…

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Sea Shepherd pirates
Antarc­tic Whale Defense Cam­paign
Oper­a­tion Miga­loo 07–08

For more details, see http://www.seashepherd.org/migaloo/index.html