Category: Animal Rights/Liberation

Norewegian Whaler Scuttled

Sea Shep­herd News
2/9/2007

Sunken Whaler Was a Cru­el Killer

It is not a sur­prise that an unknown per­son (or per­sons) tar­get­ed the Willassen Senior — the out­law Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on the evening of August 30, 2007.

Scuttled Norwegian whalerSea Shep­herd News
2/9/2007

Sunken Whaler Was a Cru­el Killer

It is not a sur­prise that an unknown per­son (or per­sons) tar­get­ed the Willassen Senior — the out­law Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel that was scut­tled on the evening of August 30, 2007.

Under­cov­er video of a Nor­we­gian whale hunt, tak­en in May 2005, was released today by the World Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Ani­mals (WSPA) and the Envi­ron­men­tal Inves­ti­ga­tion Agency (EIA). This footage is believed to be the first of its kind cap­tured by a non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion (NGO) in over a decade. Though Nor­way claims to be the best in the busi­ness when it comes to accu­ra­cy and rel­a­tive humane­ness of com­mer­cial whale kills, the footage tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.

In this video, the Willassen Senior was doc­u­ment­ed pur­su­ing a Piked (minke) whale in chop­py con­di­tions. The whale was har­pooned and sub­se­quent­ly rid­dled with bul­lets from a high-pow­ered rifle. It spent 15 min­utes div­ing, resur­fac­ing, and rolling about on the sur­face in extreme agony before it final­ly suc­cumbed to the attack and died.

Click here to view the footage tak­en by WSPA and EIA in May 2005.

The Willassen Senior is the fifth Nor­we­gian whal­ing ves­sel to come under attack for ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties since 1992. The com­plete list to date includes:

The Nybrae­na — scut­tled dock­side in Decem­ber 1992 (Reine, Lofoten Islands).
The Senet — Scut­tled dock­side in Jan­u­ary 1994 (Fredricks­berg, Nor­way).
The Elin-Toril — Severe­ly dam­aged in 1997.
The Morild — Sunk in 1998.
The Williassen Senior — Sunk in August 2007 (Svolvaer, Lofoten Islands).

Watch video of the sunken vess­sel

More info @ : www.seashepherd.org

Western Animal Rights Network launched! + Animal Rights Copwatch

WARN (West­ern Ani­mal Rights Net­work) is a coali­tion for ani­mal lib­er­a­tionists that was orig­i­nal­ly launched in 2005 but ceased to be after activists moved away from the West. We hope to be a sup­port base for activists and be a gate­way into the ani­mal rights move­ment for peo­ple look­ing to get involved in ani­mal lib­er­a­tion in the West of the UK.

WARN (West­ern Ani­mal Rights Net­work) is a coali­tion for ani­mal lib­er­a­tionists that was orig­i­nal­ly launched in 2005 but ceased to be after activists moved away from the West. We hope to be a sup­port base for activists and be a gate­way into the ani­mal rights move­ment for peo­ple look­ing to get involved in ani­mal lib­er­a­tion in the West of the UK.

WARN has re-launched with a new web­site with demo reports, direct action, events, veg­an and AR info, cam­paign mate­ri­als, cloth­ing and kit for those of us activists who like to out after the sun has gone down.

We will be pro­duc­ing a “Schnews” style dou­ble sided A4 newslet­ter every month and a year­ly mag­a­zine with all the years actions and loads of info includ­ed.

WARN will be active in the fol­low­ing areas and we encour­age groups to please help us out with con­tent includ­ing demo / action reports (via PGP) not to men­tion any oth­er con­tent, events or action alerts you want on the site.

* South West Eng­land
o Bris­tol
o North Som­er­set
o Glouces­ter­shire
o Wilt­shire
* West Mid­lands
o Worces­ter­shire
o Here­ford­shire
o Shrop­shire
o War­ick­shire
o Stafford­shire
o Birm­ing­ham
o Coven­try
o Dud­ley
o Sandwell
o Soli­hull
o Wal­sall
o Wolver­hamp­ton
* Wales
o Mon­mouthshire
o Car­marthen­shire
o Glan­mor­gan
o Bre­con­shire
o Pem­brokeshire

With the cre­ation of NETCU and (over)use of SOCPA and oth­er leg­is­la­tion which is mak­ing law­ful protest near impos­si­ble these days we have tak­en it upon our­selves in con­junc­tion with NETCU WATCH (www.vivisection.info/netcu_watch) to start a blog and post details of ille­gal police activ­i­ties and the pho­tos and names / num­bers of police offi­cers involved with the crack­down on legal protest. We hope to build an infor­ma­tion base which will be avail­able to use as a defence in court.

Check out http://arcopwatch.wordpress.com

And sub­mit your cop pics with any rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion to copwatch@animalliberation.co.uk

Thanks for the sup­port!

info @ animalliberation.co.uk
http://www.animalliberation.co.uk

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.

New Earth First Action Update OUT NOW!

The print­ed EF! Action Update is back again! After a bit of a lull a new edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive is in place and ready to roll. We have just pro­duced a sum­mer edi­tion in time for the Camp for Cli­mate Action, where you can pick up print­ed copies.

EF! AU logo 1The print­ed EF! Action Update is back again! After a bit of a lull a new edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive is in place and ready to roll. We have just pro­duced a sum­mer edi­tion in time for the Camp for Cli­mate Action, where you can pick up print­ed copies.

The Action Update is pro­duced quar­ter­ly to aid the shar­ing of news, infor­ma­tion and ideas amongst those inter­est­ed in tak­ing action. The next newslet­ter will be out in Novem­ber. If you’ve got news to share about your groups, cam­paigns and actions post them straight onto this web­site and we’ll make sure they’re includ­ed in the next edi­tion.

You can also down­load and print out the PDF of the Action Update by click­ing here.

launch of radical newsheet — the Bath Bomb

Today, sev­en activists from Bath Activist Net­work set up shop in the mid­dle of Bath to raise aware­ness and encour­age peo­ple to attend the upcom­ing. Cli­mate Camp

Bath Bomb logoToday, sev­en activists from Bath Activist Net­work set up shop in the mid­dle of Bath to raise aware­ness and encour­age peo­ple to attend the upcom­ing. Cli­mate Camp

Through­out the day we gave out hun­dreds of leaflets, stick­ers, newslet­ters and free cake. We unfurled a ban­ner and chalked art­work on the pave­ment (a com­mu­ni­ty sup­port offi­cer threat­ened to get some prop­er cops to arrest an activist for crim­i­nal dam­age, but we rang the coun­cil, who told us we were wel­come to chalk over as much pave­ment as we liked, leav­ing a slight­ly red faced cop!). We received loads of sup­port, loads of peo­ple were voic­ing dis­gust at the injunc­tion, and plea­sure that it was crap as far as injunc­tions go. Every­body knew about cli­mate camp and our argu­ments, and it seems to be a major talk­ing point at the mo. All in all a good and pro­duc­tive day — look­ing for­ward to the camp!

We also took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to start dis­trib­ut­ing our new month­ly newslet­ter ‘Bath Bomb’, giv­ing a rad­i­cal per­spec­tive on all the news and coun­cil sleaze in Bath! To get a copy e‑mailed every month, e‑mail bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk

See y’all in the fields!

bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

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The Bath Bomb is here!

The first edi­tion of what should turn out to be our month­ly alter­na­tive news sheet, right now as plain text — a work in progress!:

*The Bath Bomb * Issue 1 July/August ’07 * @nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute! *

“All the news the Chron did­n’t choose!”

(For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries, see www.myspace.com/bathbomb)

Bath — 1, BNP — 0

As many read­ers will be aware, Nick Grif­fin, the leader of the Nazi BNP was due to speak at Bath Uni recent­ly. He was invit­ed by BNP youth leader Dan­ny Lake, a Bath Uni stu­dent.

Fac­ing mas­sive oppo­si­tion to the speech, the Uni banned Grif­fin from talk­ing. How­ev­er, local Antifa (anti fas­cist action) mem­bers got word that Grif­fin was being snuck into town to give a talk to a hard­core of BNP mem­bers at a secret loca­tion. Thanks to a well placed mole, Antifa found the loca­tion, and informed the man­ag­er, who was more than hap­py to can­cel the event (Lake had booked under the fake char­i­ty name ‘British Her­itage’!).

With only 2 hours’ notice, 20 activists were scour­ing the streets, look­ing for Nazi Nick and his bone­head mates. Upon get­ting word that the ‘fash’ were mov­ing toward Rev­o­lu­tion bar, the venue was occu­pied by anti-fas­cists with the full sup­port of the staff (one of whom was heard to say ‘do what it takes, just keep those bas­tards out!’). They then moved off to the Lit­ten Tree. Antifa went in after them and after a short ‘debate’, ‘per­suad­ed’ them to leave the pub. At this point, the old bill turned up and pre­vent­ed activists from chas­ing the flee­ing fas­cists. Luck­i­ly, well-placed spot­ters were able to fol­low.

They were found in Vicky Park, where, out num­bered 3 to 1 by anti-fas­cists, they had a five minute pic­nic before piss­ing off home. An inspec­tion of their cars revealed that none were from Bath, and had been shipped in from far and wide to give the impres­sion of hav­ing sup­port­ers.

The BNP are a nazi organ­i­sa­tion, led by a holo­caust deny­ing Hitler wor­ship­per with a track record of racial vio­lence. Bath organ­is­er Dan­ny Lake has been arrest­ed twice for harass­ing fam­i­lies attend­ing mul­ti­cul­tur­al events, and has a best mate in prison for bomb­ing a mosque. They’ve been shown once, and we can show them again — fas­cists are not wel­come in Bath!

Dis­eased Liv­er, Any­one?

Although hushed up in the Chron, in recent months, ani­mal rights groups in Bris­tol and Bath have been get­ting busy. ‘Paté de foie gras,’ a French import for the idle rich, is a cru­el culi­nary treat – ducks and geese spend life­times trapped in cages, dai­ly force-fed corn through painful tubes rammed down their throats, stom­achs expand­ing to burst­ing point, before their liv­ers are served on a plate. The tor­tured birds are often rid­dled with infec­tion, and eat­ing foie gras is linked to dis­eases like CJD and Alzheimer’s. Its man­u­fac­ture is also banned in the UK.

Two demos per­suad­ed Bistro No. 5 to drop it from their menu, so the cam­paign moved on to Le Petit Cochon, in Mar­garet Build­ings – and what fun they had! The high­ly excitable staff had no prob­lems with kick­ing off, scuf­fles inside and out, bro­ken glass and upend­ed tables being the order of the day. As thedin­ers gaw­ped on, head chefand own­er Christophe charged out, push­ing and shov­ing any­one with­in reach, shout­ing “I love ducks! I f**k ducks!” After the bes­tial­i­ty con­fes­sions died down, this larg­er-than-life char­ac­ter plant­ed a kiss on one pro­test­er, and then with­drew. Two weeks lat­er, seem­ing­ly calmed down, he claimed to have dropped foie gras. Or had he, the lying cad? Our rov­ing reporter went under­cov­er to dis­cov­er the truth, and eas­i­ly exposed the not-so-cun­ning ruse: the
restau­ran­t’s still sell­ing the putrid stuff, so watch this space for fur­ther break­ing news…

Every Lit­tle (Trick in the Book) Helps

After try­ing to worm their way into Bath for years, Tesco’s final­ly seem to be get­ting their way. With rejec­tion after rejec­tion at Lon­don Road and Odd Down, yet again they were turned down at the for­mer car show­room site John Tallis, at Bath­wick Hill. But, nev­er known for play­ing fair, what with all the farms and oth­er small-scale sup­pli­ers they’ve ripped off and destroyed over the years – pay­ing sup­pli­ers 4% less than any oth­er super­mar­ket – they went cry­ing off to a gov­ern­ment plan­ning inspec­tor, who over­turned the coun­cil’s deci­sion.

So, now we’ll be stuck with yet anoth­er Tesco’s Express. Whilst com­pa­ny spokes­peo­ple lie through their teeth, claim­ing that their stores give “oth­er local busi­ness­es a boost”, the truth is that with their con­stant price goug­ing, local shops like Bath­wick Stores, Tuck Time and oth­er estab­lished small stores are like­ly to soon go under. Indeed, rough­ly 50 inde­pen­dent shops are squeezed out of the UK every year by big super­mar­kets like these. So, soon, local roads will be clogged with deliv­ery trucks, road safe­ty will hit blood-stained rock bot­tom with inad­e­quate road-cross­ings, and more local jobs will be cut, because super­mar­kets employ two thirds less staff than small­er stores. So here’s to big­ger dole queues!

Well, whilst doing our best to sup­port local shops, when the new Tesco’s arrive, let’s make sure we give them all a big wel­come: plant­i­ng con­crete-crack­ing Japan­ese knotweed should be just the thing!

Events List­ing

Mon­day nights Bath Hunt Sabo­teur meet­ings 8pm back room of Bell
11th Aug Bath Free Shop @ Stall Street 12–3pm
14th—21st Aug Nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action nr Heathrow
5th Sept Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing back room of Bell 7.30–8.30pm
6th Sept Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing down­stairs Hob­gob­lin 7.30–9pm
11th-14th Sept Dis­arm DSEI @ The Excel Cen­tre in Lon­don
19th-24th Sept No Bor­der Camp nr Gatwick
21st Sept Left­ism ben­e­fit club night for Bris­tle mag­a­zine @ The Crown 9–2am

Who Are Bath Activist Net­work?

We are a local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

Get out Yer Life­jack­ets for the West­ern River­side Yup­pie Flood!

Yup, the coun­cil have done it again and sold off the west­ern river­side area to be turned into lux­u­ry flats.

There is major cause for con­cern on all fronts. A flood plain will be destroyed, mak­ing localised flood­ing immi­nent, bad­ger, owl and king­fish­er habi­tats will be destroyed, many Bath res­i­dents will have their views ruined by huge apart­ment build­ings, and we’ll have to deal with an influx of more yup­pies.

There are also plans to demol­ish the his­toric Bath Press to make way for a super­mar­ket to cater for the new res­i­dents. The 200 work­ers of the press, many of whom had put in 30-plus years were told to get out with next to no warn­ing to make way for the new devel­op­ment.

Crest Nichol­son, the devel­op­ment com­pa­ny (who make a cushy side­line evict­ing fam­i­lies from house­boats to build pricey water­side flats for…. you guessed it — yup­pies!) have kind­ly offered to make 20% of the hous­ing ‘affordable’…cheers! That means that Batho­ni­ans from the sur­round­ing area aren’t ever going to see inside these flats! Instead of putting effort into pro­vid­ing bet­ter facil­i­ties and con­di­tions for ordi­nary peo­ple, the coun­cil are ignor­ing our needs and cater­ing for the rich to make a quick buck.

As numer­ous oth­er ‘tourist’ cities across the world have shown us, flood­ing our com­mu­ni­ties with rich com­muters will have dis­as­trous effects – push­ing house prices up, suck­ing resources from the com­mu­ni­ty while putting noth­ing back and build­ing cof­fee bar after f**king cof­fee bar!

There are a mil­lion good argu­ments against this devel­op­ment, but the same old good rea­son for the coun­cil­lors – prof­it. Actions against the devel­op­ment are due to start soon, we’ll keep you post­ed!

Flights of Fan­cy?

Whilst cli­mate change is seem­ing­ly on every­one’s lips, for the British air­line indus­try, it’s (big) busi­ness as usu­al. Despite hot air from Num­ber 10 about ‘car­bon emis­sions reduc­tion tar­gets’, air pas­sen­ger num­bers are planned to dou­ble over the next 20 years; nev­er mind the fact that planes pol­lute 10 times worse than trains. This week, the British Air­port Author­i­ty is des­per­ate­ly push­ing through a new law to crim­i­nal­ize up to 5,000,000 mem­bers of green groups round the coun­try. The planned injunc­tion, lucra­tive work for silk-tongued lawyers, will not only ban pro­test­ers from areas inside and around Heathrow, but also from the Pic­cadil­ly line, M4 and M25.

But who are these heinous eco-ter­ror­ists that BAA is so afraid of? Earth First!? Al Qae­da? Erm, no. It’s groups like Friends of the Earth, the RSPB, The Cam­paign for the Pro­tec­tion of Rur­al Eng­land and No Third Run­way Acton Group, based in the vil­lages of Har­mondsworth and Sip­son: mem­bers include the Queen, Prince Charles and hun­dreds of BA staff, so they’re pre­sum­ably banned, too.

All this palaver is an attempt to nip this mon­th’s nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action in the bud – a week of edu­ca­tion, work­shops and activism, set to pitch up near Heathrow. The event is expect­ed to attract huge num­bers of rent-a-cops: just like the OTT polic­ing we saw back here in April, for the Bath Cli­mate Camp. And if this ridicu­lous ban does go through, it will be yet fur­ther proof that the courts are sim­ply hired flunkies at the cor­po­ra­tions’ beck and call. These peo­ple are ful­ly pre­pared to bull­doze over an entire vil­lage for a new run­way, putting sil­ly pipedreams like ‘eco­nom­ic growth’ before peo­ple’s lives.

How­ev­er, it’s not all doom and gloom: oth­er planned air­port expan­sions up and down the coun­try are now being beat­en back: Man­ches­ter, Coven­try, Luton, and Birm­ing­ham schemes were all reject­ed, and maybe soon Bris­tol Air­port will join ’em!

Join the Dots – from Local Dis­pute to Nation­al Dis­as­ter?

Lost his­to­ry, increased pol­lu­tion, unin­hab­it­able homes, not being con­sult­ed on local issues?

At the moment we may feel like a divid­ed pop­u­lace at the mer­cy of gov­ern­ment, coun­cil and cor­po­ra­tions. But if we link small local dis­putes over devel­op­ment across the coun­try, cre­at­ing net­works to oppose them, we will begin to see the change we crave.

Take Bath, for exam­ple – West­ern River­side Devel­op­ment, Tesco’s at Bath­wick Hill, the recent demo­li­tion of Churchill House despite mass protest… And fur­ther from home at Heathrow, where peo­ple are fight­ing against the third run­way, pro­tect­ing the beau­ti­ful old vil­lages they stand to lose. As a mem­ber of NOTRAG (a local group oppos­ing the run­way) says: “if it hap­pens to us, who’s next?”

“Democ­ra­cy only works if vot­ers are active and informed” All it takes for us to be more in con­trol, is for us to pull togeth­er local­ly and nation­al­ly, learn­ing from each oth­ers’ actions and to fit cam­paigns into our ordi­nary lives, next to the wash­ing up or get­ting the din­ner, to remind the gov­ern­ment that we are all part of that gov­ern­ment too. These lit­tle bits will reap huge ben­e­fits – for you, your neigh­bours, your chil­dren and even the world!

Some things you could do: attend local meet­ings, or, if you’re part of a group, link up with oth­er groups over a com­mon goal, get involved in protests, cre­ate your own. If you oppose the new Tesco’s, what would you like in its place? Make that hap­pen instead. And if the Tesco’s does get built, don’t shop there! Think neigh­bour­hood watch on a grander scale – being aware of what’s going on in your area, sup­port­ing those around you and try­ing not to leave any­one out, is enough. Share the work so it does­n’t over­whelm and keep morale up by shar­ing the deci­sion not to take ‘no’ for an answer.

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE?
Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions are avail­able on request

Investigation leads to chicken rescue by Gloucestershire animal activists.

Glouces­ter­shire Ani­mal Action press release — For imme­di­ate release
Sun­day, June 03, 2007

Five month inves­ti­ga­tion leads to chick­en res­cue by Glouces­ter­shire ani­mal activists.

Five months ago activists from Glouces­ter­shire Ani­mal Action learned of a farm in Glouces­ter which had been vis­it­ed by DEFRA after the rot­ting car­cass­es of chick­ens and pigs were left caus­ing a stench which had affect­ed the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Glouces­ter­shire Ani­mal Action press release — For imme­di­ate release
Sun­day, June 03, 2007

Five month inves­ti­ga­tion leads to chick­en res­cue by Glouces­ter­shire ani­mal activists.

Five months ago activists from Glouces­ter­shire Ani­mal Action learned of a farm in Glouces­ter which had been vis­it­ed by DEFRA after the rot­ting car­cass­es of chick­ens and pigs were left caus­ing a stench which had affect­ed the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Local press cov­ered the inci­dent in which the farm own­er had claimed that around one hun­dred ani­mals die per week at the facil­i­ty. Activists vis­it­ed the farm at Lit­tle Wit­combe in Glouces­ter with the inten­tion of doc­u­ment­ing the con­di­tion in which the ani­mals were housed which have result­ed in the deaths of so many ani­mals.

With our inves­ti­ga­tion footage we hope to high­light the real­i­ty of mod­ern non caged “barn” egg busi­ness­es to show that free-range and barn eggs are in no way a guar­an­tee that your food is eth­i­cal­ly pro­duced in many cas­es barn egg sys­tems are worse than bat­tery cage sys­tems and if you wish to be a tru­ly eth­i­cal per­son you real­ly need to go veg­an. The gov­ern­ment has main­tained that veg­an­ism is a very healthy way to live, you can almost half your car­bon foot­print in most cas­es and you can live a cru­el­ty free lifestyle know­ing that no ani­mals or humans are being exploit­ed for your diet!

The fol­low­ing is the account from one activist involved in the inves­ti­ga­tion:

“We entered one of the long sheds which hadn’t been secured prop­er­ly late one evening, mak­ing sure to pro­tect the ani­mals inside we dis­in­fect­ed our feet and cloth­ing before enter­ing. To be hon­est I was expect­ing to have to search for ani­mals in a bad con­di­tion but the real­i­ty was it was more dif­fi­cult to find ani­mals that looked healthy, maybe one in fif­teen chick­ens weren’t in a bad con­di­tion. The air was acrid and filled with ammo­nia and dust par­ti­cles and the fans didn’t seem to be work­ing prop­er­ly. The work­er chart on the wall had said that 6 deaths had occurred in one day in a sin­gle shed and there are four­teen sheds on the farm. It would seem that this is the norm for a facil­i­ty that holds more than 70,000 chick­ens.”

Dur­ing the fol­low­ing months the activists returned to check the con­di­tions which didn’t seem to be improv­ing. After suf­fi­cient evi­dence had been gath­ered in order to high­light the plight of the hens inside a col­lec­tive deci­sion was made by those involved that we would attempt to res­cue and give vet­eri­nary care to a small amount of the chick­ens (Thir­teen in total).

The res­cue took place dur­ing the ear­ly hours of a warm night in May, three activists entered a barn with ani­mal car­ri­ers and record­ing equip­ment, footage was record­ed and pho­tos tak­en, the ani­mals were then care­ful­ly loaded into ani­mal car­ri­ers and into a con­vert­ed laun­dry bag, they were then trans­port­ed to a house for the night for food and water. The next morn­ing they were tak­en to live out their lives at a sanc­tu­ary. It should be remem­bered that these ani­mals have nev­er expe­ri­enced sun­light or fresh air and to see these intel­li­gent crea­tures being giv­en a chance to live with real food and fresh water in fan­tas­tic con­di­tions brought those involved to tears. We can only hope that the remain­ing thou­sands of ani­mals and bil­lions of ani­mals breed each year for our ani­mal diet expe­ri­ence the same lux­u­ry one day.

Glouces­ter­shire Ani­mal Action are a peace­ful group of indi­vid­u­als, we con­sid­er our actions to be total­ly jus­ti­fied and are will­ing to accept any reper­cus­sions as a result of our actions. Dur­ing our vis­its we saw no signs which indi­cat­ed that the prop­er­ty was pri­vate. We are aware that we have caused dam­age to a lock on the farm dur­ing our last vis­it and we will be send­ing a pay­ment to cov­er the cost of replac­ing the lock how­ev­er we will not be pay­ing for the chick­ens tak­en. We how­ev­er wel­come dona­tions via our web­site towards trans­porta­tion costs and vet bills.

Note: The activists wear face cov­er­ings dur­ing the res­cue to pre­vent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion this is for per­son­al safe­ty and to pro­tect their free­dom, ani­mal activists have been impris­oned for years after res­cu­ing ani­mals from facil­i­ties such as this one.

For infor­ma­tion about Glouces­ter­shire Ani­mal Action you can vis­it their web­site at www.stopanimalcruelty.co.uk or you can watch the full video of the res­cue online via YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=JllgcO0f_Gg

Spies exposed in local activist groups in New Zealand

27 May 2007

27 May 2007
The Christchurch Save Hap­py Val­ley (SHV) group, the Welling­ton Ani­mal Rights Net­work (WARN) and Peace Action Welling­ton (PAW) have exposed cor­po­rate spies oper­at­ing with­in their groups. In Christchurch, Ryan [pho­to] had been involved in the group for 7 months, while in Welling­ton Soma­li [pho­to] had been spy­ing for around 2 years.

The pair were employed by Thomp­son & Clark Pri­vate Inves­ti­ga­tions Lim­it­ed, an Auck­land firm that spe­cialis­es in “covert phys­i­cal and elec­tron­ic sur­veil­lance” and “polit­i­cal activism”. In Ryan’s case, the mon­ey came from Sol­id Ener­gy, while in Soma­l­i’s, it was like­ly to be the NZ Biotech Indus­try for WARN and the NZ Defence Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion for PAW.

Frances Moun­tier, spokesper­son for SHV Christchurch, said “It is shock­ing that a state owned enter­prise would use such insid­i­ous and under­hand tac­tics to under­mine the pub­lic debate on cli­mate change”.

“Thomp­son & Clark are a leech-like com­pa­ny, feed­ing off polit­i­cal groups while mak­ing sure not to kill their main source of income” stat­ed WARN spokesper­son Mark Eden. “Com­pa­nies that abuse ani­mals like to keep their prac­tices their dirty lit­tle secret, and it seems they will sink to any low to keep it that way.”

Peace Action Welling­ton has expressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with the oth­er groups. “This cor­po­rate infil­tra­tion and spy­ing com­bined with the spy­ing and vio­lence of the police is part and par­cel of speak­ing out in this so called “demo­c­ra­t­ic” State. We wish to extend our sol­i­dar­i­ty towards those oth­er groups infil­trat­ed seek­ing to do the same”.

The Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion has pre­vi­ous­ly exposed Thomp­son & Clark on two occas­sions — in Feb­ru­ary 2006, peo­ple at the Hap­py Val­ley occu­pa­tion came accross two T&C spies on a ridge­line over­look­ing the camp­site, while in Sep­tem­ber 2006 a cam­era with a pow­er­ful zoom lens was dis­cov­ered at the start of the track into the Val­ley.

Media Releas­es: Peace Action Welling­ton | Save Hap­py Val­ley Coali­tion | Welling­ton Ani­mal Rights Net­work | Alliance

Oth­er Media: Sun­day Star Times

EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

This report announces the for­ma­tion of a new cam­paign­ing and action group to be called EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

The group is based in Can­ter­bury, but already has sup­port from peo­ple in the Med­way Towns, Sit­ting­bourne, Herne Bay and Thanet as well as Can­ter­bury. Most of the peo­ple involved have a back­ground in the Ani­mal Rights move­ment and recog­nise the need to broad­en out into Eco Action and relat­ed issues. Be it GM crops, Air­port expan­sion, unnec­es­sary devel­op­ment, or diverse oth­er issues we shall seek to edu­cate, inform and protest, notwith­stand­ing the cur­rent clam­p­down on rea­son­able protest. There will short­ly be a web­site up and run­ning, but in the mean­time any­one inter­est­ed in being involved should

This report announces the for­ma­tion of a new cam­paign­ing and action group to be called EAST KENT EARTH FIRST!

The group is based in Can­ter­bury, but already has sup­port from peo­ple in the Med­way Towns, Sit­ting­bourne, Herne Bay and Thanet as well as Can­ter­bury. Most of the peo­ple involved have a back­ground in the Ani­mal Rights move­ment and recog­nise the need to broad­en out into Eco Action and relat­ed issues. Be it GM crops, Air­port expan­sion, unnec­es­sary devel­op­ment, or diverse oth­er issues we shall seek to edu­cate, inform and protest, notwith­stand­ing the cur­rent clam­p­down on rea­son­able protest. There will short­ly be a web­site up and run­ning, but in the mean­time any­one inter­est­ed in being involved should
con­tact the fol­low­ing email address. mattclowes@riseup.net

SHAC TAKES THE FLAK: FLIMSY PRETEXT FOR COUNTRY-WIDE ARRESTS OF ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

4.5.07
In yet anoth­er ham­merblow aimed at the ani­mal rights move­ment, police made 32 arrests across the UK in the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing in ‘Oper­a­tion Achilles’. Assis­tant Chief Con­sta­ble Adri­an Lep­pard of Kent Police says the arrests are “one of the largest, if not the largest, police oper­a­tion that has tar­get­ed ani­mal extrem­ism in the UK.” Three prop­er­ties were also searched in Bel­gium and the Nether­lands.

4.5.07
In yet anoth­er ham­merblow aimed at the ani­mal rights move­ment, police made 32 arrests across the UK in the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing in ‘Oper­a­tion Achilles’. Assis­tant Chief Con­sta­ble Adri­an Lep­pard of Kent Police says the arrests are “one of the largest, if not the largest, police oper­a­tion that has tar­get­ed ani­mal extrem­ism in the UK.” Three prop­er­ties were also searched in Bel­gium and the Nether­lands.

700 police were involved as homes and ani­mal sanc­tu­ar­ies were raid­ed, with police seiz­ing com­put­ers, mobile phones and cash. The whole oper­a­tion was designed with max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty in mind — the press were tipped off in advance and duti­ful­ly report­ed on the lat­est crack­down on ani­mal rights ‘extrem­ism’. Almost all those arrest­ed had some con­nec­tion with the SHAC cam­paign

Of course what did­n’t hit the head­lines was the num­ber of prop­er­ties raid­ed with­out arrests being made and the fact that 24 hours lat­er only nine of those arrest­ed had been charged — two with black­mail and the oth­er sev­en with ‘con­spir­a­cy to black­mail’. Twen­ty were released on bail and one with­out charge. Two of those nicked, main organ­is­ers in the SHAC cam­paign, have been held for fur­ther ques­tion­ing.

Cru­cial­ly, the police inves­ti­ga­tion — in a nod to cor­po­rate mar­tial law — used intel­li­gence and foren­sic sup­port from the pri­vate sec­tor. The phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech­nol­o­gy indus­try greet­ed news of the raids with glee: “News of today’s oper­a­tion will act as a great fil­lip to the med­ical research com­mu­ni­ty across Europe,” said a state­ment issued by Ais­ling Bur­nand, chief exec­u­tive of Britain’s BioIn­dus­try Asso­ci­a­tion.

One source close to SHAC told SchNEWS, “This has all the hall­marks of a fish­ing expe­di­tion, designed to cause mas­sive dis­rup­tion to ani­mal rights cam­paigns and show Big Phar­ma here and abroad that the police are mak­ing strides against the ani­mal rights move­ment.”

NETCU CLOSES IN

As details emerged of the botched raid on Fresh­fields Ani­mal Sanc­tu­ary in Liv­er­pool, sanc­tu­ary head Dave Cal­len­dar told SchNEWS, “At 5.30 they kicked in the door and seized three staff mem­bers. At 6.20 they seized two oth­ers as they turned up for work. There were about six­ty cop­pers — they set up a cor­don and refused access to any­one. Those seized were held in vans but not arrest­ed. My farm man­ag­er had his col­lar­bone bro­ken after he was grabbed by three police when he climbed the back wall to check on our pigs. He was held in a van for three hours and refused access to med­ical atten­tion. Although the police brought an RSPCA inspec­tor with them it was clear that when we regained access to the site that noth­ing had been done for the ani­mals. Also they allowed ani­mals to escape, which we’re still look­ing for. They took every sin­gle piece of hard­ware, mobile phones, pho­to­copiers, you name it — but they did­n’t take a sin­gle piece of paper­work. It’s dif­fi­cult to see it as any­thing oth­er then delib­er­ate intim­i­da­tion and dis­rup­tion — nobody here is involved with the Hunt­ing­don cam­paign. We’re a pro-active com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tion and we’re not going to let them walk all over us.”

The raids come against a back­drop of a decline in crim­i­nal inci­dents relat­ed to ani­mal rights and demon­strate that the Nation­al Extrem­ism Tac­ti­cal Co-ordi­nat­ing Unit’s (see www.netcu.org.uk) efforts are now aimed firm­ly at the ‘legit­i­mate’ above ground ani­mal rights move­ment. With SHAC once again able to con­duct demos out­side HLS (see SchNEWS 581) and activism spread­ing across Europe, Britain’s polit­i­cal police seem intent on decap­i­tat­ing the A.R. move­ment, by any means nec­es­sary.

* See www.shac.net for more
* Fresh­fields Ani­mal Sanc­tu­ary see www.freshfieldsrescue.org.uk

Support the Eco-Prisoners, Easter 2007

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

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing” (Jon Able­white, Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

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

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing” (Jon Able­white, Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the East­er 2007 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. First off I’d like to apol­o­gise in the delay in pub­lish­ing this edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom.
A lot of things have been hap­pen­ing recent­ly for ELP’s vol­un­teers and a delay was inevitable. How­ev­er, despite the delay in pub­li­ca­tion ELP has some fan­tas­tic news. For the first time in ages ELP is able to bring some good news! A lot of the ‘Il Sil­vestre’ pris­on­ers have been released! Mar­co Camenisch has had his sen­tence reduced at appeal! Jeff Luers may have his sen­tenced reduced! Rod Coro­n­a­do has been released! Garfield Gab­bard has been released! And long-term pris­on­er Dave Blenk­in­sop has been released!!!
This is all bril­liant news. How­ev­er despite our cel­e­bra­tions, ELP has also seen a num­ber of new pris­on­ers added to our list. So lets cel­e­brate the good news of our friends and then lets sup­port the news pris­on­ers. Also before we end this edi­to­r­i­al we’ve been asked by Joy­an­na Zach­er to remind every­one on ELP’s pol­i­cy towards police infor­mants. We do not sup­port them! Regard­less of how long they are jailed for, we do not sup­port them. Regard­less of who they are, we do not sup­port them. A police infor­mant relin­quish­es their right to be regard­ed as an eco-pris­on­er as soon as they inform. ELP sup­ports eco-pris­on­ers, not police infor­mants. But remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the real eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

COURT REPORTS & LEGAL UPDATES

MARCO CAMENISCH APPEAL NEWS
In mid March 2007 ELP received some news from Switzer­land that at his appeal, Mar­co Camenisch, has had his 17-year prison sen­tence, for alleged­ly killing a Swiss board­er guard, reduced to 8 years. The Appeal Court ruled that the orig­i­nal Judge had not tak­en into account Mar­co’s time spent in prison in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons, nor had the Judge ful­ly con­sid­ered the out­stand­ing prison sen­tence Mar­co had to serve for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Switzer­land. Added alto­geth­er (39 years), the prison sen­tence was exces­sive­ly long and so was reduced so now Mar­co is serv­ing an 18-year sen­tence.

JEFF LUERS APPEAL UPDATE
On Valen­tines Day (Feb 14th) the Amer­i­can media announced that the Court of Appeal has declared Jeff ‘Free’ Luers, 22+ years prison sen­tence is too long and sug­gest­ed it should be reduced to between 11+ to 13+ years. ELP will bring you more news as we get it.

ARRESTS IN MEXICO
On the 30th of Novem­ber 2006 two Mex­i­can anar­chists, Oscar San­ta Maria Caro and Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, were arrest­ed for as yet unknown rea­sons. Oscar is a well known ani­mal rights activist who is involved with RATA (Resis­tance Against Ani­mal Tor­ture). Reports are com­ing out of Mex­i­co alleg­ing that both Oscar and Sacra­men­to have been tor­tured whilst inside. There are also reports alleg­ing that their inter­roga­tors have threat­ened to rape female polit­i­cal pris­on­ers if the two men do not con­fess to their alleged crimes. ELP is try­ing to obtain more infor­ma­tion about these arrests and will bring you more news as we get it.

ROD CORONADO UPDATE
In late March, Amer­i­can Earth First! activist, Rod Coro­n­a­do, was released from prison hav­ing served his sen­tence for sab­o­tag­ing a moun­tain lion hunt. ELP has learnt that Rod’s tri­al for “demon­strat­ing the use of a destruc­tive device,” relat­ing to a speech he gave in San Diego in 2003, is sched­uled to begin in June.

FINNISH ‘GREEN SCARE’
ELP has learnt that the author­i­ties in Fin­land appear to be copy­ing Amer­i­can tac­tics and are tar­get­ing known ani­mal rights and envi­ron­men­tal activists. No mat­ter how minor the ‘offence’ the Finnish police seem deter­mined to pros­e­cute. One per­son end­ed up in court for ring­ing the door­bell of an ani­mal abuser whilst on a demo. The activist was fined for “dis­turb­ing home peace”. Anoth­er activist was ques­tioned for ‘crim­i­nal dam­age’ after they alleged­ly spat on a fur shop win­dow! Two more activists were raid­ed and ques­tioned for alleged­ly putting a leaflet through a post box and putting a stick­er on the win­dow of a fur shop. The police accused them of ‘crim­i­nal dam­age’.
ELP’s Finnish friends, who wish to remain anony­mous for obvi­ous rea­sons, say these are just a few exam­ples of the types of police activ­i­ty hap­pen­ing in Fin­land at the moment.
ELP is informed that the police have set up a spe­cial unit to inves­ti­gate ani­mal rights activists and the unit has said intend to get activists involved in the ear­ly stages of activism ‘before it gets more seri­ous’. Trans­la­tion, the police want to intim­i­date peo­ple away from activism.

SERIOUS ORGANISED CRIME!
Every so often ELP brings you sto­ries of ridicu­lous pros­e­cu­tions of non-vio­lent activists under Britain’s new ‘Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime’ leg­is­la­tion. Who can for­get the fines imposed on two peace activists for read­ing out the names of the British war dead, killed in Iraq, whilst stand­ing next to Britain’s main war memo­r­i­al! Sad­ly the courts have now moved beyond just fin­ing peo­ple and have start­ed to hand out prison sen­tences to activists under this new law. In ear­ly March three British ani­mal rights activists were jailed for between 15 months to 4 years for their part in a non-vio­lent cam­paign against Huntin­don Life Sci­ences.
Accord­ing to the BBC, the three were accused of being key fig­ures in a cam­paign against com­pa­nies with links to HLS. They were accused of enter­ing the offices of the com­pa­nies and demand­ing that those com­pa­nies cut their links to HLS. They were also accused of organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions against the com­pa­nies build­ings. Plus they were accused of tak­ing pho­tos of the peo­ple who worked for the com­pa­nies.

MAN ARRESTED IN AMERICA
At the end of March the Amer­i­can media report­ed that a 24-year old man, Grant Barnes, had been arrest­ed accused of set­ting fire to SUVs in Den­ver, CO. The media quot­ed the cops as say­ing incen­di­ary devices were used to dam­age the vehi­cles and one of the vehi­cles had ELF spray paint­ed on it. The police also stat­ed they did not believe that Grant Barnes was a mem­ber of the ELF.

IL SILVESTRE UPDATE
At the end of Feb­ru­ary 2007 the Ital­ian courts ruled that Sil­via Gueri­ni and Fed­eri­co Bonam­i­ci should be released under house arrest. This means that only three Il Sil­vestre mem­bers are cur­rent­ly impris­oned. They are Benedet­ta Galante, Francesco Gioia and Costan­ti­no Ragusa.

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, PO Box 1108, Den­ver, CO 80201, USA. On remand accused of set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #1663667, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing admit­ted involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

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.

Benedet­ta Galante, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Con­tra­da Capo di Monte, 82100 — Ben­even­to (BN), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 6 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Francesco Gioia, Via Maiano, 10, 06049 Spo­le­to, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 5 years 2 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al for escap­ing from house arrest.

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.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 7½ years. 1) Five years for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. 2) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 3) 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.

John Wade #38548–083, FCI Peters­burg Low, Satel­lite Camp, PO Box 90027, Peters­burg, VA 23804, USA. Serv­ing 37 months for a series of ELF actions against a num­ber of tar­gets includ­ing McDon­alds & Burg­er King; urban sprawl; the con­struc­tion indus­try; and an SUV deal­er­ship.

Joy­an­na Zach­er #1662550, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing admit­ted involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

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.

Made­line Buck­ler PR7492, HMP Mor­ton Hall, Swinder­by, Lin­coln, LN6 9PT, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for send­ing hate mail to a fam­i­ly who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

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.

Josh Dem­mitt 12314–081, FCI Saf­ford, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 9000, Saf­ford, AZ 85548, USA. Serv­ing 30 months for an ALF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty ani­mal test­ing facil­i­ty.

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 Route #37, 33 1/2 Pem­broke Road, Dan­bury, 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. (His orig­i­nal sen­tence was reduced on appeal).

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, Stafford­shire, ST21 6LQ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Trish Portwine, TM7153, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing fif­teen months for her role in loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

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 Bel­marsh, West­ern Way, Thames­mead, Lon­don, SE28 0UB, Eng­land. Serv­ing four years for organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

Suzanne Tay­lor, TM7154, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, 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.

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 Allen­wood Low, PO Box 1000, White Deer, PA 17887, 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.

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

PARTY & PROTEST
Around the world there have been sev­er­al mas­sive protests against glob­al cap­i­tal­ism and its envi­ron­men­tal impact. The fol­low­ing have all been jailed in con­nec­tion with the protests.

Jonathan Philip Robert, Crisp Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 197 Ga. Hwy. 300 South, Cordele, GA 31015, USA (12 months)

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.

MAPUCHE PRISONERS & OTHER LAND RIGHTS PRISONERS
Due to space lim­i­ta­tion we can­not pub­lish the names & address­es of the Mapuche & Land Rights pris­on­ers in this edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom, how­ev­er if you would like a list please con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom.

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 bimonth­ly pub­li­ca­tion (avail­able via e‑mail or in a paper ver­sion). If you would like to receive a copy con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom, BM Box 2407, Lon­don, WC1N 3XX, Eng­land. Or e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

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 Russ­ian antifa activist, Stanislav Korepanov, who died in hos­pi­tal on the 31st of March 2007, hav­ing been attacked a few days ear­li­er by an armed gang of neo-nazis. Stanislav is the sec­ond Russ­ian antifa activist to have been bru­tal­ly attacked in recent months. On the 14th of Jan­u­ary 2007 veg­an ani­mal rights activist, Ivan Elin, was sur­round­ed and attacked by ten neo-nazis in St. Peters­burg after he had tak­en part in a week­ly “Food not bombs” peace ral­ly. Ivan suf­fered 21 stab wounds and was rushed to hos­pi­tal where he is mak­ing his recov­ery. Fol­low­ing on from the knife attack on Ivan, on the 4th of Feb­ru­ary, with a small bomb explod­ed in Vladimirskaya Square of St. Peters­burg, near to where Food Not Bombs organ­ise their week­ly protests. The bomb was hid­den in a kiosk sell­ing flow­ers. Luck­i­ly the bomb only dam­aged the kiosk and did not injure any­one.
This is not the first time neo-nazis have used knives or explo­sives to tar­get Russ­ian activists. On the 22nd of Decem­ber 2006 a num­ber of police were injured whilst try­ing to defuse a device, which set to mur­der antifa activists in Moscow. In August 2006 eleven peo­ple were killed in Moscow when a neo-nazi bomb explod­ed in Cherk­isovs­ki mar­ket­place. The bru­tal mur­der of Stanislav Korepanov and the attack against Ivan are a remind­ed of why fas­cism must nev­er be allowed to go unchal­lenged. ELP wish­es Ivan Elin a speedy recov­ery from his injuries and we con­grat­u­late the Russ­ian ‘Food Not Bombs’ move­ment for not giv­ing into this neo-nazi intim­i­da­tion.
Our thoughts and sor­row are with the fam­i­ly and friends of Stanislav Korepanov who was only 18 years old when he died.