Category: Climate Chaos

Climate Rush & Yes Men Barricade Mandy’s Home in Support of Vestas Protests

10.8.2009
Wel­come home Mandy! At 6am this morn­ing, two cli­mate suf­fragettes and the Yes Men bar­ri­cad­ed Peter Man­dleson’s Regen­t’s Park home in sup­port of the Ves­tas work­ers and wind pow­er in the UK. The cli­mate suf­fragettes, chained to his gate, unfurled a ban­ner read­ing ‘Mandy, Put Some Wind in Ves­tas’ Sales’ while the Yes Men inflat­ed their ‘sur­vivor balls’ in prepa­ra­tion for the worst effects of cli­mate change…

Mandelson Vestas protest10.8.2009
Wel­come home Mandy! At 6am this morn­ing, two cli­mate suf­fragettes and the Yes Men bar­ri­cad­ed Peter Man­dleson’s Regen­t’s Park home in sup­port of the Ves­tas work­ers and wind pow­er in the UK. The cli­mate suf­fragettes, chained to his gate, unfurled a ban­ner read­ing ‘Mandy, Put Some Wind in Ves­tas’ Sales’ while the Yes Men inflat­ed their ‘sur­vivor balls’ in prepa­ra­tion for the worst effects of cli­mate change…

With the work­ers being evict­ed from the Ves­tas fac­to­ry in New­port last Fri­day, the cam­paign to save Ves­tas and gal­vanise wind pow­er in the UK con­tin­ues. The protest called on Lord Man­dle­son, as Busi­ness Sec­re­tary and gen­er­al gov­ern­men­tal over­seer, to ensure Ves­tas’ pres­ence in the UK remained eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable. The gov­ern­ment has already shown they are will­ing to bail out the banks and stim­u­late the car indus­try (Man­dle­son returns from hol­i­day today to try and secure 5000 jobs at Vaux­hal­l’s Luton and Ellesmere Port plants), yet the wind pow­er indus­try remains a sad indict­ment of years of gov­ern­ment neglect.

Ves­tas’ UK chief, Rob Sauven, claimed that for the com­pa­ny to remain eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable in the UK it would need to be receiv­ing 1GW worth of order a year. With Ves­tas con­trol­ling a quar­ter if the UK mar­ket this would require the UK to be adding 4GW of wind pow­er every year. Last year the UK added only 0.5GW.

With the gov­ern­ment want­i­ng to achieve 15% of total ener­gy pro­duc­tion from wind pow­er by 2020, as part of its green eco­nom­ic recov­ery plan to cre­ate tens of thou­sands of green jobs, Sauven’s assess­ment illus­trates a dire need to stim­u­late demand and ensure Britain’s already late tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­o­my does not fail.

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

News from climate action camps in Scotland, Belgium/Netherlands and France

Scot­tish camp starts — Scot­tish coal con­vey­or sup­ply­ing Drax sab­o­taged — tar­gets list -
Belgian/Dutch camp starts — Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal occu­pied — French camp & Nantes air­port action

…

Climate bomb alertScot­tish camp starts — Scot­tish coal con­vey­or sup­ply­ing Drax sab­o­taged — tar­gets list -
Belgian/Dutch camp starts — Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal occu­pied — French camp & Nantes air­port action

…

Local sup­port for Cli­mate Camp Scot­land is made quite clear on the (longer than we expect­ed) bus ride from Lanark through the wind­ing coun­try lanes to Main­shill sol­i­dar­i­ty camp that is also now Scot­lands’ Cli­mate Camp.

Spot­ting us with our tent and gear an old­er woman says she would’ve joined the camp if it was­n’t for her bad health and oth­er women on the bus jeer and promise food dona­tions. A bloke imme­di­ate­ly struck up a con­ver­sa­tion telling us he used to work on the open­cast mine and that his broth­er still does. He said he could­n’t under­stand why they were so keen to reopen and restart work on the site. He’ll more than like­ly be vis­it­ing the camp this week too.

We arrived at the 6ft wood­en fence fit­ted with a door that is the main gate of the camp about 2pm — the dri­ver mak­ing an unsched­uled stop to drop us off at the camp entrance so we did­n’t have to walk back from the near­est stop — just as 2 local plod had man­aged to walk in wan­der­ing half way up the lane to the camp find­ing them­selves quick­ly sur­round­ed by cli­mate campers con­vinc­ing them to leave. Oth­er than that, the lone cop with video cam at Lanark sta­tion and the chop­per which hov­ered around for a few min­utes a while ago, the author­i­ties seem to be keep­ing a low pro­file. No FIT at the camp, in fact no police hang­ing around at all.

Although not very busy yet, the camp is look­ing sol­id: nev­er mind the com­post toi­lets, there’s a bike-pow­ered cin­e­ma, big kitchen tent, and solar-pow­ered (indy)media tent. And plen­ty of camp­ing space, of course. From the oth­er end of the field we can see the wind farms on hills to either side of the camp.

——–

Glen­tag­gart Coalmine Sab­o­taged; Police leave can­celled across the region

The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land has been informed that anony­mous activists have suc­cess­ful­ly sab­o­taged the Glen­tag­gart open­cast coal mine in South Lanark­shire. The unknown indi­vid­u­als have dis­abled the con­vey­or belt that moves coal from the mine to Raven­struther rail ter­mi­nal where the coal is then sent to Drax pow­er sta­tion in York­shire.

The sab­o­tage has the poten­tial to great­ly dis­rupt the removal of coal. Insid­ers say that once it has been stopped it is dif­fi­cult to restart the heav­i­ly laden con­vey­ors which is sev­er­al kilo­me­ters long and comes in quar­ter kilo­me­ter sec­tions. Drax pow­er sta­tion was the site of the first Camp for Cli­mate Action 2006.

The Camp for Cli­mate Action Scot­land is tak­ing place cross the val­ley from Glen­tag­gart at the site of anoth­er pro­posed open cast mine at Main­shill woods near Dou­glas. A protest camp has already been in place for six weeks cam­paign­ing against the plans which have gone through despite strong local oppo­si­tion. The area is already one of the most heav­i­ly mined areas in Europe with a num­ber of oth­er open­cast mines already being worked.

Diar­maid Lynch, a spokesper­son from the Camp said on hear­ing the news, “Fan­tas­tic. Con­grat­u­la­tions to those who did this. Open­cast min­ing is respon­si­ble for a spike in the num­ber of lung relat­ed deaths in this small area. It is time that the likes of Scot­tish Coal and the plan­ning author­i­ties are held direct­ly respon­si­ble for their role in these deaths. Cli­mate change is a killer, both at home and in the Glob­al South where those who have ben­e­fit­ed the least from indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion are the first to pay the price.”

The World Health Organ­i­sa­tion esti­mates that cli­mate change kills 150,000 peo­ple a year and that fig­ure is expect­ed to grow as coun­tries fail to take action. Can­cer in the Dou­glas post­code area is 23% above the nation­al aver­age, and 28% above the region­al aver­age. In the four years that the exist­ing three open­cast mines have been oper­at­ing in the area pul­monary issues have increased 60%.

In a sep­a­rate devel­op­ment the Camp for Cli­mate Action has also learned that police leave across the cen­tral belt of Scot­land has been can­celled as the var­i­ous forces move to a state of high alert. To date the polic­ing at the Camp has been very low key, but campers remain alert.

Scotland’s Cli­mate Crim­i­nals

The fol­low­ing is a list of the oper­a­tions in Scot­land which prof­it from the exploita­tion of fos­sil fuels. None of these oper­a­tions are com­pat­i­ble with the vision for a zero-car­bon Scot­land as such they will be tar­get­ted with direct action in order to ensure we can make a just tran­si­tion towards a sus­tain­able future.

Lon­gan­net and Cocken­zie Coal Pow­er sta­tions

Glas­gow, Edin­burgh, Preswick and Aberdeen Air­ports

Oil & Gas oper­a­tions in Aberdeen-shire

Grange­mouth Oil & Gas Refin­ery

Hunter­ston coal ter­mi­nal

All open-cast coal mines

Coal dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work includ­ing;
Raven­struther coal ter­mi­nal
Crow­bands­gate Rail Facil­i­ty
Glen­tag­gart Con­vey­er belt

RBS HQ

Scot­tish Pow­er HQ

Scot­tish and South­ern Ener­gy HQ

Motor­way con­struc­tions such as M74

http://climatecampscotland.org.uk/

Video — http://www.envirospeak.tv/video/375

——–

Guide to dis­man­tling the coal indus­try in Scot­land, a 16-page infor­ma­tion sheet released by Cli­mate Camp Scot­land and Coal Action Scot­land [pdf 5.3M]

includes infor­ma­tion on open cast coal mines and mine oper­a­tors, coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, coal rail and port infra­struc­ture, indus­try lob­by­ists, and a map of Scot­tish tar­gets.

——–

Netherlands/Belgium camp — We’ve start­ed – come join us!

More than 100 peo­ple entered and secured a field between Zand­vli­et and Beren­drecht, in the heart of Antwer­p’s indus­tri­al har­bour, at 1am this morn­ing. They have erect­ed tripods, hung ban­ners and are well under­way in set­ting up camp.

Although the Cli­mate Action Camp has been open about most aspects of the plan, the loca­tion of the camp had not been revealed until Sat­ur­day morn­ing in order to pre­vent police from attempt­ing to stop it from hap­pen­ing.

The offi­cial start date is Mon­day August 3rd! Take a look at the map below or google ‘Derdeweg Zand­vli­et Antwerp’ to see the exact loca­tion. You can also email info[at]klimaatactiekamp.org or con­tact the info line at+32 (0)485916863 (please text if pos­si­ble).*

How to reach the camp site by bus from Antwerp:
From the Roo­sevelt­plaats, close to Antwerp Cen­tral sta­tion, you can take buslines 770 or 771 direc­tion ‘Zand­vli­et’. After appr. 40 min., you’ll get to the stop ‘Zoutes­traat’ where you have to get off the bus. Fol­low the street in trav­el direc­tion, after about 200 meter you will see a cou­ple of tents on the left side. The street next to it is called ‘Derde Weg’, fol­low it and you’ll quick­ly reach the wel­come tent!

http://www.climateactioncamp.org/

——–
Belgian coal terminal occupied
Cli­mate Action Camp occu­pies Bel­gian coal ter­mi­nal

8.8.2009
The Cli­mate Action Camp on the Belgian/Dutch bor­der yes­ter­day occu­pied the Antwerp Bulk Ter­mi­nal (ABT) coal ter­mi­nal in Antwerp Har­bour, Bel­gium. This ter­mi­nal; respon­si­ble where coal is import­ed to Europe from Africa and South Amer­i­ca before dis­tri­b­u­tion by train and boat to pow­er sta­tions around Europe was shut down for the day as activists blocked train lines and con­vey­or belts at the site.

——–

French camp

Camp Action Cli­mat 2009 — Le teas­er

Nantes airport occupationcli­mate action alert at Nantes air­port, Sat­ur­day 8th August 2009 — peo­ple invade the ter­mi­nal of the air­port.

Climate Activists occupy roof of 2nd Vestas factory!

4.8.2009

Vestas 2nd factory occupation4.8.2009
Cli­mate activists have occu­pied the roof of the Ves­tas tur­bine fac­to­ry at Ven­ture Quays, East Cowes, Isle Of Wight, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers occu­py­ing a fac­to­ry in New­port. The pro­tes­tors have hung a ban­ner above the Fer­ry Port say­ing: “Ves­tas Work­ers — Sol­i­dar­i­ty in Occu­pa­tion. Save Green Jobs,” and issued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

This Cowes Week, tens of thou­sands of peo­ple have come to the island to use and cel­e­brate the free, abun­dant, and nat­ur­al pow­er of the wind. At the same time, work­ers at Ves­tas are strug­gling to keep Britain’s only wind-tur­bine blade man­u­fac­tur­er open. Fac­to­ries in East Cowes, New­port and Southamp­ton are being closed with the loss of over 600 jobs, and hun­dreds more in sup­port indus­tries like Gurit, dev­as­tat­ing not only green promis­es but the Isle of Wight local com­mu­ni­ties.

Now the peo­ple are say­ing enough is enough. At New­port dozens of work­ers are in the sec­ond week of their fac­to­ry occu­pa­tion with mes­sages of sup­port com­ing in from around the world. These coura­geous peo­ple are show­ing more vision and com­mit­ment to the future of jobs, com­mu­ni­ties and our plan­et than all the do-noth­ing busi­ness and polit­i­cal lead­ers put togeth­er.

In the face of man-made cli­mate-change, keep­ing these work­ers with their unique spe­cial­ist skills is as urgent for pow­er­ing a sus­tain­able future as it is for the for the island com­mu­ni­ties. But the gov­ern­ment which was so quick to nation­alise North­ern Rock and pour bil­lions into the ail­ing banks has so far done NOTHING to pro­tect the future of Britain’s wind-pow­er gen­er­a­tion, despite their recent pledge to invest in “Green Jobs”.

Ves­tas mean­while are leav­ing their work­force high and dry, with peanuts in redun­dan­cy pay and lit­tle hope of work, while they make off with the £76 mil­lion prof­its they made in the first quar­ter of 2009 out of their non-unionised work­force.

The Ven­ture Quays roof occu­pa­tion is in sup­port of Ves­tas work­ers demands. We say,

– Take Ves­tas fac­to­ries into pub­lic own­er­ship, under work­ers man­age­ment
Re-instate all work­ers, includ­ing those sacked while in dis­pute
Invest in devel­op­ing wind-pow­er in Britain
Retool the Ves­tas plant to pro­duce for Off-Shore Wind Gen­er­a­tion

This dis­pute comes in a peri­od of cri­sis, both eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal. The eco­nom­ic cri­sis has already seen a mil­lion peo­ple los­ing their jobs while banks ask for hand-outs, with mas­sive cuts and tax ris­es on the hori­zon. On top of that, unless we act quick­ly, the eco­log­i­cal cri­sis of cli­mate-change will threat­en the very future of human life. Moti­vat­ed by greed and paral­ysed by fear, our rulers seem inca­pable of respond­ing. Instead, the lead is com­ing from below.

Work­ing peo­ple are increas­ing­ly stand­ing up and stay­ing put. Occu­pa­tion by not only work­ers but local res­i­dents is becom­ing a default option. This year we have seen occu­pa­tions at the Vis­teon fac­to­ries in Enfield and Belfast, schools occu­pied against clo­sure in Glas­gow and Lewisham, a Lon­don care-home, Thomas Cook in Dublin and now Ves­tas. Peo­ple have been dis-empow­ered for too long!

Lis­ten to the Ves­ta work­ers song “Boys on the Bal­cony” at http://www.seizetheday.org

http://savevestas.wordpress.com

Scottish Camp for Climate Action builds support

The Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action has been build­ing defences sup­port­ing the Main­shill open cast protest site this week. The camp is build­ing action affin­i­ty groups and through direct action train­ing enabling activists to take action on high car­bon pro­duc­ing indus­tries around the coun­try.

The Scot­tish Camp for Cli­mate Action has been build­ing defences sup­port­ing the Main­shill open cast protest site this week. The camp is build­ing action affin­i­ty groups and through direct action train­ing enabling activists to take action on high car­bon pro­duc­ing indus­tries around the coun­try. The camp focus­es on alter­na­tive solu­tions to a dam­ag­ing sys­tem where pow­er is in the hands of pow­er­ful but dam­ag­ing indus­tries. Direct action is pro­vid­ing the means for peo­ple and groups to read­dress that pow­er imbal­ance and actions will take place dur­ing and after the camp. High emis­sion indus­tries across the coun­try are to be tar­get­ed in the com­ing weeks; pol­lut­ing ener­gy inten­sive cor­po­ra­tions will be brought into the spot­light and brought to a stand­still.

London Rally Supports Vestas Workers — 6 Aug

The Cam­paign Against Cli­mate change held a ral­ly in Lon­don on Thurs­day 6 August in sup­port of the 600 Ves­tas work­ers whose jobs mak­ing wind tur­bine blades are to be lost as the com­pa­ny moves pro­duc­tion to the USA.

London Rally in solidarity with Vestas workersThe Cam­paign Against Cli­mate change held a ral­ly in Lon­don on Thurs­day 6 August in sup­port of the 600 Ves­tas work­ers whose jobs mak­ing wind tur­bine blades are to be lost as the com­pa­ny moves pro­duc­tion to the USA.

The ral­ly out­side the Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change in White­hall on Thurs­day evening start­ed in light rain, but it was pour­ing by the time it fin­ished. Despite the weath­er, the 80 or so present lis­tened intent­ly to speech­es from a Ves­tas work­er, trade union speak­ers from the RMT, PCW and Bil­ly Hayes of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers Union, as well as for­mer Labour Sec­re­tary of State for the Envi­ron­ment Michael Meach­er MP and Green Par­ty GLA mem­ber Jen­ny Jones, who arrived at the event by bicy­cle.

Despite the gov­ern­ment hav­ing spent thou­sands of bil­lions prop­ping up the banks it is unwill­ing to put up the much small­er amounts need­ed to sup­port green indus­tries. The prob­lems of Ves­tas are indeed very much of the Gov­ern­men­t’s mak­ing, with its fail­ure to put it’s mon­ey where its mouth is on green ener­gy poli­cies, rely­ing on hot air rather than sup­port for wind pow­er and oth­er alter­na­tive ener­gies.

Mak­ing wind tur­bines is a prof­itable busi­ness, and will become even more so, but unless action is tak­en — such as nation­al­is­ing Ves­tas, at least (as with the banks) on a tem­po­rary basis, the UK will be buy­ing them from abroad rather than mak­ing mon­ey sell­ing them to the rest of the world.

This sto­ry is also on Demotix, and I’ll put more pic­tures on My Lon­don Diary next week:
http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2009/08/aug.htm

Bristol Solidarity With Vesta Occupation

A wide selec­tion of peo­ple: Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, Respect Par­ty, Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, FBU, UNITE, Decom­mis­sion­ers and Bris­tol Co-Mutiny took part in a Sol­i­dar­i­ty Demo Out­side the Envi­ron­ment Agency, today, Tues­day 4th August.

Bristol solidarity demo for VestasA wide selec­tion of peo­ple: Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, Respect Par­ty, Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, FBU, UNITE, Decom­mis­sion­ers and Bris­tol Co-Mutiny took part in a Sol­i­dar­i­ty Demo Out­side the Envi­ron­ment Agency, today, Tues­day 4th August.

On Tues­day 4th August, pro­test­ers descend­ed on the Bris­tol Head­quar­ters of the Envi­ron­ment Agency in Aztec West car­ry­ing wind­mills and ban­ners to sup­port the action of Ves­tas work­ers who have occu­pied the St Cross wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight for the last two weeks because of plans to close the site with the imme­di­ate loss of 600 jobs

The work­ers are ask­ing that the gov­ern­ment — who have pledged £100bn towards renew­able ener­gy — nation­alise the fac­to­ry to save it from shut­ting. On the 4th August the Ves­tas com­pa­ny are going to court to evict the work­ers.

Around 20 peo­ple turned out to sup­port the protest and they hand­ed out fly­ers to staff and chat­ted to them about the Ves­ta Occu­pa­tion. Many of the Envi­ron­men­tal Agency staff sup­port­ed the protest and under­stood the con­cerns of the pro­tes­tors and the rea­son­ing for the Ves­ta occu­pa­tion.

August 2, 2009: ELF Sabotages Telmex Cable Line in SW Mexico City

August 2, 2009: ELF Sab­o­tages Telmex Cable Line in SW Mex­i­co City

SABOTAGE OF EARTH-DESTROYING COMPANY, MEXICO

ELF Cuts Wire in SW MexicoAugust 2, 2009: ELF Sab­o­tages Telmex Cable Line in SW Mex­i­co City

SABOTAGE OF EARTH-DESTROYING COMPANY, MEXICO

Once again, the earth-destroy­ing Telmex com­pa­ny was sab­o­taged in the south­west of Mex­i­co City around 2:30 in the morn­ing on Sun­day, August 2 by the Frente de Lib­eración de la Tier­ra. The idea was to cut the cables of the posts and then to cut the same post with a saw. It did not mat­ter that it was slow and ardu­ous work. The cable went through the branch­es of a tree obstruct­ing its free growth. We climbed the tree and with cut­ters cut the cable, then we took a saw and began to cut the pole halfway through and with a cord tied to the pole we pulled, but unfor­tu­nate­ly we could not move it since the move­ment of the cable that was con­nect­ed to the next post was very notice­able, which caused near­by neigh­bors to call the police. This pre­vent­ed us from con­tin­u­ing to pull the pole at the risk of run­ning into the police; final­ly we left a mark on the post with spray­paint: ELF and Earth First.

For every tree that is ripped from the earth to serve Telmex there will be thou­sands of sab­o­tages; we will not stop until we see dis­gust­ing civ­i­liza­tion, progress and all those who spread it destroyed!

The dark­ness did not allow us to record the action but there is no excuse for not shar­ing the plea­sure and the courage so we returned at dawn to take pic­tures of the action.

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Eco-piró­manos por la Lib­eración de la Tier­ra [Eco-arson­ists for the Lib­er­a­tion of Earth] are fight­ing!

Latest EF! Action Update bursts forth

Car tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

People stop logging trucksCar tyres deflate in the night, dig­gers halt­ed in their tracks, build­ings and MPs cov­ered in slime…airports plagued by crazy golf, pic­nics, city gents and hostage-taking…eco-villages and oth­er autonomous spaces sprout, as oth­ers are under threat…tree-sits, banks evict­ed, fake phone-masts and whal­ing ships sunk.…it must be time for anoth­er Earth First! Action Update, bring­ing you a con­cen­trat­ed quar­ter­ly blast of inspi­ra­tion and con­tacts to get out there and take direct action against the bas­tards threat­en­ing this plan­et and its inhab­i­tants.

News from the front-lines — per­ma­nent protest camps old and new, and tem­po­rary gath­er­ings in a field near you, all the dates and info you need for a sum­mer of blis­ter­ing action and tor­ren­tial out­pour­ings!

Suc­cess­es here, across the pond and round the very oth­er side of the world.

A report back from the Coal Car­a­van, plus info about the com­mu­ni­ties along its route.

Court news — what hap­pened after pro­test­ers planned to shut a coal-fired pow­er plant, and climbed atop a train, plus handy Secu­ri­ty Tips for Going on Actions.

Leav­ing it All in the Ground — news of glob­al fights against the min­ing of gold, cop­per, baux­ite and alu­mini­um — blockad­ing, torch­ing and night-time pix­ieing.

A View from the Trees — a sto­ry from our eco-cen­tric cousins. And indige­nous Peru­vians fight on against the whole­sale onslaught on our world.

And a round-up of your favourite pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions — G20, SmashE­DO and Athen­ian rub­bish dumps!

Read, down­load and print it here, sub­scribe so you get it direct to your door, or look out for it at a cli­mate camp near you.

If you want to be list­ed or get a bunch of them to dis­trib­ute, please get in touch.

Share your inspi­ra­tional news at EF! Action Reports, and it’ll find it’s way into your very own print­ed EF!AU, in good old black and white print.

Two Irish Anti-Shell Campaigners Jailed for Civil Disobedience

31.7.2009

— Eight and four month sen­tences show dra­mat­ic increase in repres­sion —

31.7.2009

— Eight and four month sen­tences show dra­mat­ic increase in repres­sion —

Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers Mau­ra Har­ring­ton and Niall Har­nett were sen­tenced to four and eight months in jail respec­tive­ly at Bell­mulet dis­trict court today. Both pro­test­ers have been con­vict­ed for tak­ing action as part of a cam­paign of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against the ill-fat­ed Cor­rib Gas Project. Mau­ra was giv­en her four month sen­tence under Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act; ‘fail­ing to com­ply with the direc­tions of a Gar­da’. The sen­tence was hand­ed down in rela­tion to an inci­dent that occurred duing a protest at Shel­l’s ‘land­fall’ com­pound gate on 30th August 2008. Niall was sen­tenced to eight months in rela­tion to two sep­a­rate inci­dents. He was giv­en a four month sen­tence under Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic order act, and anoth­er four months under Sec­tion 2, for the sup­posed assault of a Gar­da.

Mau­ra had dri­ven her car to the gate of the com­pound which is the site where the high pres­sure gas pipeline is to come ashore. She then refused to move her car in one of sev­er­al acts of peace­ful civ­il dis­obe­di­ence that Mau­ra has engaged in. This is the third time this year that Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, retired local school prin­ci­pal, has been jailed for peace­ful­ly protest­ing against the Cor­rib Gas project.

The alleged assault for which Niall was con­vict­ed occured at the com­pound fence and eye wit­ness acounts and video footage shows Niall attempt­ing to aid anoth­er pro­test­er gar­da who is being vio­lent­ly assault­ed by a Gar­da. Niall, who is on his way to Castlerea Prison (Co. Roscom­mon.) after sen­tenc­ing this after­noon said:

“I have been jailed for my oppo­si­tion and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to Shell and their facil­i­ta­tors in the Irish State, and for my part in a bril­liant protest which will con­tin­ue and will grow. They will not get away with the destruc­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty, the envi­ron­ment and the give­away of Irish nat­ur­al resources. My motives are pure, and this sen­tence will have served a pur­pose if it expos­es the lengths the State will go in their com­plic­i­ty in the rip-off of Ireland’s nat­ur­al resources”.

Both defend­ents were forced to choose between sign­ing restric­tive bonds to keep the peace or lengthy jail terms. The bonds would have placed lim­its on and pre­vent­ed each of them from exer­cis­ing their demo­c­ra­t­ic rights to free­dom to protest and free­dom of move­ment. Under such bonds they would have been for­bid­den from attend­ing any protest and exclud­ed from the areas around any Shell sites.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way said: “Cer­tain promi­nent pro­test­ers appear to have been tar­get­ed in an attempt to crush resis­tance in the area. These jail sen­tences rep­re­sent the lastest exam­ples of a sus­tained cam­paign by the state, in con­junc­tion with Shell, to crim­i­nalise and intim­i­date the local com­mu­ni­ty and their sup­port­ers in order to imple­ment their project at any cost. Mau­ra and Niall are coura­geous cam­paign­ers against the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment, the threat to health and safe­ty and the give­away of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. ”

A protest was organ­ised by Dublin Shell to Sea group for Thurs­day 30th July out­side Moun­tjoy prison where Mau­ra was tak­en after sen­tenc­ing on Thurs­day morn­ing.

Daring Action Gets Supplies To Vestas Workers Occupation

30.7.2009
A group of twen­ty peo­ple suc­cess­ful­ly brought vital sup­plies into the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight this after­noon, to the whoops and cheers of the occu­py­ing work­ers.

30.7.2009
A group of twen­ty peo­ple suc­cess­ful­ly brought vital sup­plies into the Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry on the Isle of Wight this after­noon, to the whoops and cheers of the occu­py­ing work­ers.

The group includ­ing work­ers, local sup­port­ers, and cam­paign­ers from the Cli­mate Camp, Work­ers Cli­mate Action, the Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion and Work­ers Lib­er­ty split into two teams. At around 2pm, one team approached the main entrance of the fac­to­ry, car­ry­ing decoy bags of food, to draw off police and secu­ri­ty guards. While this first team was being escort­ed and car­ried bod­i­ly from the site, a sec­ond team ran through a hedge and were able to pass a large sack of sup­plies up to the occu­py­ing Ves­tas work­ers. The sup­plies were based on a wish­list pro­vid­ed by the occu­piers, and includ­ed food, drink, and cru­cial­ly a ket­tle with tea and cof­fee.

Jim Spencer, a mem­ber of the Cli­mate Camp who took part in the action, said the Ves­tas man­age­ment have been attempt­ing to starve the occu­piers out. After much protest, they are cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ing them with one insub­stan­tial meal per day such as a sin­gle slice of piz­za or a lone sand­wich per work­er. This is an utter dis­grace, and so many of us camped out­side have been think­ing about how to get sup­plies in to them. It turned out that some of the fac­to­ry work­ers and their local sup­port­ers were think­ing the same way, so we all decid­ed to work togeth­er.

Mr Spencer went on: The fact that work­ers, locals, envi­ron­men­tal­ists and labour cam­paign­ers are all work­ing togeth­er reflects how impor­tant this occu­pa­tion is. It’s vital to the fac­to­ry work­ers and their fam­i­lies, it’s vital to the local econ­o­my, and it’s vital in the fight to avert cli­mate dis­as­ter. The Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry must be saved.

ENDS

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