Shell to Sea visit Shell’s boats & picket begins again in Rossport & UK actions call-out

29.8.2008

29.8.2008
Yes­ter­day, with work in Broad­haven Bay still delayed, a small Shell to Sea marine team paid a vis­it to the cur­rent Shell water nerve-cen­tre based at Bal­ly­glass pier. Cur­rent­ly moored off Bal­ly­glass is a barge con­tain­ing winch­ing cable, the recent­ly returned Vlaan­deren VII which ran aground at Glen­gad two weeks ago and also the Zenne which is the back­hoe dredger that last Fri­day dropped tonnes of debris with­in feet of pro­tes­tors. Also around the area were a num­ber of oth­er small­er Shell boats.

The Shell to Sea pad­dlers were made up of mem­bers of the Sham­rock squadron (the J. Con­nol­ly, J. Larkin, M. Collins) & Emer­ald squadron (the Grainne) along with 2 mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al flotil­la (the Guy Fawkes of York­shire squadron and the Robin Hood of Not­ting­ham squadron).

The pad­dlers had made their way about the 1km out to the boats before the Shell safe­ty and secu­ri­ty boats react­ed.
After about an hour pad­dling around the area the Shell to Sea team head­ed into Bal­ly­glass Pier to greet the Gar­da boat which was just launch­ing from the RNLI slip­way. The gar­daí polite­ly refused the request of a race from the J. Con­nol­ly (Sham­rock squadron) after which the team then made their way to the pub­lic slip­way where they were met by shore sup­port.

Mean­while marine train­ing con­tin­ued for the activists prepar­ing for the Soli­taire and asso­ci­at­ed boats.

——–

Rossport picketShell to Sea pro­test­ers stepped up their cam­paign against Shell’s off­shore pipe-lay­ing oper­a­tions by mount­ing a pick­et at the Shell com­pound, Glen­gad, Erris Co Mayo, Ire­land.

A dai­ly pick­et was main­tained at the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site from the sum­mer of 2005 till recent­ly. This is the first time since 2005 that a pick­et has been staged at the Shell ‘Secu­ri­ty Zone’ in Glen­gad. The pick­et start­ed at 7am and last­ed till 9am, dur­ing which time Shell secu­ri­ty, who were ready to leave after their overnight shift, remained on site for the dura­tion. Shell work­ers arriv­ing for work at the site remained out­side. The pick­et was stood down vol­un­tar­i­ly at 9am and the work­ers left and entered the com­pound con­se­quent­ly.

The orig­i­nal Bel­lan­aboy pick­et was effec­tive­ly bro­ken by the unlaw­ful and vio­lent behav­iour of An Gar­da Síochá­na which began on Octo­ber 3rd, 2006 and con­tin­ued through 2007. The Bel­lan­aboy pick­et dimin­ished sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing that whole peri­od and into 2008, under­stand­ably, because of a sus­tained assault by the State against its own cit­i­zens, result­ing in much phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal injury to the com­mu­ni­ty and its sup­port­ers.

Today’s pick­et saw the return of many on the receiv­ing end of that attack and it has to be said that the women of Erris, many of whom have been bru­talised by An Gar­da Síochá­na in the past, were the first to return to the camp and the refreshed pick­et.

Mean­while, a Shell to Sea marine team took to the water from Inver pier to pay a vis­it to some Shell & Gar­da boats moored off Bal­ly­glass pier on the oppo­site side of that stretch of water. Apolo­gies, no pics in this report yet of that lit­tle expe­di­tion. Maybe lat­er.

No sign of the Soli­taire yet, prob­a­bly due to the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

1) Bad weath­er.

2) The Chief Pat O’Donnell’s suc­cess­ful defence of his pots from Shell thieves aboard the High­land Nav­i­ga­tor. Pat’s gear remains in the path of the Soli­taire and per­haps only the rul­ing of a judge can resolve that dis­pute, unless the Soli­taire steams through regard­less.

3) Stiff and grow­ing resis­tance.

——

Urgent Call For Actions Against Shell & Allseas

NOW IS THE TIME- Sup­port Shell to Sea, Ire­land. ANY DAY NOW the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world, the Soli­taire, is due to arrive. The ship is owned by ALLSEAS. Shell are attempt­ing to ille­gal­ly con­struct the off­shore sec­tion of the high pres­sure raw gas pipeline. Our com­mu­ni­ty are deter­mined to resist Shell here in Mayo, Ireland…but we need your help!

Actions are ongo­ing and will inten­si­fy with the arrival of the Soli­taire. There is a role for every­one, regard­less of age, expe­ri­ence, avail­abil­i­ty and skill. The areas you can help with are end­less and par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of camp sup­port, water based skills, legal, cook­ing, med­ical, media and of course direct action.

The atmos­phere is resur­gent in the area, with a fresh burst of con­fi­dence evi­dent among both locals, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al Shell to Sea activists. This is a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to rein­vig­o­rate the fight against this project in a mean­ing­ful and effec­tive way.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!
Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

SMASH SHELL
rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo,
http://www.shelltosea.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp110mb.com

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 82, AUGUST 2008

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08
6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.09

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
‘These camps are going to take place in or near Ham­burg. It’s two dif­fer­ent camps, but prob­a­bly on the same camp site and doing togeth­er at least two mass actions like block­ades: on 22nd August at the depor­ta­tion air­port of Ham­burg and on 23rd at the har­bour or at the new coal pow­er plant. http://klimacamp08.org

2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
The Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Mem­bers of the ‘Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’ recent­ly deployed at the E.ON coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in
Kent, Eng­land, have made their way from Cli­mate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers in their oppo­si­tion to this pipeline con­struc­tion at Glen­gad.

3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions in a beau­ti­ful field in Nor­folk. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing. www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
St Wer­burghs Cen­tre, 10am to 5pm, free entry. With a work­shop by Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide: Why direct action? Social change not cli­mate change? www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK 13–14.09.08
Join the first inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen from the 13–14th of Sep­tem­ber 2008. The meet­ing aims at prepar­ing a large mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov-11 Dec 2009). More info:
http://klimax2009.org/?p=33&langswitch_lang=en Tell them you’re com­ing:
sept08@klimax2009.org

6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER 26–28.09.08
All are invit­ed to the first Post-Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing. The gath­er­ing will offer a chance to reflect on where we are at, decide where we go from here, and pro­vide info as to how to get involved in the ongo­ing direct action cam­paign to stop Kingsnorth.
Ques­tions? Email process@climatecamp.org.uk

7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
A meet­ing to bring togeth­er groups and com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing coal in the UK – from open cast and deep coal mines, to pow­er sta­tions and coal imports. Share infor­ma­tion, plan for action, and build a strong net­work of resis­tance. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.2009
Four con­ti­nents, 150 actions, and an April Fool’s Day with a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly sub­ver­sive (and rad­i­cal­ly nec­es­sary) twist – we’re def­i­nite­ly doing that again! So Fos­sil Fools Day 2009 is a go – start pick­ing your fos­sil fuel tar­get now! Info and resources will be post­ed on the web­site soon, and look out for leaflets to dis­trib­ute in Decem­ber.

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
From the Heathrow Con­fer­ence to the Car­a­van, from the work­shops to beau­ti­ful camp life, from the GRRR pirates to the fence breach­ers to the bail break­ers, and the flur­ry of affin­i­ty group actions before, dur­ing and after the camp, the 2008 Camp for Cli­mate Action was a roar­ing suc­cess. We out­smart­ed 26 police forces to run the biggest cli­mate camp ever. We cov­ered the riv­er in boats, filled the streets with peo­ple, cov­ered the pow­er sta­tion gates with ban­ners and hit at least eight oth­er tar­gets with autonomous actions. We flood­ed the nation­al, local and inde­pen­dent media with our sto­ries and mes­sages. E.ON and the Gov­ern­ment threw every­thing they could at us, and they still couldn’t hold us back. Actions, in no par­tic­u­lar order, includ­ed: an office inva­sion of min­ing com­pa­ny BHP Bil­ton, tak­ing over an incin­er­a­tor site in Newhaven, a block­ade of Cargill over its rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing, a pro-veg­an roof occu­pa­tion and ban­ner drop at Smith­field Meat Mar­ket, a protest at US air base Milden­hall to high­light mil­i­tary CO2 emis­sions, a ban­ner drop from an elec­tric­i­ty pylon, a naked protest at DBERR, the world’s small­est pro­test­ers climb­ing E.ON’s smoke­stack (at Legoland), actions at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (not once but twice – stu­dents do a die-in and Ris­ing Tiders bust out the super­glue), a demo at Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion in Fife, a mul­ti-pronged attack on Gatwick by Plane Stu­pid, the shut­ting down of the South’s biggest bio­fu­el stor­age facil­i­ty, and in
a sin­gle day of may­hem in the City, the Cli­mate Car­a­van tar­get­ed RBS and the PR firms for Shell, BAA & E.ON.
www.climatecamp.org.uk
Pho­to slide show: http://blip.tv/file/1167973
Video: http://www.undercurrents.org/visionon/

2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
The squat in Der­byshire, a protest on the site of a pro­posed new open-cast coal mine, came to end with the evic­tion of the remain­ing two pro­test­ers, who had res­olute­ly resist­ed attempts to clear the site by furi­ous­ly dig­ging for vic­to­ry. Come to the nation­al Leave it in the Ground meet­ing in Octo­ber to help with the next steps. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
All three US Cli­mate Camps have now wound down, with action high­lights includ­ing the South­east Cli­mate Con­ver­gence occu­py­ing a nuclear facil­i­ty in Vir­ginia, the Bil­lion­aires for Coal strik­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca 4 times in 3 days and a protest at NW Nat­ur­al Gas fol­low­ing the West Coast Con­ver­gence. And check out http://www.uncampement.net/?q=en/node/775 for
the ongo­ing (8–24 August) camp in Que­bec, Cana­da.

4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
Sav­ing Iceland’s fourth action camp is now over but the fight goes on. The three-week camp was at Hell­isheiði, where Reyk­javík Ener­gy is expand­ing their geot­her­mal pow­er plant, first of all to sup­ply ener­gy to alu­mini­um smelters. Actions includ­ed: work on the Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s exist­ing smelter as well as a steel fac­to­ry were block­ad­ed, hold­ing up a shift
change for sev­er­al hours. A Reyk­javik Ener­gy geot­her­mal drill site at Hell­ishei­di, being built for Cen­tu­ry, was com­plete­ly shut down for a day as activists locked to machines, climbed the drill and occu­pied the pow­er con­trol room. The nation­al pow­er com­pa­ny Landsvirkjun had it’s office invad­ed, and it’s CEO Fridrik Sophus­son had his home vis­it­ed. Sav­ing Ice­land nailed an evic­tion notice to his door. www.savingiceland.org

5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
In Ger­many cli­mate activists have been squat­ting a wood­land since the begin­ning of June to stop the con­struc­tion of yet anoth­er new run­way for the already mas­sive Frank­furt air­port. The camp con­tin­ues to grow with over 30 peo­ple liv­ing on site and has the sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty. Demos and actions are being organ­ised togeth­er with local res­i­dents’ groups
against air­port expan­sion. Amaz­ing tree­hous­es, walk­ways and funky ground shel­ters have been con­struct­ed to make life pleas­ant in the woods and to resist evic­tion as long as pos­si­ble. Peo­ple are wel­come to join in. www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
On 22nd July a Plane Stu­pid cam­paign­er super­glued him­self to Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown in 10 Down­ing Street. He’d been invit­ed to receive an award for protest­ing, so prompt­ly decid­ed to car­ry on in that vain! Whilst ask­ing Gor­don about refus­ing to meet West Lon­don
res­i­dents opposed to the con­struc­tion of a third run­way at Heathrow, the intre­pid pro­test­er put his super­glue cov­ered hand onto Brown’s poly­ester suit. When Brown went to turn away he found he was stuck and for once had no option but to lis­ten. www.planestupid.com

7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
32 SUV own­ers woke up in Oxford on 18th July to dis­cov­er that their envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive vehi­cles had been dis­abled using the ‘mung bean trick’ to let down their tires.

8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
At long last, Ris­ing Tide has a new leaflet – who we are, what we do and why we do it, wrapped up in an inspir­ing pho­to col­lage pack­age. Sneak a peak at , or email info@risingtide.org.uk to get a bunch post­ed to you for dis­tri­b­u­tion in your local area.

9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL
High street banks are mak­ing mil­lions by pro­vid­ing the finan­cial fuel that dri­ves the expan­sion of coal extrac­tion and com­bus­tion. This report exam­ines the role in the last two years of the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (RBS), HSBC and Bar­clays in pro­vid­ing and arrang­ing the finan­cial means to the coal indus­try to extract and burn vast quan­ti­ties of coal. The report reveals that RBS has helped lend more mon­ey to the coal indus­try, in more deals, than any oth­er major UK bank. www.carbonweb.org

—————–
Ris­ing Tide UK,
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street,
Lon­don E1 1ES
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk
www.fossilfoolsday.org
Tel: 07708 794665

See also the Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), Net­work for Cli­mate Action (www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk) and Cli­mate Indy­media (www.climateimc.org)

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

Earth First! gathering — programme and travel directions

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:

Earth First! Gathering 2008 - print sizeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:
The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop. The Grid Ref­er­ence of the site is TM130819. The post code is IP22 5SY.

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich or vice ver­sa — this route goes right past the site and we’ll be ask­ing the local bus com­pa­ny if they will stop right out­side the site on request. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .
We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). Ring the Gath­er­ing mobile on 07789 331857

For a map and fur­ther details on trav­el includ­ing bus times and direc­tions for dri­vers check out http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html

Pro­gramme
This year’s pro­gramme focuss­es on info and plan­ning for actions, direct action skills as well as spaces to dis­cuss how we can respond to and deal with the widen­ing eco­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and soci­etal crises. We hope there’s some­thing for every­one.
We rec­om­mend that you arrive Tue evening, as work­shops will start on Wednes­day morn­ing and run until Sun­day evening

For more info about the gath­er­ing check out our web­site or email us (though we won’t be able to answer email after 21 Aug, as we’ll be on site set­ting up)

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

The work­shops

Wednes­day

12:00
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the gath­er­ing
Deal­ing with the main­stream media — how to get your mes­sage across
Basic electrics — for squats and homes.
Cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change — how to make the links vis­i­ble in actions
Queer net­work­ing ses­sion

2:30
Self-defence — mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting FAQ — shar­ing tips and tricks
Action Recon­nais­sance for begin­ners
Intro­duc­tion to the root caus­es of eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and an explo­ration of alter­na­tives
Advanced Nav­i­ga­tion

4:30
Sav­ing Ice­land — Intro­duc­tion to the cam­paign
Nuclear waste and nuclear weapons
Con­sen­sus Deci­sion-mak­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy
Con­fronting Abu­sive Behav­iours with­in our Com­mu­ni­ties — with­out the police/prison.

6:00
Library Space: Nego­ti­at­ing Safer Sex: tips on putting the the­o­ry into prac­tice, and mak­ing your sex life more fun as well as safer!

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Talk with video on resist­ing rain­for­est destruc­tion in Tas­ma­nia

Thurs­day

10:30
Deal­ing with Pub­lic Order sit­u­a­tions — under­stand­ing police tac­tics and how we can deal with to them/turn them to our advan­tage (runs until lunch)
State and cor­po­rate oppres­sion of the Aus­tralian Abo­rig­ines
Action recon­nais­sance — advanced skill­share, share your most clever tips and tricks for get­ting info for actions
Prac­ti­cal plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (begin­ners)
Activist trau­ma and recov­ery

12:00
Sav­ing Ice­land — an eval­u­a­tion of the camp this sum­mer
Secu­ri­ty for Activists Part I: Do’s and don’ts of organ­is­ing action, from arrang­ing to meet, plan­ning and what hap­pens after
Arrest sup­port for actions — how to pro­vide sup­port for your affin­i­ty group, medi­um sized actions or mega camps and gath­er­ings.
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing

2:30
Wom­en’s self-defence — intro­duc­to­ry ses­sion
Food and Cli­mate Action: info for action
How to plan an action
Police liai­son for actions — what it is, its uses and lim­i­ta­tions and how to make it work.
Chang­ing light bulbs or smash­ing the sys­tem. Shar­ing +/- expe­ri­ences of work­ing within/outside the sys­tem

4:30
Oppos­ing nuclear expan­sion: plan­ning for action
How to plan and run a suc­cess­ful medi­um to long-term cam­paign
Night time skills Part I: intro­duc­tion (fol­lowed by prac­tise ses­sion at 8.30pm)
Legal and arrest work­shop
Intro­duc­tion to anar­chist history/potted anar­chist his­to­ries

6:00
Library space: open dis­cus­sion ?Direct action or pub­lic­i­ty stunt??
8:00

Cin­e­ma: Seashep­herd film and talk
8:30

Night time skills Part II — prac­tice your skills in the field.

Fri­day

10:30
Blockad­ing tac­tics
Cli­mate Camp debrief: a crit­i­cal look at the cli­mate camp, its achieve­ments and pol­i­tics
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Com­put­er Secu­ri­ty for the non-tech­ni­cal
Prison Abo­li­tion: what’s wrong with prison? what do we mean by abo­li­tion and how can we make it hap­pen?

12:00
Food and cli­mate change: action and cam­paign plan­ning
Self-defence mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting to resist — occu­pa­tions to resist the pow­ers of dark­ness
His­to­ry of Earth First!

2:30
The Earth First! Action Update and web­site: feed­back and get­ting involved
Resist­ing agro­fu­els — update on the sit­u­a­tion and action plan­ning
Sea Shep­herd — an intro to its cam­paigns and how to support/get involved.
Grow your own food — share you skills and expe­ri­ence
Queer Activist Forum: Rad­i­cal queers organ­ise for the future!

4:30
Queer Self-Defence: an intro to basic self-defence skills (ver­bal and phys­i­cal)
Set­ting up new direct action groups
Sav­ing Ice­land ? plan­ning actions for the com­ing year
Tech­no-fix­es and cli­mate change ? report by Cor­po­rate Watch
Urban self-reliance and self-suf­fi­cien­cy

7:30
Library: Pris­on­er Sup­port — An infor­mal get togeth­er to dis­cuss the state of pris­on­er sup­port in our move­ments, find out news and get advice on writ­ing to pris­on­ers, as well as mak­ing and writ­ing cards to send to pris­on­ers.

8:00
Cin­e­ma: A talk and film by a trib­al activist from Oris­sa oppos­ing min­ing

Sat­ur­day

10:30
Cam­paigns and Actions Round-up: UK and inter­na­tion­al news (no oth­er work­shops)

12:00
Wom­en’s self-defence prac­tise ses­sion plus run­ning along­side — intro­duc­tion to wom­en’s self-defence
Stop­ping GM test fields — dis­cus­sion on future campaign/actions
Research and destroy — how to research cor­po­ra­tions
Future mod­els of soci­ety — find­ing a path to sus­tain­able liv­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Using tripods for blockad­ing

2:30
Leave it in the ground — build­ing resis­tance to new coal min­ing and pow­er sta­tions
Facil­i­ta­tion of meet­ings
Activist Secu­ri­ty Part III: doing actions with­out leav­ing traces
Restora­tion Ecol­o­gy
Cre­at­ing safer spaces
Vis­it to Burston Strike School

4:30
Region­al meet­ings and action plan­ning (no oth­er work­shops)

6:00
Library Space: Work­ing with­out lead­ers — dis­cus­sion about core val­ues of anar­chism

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Smash Edo film and talk

Sun­day
11:00
Self defence mixed prac­tice ses­sion
Sort­ing out ways of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in EF!
Using radios on actions
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Fences: get­ting over them/taking them down

12:15
The sum­mer gath­er­ing: feed­back on this year’s and get­ting involved in organ­is­ing the next one

2:30
Con­doms, cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change
Smash Edo
Intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion
What’s new in the world of law?
Fem­i­nist Health
Climb­ing trees, lamp posts and any­thing else

4:30
Rad­i­cal pol­i­tics in the age of col­lapse
The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and Fos­sil Fuel Financ­ing
Get­ting your elec­tric­i­ty from solar pow­er and wind
Rad­i­cal Par­ent­ing
Look­ing after our men­tal health — shar­ing ideas and expe­ri­ences

8:00
Cin­e­ma: films — cli­mate camp footage, ready steady skip etc

Mon­day
Take-down: please stay for a day or two to help take down the site. If you’ve got access to a vehicle/van, it’d be great if you could help trans­port­ing mar­quees, recy­cling etc to the places they need to go. Cheers!

More info about the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.
Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.
We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.
Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

Spirit of Freedom (August 2008)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words
and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words
and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the August 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.
There are also a num­ber of non-list­ed pris­on­ers, who are not list­ed either by their own choice, or because they betrayed their fel­low activists and became infor­mants. And remem­ber these num­bers do not include those peo­ple who are either under House Arrest or on Bail pend­ing Tri­al. Nor do they include the activists whose loca­tions are cur­rent­ly unknown and who are described by the police as “on the run”. See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing.
Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing of six and a half years impris­on­ment hav­ing reached a non-coop­er­a­tion plea-bar­gain with the author­i­ties who accuse him of involve­ment in two arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

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. (Diet unknown).

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. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, FCI Terre Haute, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. At the moment Daniel is in tran­sit as he has been ordered to appear before some Grand Juries. Daniel is refus­ing to answer the Grand Jury ques­tions and is gain­ing addi­tion­al prison time because of this (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters, 36432–086, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

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

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

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. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Exeter, 30 New North Road, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4EX, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

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

Mar­tin Bal­luch, (JA Josef­s­tadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Mar­tin is a veg­an)

Christoph, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Christo­pher does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Christoph is a veg­an).

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. (Jake is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Rod is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

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

Jür­gen Faul­mann, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Jur­gen is a veg­an).

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. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

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. (Josh is a veg­an).

Felix Hnat (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Felix is a veg­an).

Jan, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Jan does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Jan is a veg­an).

Kevin Kroem­mer, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Kevin is a veg­an)

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HM Prison Blak­en­hurst, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

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

Leo, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Leo does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Leo is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Chris­t­ian Moser, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Chris­t­ian is a veg­an).

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. (Heather is a veg­an).

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

Sabine, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Sabine does not wish to have their full name pub­lished. (Sabine is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

Elmar Völkl (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Elmar is a veg­an).

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. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

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. (Diet unknown).

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

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. (Diet unknown).

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. (Diet unknown).

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

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

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

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. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they did­n’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

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. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

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

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info 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.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

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

Sitting on piles of coal, revolting peasants, trashing things & fixing other things together, it’s the latest EF! Action Update

Smelters smelt­ed and wood­chip­pers chipped, pro­tes­tors around the world have been busy again tak­ing action against the plan­et-trash­ers — read all about it in the lat­est quar­ter­ly EF! Action Update.

This EF!AU is jam packed with excit­ing actions, plus fea­tures on inter­na­tion­al resis­tance against coal in time for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, a resur­gence of anti-genet­ics cam­paign­ing, and pro­pos­als for a rolling block­ade next year of Kingsnorth. You’ll be inspired to Taste the Waste, Leave it in the Ground and who knows what else!

EF! mine rest planets later logoSmelters smelt­ed and wood­chip­pers chipped, pro­tes­tors around the world have been busy again tak­ing action against the plan­et-trash­ers — read all about it in the lat­est quar­ter­ly EF! Action Update.

This EF!AU is jam packed with excit­ing actions, plus fea­tures on inter­na­tion­al resis­tance against coal in time for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, a resur­gence of anti-genet­ics cam­paign­ing, and pro­pos­als for a rolling block­ade next year of Kingsnorth. You’ll be inspired to Taste the Waste, Leave it in the Ground and who knows what else!

With sto­ries of green­wash laid bare, guer­ril­la-gar­den­ing, revolt­ing peas­ants, protest camps against coal mines and air­ports, build­ings burnt down, con­vey­ors and trains stopped, tires deflat­ed, GM fields lib­er­at­ed & ‘tri­als’ decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, despite tear-gas, jail threats, and fortress-like field pro­tec­tion, con­tin­u­ing resis­tance in Mayo & Ice­land, and cam­paign suc­cess­es, the diverse uses of super­glue just become mun­dane. Got a bro­ken tea cup or an incin­er­a­tor to shut down? You know what to use!

And if smash­ing green­hous­es or hang­ing about 60 metres up seems wierd, read on…

Also includes full lists of eco­log­i­cal direct action groups, protest camps & sup­port groups. Bat­ter­ies not includ­ed.

Pick up your copy at the Camp for Cli­mate Action or at your near­est social cen­tre. Or drop us a line at actionup­date AT earthfirst.org.uk and we’ll post you as many as you like for dis­trib­ut­ing around town and at events.

Down­load the lat­est EF!AU to share with oth­ers, sub­scribe or check out some past issues. The next issue will come out at the begin­ning of Novem­ber.

And of course, this year’s EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing (click here for lat­est news) is from Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008, if you want to plot & plan, and laugh & chat with old friends & new.

Latest info on Camp for Climate Action (& action reports during the camp) — useful links including ‘what’s it like’ video

All the lat­est info you need to have a reward­ing Camp for Cli­mate Action is below — read more.

Also please note that dur­ing the camp, the best place to get relat­ed action reports will be https://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/climatecamp/, with oth­ers on the gen­er­al IMC newswire. Dai­ly video reports trail­er.

We’ll do a round-up of actions & pho­tos after­wards, as last year.

Climate camp penknifeAll the lat­est info you need to have a reward­ing Camp for Cli­mate Action is below — read more.

Also please note that dur­ing the camp, the best place to get relat­ed action reports will be https://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/climatecamp/, with oth­ers on the gen­er­al IMC newswire. Dai­ly video reports trail­er.

We’ll do a round-up of actions & pho­tos after­wards, as last year.

Get­ting there | What to bring | Neigh­bour­hoods | Phones & secu­ri­ty | Direct action | 9th August mass action | Oth­er use­ful info about the camp | Work­shop pro­gramme - you’ll find 2 work­shops clear­ly labelled as EF! but there’ll be EF!ers, such as you dear read­er, sprin­kled here and there through­out the camp in all sorts of roles, or off site tak­ing action; also check out all the excit­ing UK coal resis­tance work­shops, main­ly in the Welsh neigh­bour­hood & not in the main work­shop pro­gramme.

Video — Attend­ing the camp. The prac­ti­cal­i­ties, fun, and fears. Views, reas­sur­ance, clar­i­fi­ca­tion, and enthu­si­asm from peo­ple who attend­ed in 2007, and a lit­tle bit of the mag­ic in their words and eyes.

Activists take site for the Camp for Climate Action and reveal location

30 July 2008

Activists take site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action and reveal loca­tion

Climate camp 08 banner & tripods30 July 2008

Activists take site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action and reveal loca­tion

100 peo­ple entered and secured an uncul­ti­vat­ed field at Deans­gate Ridge at 3.00pm today, only 1 km from Kingsnorth Pow­er Sta­tion. They erect­ed and climbed tripods to pre­vent police from mov­ing them and have erect­ed a mar­quee along­side a ban­ner which reads ‘No New Coal’.

Although the cli­mate camp activists have been upfront and open about most aspects of their plans, the loca­tion of the camp had not been revealed until today in order to pre­vent E.ON and the police from attempt­ing to stop it from hap­pen­ing. The uncul­ti­vat­ed field is on a road that runs between Hoo St Wer­burgh and High Hal­stow. The Camp for Cli­mate Action intends to return the field in two weeks in as good, if not bet­ter, con­di­tion than it was found.

Around 20 sheep were in the field when it was occu­pied. They have been round­ed up and are being tak­en care of with food and water.

The camp, which is due to offi­cial­ly start on Sun­day, 3 August, is expect­ed to attract thou­sands of peo­ple com­ing from all over the UK. The week long camp hosts hun­dreds of work­shops on sus­tain­able liv­ing and the pol­i­tics of cli­mate change. The camp will cul­mi­nate on Sat­ur­day 9 August in a mass direct action to shut down Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion on protest over E.ON’s plans to build the first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the UK for 33 years.

“We want to warm­ly invite peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty to come down and see for them­selves what the camp is all about,” said Ter­ry Graves, who has already pitched his tent up in the field.

“E.ON and the gov­ern­ment believe that you can have end­less fos­sil-fuelled eco­nom­ic growth in a world of finite resources,” said Christi­na Greens­ford, who helped to secure the camp. “Peo­ple from all over the UK are here to cre­ate a demo­c­ra­t­ic, low-car­bon soci­ety in which our long term future on this plan­et is pri­ori­tised over the short term prof­it mar­gins of the fos­sil fuel indus­try.”

“We have a future to pro­tect, and today, in set­ting up the cli­mate camp, we’ve drawn a line in the sand at Kingsnorth.” said Han­nah Abbots. “We will not allow com­pa­nies like E.ON drag us over the edge of cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe.”

Press can con­tact Conor O’Brian at 07530 306267 who is on site and arrange inter­views, either over the phone or on the perime­ter of the site.

Press can also con­tact the media team, who are not cur­rent­ly on site, at 07772 861 099

A press advi­so­ry will be short­ly issued giv­ing infor­ma­tion as to when the first media tours of the camp will take place.

camp media team
press@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

The OS grid ref­er­ence for the camp is TQ 773 742. The site is between Dean­gate round about on the A228 and the vil­lage of High Hal­stow. The site is on the west side of the road (left com­ing north from the A228) as you go up hill after the Dean­gate sports field and before Dux Court farm.

For direc­tions and oth­er use­ful info, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21137

EarthFirst! gathering workshop call & travel info

LAST CALL FOR RUNNING WORKSHOPS

at the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk

Get in touch if you or your campaign/group/network would like to run a work­shop or ses­sion at the gath­er­ing, espe­cial­ly if you can offer work­shops on action train­ing, direct action cam­paigns, ecol­o­gy, eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.

Email us on sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk or ring 01524 383012

Dead­line 12 August!

We’ve already got lots of work­shops con­firmed. Join us for:


LAST CALL FOR RUNNING WORKSHOPS

at the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk

Get in touch if you or your campaign/group/network would like to run a work­shop or ses­sion at the gath­er­ing, espe­cial­ly if you can offer work­shops on action train­ing, direct action cam­paigns, ecol­o­gy, eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.

Email us on sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk or ring 01524 383012

Dead­line 12 August!

We’ve already got lots of work­shops con­firmed. Join us for:

DIRECT ACTION TRAINING
includ­ing: Blockad­ing, rec­cies for actions, secu­ri­ty for actions, how to plan actions, legal and arrest info, map read­ing for begin­ners, squat­ting, how to run legal sup­port and police liai­son

GET INVOLVED IN AND PLAN DIRECT ACTION CAMPAIGNS
Leave it in the ground — resis­tance to coal
Stop­ping GM test fields
Sav­ing Ice­land: resis­tance to heavy indus­try
Food and Cli­mate Change info and action
Oppos­ing the nuclear indus­try
Bio­fu­els
Smash Edo – what’s hap­pen­ing and inter­st­ing lessons for oth­er cam­paigns
Ris­ing Tide

ECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE LIVING
Learn about ecol­o­gy, eco-cen­tric ethics, sus­tain­able liv­ing and eco­log­i­cal restora­tion includ­ing field trips and hands-on work.

There’ll also be inter­na­tion­al and nation­al action round-ups, region­al get-togeth­ers, ses­sions on strat­e­gy, where next and how we com­mu­ni­cate.

———

More info about the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing

Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.
Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a
prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

WHERE IS IT?
The gath­er­ing is hap­pen­ing on love­ly fields less than 3 miles from Diss in Nor­folk, with reg­u­lar trains to Diss and bus­es from Diss to the site.
We rec­om­mend that you arrive Tue evening, as work­shops will start on Wednes­day morn­ing and run until Sun­day after­noon.

FOOD AND WHAT TO BRING
Deli­cious veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed by the Anar­chist Teapot for £4 per day, or you can cater for your­self
Bring camp­ing gear — if you want details of B&Bs in the area con­tact us.
We are ask­ing for a con­tri­bu­tion of £15-£25 accord­ing to what you can afford.
Dogs: the gath­er­ing is held at a dog free site, unfor­tu­nate­ly we will have to turn away any dogs that arrive.
Please leave your car at home, it’s real­ly easy to get to by pub­lic trans­port or come by bike. You can also check out our lift shar­ing board:
http://www.easf.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=15

WHAT YOU’LL FIND ON SITE
Wel­come tent at the gate
Work­shop spaces
Anar­chist Teapot Kitchen
Veg­gies Cafe
Kids space with toys
Library with books on rad­i­cal thought and some relax­ing fic­tion
Book stall by Nat­ter­jack Press
A space for leaflets and dis­plays
Cin­e­ma show­ing political/campaigns films
Bar
Wash­ing facil­i­ties and com­post toi­lets
Sauna and hot tubs
Renew­able pow­er

(Please not that the gath­er­ing is not a fes­ti­val)

Find out more and join in!

The near­est train sta­tion is up on the web­site (for book­ing advance train or coach tick­ets), and there’s a lift-shar­ing forum too.

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

Community halts illegal work on Special Area of Conservation, Ireland- pls help!

24th July 2008
The fight goes on- be part of it.

Shell fence beach, Mayo24th July 2008
The fight goes on- be part of it.
This is an urgent call for sup­port to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­ment of Ross­port in Mayo, Ire­land. Shell is now attempt­ing to con­struct the first 200m metres of the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline with­out any plan­ning per­mis­sion. 13 res­i­dents were arrest­ed on Tues­day and this morn­ing a 10ft fence was erect­ed and guard­ed by40 police & 70 secu­ri­ty.
Help is urgent­ly need­ed. Come if u can. Protest at Irish Embassy, Shell garages etc.

At 8am this morn­ing, over 40 police, who are now sta­tioned in the Shell com­pound, and 70 Shell spe­cial­ist secu­ri­ty forced the local com­mu­ni­ty away from Glen­gad beach. The crowd who had assem­bled to mon­i­tor the ille­gal work being done on the cliff-face at Glen­gad were peace­ful­ly protest­ing on the beach. How­ev­er the local com­mu­ni­ty were then forced off the beach to allow 10ft high fenc­ing to be placed down to the water edge. This has blocked of the right of way on Glen­gad beach. All attempt­ed ques­tions regard­ing the legal­i­ty and the con­sents for the work were ignored by both Gar­daí and Shell staff alike.

The legal­i­ty of the con­sents giv­en is still an issue of major con­cern to the peo­ple of the local­i­ty as it is still unclear what per­mis­sions Shell have received and for what exact work. While Min­is­ter for Ener­gy Eamon Ryan has claimed that it was just an “over­sight” that the lat­est autho­ri­sa­tions for the project was­n’t pub­lished, this cloud­ing of what con­sents have been grant­ed has been a char­ac­ter­is­tic of the whole Cor­rib Project.

Local res­i­dent Ter­ence Con­way said “The fact is that this first onshore sec­tion is the most dan­ger­ous part of the whole project as the pres­sure could be as high as 345bar and still it will not have gone through any plan­ning if it is con­struct­ed”.

Shell is now attempt­ing to con­struct the first 200m metres of the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline with­out it going through plan­ning per­mis­sion at all. Although the remain­ing 9.2km of the onshore pipeline is cur­rent­ly being exam­ined by An Bord Pleanala, Shell are attempt­ing to lay the first 200m metres before a deci­sion is made.

On Tues­day 22nd July, 13 res­i­dents were arrest­ed at Glen­gad, while chal­leng­ing Shell on the per­mis­sions they had to do exca­va­tion and oth­er works around the site of the pro­posed land­fall area of the pipeline. The arrest­ed peo­ple includ­ed Gold­man Prize win­ner Willie Cor­duff as well as Shell to Sea trail­er host­ess Mary Horan. The 13 were arrest­ed around 2pm and held at Bel­mul­let police sta­tion for 3 hours before being released with­out charge, with files being sent to the DPP. One of the peo­ple arrest­ed had to be brought by ambu­lance to Castle­bar Hos­pi­tal after see­ing a doc­tor in Bel­mul­let sta­tion. The mood of the arrestees after release was def­i­nite­ly one of res­olute defi­ance. After the 13 were arrest­ed, Shell attempt­ed to re-com­mence the exca­va­tion work how­ev­er anoth­er group of around 20 locals arrived and halt­ed the work for the remain­der of the day.

On Wednes­day 23rd July, a Shell dig­ger began clear­ing the top­soil from the area around the cliff-face to begin the pro­ce­dure of cre­at­ing a cause­way down to the beach. Rough­ly an hour lat­er they were request­ed by local res­i­dents to pro­duce the per­mis­sions but were only met with silence from the line of secu­ri­ty which at first tried to let the dig­ger con­tin­ue but even­tu­al­ly the dig­ger retired to behind secu­ri­ty gates.

While Shell have received a Fore­shore Licence in 2002 by the then Min­is­ter for the Marine and Nat­ur­al Resources for the off­shore part of the pipeline, this Licence is only valid up to high-water mark. How­ev­er Shell are seek­ing to do work that would involv­ing cre­at­ing a pipe pull-in facil­i­ty that would lay the pipeline up to the pro­posed pres­sure reduc­tion facil­i­ty which will be over 30m back from the cliff-face. Plan­ning per­mis­sion for all of the onshore pipeline sec­tion is cur­rent­ly before An Bord Pleanala since May 2008 under the new Strate­gic Infra­struc­ture Act and it is believed that an Oral hear­ing will be heard before An Bord Pleanala pro­vides the nec­es­sary rub­ber-stamp.

How­ev­er in the mean­time it is believed that all the work cur­rent­ly being done in Glen­gad doesn’t have the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion. Shell have now installed about 5 large port-cab­ins which include office and cafe­te­ria facil­i­ties on the Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) only about 300m away from where the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp stood, until they were removed less than a year ago.

After about an hour stand­off, the gar­daí led by Super­in­ten­dent John Gilli­gan arrived at the scene, park­ing all their squads, jeeps and pad­dy wag­ons inside on the Shell com­pound on the SAC. After speak­ing with Shell per­son­nel, Supt Gilli­gan approached the group and was told about the con­cerns over the per­mis­sions for the work. Supt Gilli­gan was told that mem­bers of the assem­bled pro­tes­tors had met with Conor Ó Raghal­laigh, Direc­tor of the Nation­al Parks & Wildlife Ser­vice (NPWS) on the pre­vi­ous day and that it had been agreed that the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion were to be sought from the Dept of Ener­gy, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Nat­ur­al Resources and the Dept of Agri­cul­tu­ture & Fish­eries. How­ev­er, the Depart­ments hadn’t replied to any of the queries sent so far, and so it was request­ed by the pro­tes­tors that the work be halt­ed until the sit­u­a­tion was clar­i­fied. After again speak­ing with Shell per­son­nel, Supt. Gilli­gan said that Shell were will­ing to stop for 2 hours so queries could be made into the per­mis­sions grant­ed, how­ev­er he was told that it was believed that this would not be long enough. Supt. Gilli­gan was also remind­ed how last Octo­ber he had attempt­ed to push through drilling work in the area for Shell that was chal­lenged by locals and which was sub­se­quent­ly found to be ille­gal. Supt. Gilli­gan then once more spoke with Shell per­son­nel inside the com­pound and after warn­ing all the peo­ple assem­bled, peo­ple began to be arrest­ed.

I would like to say that I have been try­ing to estab­lish the legal­i­ty of these works for almost 2 weeks now, and have sent off count­less emails and made a lot of phone calls and am still no clear­er than when I began (and many oth­er peo­ple have hit blank walls too). I have been deal­ing pri­mar­i­ly with NPWS which is the sec­tion of the Dept of Envi­ron­ment whose duty it is to over­see work on SACs and oth­er sen­si­tive areas. I was first of all told on the phone that the work was under the Fore­shore Licence and I would receive a detailed email which would clar­i­fy my con­cerns. How­ev­er no clar­i­fi­ca­tion has been forth­com­ing and now NPWS have decid­ed to wash they hand of it and have start­ed refer­ring any queries to the oth­er 2 depart­ments involved. The whole episode once again shows way that this project has been split up from start to fin­ish and how no per­son or depart­ment will take any respon­si­bil­i­ty once ques­tioned.

It should be not­ed that NPWS in their report seek­ing the removal of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, stat­ed that site where the camp was would take “10 to 15 years for the site to ful­ly recov­er” and rec­om­mend­ed that the camp be removed and “the habi­tats allowed to recov­er nat­u­ral­ly”. Now NPWS turn a blind eye when a whole com­pound (which is prob­a­bly ille­gal) has been set up.

One of the most infu­ri­at­ing sights of the day was the 2 NPWS rangers who hung out with the Shell paid ornithol­o­gist on the beach for the day watch­ing over the sand mar­tin colony while only 10 metres away a dig­ger had begun destroy­ing the cliff-face. Luck­i­ly how­ev­er the peo­ple of the local­i­ty have long giv­en up hope that any of these author­i­ties will pro­tect either them or their envi­ron­ment and took action.

If you wish to join the fight and vis­it the area, there is space to stay in the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty House ( http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com).

The fight will go on regard­less but any help is invalu­able.
http://www.shelltosea.com

Manchester & London Critical Masses this Friday + South London

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

After­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

OH MY!
It’s CRITICAL MASS this Friday.…how ace is that?

Fri­day 27th June 6pm
Cen­tral Library Man­ches­ter

Manchester Critical MassAfter­wards we’ll have a BBQ and hang out a park, so bring BBQ’s, food, music, drinks etc. (veg­an BBQs pre­ferred as then it can be acces­si­ble to every­one!)

A total­ly ace bike ride around our city to meet oth­er cyclists and ride on our roads…For a few hours once a month we can show how beau­ti­ful our city can be when bicy­cles, instead of cars, dom­i­nate the roads.

it’s such a nice and socia­ble and fun way to spend a Fri­day evening on a bicycle..wow. so ace. and now we’re get­ting big­ger and bigger..someone said they count­ed at least 150 peo­ple on the one last month, how ace is that?!!. come and be part of our love­ly friend­ly cruise around..to col­lec­tive­ly enjoy the beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence that is rid­ing a bike.

—-

Peo­ple’s com­ments about Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass

“…it’s bril­liant. Usu­al­ly I’m charg­ing around on my bike, get­ting where i need to go as fast as i can. Crit­i­cal mass is dif­fer­ent. It’s about enjoy­ing rid­ing. It’s the most relaxed ride around the city I’ve ever had. Where all my wor­ries and fears float away. And I’ve met some love­ly peo­ple too”

“I was scared it would be some angry bike mil­i­tants but every­one is so friend­ly and the ride is fun no aggro at all. See you next month!”

“it’s quite some­thing to have that many peeps rid­ing round at once.”

“Crit­i­cal Mass some­times has a rep­u­ta­tion for being an angry rab­ble of cyclists that want to string up any car dri­vers they see. This is not true of Man­ches­ter Crit­i­cal Mass, it is a fluffy mass of peo­ple that like to have fun on bikes, there are often have chil­dren with us and a bicy­cle sound sys­tem to add to the par­ty fun atmos­phere. As well as being fun and
a social event it is also to show how great a car free city will be. This is achieved every month by show­ing motorists an alter­na­tive, yet crit­i­cal mass Man­ches­ter does­n’t aim to annoy dri­vers we want them to join us..”

“I spend all month, every month, rid­ing around behind exhaust pipes and swerv­ing out of the way from angry, dis­re­spect­ful dri­vers, I live in a world that is dying from cli­mate change..only the oth­er day it was announced the white rhi­no is extinct, it tears me up inside. Rid­ing a bike isn’t going to change all of that instant­ly but I believe that not only does it mean less cars on the roads but rid­ing a bike also gives a feel­ing of con­nec­tion with one’s sur­round­ings and oth­er peo­ple and through this we can start to act in oth­er ways that can cre­ate social change”

“Crit­i­cal Mass isn’t a place to vent the anger that comes from hav­ing to deal with cars (I don’t think), because it’s nice to, instead, spend that time enjoy­ing rid­ing my bike. Some­times it can feel so alien­at­ing rid­ing a bike sur­round­ed by so many motorists. Crit­i­cal Mass shows that we are not alone and that we are grow­ing. It’s the most fan­tas­tic piece of direct action I’ve ever done- I want there to be less cars on the roads and by
being one less car there is!!!”

(tak­en from emails we’ve received)

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Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don for Marie this Fri­day

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

The Crit­i­cal Mass in Lon­don will attempt to go all the way to Brix­ton to cel­e­brate the life of Marie, who was killed by 2 cars on her way to the demon­stra­tion against the arms trade in Brighon, see:

https://indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2008/06/400604.html

Assem­ble under Water­loo Bridge 6pm on Fri­day

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South Lon­don crit­i­cal mass?!

The first ever south Lon­don Crit­i­cal Mass is hap­pen­ing on Fri­day 4th of July, and every first Fri­day of the month there after.

It will take place @ 6.30, start­ing from Peck­ham library.

Help cam­paign for safer roads for cyclists. All oth­er human pow­ered trans­port wel­come too!
Mas­sive rolling sound sys­tem pro­vid­ed by rawkus rick­shaws.