Category: Action Reports

ELF ACTIONS IN RUSSIA APRIL/MAY 2011

received anony­mous­ly:

received anony­mous­ly:

“Dur­ing the night of may 4th we sneaked upon anoth­er tree har­vester and torched it, using the heavy rain as cov­er. 15 min­utes lat­er it explod­ed (we sus­pect fire in hydraulics to be the cause). Police and city offi­cials con­firmed the suc­cess­ful torch­ing and evac of the destroyed vehi­cle (link to the eco-cam­paign site with cita­tions: http://ecmo.ru/news/n‑1778/).

This spring saw works to clearcut a huge Khim­ki for­est con­tin­ue unabat­ed. In spite of numer­ous and mas­sive peo­ple protests, all the legal and lib­er­al stuff (polls, peti­tions, law suits, con­certs, demos, vig­ils, etc.), author­i­ties, law enforce­ment, and their fas­cists and mafia lack­eys (for­ev­er togeth­er in Rus­sia) push for the com­ple­tion of clear-cuts so that they may get on to the actu­al road-build­ing. And in one part of the for­est they’ve already redi­rect­ed a flow of a riv­er (a sin­gle and major body of water and site of sig­nif­i­cant avian pop­u­la­tion in the area) to facil­i­tate con­struc­tion of a road junc­tion link: (in russ­ian, but has pho­tos http://ecmo.ru/news/n‑1772/).

We ask of all whom it may con­cern to con­sid­er actions against Vin­ci, France (the inter­na­tion­al con­sor­tium financ­ing this defor­esta­tion project), as it seems the only viable tar­get out­side Rus­sia. Appre­ci­a­tion for your sol­i­dar­i­ty out there, peo­ple, and our sol­i­dar­i­ty with your local fights of our glob­al resis­tance!

- ELF-Rus­sia, Inter­na­tion­al Net­work of Action and Solidarity/ Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion”

—–

report­ed by activists in Rus­sia:

“An ELF group claims respon­si­bil­i­ty for torch­ing of a work­ers’ shed (the build­ing was checked to ensure it was unoc­cu­pied pri­or to the attack) at a tree­cut site in south­ern Moscow (Bitcevs­ki for­est) on the night of april the 11th. An 5 litres of gaso­line and incen­di­ary device for time delay were used because of close prox­im­i­ty to guard­house and seri­ous sen­try pres­ence in the region. The for­est has seen numer­ous eco­tage actions (spik­ing, torch­ings of vehi­cles and stor­age sheds, etc), hence intense police atten­tion. No pho­tos or videos were released. The shed and its con­tents explod­ed 5 min­utes lat­er for unknown rea­sons.
— ELF-Rus­sia, Inter­na­tion­al Net­work of Action and Sol­i­dar­i­ty — Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion”

—–
Bitcevs­ki

“Urban gueril­las” in Moscow have claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the torch­ing of a large exca­va­tor at a con­do­mini­um con­struc­tion site near the Bitcevs­ki for­est on April 9. The con­do­mini­um is being built in part by the Russ­ian Mil­i­tary Intel­li­gence Ser­vice. Mil­i­tary per­son­nel are sup­posed to be sta­tioned in the build­ing. Video from the action and the Russ­ian com­mu­nique avail­able here: http://blackblocg.info/index.php/protestnye-dejstviya/93-gorodskie-partizany-atakovali-tochechnuyu-zastrojku-v-yasenevo

—–

anony­mous report:
“On the night of april the 5th, 2011, an exca­va­tor was set aflame and explod­ed 10 min­utes lat­er at the high­way con­struc­tion site that cuts through forests of Moscow region.

- ELF-Rus­sia”

VILLAGERS RESIST POWER PLANT, DRILLING VEHICLE BURNED, TURKEY

report­ed by activists in Turkey:

report­ed by activists in Turkey:

“On 5th of Sep­tem­ber, drilling vehi­cles of Anadolu Group (this group is the biggest part­ner of McDon­alds Turkey, Coca Cola Turkey) which tries to build a ther­mic pow­er plant to Gerze-Sinop tried to enter Yayk­il vil­lage. Local peo­ple and eco-activists bar­ri­cad­ed the roads to vil­lage for defend­ing their land, but police and gen­darme attacked peo­ple with tear gas, pep­per spray, water can­nons and batons. Activists answered this attack with stones and slo­gans. Dur­ing the police attack some build­ings, barns, farms and bush­es caught fire; 25 activists and 4 police­men injured.

Because of their resis­tance, drilling vehi­cles left the vil­lage. At night police took 6 activists in cus­tody from their homes.

At night of Sep­tem­ber 6, a drilling vehi­cle which was wait­ing in a gas sta­tion near the vil­lage was burned by unknown peo­ple. The vehi­cle is total­ly destroyed. Gen­darme and local police is still search­ing for the arson­ists in Gerze.

For pic­tures you can check out: http://www.gerzegundem.com/son-dakika/yaykilda-kan-akti-h545.html

For the video of police attack:
http://webtv.sabah.com.tr/webtv/videoizle/gerzede-polisten-cevrecilere-sert-mudahale

Ani­mal and Earth Lib­er­a­tion Sup­port­ers from Turkey”

DSEI protest convergence space

Con­ver­gence space for DSEI protest now open — all wel­come.

St. Mar­garet’s House Set­tle­ment
21 Old Ford Road
Beth­nal Green
E2 9PL

We have tak­en the above space (a for­mer Veg­an restau­rant) and have opened it as a con­ver­gence space for next weeks DSEI protests. All wel­come.

Please bring sleep­ing bags and an open mind­ed atti­tude to how we can close DSEI this year.

Con­ver­gence space for DSEI protest now open — all wel­come.

St. Mar­garet’s House Set­tle­ment
21 Old Ford Road
Beth­nal Green
E2 9PL

We have tak­en the above space (a for­mer Veg­an restau­rant) and have opened it as a con­ver­gence space for next weeks DSEI protests. All wel­come.

Please bring sleep­ing bags and an open mind­ed atti­tude to how we can close DSEI this year.

There are cur­rent­ly 20 of us and we expect to have over 30 oth­ers arriv­ing Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, we are not work­ing with the ‘fluffy’ demos of Dis­arm DSEI and CAAT, we are about stop­ping DSEI.

Occupy! Manchester — 2nd October Tory Party Conference

From 2–5 Octo­ber 2011 the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty are com­ing to Man­ches­ter to hold their annu­al con­fer­ence. All eyes will be on this city as the Tory’s analyse their progress in imple­ment­ing their dis­as­trous pro­gram of pub­lic sec­tor spend­ing cuts, and reveal plans for the years ahead. This con­fer­ence should not go unop­posed. We intend to make the oppo­si­tion to the cuts and the wide­ly shared belief in a bet­ter alter­na­tive future vis­i­ble, and we’d like to do this with you!

From 2–5 Octo­ber 2011 the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty are com­ing to Man­ches­ter to hold their annu­al con­fer­ence. All eyes will be on this city as the Tory’s analyse their progress in imple­ment­ing their dis­as­trous pro­gram of pub­lic sec­tor spend­ing cuts, and reveal plans for the years ahead. This con­fer­ence should not go unop­posed. We intend to make the oppo­si­tion to the cuts and the wide­ly shared belief in a bet­ter alter­na­tive future vis­i­ble, and we’d like to do this with you!

Tories not wel­come!

We have been inspired by the large and vibrant stu­dent protests that took place last win­ter, by the dynam­ic and high-impact actions of UK Uncut, and by the pop­u­lar demon­stra­tions we are wit­ness­ing across North Africa, the Mid­dle East, Spain and Greece. The times are chang­ing and peo­ple are speak­ing out against injus­tice and inequal­i­ty.

What are you plan­ning to do?

We need to try new forms of oppo­si­tion. We have marched in our tens of thou­sands at pre­vi­ous par­ty con­fer­ences, and in our hun­dreds of thou­sands in Lon­don. Cru­cial as they are, more march­es in big­ger num­bers will not be enough. As the anti-war protests of 2003 showed, the gov­ern­ment finds them easy to ignore. As anger at the Con-Dem cuts grows we need to make it more vis­i­ble.

The cuts are for the ben­e­fit of the rich – we refuse to pay for their cri­sis!

The TUC have called a nation­al demon­stra­tion to be held in Man­ches­ter on Sun­day Octo­ber 2nd. That after­noon anti-cuts pro­tes­tors will occu­py Albert Square to cre­ate an assem­bly of protest on the doorstep of the Tory’s con­fer­ence, a sym­bol of the mass oppo­si­tion to the cuts and a place for real
debate and dis­cus­sion about the alter­na­tives and the pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Come ready to make noise, and stay for the long haul!

Occupy!MCR

Sup­port­ers so far:

* Bak­ers Food and Allied Work­ers Union – Man­ches­ter and Mersey­side.
* Edu­ca­tion Activist Net­work.
* Geoff Brown, Sec­re­tary of the Man­ches­ter TUC (pc).
* Man­ches­ter Book Bloc.
* The Man­ches­ter Green and Black Cross.
* Man­ches­ter UKun­cut.
* Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Staff against the Cuts.
* Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dent Union.
* Queer Resis­tance North-West.
* Real Democ­ra­cy Man­ches­ter.
* Shift Mag­a­zine.
* Social­ist Work­ers Par­ty.
* Social­ist Work­er Stu­dent Soci­ety.

German coal blockade during climate camp

30.08.2011
Since 10.30 this morn­ing a group of over 50 activists have been blockad­ing a coal trans­port rail­way in the Cologne area. The action takes place at the same time as the near­by inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Camp, protest­ing the open-cast min­ing of brown coal (www.klimacamp2011.de)

30.08.2011
Since 10.30 this morn­ing a group of over 50 activists have been blockad­ing a coal trans­port rail­way in the Cologne area. The action takes place at the same time as the near­by inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Camp, protest­ing the open-cast min­ing of brown coal (www.klimacamp2011.de)

The activists peace­ful­ly blocked the line ear­ly this morn­ing, erect­ing ban­ners and green­wash­ing the rail­way tracks. The protest is aimed at ener­gy giant RWE, which oper­ates a num­ber of pow­er sta­tions in the area and is respon­si­ble for about 10% of Ger­many’s car­bon diox­ide emis­sions.

The protest is being kept well-sup­plied with blan­kets and food by mem­bers of the cli­mate camp, and is cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for a night on the tracks.

The inter­na­tion­al cli­mate camp is sit­u­at­ed in the vil­lage of Man­heim which is sched­uled to be destroyed in order to enlarge a brown coal strip mine. Brown coal, or lig­nite, is a less pure form of coal and is there­fore much less ener­gy-effi­cient and cre­ates greater emis­sions than reg­u­lar coal.

The inter­na­tion­al cli­mate camp includes guests from as far afield as Colom­bia and Azer­bai­jan and aims to build links with­in the inter­na­tion­al cli­mate jus­tice move­ment, call­ing for urgent sys­tem change, not cli­mate change.

Genetically Modified Papaya Farm Sabotaged in Hawaii

8.9.11

Accord­ing to Hawaii Coun­ty police, thou­sands of GE papaya trees were sab­o­taged last month, appar­ent­ly by machete on the Big Island.

8.9.11

Accord­ing to Hawaii Coun­ty police, thou­sands of GE papaya trees were sab­o­taged last month, appar­ent­ly by machete on the Big Island.

“It’s hard to imag­ine any­body putting that much effort into doing some­thing like that,” said Delan Per­ry, vice pres­i­dent of the Hawaii Papaya Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press. “It means some­body has to have pas­sion­ate rea­son.”

Workshop for Actions and Alternatives — all-year-climate-camp

There’s some­thing strange about cli­mate change: It’s well-known, there’s no need for gen­er­al edu­ca­tion. Every­body sup­ports approach­ing the prob­lem and stop­ping human-caused cli­mate change.

There’s some­thing strange about cli­mate change: It’s well-known, there’s no need for gen­er­al edu­ca­tion. Every­body sup­ports approach­ing the prob­lem and stop­ping human-caused cli­mate change.
Although gov­ern­ments promise answers and solu­tions, we’re just watch­ing a rapid increase of the cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe. Thus the sus­pi­cion comes to mind, that the right solu­tions haven’t been found – or rather that they’re not accept­able for econ­o­my and gov­ern­ments.
The ques­tion aris­es, if our world can wait for a solu­tion. Peo­ple in regions, where it comes to food short­age, scer­tain­ly not. At first, peo­ple in poor regions won’t be able to adapt to changes. Droughts or floods will force them to flee. Most­ly var­i­ous rea­sons urge peo­ple to flight, yet cli­mate change will play an increas­ing­ly impor­tant role.
This fact by itself ques­tions the dis­tri­b­u­tion of raw mate­ri­als and food on this world – or why the poor­est, who con­tributed the small­est part of cli­mate-rel­e­vant green­house-gas­es so far, shall bear most of the dam­age.
Europe guards itself: Legal bar­ri­ers for flee­ing per­sons are intol­er­a­bly high and on the Mediter­ranean Sea, the Euro­pean police force “fron­tex” pro­vides a hard­ly pass­able block­ade. We see this sit­u­a­tion as cyn­i­cal and dis­sat­is­fy­ing – for the flee­ing it’s rather fatal. On the basis of this exam­ple we want to illus­trate that it’s about more than ener­gy-sav­ing lamps and recy­cled paper. Nei­ther do we see the nuclear phase­out in Ger­many, linked to a half-heart­ed ener­gy tran­si­tion, as a solu­tion. There’s a lot to do…

This fly­er address­es to all per­sons, who are not will­ing to wait for a solu­tion “from above” any­more. The aim shall be to take the ini­tia­tive your­self, to see your­self as an active per­son in this “polit­i­cal pow­er game”, in which we usu­al­ly just should move as con­sumers. Let’s cre­ate deter­mined, pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics togeth­er from below – for an entire­ly dif­fer­ent cli­mate.

Why in the Rhen­ish brown coal-min­ing region?
In this region, brown coal is mined in three open­cast mines, main­ly for six gigan­tic coal-fired pow­er sta­tions, where­by the vast bulk of CO2 in Europe is emit­ted. What “Wend­land” is for nuclear ener­gy, the Rhen­ish brown coal-min­ing region has to become for car­bon ener­gy. We want to work togeth­er with con­cerned locals – whole vil­lages are forced to reset­tle – in sol­i­dar­i­ty against destruc­tion.
We want to present a live­ly counter-image to cap­i­tal­ist destruc­tive­ness! Here, exper­i­men­tal liv­ing of a cli­mate-neu­tral future, over there the tear-off edge, the hole – square-kilo­me­tres of destruc­tion. Decide now!

Space for learn­ing
Cours­es and sem­i­nars shall be pro­vid­ed in a Do-It-Your­self cul­ture. Themes turn around cli­mate-neu­tral life, non-hier­ar­chi­cal meth­ods and forms of organ­i­sa­tion, diverse kinds of the­o­ret­i­cal stuff and meth­ods of resis­tance. And since we nei­ther belief in homo­ge­neous con­cepts from above against cli­mate change, nor find them desir­able, we con­sid­er a debate from below nec­es­sary. A debate, in which every­one is invit­ed to take part, which isn’t build up on expert’s hier­ar­chies, which doesn’t seek uni­fi­ca­tion, but which can stand dif­fer­ent posi­tions, in hope that there will arise syn­the­ses out of ten­sions in between.

And action…
The work­shop shall serve as a plat­form for dif­fer­ent actions against destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment and liv­ing space. There­by we focus on devel­op­ing putting into prac­tice meth­ods of actions, which we togeth­er do with per­sons from there and else­where, which aim at the eman­ci­pa­tion of the sin­gle indi­vid­u­als.

The Work­shop for Actions and Alter­na­tives is being built up from Sep­tem­ber (2011) on in
52355 Düren, Kalls­gasse 20

How to get there and lat­est infos:
waa.blogsport.de

If you feel appealed by this text, there are diverse pos­si­bil­i­ties how you can take part:
— Come and see what we’re doing
— Con­tribute your ideas and tal­ents (of organ­i­sa­tion for exam­ple)
— Get in touch if you want to teach or learn some­thing
— Dis­trib­ute this fly­er
— Offer your abil­i­ties: Lay-out­ing, writ­ing, do research
— Dona­tions of mon­ey would also help:
account of dona­tion:

Red women on green rampage – Women’s wing of CPI(Maoist) tells Giridih to stop felling trees

Forests of Pir­tand in Giridih dis­trict have new best friends in the form of CPI(Maoist) women’s wing, Nari Muk­ti Sangh.

Forests of Pir­tand in Giridih dis­trict have new best friends in the form of CPI(Maoist) women’s wing, Nari Muk­ti Sangh.

Since one week, around 70 women of the rebel out­fit are tak­ing out hour-long road­shows in the after­noon across the block, exhort­ing peo­ple not to cut trees. If they do, they bet­ter pay up a fine of Rs 1,000 or face some unspec­i­fied pun­ish­ment, which is like­ly to involve beat­ings. It is green activism that takes itself seri­ous­ly.

“Jun­gle bachana hi hoga var­na aane wale vinaash ke liye hum khud hi zim­me­war honge (we have to save forests at any cost now, oth­er­wise we will be respon­si­ble for nat­ur­al calami­ties),” thun­dered Neela Devi, one of the lead­ers of the out­fit.

The women, armed with axes, sticks and spades, move from vil­lage to vil­lage with grim deter­mi­na­tion, spread­ing the mes­sage of afforesta­tion.

Not only are they slo­ga­neer­ing, they are also tak­ing out ral­lies and stag­ing nukkad (neigh­bour­hood) meet­ings in dif­fer­ent vil­lages of the Maoist strong­hold.

Sources said unlike their male coun­ter­parts, the women don’t believe in vio­lence. But if any­one felling trees is caught red-hand­ed, he might be roughed up, as the women mem­bers have “threat­ened dire con­se­quences” if peo­ple dam­age the area’s green cov­er.
When the women rebels are not issu­ing threats, they are also inform­ing peo­ple about the impor­tance of trees.

“Forests are our real assets. Please realise their impor­tance and save trees. They absorb poi­so­nous gas­es and are the best friends of man and wildlife,” said Devi at a ral­ly on Mon­day.

Vil­lagers, slight­ly bemused, are how­ev­er turn­ing up in large num­bers to hear the women speak.

“We have had good response. Vil­lagers have promised not to fell trees indis­crim­i­nate­ly. But the Sangh will keep its eyes open,” said Devi.

On Mon­day, the Sangh’s road­show passed through dif­fer­ent vil­lages includ­ing Mas­no­tand, Pand­natand, Chil­ga and Pal­gunj, with around 70-odd women armed with pick­ax­es, spades and bam­boo sticks chant­i­ng pro-green slo­gans and hold­ing impromp­tu meet­ings.

At every spot, tens of vil­lagers lis­tened in pin-drop silence that would have been the envy of any green NGO.

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/18848/

ASS needs you!

The Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters releas­es its first newslet­ter… and wants your help!

The hard­work­ing bunch at the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters have just released their annu­al report in the form of a newslet­ter.

Its full of as much infor­ma­tion, juicy gos­sip and as many requests for help that you can fit on two sides of A4!

The Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters releas­es its first newslet­ter… and wants your help!

The hard­work­ing bunch at the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters have just released their annu­al report in the form of a newslet­ter.

Its full of as much infor­ma­tion, juicy gos­sip and as many requests for help that you can fit on two sides of A4!

have a look here!: http://ompldr.org/vYTU5Zg/final-for-viewing.pdf

There are arti­cles on the con­sul­ta­tion papers, under­cov­er infil­tra­tors and the ASS’s opin­ion on an ex-mem­ber’s new anti-squat com­pa­ny.

They are also ask­ing for assis­tance! ASS cur­rent­ly need vol­un­teers for office shifts, vol­un­teers for tasks out­side the office and CASH!!!

If you can help with:

vol­un­teer­ing to do some time in the office
putting on a ben­e­fit gig/cafe/cinema etc
trans­la­tion (doc­u­ments to print or com­mu­ni­ca­tions)
print­ing
archiv­ing

…or in any oth­er way you can think of then drop us a line at friendsoftheass@gmail.com

Please dis­trib­ute!!

Final for print­ing (3MB): http://ompldr.org/vOXo0eA/final-for-printing.pdf

Rossport round-up

Shell Con­trac­tor Quar­ry Shut Down For Day
Barret’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor Erris shut down by pro­test­ers

Shell Con­trac­tor Quar­ry Shut Down For Day
Barret’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor Erris shut down by pro­test­ers

On Wednes­day 31st August at 8am 15 peo­ple entered Barrett’s quar­ry, just out­side Ban­gor Erris in Co. Mayo and stopped work for the whole day, leav­ing at 5:30pm. Barrett’s is a sub­con­trac­tor on the Cor­rib Gas Project, cur­rent­ly bring­ing truck­loads of grav­el and hard­core to Shell’s site in Augh­oose.

Enter­ing the quar­ry site Wednes­day morn­ing was easy, as there were only a cou­ple secu­ri­ty guards and there is no fenc­ing around the site aside from the front gate. Once peo­ple were on site work was halt­ed pret­ty quick­ly as peo­ple climbed up onto dig­gers and oth­er machin­ery.

No attempt to remove the pro­test­ers was made, and the day was pret­ty calm. Folks even got up to play­ing were­wolves and cha­rades while on the machin­ery in order to pass the time.

At 5:30 after all the work­ers had gone home and there was no chance of them resum­ing their deliv­er­ies to the Shell site, all the pro­test­ers left through the front gate.

Pro­test­ers have been tar­get­ing Barrett’s lor­ries on the pub­lic road over the last few weeks as they were try­ing to make their stone deliv­er­ies to the Shell com­pound, by stop­ping them and climb­ing on top of them. This occu­pa­tion of the quar­ry itself is a mes­sage to all con­trac­tors work­ing for Shell on this project.

Near­by Lennon’s Quar­ry also sup­ply mate­r­i­al to the site and have also had many of their vehi­cles occu­pied in recent weeks. Shell to Sea spokesper­son Ter­ence Con­way said today: “Both busi­ness­es will con­tin­ue to be a tar­get of the cam­paign until they end all work at Shell sites.”

—-

Cor­rib protests – if Tues­day was not mad enough try today
26.8.11
MEP assault­ed, work halt­ed for six hours, cam­paign­ers dri­ve into refin­ery and bounced back out again four hours lat­er

Local Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers and their sup­port­ers at Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp are rest­ing after anoth­er bizarre day of lows, highs and out­right idio­cy dur­ing their ongo­ing protest against Shell in co. Mayo.

The day start­ed unpromis­ing­ly with a 6am sor­tie against the com­pound at Aghoos seek­ing to exploit a cou­ple of weak points in the fence. Shel­l’s con­trac­tors Road­bridge and Shevlins are rac­ing to fin­ish the first bit of work in con­struct­ing the fenc­ing and new entrance way. Every moment is count­ing for them. This left a cou­ple of promis­ing gaps which peo­ple from the camp sought to exploit in their dawn raid.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it was not to be. Secu­ri­ty from IRMS were aggres­sive from the begin­ning and were drag­ging peo­ple across hard-core and the road. Though the main tar­get failed, a sec­ondary one saw two peo­ple get in. As oth­er weak points were probed, one pro­test­er who was on the road was delib­er­ate­ly charged from behind, trip­ping them face-first onto the road. This was all pho­tographed; a com­plaint to a Sergeant import­ed from Gal­way was nat­u­ral­ly treat­ed with dis­dain, the gar­daí hap­pi­ly tak­ing their place as part of Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty. This has already been report­ed to the Amnesty/Frontline human rights observ­er in the area and will be pur­sued.

Peo­ple returned to camp to get a bit of rest and recu­per­ate. Just before mid­day, Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy (of the Social­ist Par­ty) and a num­ber of sup­port­ers turned up. They were shown the camp and giv­en an update as to how the cam­paign has been going.

While this was hap­pen­ing a group of peo­ple wait­ed near the junc­tion near Gle­n­amoy, a key turn­ing point for the vehi­cles com­ing between the refin­ery at Bel­linaboy and the Aghoos com­pound. Most trucks and trac­tors along this route are escort­ed by gar­daí, who have placed offi­cers along this route, and whose vans reg­u­lar­ly fol­low peo­ple walk­ing it.

Despite all this atten­tion from gar­daí, quick think­ing meant that one per­son was able to jump on top of a Bar­retts Quar­ry truck – the firm pro­vid­ing much of the hard-core – at around 1pm. It was a beau­ti­ful moment. Campers, locals, Paul Mur­phy & co all con­verged on the site. A good natured protest ensued, with peo­ple laugh­ing, jok­ing, singing, chil­dren mak­ing water bal­loons and the per­son on top of the truck giv­ing us a ren­di­tion of “Which Side Are You On”, re-word­ed to take in Shell.

In the refin­ery a back­log of trucks and oth­er vehi­cles began to build up. The pub­lic order team turned up with their cher­ry pick­er to remove the per­son on top of the truck. Those in the road sat down and formed two lines wrap­ping arms and legs around each oth­er with the aim of stop­ping the cher­ry-pick­er com­ing in. The thugs from the pub­lic order team wad­ed in, as ever, drag­ging peo­ple out, rip­ping cloth­ing and using pres­sure points on the ear. Paul Mur­phy, who was involved in the line was among those assault­ed in this fash­ion. Nat­u­ral­ly he was livid. Word is that the sto­ry is going ‘viral’.

Not to be deterred, after the per­son on the truck was removed and arrest­ed, peo­ple decamped to the front of the refin­ery. Num­bers grew to over 50 as more locals came to sup­port. It was fan­tas­tic to see old faces again, some­thing that real­ly boost­ed the campers. It was clear there was a buzz despite the rain that came on. There was more play­ing in front of the gates, and a deter­mi­na­tion to resist in the air. For those who had been at the morn­ing protest, it was such a lift. Gar­daí and secu­ri­ty stayed clear; the line of trucks backed up inside the refin­ery grew longer. The per­son who had been arrest­ed was charged, released and came to join the protest.

Even­tu­al­ly Shell caved in. They parked up the trucks and shut up shop at Aghoos at 6.30pm. Though hav­ing pushed their work­ers to keep to the exist­ing timetable, the day was lost to the cam­paign­ers. Fear­ing that they might try and take some of the vehi­cles out the back gate, peo­ple drove around, dri­ving up close to the back gate. Two of these cars dri­ven by locals (well known to secu­ri­ty) and con­tain­ing just as recog­nis­able peo­ple were waved through the refin­ery gates by secu­ri­ty. So, we sus­pect, heads are going to roll. One car drove around and back out again with­out secu­ri­ty actu­al­ly being aware of this. The oth­er stayed in and drove around the refin­ery, two fin­gers up to all who think they can run rough-shod over the peo­ple of Erris. Nat­u­ral­ly, the gar­daí, late to the par­ty this time, then began stop­ping work­ers going in. It was a great turn around to a long day. Now, for anoth­er plan­ning meet­ing…

For Paul Mur­phy’s own account:
I was just about to fin­ish this report when we heard… two IRMS (Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty) minibus­es were blocked for an hour. And the car was still in the refin­ery as of 8pm. So down we head again, bare­ly fin­ish­ing inner. Secu­ri­ty had sur­round­ed the car at the inner perime­ter fence as it was try­ing to leave. For some very bizarre rea­son they would not let the car leave by the gate direct­ly in front of it, but want­ed it to go all the way to the back gate.

The occu­pants refused that option as they were wor­ried they would be ambushed. A trac­tor was brought and attached to the back of the car by a rope. For the next hour and a half the car was bounced back­wards across the site. The idio­cy of the peo­ple doing this meant that the car was con­stant­ly bounc­ing and knock­ing against the back of the trac­tor. Once occu­pant phoned the gar­daí for help but the per­son answer­ing the 999 call laughed. It is not hard to see why the gar­daí in Erris are not trust­ed by the peo­ple who live there.

By 9pm a crowd of locals and peo­ple from the camp had assem­bled out­side the back gate in sup­port. Num­bers swelled to forty by 10pm when the trac­tor final­ly brought the car out — gar­daí and secu­ri­ty filled out into the road — the secu­ri­ty clear­ly act­ing like cops again – push­ing con­cerned friends and fam­i­ly away. It was a relief to see our friends safe again.

A long, exhaust­ing day, but amaz­ing in so many unex­pect­ed ways. Wel­come to Mayo.
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

—-

Mayo Road Block­ad­ed in Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest
August 26 2011
From 6.00am to 9.30am this morn­ing, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes. This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.
From 6.00am to 9.30am this morn­ing, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes. This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

*FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:*
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp 085 1141170

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see
Relat­ed Link: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

—–

Dai­ly Protests in Mayo, Num­bers Build­ing
Actions are con­stant, some­times 3 or 4 in a day

Between lock-ons, mass tres­pass­es, lor­ry climb­ing and a breach of secu­ri­ty at Shel­l’s refin­ery, this week brought a lot of peo­ple out protest­ing. Locals who haven’t been out on the roads in years have come out this week, and momen­tum is build­ing.

Here are some pho­tos from Wednes­day 24th August that haven’t been post­ed. Tues­day and Thurs­day were so full of events that these pho­tos did­n’t make it up. But things are hap­pen­ing every day, keep look­ing at the shelltosea.com web­site, twit­ter, and indy­media to stay post­ed.

Wednes­day’s events began with a 6am tres­pass onto Shel­l’s com­pound in Augh­oose. Soon after a few peo­ple went to join the locals who are at the refin­ery gates every morn­ing, and 6 peo­ple sat down in the road wrap­ping arms and legs around each oth­er to stop a trac­tor. Gar­dai dragged peo­ple out of the road for the trac­tor to pass. After this one per­son man­aged to climb on top of a truck deliv­er­ing bog­mats out­side the refin­ery. The per­son stayed up for about 10 min­utes but when a gar­da climbed onto the lor­ry and wres­tled her D‑lock away, pre­vent­ing her from lock­ing on, she came down and was not arrest­ed.

Lat­er that day Shell ille­gal­ly extend­ed their Augh­oose com­pound into the pub­lic road, using har­ris fenc­ing to reduce the road to one lane. Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty then stood in the pub­lic road, and work­ers yet again stopped traf­fic when­ev­er a deliv­ery was being made to the com­pound (which hap­pens 3–4 times an hour and can mean 5–30 min­utes of road clo­sure). When peo­ple from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp saw them putting up fenc­ing in the road peo­ple went down to take advan­tage of the nar­row road for the next trac­tor deliv­ery. How­ev­er once again Gar­dai and IRMS worked togeth­er to push peo­ple into ditch­es, con­tain peo­ple, and clear the road.

Hon­est to god direct quote from MY 31 Sergeant Richard Maho­ny, explain­ing why peo­ple must clear the road, “For your own health and safe­ty, or we’ll throw you in the ditch.”

Apolo­gies for the belat­ed­ly post­ed pho­tos, it is not easy keep­ing up with media stuff when actions are hap­pen­ing con­stant­ly! There is plen­ty to do that does­n’t involve protest­ing as well, includ­ing tend­ing to the three gar­dens, cook­ing the com­mu­nal meals, main­tain­ing the wind tur­bines, and every­thing else it takes to main­tain the camp!

The camp is locat­ed in a field over­look­ing the Shell com­pound in Augh­oose, between Bel­lan­aboy and Pul­lath­omas. Come for a vis­it any­time! Con­tact the camp at rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com or 085 114 1170

—-

Mayo Road Block­ad­ed in Inter­na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty Protest
From 6.00am to 9.30am Fri­day 26th August, three cam­paign­ers occu­pied Aghoos Road, as part of the ongo­ing protests against the con­tro­ver­sial Shell refin­ery at Bel­linaboy. They formed a tri­an­gle in the mid­dle of the road using a set of espe­cial­ly made arm-tubes.

This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100407 and
This action fol­lows on from yes­ter­day, which saw the Gar­dai assault Dublin MEP Paul Mur­phy dur­ing a sit-down protest at the same part of the road. The protest stopped a num­ber of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion vehi­cles reach­ing their des­ti­na­tion at Aghoos. All three have been arrest­ed and tak­en to Bel­mul­let.

One of those occu­py­ing the road said, “I’m doing this in sup­port of a sim­i­lar protest that took place in Broome Com­mu­ni­ty, Aus­tralia last night. This is a pow­er­ful way to show that strug­gles from Ogo­ni­land in Nige­ria, to the Tar Sands in Cana­da, Aus­tralia, to Erris, Mayo and now to Aus­tralia are linked in com­mon cause. Once we heard about the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty actions we had to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. It feels real­ly pow­er­ful to be part of this.”

The Broome Com­mu­ni­ty are oppos­ing a gas project that par­al­lels the sit­u­a­tion in north-west Mayo. Like Mayo, Shell is one of the com­pa­nies being resist­ed by local com­mu­ni­ties. Links between the two com­mu­ni­ties are being estab­lished, and award win­ning film “The Pipe”, which doc­u­ments the Mayo sit­u­a­tion is being shown at events in Aus­tralia.

Yes­ter­day saw a series of events tar­get­ing the Shell refin­ery in Aghoos and Bel­linaboy. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was vis­it­ed by Paul Mur­phy, MEP who came to learn more about local com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to the project. While tak­ing part in a peace­ful sit-down protest in front of a truck he was assault­ed and had his clothes torn by gar­dai.

Con Cough­lan, from the Camp said, “The deter­mi­na­tion we are feel­ing is incred­i­ble; know­ing that peo­ple in Aus­tralia were doing their protests while we were doing ours was inspir­ing for us all. We send our best wish­es out to them.”

ENDS

Notes
1. For more infor­ma­tion on the Broome Com­mu­ni­ty protests see http://handsoffcountry.blogspot.com/

2. For reports of events on Thurs­day, 25th August, see above, or
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/100407 and
http://www.paulmurphymep.eu/breaking-news-how-the-gardai-assaulted-me-and-other-peaceful-protestors-in-rossport