Category: Action Reports

Nine police injured in Stuttgart 21 clash

21 June 2011

Nine police were injured after clash­es on Mon­day night between police and anti-Stuttgart 21 pro­test­ers who had stormed the con­tro­ver­sial rail project, author­i­ties announced.

21 June 2011

Nine police were injured after clash­es on Mon­day night between police and anti-Stuttgart 21 pro­test­ers who had stormed the con­tro­ver­sial rail project, author­i­ties announced.

Eight offi­cers suf­fered blast injuries when “TNT-bangers” – home­made fire­crack­ers – were det­o­nat­ed near a police cor­don. A ninth offi­cer suf­fered unspec­i­fied injuries while try­ing to con­trol the protests. Sev­er­al demon­stra­tors were arrest­ed.

The site itself had “con­sid­er­able dam­age,” after the attack, accord­ing to a police spokesman. The pro­test­ers had torn down a fence, let the air out of con­struc­tion vehi­cle tyres and cov­ered them with anti-Stuttgart-21 stick­ers, among oth­er actions.

Around 400 pro­test­ers had gath­ered at the site Mon­day night, although they dis­persed in the ear­ly hours. A group of pro­test­ers lat­er attempt­ed to block the entrance to the con­struc­tion site but they left when ordered to do so by police.

It wasn’t imme­di­ate­ly clear how many peo­ple had attacked the offi­cers although police said sev­er­al pro­test­ers had been arrest­ed.

The inci­dent fol­lowed a day of peace­ful demon­stra­tions, dur­ing which around 3,000 peo­ple ral­lied against the project.

Politi­cians called on pro­test­ers to refrain from vio­lence.

“Vio­lence will not hurt Stuttgart 21, but the protests against it,” said Win­fried Her­mann, the min­is­ter for trans­port in the state of Baden-Würt­tem­berg.

Stuttgart 21 con­sists of a mas­sive con­struc­tion effort, involv­ing rebuild­ing the city’s main train sta­tion under­ground and turn­ing it around 90 degrees, as well as lay­ing 57 kilo­me­tres of new tracks. The aim is to make the city a major Euro­pean rail hub.

But oppo­nents mount­ed mas­sive protests against the project last year, call­ing it too expen­sive and unnec­es­sary. In Octo­ber, more than 100 demon­stra­tors were injured in a vio­lent clash with police.

The demon­stra­tion was fol­lowed by lengthy talks between state offi­cials, nation­al rail provider Deutsche Bahn and Stuttgart 21 oppo­nents. But offi­cials ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to go ahead with the project after mak­ing a few minor changes to plans.

Some believed the state’s new left-lean­ing gov­ern­ment would more strong­ly chal­lenge the project because the Greens opposed it before the the elec­tion, but they have so far failed to do so.

But state lead­ers have promised cit­i­zens will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vote on the future of the project, prob­a­bly in the autumn.

http://www.thelocal.de/tag/Stuttgart_21

ELF SOLIDARITY WITH LUCIANO / “TORTUGA”

anony­mous report, from BlackBlocg.info (vis­it the site for addi­tion­al reports of ELF actions in Rus­sia):

“ELF-Rus­sia claims respon­si­bil­i­ty for fire­bomb­ing of a Lexus/Toyota car deal­er­ship in West­ern Moscow on june the 21st.

anony­mous report, from BlackBlocg.info (vis­it the site for addi­tion­al reports of ELF actions in Rus­sia):

“ELF-Rus­sia claims respon­si­bil­i­ty for fire­bomb­ing of a Lexus/Toyota car deal­er­ship in West­ern Moscow on june the 21st.

Four lux­u­ry cars (of them — 3 Lexus SUVs) were lost to a fire­bomb explo­sion (butane gas can­is­ters, gaso­line and a fuse), accord­ing to cor­po­rate media repors.

Best wish­es to Luciano! The Strug­gle con­tin­ues!

ELF-Rus­sia, Inter­na­tion­al Net­work of Action and Sol­i­dar­i­ty / Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front”

*Luciano “Tor­tu­ga” Pitronel­lo is a Chilean activist who was seri­ous­ly injured on June 1 when a device he was plac­ing out­side a bank in San­ti­a­go explod­ed pre­ma­ture­ly.

Police used excessive force on San Francisco Peaks defenders

19.6.11
Protest Halts Snow­bowl Waste water Pipeline Con­struc­tion End Destruc­tion and Des­e­cra­tion of Holy San Fran­cis­co Peaks

19.6.11
Protest Halts Snow­bowl Waste water Pipeline Con­struc­tion End Destruc­tion and Des­e­cra­tion of Holy San Fran­cis­co Peaks

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Nava­jos and oth­ers defend­ing sacred San Fran­cis­co Peaks said police used exces­sive force on those tak­ing action to defend the Peaks from the use of sewage water for snow­mak­ing on the moun­tain. Native Amer­i­can med­i­cine men con­duct cer­e­monies on the moun­tain, and gath­er herbs for heal­ing cer­e­monies, on the Peaks, long sacred to 13 area Amer­i­can Indi­an Nations.

“Those who cut us out endan­gered our well being ignor­ing the screams to stop. They treat­ed our bod­ies the way they’re treat­ing this holy moun­tain. If they had their way, we wouldn’t even exist. There is more dan­ger in doing noth­ing. To idly stand by and allow this destruc­tion and des­e­cra­tion is to allow cul­tur­al geno­cide,” said one of the young woman who locked down.

At sun­rise on Thurs­day, June 16, 2011, more than a dozen peo­ple stopped ski area con­struc­tion on the Holy San Fran­cis­co Peaks. Six indi­vid­u­als used var­i­ous devices to lock them­selves to heavy machin­ery and to each oth­er inside the waste water pipeline trench, the six arrest­ed said in a state­ment released Sun­day, June 19.

Kristo­pher Bar­ney, Dine’ (Nava­jo) and one of the six who locked him­self to an exca­va­tor stat­ed, “This is a con­tin­u­a­tion of years of prayers and resis­tance. It is our hope that all Indige­nous Peo­ples, and all oth­ers, through­out the North, East, South and West come togeth­er to offer sup­port to the San Fran­cis­co Peaks and help put a stop to Snow­bowl’s plan to fur­ther destroy and des­e­crate such a sacred, beau­ti­ful and pris­tine moun­tain!”

“What part of sacred don’t they under­stand? Through our actions today, we say enough! The destruc­tion and des­e­cra­tion has to end!” said Mar­lena Tere­sa Gar­cia, 16, a young Diné woman and one of the six who chose to lock down. “The Holy San Fran­cis­co Peaks is home, tra­di­tion, cul­ture, and a sanc­tu­ary to me, and all this is being des­e­crat­ed by the Ari­zona Snow­bowl Ski Resort. So now I, as a young Diné woman, stand by Dook’o’osliid’s side tak­ing action to stop cul­tur­al geno­cide. I encour­age all indige­nous youth to stand against the des­e­cra­tion that is hap­pen­ing on the Holy San Fran­cis­co Peaks and all oth­er sacred sites,” said Gar­cia after being arrest­ed and released.

Those arrest­ed decribed the action and exces­sive police force in their state­ment released Sun­day:

A ban­ner was hung on the side of the trench that read “Defend the Sacred!” where two pro­test­ers were locked togeth­er. Over the half mile of open con­struc­tion, the group chant­ed, “Pro­tect Sacred Sites, Defend Human Rights!”, “No des­e­cra­tion for recre­ation!” “Stop the cul­tur­al geno­cide! Pro­tect the Peaks!” and “Human health over cor­po­rate wealth.”

“This waste water pipeline will poi­son the envi­ron­ment and to chil­dren who may eat snow made from it. Snow­bowl plans to spray mil­lions of gal­lons of waste water snow, which is filled with can­cer caus­ing and oth­er harm­ful con­t­a­m­i­nants, as well as clear-cut over 30,000 trees. The Peaks are a pris­tine and beau­ti­ful place, a frag­ile ecosys­tem, and home to rare and endan­gered species of plants and ani­mals,” said Evan Haw­bak­er, one of the pro­test­ers who locked them­selves to the exca­va­tor.

“The U.S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, the U.S. For­est Ser­vice, the City of Flagstaff May­or and Coun­cil, and the Ari­zona Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­i­ty are all respon­si­ble for per­mit­ting Snow­bowl to endan­ger pub­lic health, destroy the envi­ron­ment, and des­e­crate the Holy Peaks,” said Nadia del Calle­jo, one of the pro­test­ers who locked them­selves in the trench.

“Through­out his­to­ry, acts of resis­tance and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence have been tak­en by young and old against injus­tices such as this. This action is not iso­lat­ed but part of a. con­tin­ued resis­tance to human rights vio­la­tions, to colo­nial­ism, to cor­po­rate greed, and destruc­tion of Moth­er Earth,” added Del Calle­jo.

A sep­a­rate group of sup­port­ers, some wear­ing haz­mat suits, “quar­an­tined” the entrance to Snow­bowl Road. Ban­ners were stretched across the road that read “Pro­tect Sacred Sites” and “Dan­ger! Health Haz­ard — Snow­bowl.”

Short­ly after ini­ti­at­ing the action, a Snow­bowl secu­ri­ty guard spot­ted two peo­ple locked to an exca­va­tor. By 6:00 a.m. more than 15 armed agents, includ­ing the Coconi­no Coun­ty Sheriff’s Depart­ment, City of Flagstaff Police, and the FBI stormed the moun­tain.

At approx­i­mate­ly 7:30 a.m., the Flagstaff Fire Depart­ment, assist­ed by Coun­ty Sher­iffs, start­ed aggres­sive­ly cut­ting two peo­ple from the exca­va­tor.

“We took every pos­si­ble mea­sure to ensure our safe­ty. Our actions were tak­en to safe­guard Indige­nous Peo­ples’ cul­tur­al sur­vival, our community’s health and this sen­si­tive moun­tain ecosys­tem. Those who cut us out endan­gered our well being ignor­ing the screams to stop. They treat­ed our bod­ies the way they’re treat­ing this holy moun­tain. If they had their way, we wouldn’t even exist. There is more dan­ger in doing noth­ing. To idly stand by and allow this destruc­tion and des­e­cra­tion is to allow cul­tur­al geno­cide,” said one of the young woman who locked down.

“The police’s use of exces­sive force was in com­plete dis­re­gard for my safe­ty. They pulled at my arms and forced my body and head fur­ther into the machine, all the while using heavy duty pow­er saws with­in inch­es of my hand,” said Haw­bak­er.

After being cut out, the two were treat­ed by para­medics and arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing. The police, fire­fight­ers, and para­medics then pro­ceed­ed to cut two peo­ple locked in a near­by trench.

Extrac­tion took about forty min­utes and the two were imme­di­ate­ly seen by para­medics after being unlocked. One of the indi­vid­u­als sus­tained injuries to their arm from abu­sive force. Both were charged with tres­pass­ing, with an added charge of “con­tribut­ing to the delin­quen­cy of a minor,” for one of the indi­vid­u­als. Police pro­ceed­ed to unlock the last group who was also inside the trench near­by.

“Our only offense was resis­tance; resis­tance of the impli­ca­tions that’s Snow­bowl’s devel­op­ment exudes. The police’s defense was to imple­ment tac­tics of fear to reach a goal, essen­tial­ly to con­tin­ue con­struc­tion as soon as pos­si­ble. Our safe­ty was pri­or­i­tized sec­ond to Snow­bowl’s demands. I was one of the demon­stra­tors in the trench, locked at the neck with a part­ner. I was not aggres­sive. My lock was sawed through, inch­es away from both of our heads, secured sole­ly and reck­less­ly by the hands of a deputy. Dur­ing the process, we were repeat­ed­ly asked to chant to reaf­firm our con­scious­ness. The police’s response was hasty, tak­ing about ten min­utes in total–it was dehu­man­iz­ing,” said Haley Sher­wood, one of the last pro­test­er to be cut out.

Both women were also seen by para­medics. One was sent to the hos­pi­tal for heat exhaus­tion although she denied feel­ing dehy­drat­ed. She start­ed to faint dur­ing the extrac­tion when police, EMTs, and fire­fight­ers attempt­ed to force the pair to stand and move them from their loca­tion. Both women repeat­ed­ly expressed that they were being hurt and choked by law enforce­ment offi­cers and fire­fight­ers. Both of the pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing, with addi­tion­al charges to one of them for “con­tribut­ing to the delin­quen­cy of a minor” and “endan­ger­ment.”

Four of the pro­test­ers were tak­en to Coun­ty Jail. The two young peo­ple were tak­en to Coconi­no Coun­ty Juve­nile Deten­tion Cen­ter. FBI agents attempt­ed to ques­tion four of those arrest­ed.

As word spread about the demon­stra­tion to pro­tect the Peaks, over­whelm­ing sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty poured in from through­out the com­mu­ni­ty and inter­na­tion­al­ly.

Bail was raised short­ly after the arrests. All demon­stra­tors were released by 3:30 p.m. Three of the pro­test­ers, includ­ing Mar­lena Tere­sa Gar­cia, imme­di­ate­ly filed a report for exces­sive use of force after being released.

“How can we be tres­passers on our Holy Site?” ques­tioned Bar­ney. “I do not agree with these and the oth­er charges, we will con­tin­ue our resis­tance.”

—————-
Press con­tact for those defend­ing San Fran­cis­co Peaks:
Con­tact: Beth Lave­ly Tel: 928.254.1064 protectpeaks@gmail.com

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Back­ground — http://www.indigenousaction.org/

Call out for workshops for EF! Summer Gathering 2011

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot.

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot. So if you’ve got an idea you wish to high­light, whether it’s relat­ed to eco­log­i­cal defence or social resis­tance here is your chance. The gath­er­ing is attend­ed by hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ing in strug­gles around the UK and Europe.

To get in touch just email efsummergathering2011announce@riseup.net with a blurb of for you work­shop or dis­cus­sion and we’ll do our best to fit you in.

For month­ly email updates for the gath­er­ing sub­scribe to efsummergathering@lists.riseup.net

Rossport Direct Action Training Weekend — 25–26 June

Come up for a week­end of direct action train­ing, meet the com­mu­ni­ty and see this incred­i­ble place.

If you came up for the Par­ty Against the Pipe fes­ti­val, this is a great chance to get more involved in the cam­paign.

Come up for a week­end of direct action train­ing, meet the com­mu­ni­ty and see this incred­i­ble place.

If you came up for the Par­ty Against the Pipe fes­ti­val, this is a great chance to get more involved in the cam­paign.

If you have ever want­ed to take action and be part of the cam­paign, the time is now! All wel­come, open to com­plete begin­ners-no expe­ri­ence nec­es­sary. Please try to arrive by the evening of Fri­day 24th if pos­si­ble.

We are run­ning direct action train­ings here and around the coun­try for peo­ple who want to take part in safe and effec­tive protests. The train­ing is aimed at com­plete begin­ners, cov­er­ing your legal rights and dif­fer­ent meth­ods of protest­ing.

Get in touch if you would like us to give a direct action work­shop in your area.

Food will be cooked com­mu­nal­ly, dona­tions wel­come.

Accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able in the camp house or book in to the love­ly Kil­com­mon lodge hos­tel http://www.kilcommonlodge.ie

The Shell to Sea cam­paign has suc­cess­ful­ly used direct action for the last 11 years to frus­trate, delay and try to stop Shel­l’s destruc­tive project. We take direct action because the Gov­ern­ment has failed us and the author­i­ties that are sup­posed to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment have refused to act. So we have no choice but to pro­tect it our­selves. We also take action to inspire oth­er com­mu­ni­ties to do the same. Whether it’s stop­ping Shell ille­gal­ly drilling in a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion or block­ing the trucks car­ry­ing build­ing mate­ri­als for this exper­i­men­tal and dan­ger­ous project, using direct action works! So come along & get pre­pared…

Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project is already decade late and 3 times over bud­get — impres­sive for a rur­al com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing one of the biggest multi­na­tion­als in the world!

There is a huge glob­al his­to­ry of direct action cam­paigns. Mar­tin Luther King and Gand­hi sym­bol­ise the most well known cam­paigns but there have been thou­sands of suc­cess­ful direct action cam­paigns in our his­to­ry. Direct action was used dur­ing the anti-war cam­paign at Shan­non air­port, in the civ­il rights march­es, dur­ing the amaz­ing anti-nuclear cam­paign at Can­sore Point and also to kick out dirty indus­tries such as Raytheon, Mer­rell Dow and Raybestos Man­hat­tan.

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has guide­lines which state that all actions must be agreed by con­sen­sus at the camp. Direct action is used in par­al­lel with oth­er cam­paign­ing tools such as engag­ing in the plan­ning process, lob­by­ing, pub­lic meet­ings and tak­ing legal chal­lenges against Shell.

As Fred­er­ick Dou­glass, the US abo­li­tion­ist ora­tor said in 1857: “If there is no strug­gle there is no progress. Those who pro­fess to favor free­dom and yet depre­ci­ate agitation…want crops with­out plow­ing up the ground, they want rain with­out thun­der and light­en­ing. They want the ocean with­out the awful roar of its many waters…. Pow­er con­cedes noth­ing with­out a demand. It nev­er did and it nev­er will.”

http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org/content/direct-action-training-weekend-25–26th-june

The Spuds don’t work. *Norwich, noon, 23rd July 2011.*

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­toes has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for their dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­toes has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for their dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

Come ride with us on the back of a trail­er load of safe effec­tive spuds as we go to deliv­er them to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry out­side Nor­wich. It’s one of only two pos­si­ble open air tri­als for GM crops in Britain this year. Yet despite being pub­licly fund­ed, it’s so secre­tive no one will even say if it’s been plant­ed. Join us for tunes, chips and good cheer as we go and show them that we have already got the answers they say they’re look­ing for.

****************************************

*A tale of two spuds…*
For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sains­bury lab­o­ra­to­ry at the John Innes Cen­tre in Nor­wich have spent 1.7 mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey fail­ing to devel­op a genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­to resis­tant to the fun­gal dis­ease blight. This project is so secre­tive and unac­count­able that the lab­o­ra­to­ry has refused to even con­firm if a tri­al has been plant­ed this sea­son, or if they’ve been forced to aban­don any hopes of mak­ing the tech­nol­o­gy work. Pub­lic rejec­tion of the risks asso­ci­at­ed with eat­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food means that even if the engi­neer­ing involved was suc­cess­ful, there would be no mar­ket for the crop. Mean­while, 3 years ago a small Welsh research char­i­ty ded­i­cat­ed to con­ven­tion­al breed­ing tech­niques devel­oped a spud that is spec­tac­u­lar­ly resis­tant to blight. Not only does the crop pose no threat to health, the envi­ron­ment, or neigh­bour­ing farm­ers; it works. Over 6 dif­fer­ent vari­eties are now avail­able, and being grown on a com­mer­cial scale.

*Deliv­er­ing the answer to GM crops- *

We think the Sains­bury’s lab­o­ra­to­ry and the gov­ern­ment should be told that we’ve found the pota­toes they’re look­ing for. So we’re going to deliv­er them to the doors of their research cen­tre. We’ll be form­ing a car­ni­val pro­ces­sion of fam­i­lies and farm­ers led by the next gen­er­a­tion on ped­al trac­tors, each tow­ing a mini trail­er of safe spuds. There’ll be ped­al pow­ered tunes, and a full sized trac­tor to jump on. There will almost cer­tain­ly be chips.

*The ratio­nale*
The cam­paign against GM crops ten years ago was so suc­cess­ful that GM almost com­plete­ly van­ished from our fields and super­mar­kets, and many peo­ple have for­got­ten the issues asso­ci­at­ed with the tech­nol­o­gy. But in many oth­er parts of the world peas­ant farm­ers have been des­per­ate­ly fight­ing its spread, and laws are chang­ing in Europe that would make it much eas­i­er for GM to be grown in Britain. Despite pre-elec­tion promis­es to the con­trary the coali­tion claims it intends to be ‘the most pro GM this coun­try has ever seen’.

Let’s call time on an out­mod­ed tech­nol­o­gy that con­tin­ues to waste mon­ey in fail­ing projects, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly threat­en­ing the very sci­ence that’s actu­al­ly pro­duc­ing work­ing alter­na­tives quick­ly and cheap­ly. For too long the biotech com­pa­nies have gone unchal­lenged in their claims that GM can cre­ate gen­uine­ly use­ful crops when in fact all the sig­nif­i­cant advance­ments in the last decade have come through con­ven­tion­al breed­ing. With the renewed threat of GM on the hori­zon cam­paign­ers need to get togeth­er again to show the rest of the coun­try (and each oth­er) that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even bet­ter case than ever. This is a chance to take the ini­tia­tive with the media, to tell a sto­ry which explains clear­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly why the pro GM lob­by is wrong. That it’s us, and not the cor­po­ra­tions that have the answers to the food cri­sis. And we know how to turn them into an irre­sistible pho­to shoot.

*Our Key media mes­sages*
Genet­ic Mod­i­fi­ca­tion is unac­count­able, expen­sive, and it does­n’t work. We need to stop wast­ing pub­lic mon­ey on some­thing that no one wants and start cel­e­brat­ing the real advances in agri­cul­ture.

*What we need*

You, and the peo­ple you know, and any­one you think might be inter­est­ed.

This project is being worked on by Stop GM in con­junc­tion with the Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing Net­work. It’s a grass­roots ini­tia­tive that evolved after one nation­al gath­er­ing, sev­er­al months of pon­der­ing and an over excit­ed long week­end in Wales. Sev­er­al expe­ri­enced grass­roots cam­paign­ers will be work­ing on the project from now until the event, but we need help get­ting the word out. If you think you could help by dis­trib­ut­ing email infor­ma­tion about the event, drop­ping it about in any social media you may be involved in, let­ting your local grow­ing projects or social jus­tice groups know, dis­trib­ut­ing our soon to be pro­duced ‘Lit­tle Red Trac­tor and the Quest of the GM-free Spuds’ leaflet or even orga­niz­ing a coach to attend from your area, we’d love to hear from you.

For more infor­ma­tion please check brief­ing to help you object to pro­posed field tri­al of GM pota­toes (http://www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/63A_spud_briefing_jic_final.pdf), and how to get hold of the solu­tion www.sarvari-trust.org.

Please put it in your diary, for­ward this mes­sage on to any­one who might be inter­est­ed, and hope­ful­ly we’ll see you there.

All the best,

The Stop GM Crew.

http://stopgm.org.uk/

Khimki Forest update and list of contractor offices

Rus­si­a’s Khim­ki For­est is not the peace­ful place it used to be, back when it was a 200-year-old oak for­est known for its eco­log­i­cal impor­tance to the Moscow region.

Rus­si­a’s Khim­ki For­est is not the peace­ful place it used to be, back when it was a 200-year-old oak for­est known for its eco­log­i­cal impor­tance to the Moscow region.

Today, it is filled with the roar of bull­doz­ers, and the screams of activists at night. For the last week, the Khim­ki For­est defenders…have been tak­ing turns camp­ing out to defend the for­est from ille­gal cut­ting. Each night, they put their lives at risk and every day they have expe­ri­enced esca­lat­ing vio­lence, includ­ing vio­lent attacks by pri­vate secu­ri­ty forces and unknown thugs. There have been injuries too—broken noses, head traumas—but it is not for naught. They have been some­what suc­cess­ful in stop­ping the log­ging, at least tem­porar­i­ly.

“Dear all, as I sus­pect­ed, many bad events hap­pened. When it got dark, they turned on the har­vester. They moved fast into the dip of the clear­ing. We ran after them from the camp. The secu­ri­ties did not let us go, they caught us by clothes and pushed us. But we went fur­ther and fur­ther, though slow­er. Then the har­vester start­ed to fell down the trees. We rushed through the guards to it. On a nar­row place the guards stopped us again. We called Russ­ian media, the mem­bers of the Pres­i­dent Coun­cil, the deputies, and of course the police.…”

Read more.

Police deten­tions, evi­dence gath­er­ing, video and fur­ther aggres­sion and videos.

Back­ground.

How we can sup­port the defend­ers includ­ing links to offices of the French con­struc­tion com­pa­ny involved.

ELF ACTIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH MARIE AND ERIC, RUSSIA

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“ ‘For me sol­i­dar­i­ty is a con­stant pro­pos­al to strug­gle, is the con­tin­u­a­tion and the devel­op­ment of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary action for which the com­rade was cap­tured’ — Gerasi­mos Tsaka­los, Con­spir­a­cy Cells of Fire

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Marie Mason and Eric McDavid — ELF actions in Moscow region of Rus­sia

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“ ‘For me sol­i­dar­i­ty is a con­stant pro­pos­al to strug­gle, is the con­tin­u­a­tion and the devel­op­ment of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary action for which the com­rade was cap­tured’ — Gerasi­mos Tsaka­los, Con­spir­a­cy Cells of Fire

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Marie Mason and Eric McDavid — ELF actions in Moscow region of Rus­sia

01.06 we torched elec­tri­cal mea­sur­ing and con­trol devices in 2 under­ground ser­vice booths of a water com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem that brings hot water to a mil­i­tary intel­li­gence site in Butovskiy for­est. To add to the fact that this infra­struc­ture serves mil­i­tary per­son­nel, more than 800 trees were cut dur­ing earth­works for this water sup­ply line to even appear in the for­est. To ham­per ser­vice brigades fur­ther, we also spiked the road they use for main­tain­ing the sys­tem.

05.06 we torched an exca­va­tor at a high­way con­struc­tion site west of Moscow (Voloko­lam­sk direc­tion).

06.00 and 10.06 we expro­pri­at­ed some con­struc­tion equip­ment and destroyed geol­o­gists’ mea­sure­ment posts in the glades of Butovskiy for­est.

11.06 we broke into yet anoth­er under­ground ser­vice booth and put to fire all the dig­i­tal and ana­logue devices and tools inside.

We ded­i­cate these attacks to Marie Mason and Eric McDavid. We don’t have an hon­our of per­son­al acquain­tance with them, but their ded­i­ca­tion to pro­tect­ing our Plan­et and con­scious choic­es they’ve made not only to act, but also to stand their ground in the wake of state repres­sions, inspire us and help us to con­tin­ue on our path.

For Earth Lib­er­a­tion! For Human Lib­er­a­tion!

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

Indigenous groups lead blockade against gas hub in Australia

13.6.11
More than 70 pro­test­ers are still block­ing the main access road to the site of Woodside’s pro­posed LNG precinct at James Price Point, 60km north of Broome.

A con­voy of Wood­side con­trac­tors has returned to Broome and no work will be car­ried out today, The West Aus­tralian under­stands.

13.6.11
More than 70 pro­test­ers are still block­ing the main access road to the site of Woodside’s pro­posed LNG precinct at James Price Point, 60km north of Broome.

A con­voy of Wood­side con­trac­tors has returned to Broome and no work will be car­ried out today, The West Aus­tralian under­stands.

A new block­ade was set up on the cor­ner of the Man­ari Road, clos­er to the Broome town site, pre­vent­ing con­trac­tors’ access since 5am today.

The pro­test­ers have blocked the road, which leads to Broome’s icon­ic Willie Creek Pearl Farm, but are allow­ing vehi­cles not asso­ci­at­ed with land clear­ing at James Price Point through the block­ade.

Sev­er­al local indige­nous women have been lead­ing the block­ade and are refus­ing to allow vehi­cles down the road.

Janet and Rowe­na Puer­tol­lano said Wood­side and the WA Gov­ern­ment should be con­sult­ing the entire Broome and Kim­ber­ley com­mu­ni­ty about the gas precinct, and not just the Goolarabooloo/Jabbir Jab­bir tra­di­tion­al own­ers of the area.

Both women say they are descen­dants of Jab­bir Jab­bir peo­ple, but were not allowed to vote in the recent bal­lot which approved the devel­op­ment in exchange for $1.5 bil­lion in ben­e­fits over the life of the project.

Janet Puer­tol­lano said that if her fam­i­ly had been includ­ed in the group it would have changed the out­come.

Last week for­mer Kim­ber­ley Land Coun­cil exec­u­tive direc­tor Wayne Bergmann con­demned the pro­test­ers for their “hooli­gan tac­tics” dur­ing the week.

The Kim­ber­ley Land Coun­cil and Wood­side have been con­tact­ed for com­ment.

Shell compound occupied for 9 hours – third action in two days

10th June 2011

10th June 2011
Wednes­day and Thurs­day saw a seri­ous of occu­pa­tions and actions against the drilling com­pound at Aghoos in Mayo as part of the ongo­ing cam­paign against Shell. The events cul­mi­nat­ed in an eight-hour lock-on and a nine hour occu­pa­tion of machin­ery which stopped all work for the day. Over thir­ty peo­ple were involved in the events. UK and oth­er inter­na­tion­al cam­paign­ers joined Irish activist as part of the days of action.

Shell com­pound occu­pied for 9 hours – third action in two days

Yes­ter­day, thir­ty activists, includ­ing an inter­na­tion­al pres­ence, took the Shell com­pound at Augh­oose where they are doing prepa­ra­tion work for the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline that will run high pres­sure gas through com­mu­ni­ties in North West­ern Ire­land. Three indi­vid­u­als man­aged to make it onto machin­ery while oth­ers closed the main gain with a lock-on. The result was no work done for the entire day. Five peo­ple were arrest­ed, all of whom are now released though some have been charged.

The action was done from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp which cur­rent­ly occu­pies a field on the oth­er side of the road from where Shell are work­ing. Plan­ning start­ed the night before, peo­ple want­i­ng to build on the reg­u­lar actions that have been tak­ing place over the last few months since the camp has been in place.

On Wednes­day, there had been anoth­er, short­er occu­pa­tion of the site dur­ing the day. How­ev­er, in the won­der­ful way these things hap­pen, a sec­ond vis­it to the site to do recon­nais­sance for Thurs­day’s protest turned into an action in its own right…

So, Thurs­day, 7.30am – a large group of peo­ple move across the field to the road and begin breach­ing the com­pound at numer­ous places. They found a large, frankly scary look­ing lock-on dropped off in front of the main gates, despite the pres­ence of fif­teen secu­ri­ty guards from IRMS try­ing to secure the access. Two peo­ple, “Bread” & “Jam” prompt­ly made use of this gift to attach them­selves to it.

Peo­ple swarmed every­where, mak­ing good use of their access as secu­ri­ty locked them­selves down in their cen­tral com­pound behind lines of har­ris fenc­ing, though that was no obsta­cle. Indeed, the only work that Shell did today was build­ing a sor­ry pile of man­gled fences.

Numer­ous peo­ple made it through the lines of guards to occu­py var­i­ous machin­ery and struc­tures, includ­ing the roof of the por­tak­abins. Three clam­bered onto the drilling and dig­ging machin­ery that the days’ work would have depend­ed on. Of these, one was lied to about not being arrest­ed on com­ing down so oth­er two, who were on the sam­pling drill and the large dig­ger, remained there for the next nine hours. By that time vic­to­ry was clear­ly in the hand of the pro­test­ers and they came down of their own accord.

In all this exu­ber­ance, all bar one of the win­dows of the house Shell own down the road decid­ed to shat­ter in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Mean­while, back at the main road, the campers pro­vid­ed sup­port to those locked-on. Police blocked off the road. The cut­ting team turned up at 10.15am and after a lot of head-scratch­ing start­ed cut­ting at 11am. The god of lock-on’s had pro­vid­ed them a fair headache and it took anoth­er four hours before they man­aged to extract Jam. By the time that Bread was cut-out the lock-on had been in place for eight hours.

All five peo­ple arrest­ed were tak­en to Bel­mul­let Gar­dai sta­tion. The two who were locked on were charged with not fol­low­ing police instruc­tions and for obstruc­tion. The oth­er three who were on the machin­ery were let go with­out charge for that, though one was sub­se­quent­ly re-arrest­ed for a pre­vi­ous action. Sup­port will con­tin­ue.

In all, a fan­tas­tic day out, espe­cial­ly with the rain hold­ing off until the action was over.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and the cam­paign against Shell see
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org