Category: Action Reports

Bristol Solidarity With Vesta Occupation

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

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

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

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

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

Anti-nuclear Camp in Lecce — Italy

ENG
Italy – Lec­ce

20 – 23 AUGUST IN SALENTO, NUCLEAR CLIMATE CAMP

In the con­text of the social and envi­ron­men­tal resis­tance, typ­i­cal of the pop­u­lar strug­gles in Italy, a series of expe­ri­ences, sub­jec­tiv­i­ties and col­lec­tiv­i­ties emerged in the Autumn of 2008 in oppo­si­tion to the gov­ern­ment project to restart the Civ­il Nuclear pro­gramme.

ENG
Italy – Lec­ce

20 – 23 AUGUST IN SALENTO, NUCLEAR CLIMATE CAMP

In the con­text of the social and envi­ron­men­tal resis­tance, typ­i­cal of the pop­u­lar strug­gles in Italy, a series of expe­ri­ences, sub­jec­tiv­i­ties and col­lec­tiv­i­ties emerged in the Autumn of 2008 in oppo­si­tion to the gov­ern­ment project to restart the Civ­il Nuclear pro­gramme.

Although a decade of grass­rots strug­gles and the ref­er­en­dum of 1987 led to the clos­ing of pow­er sta­tions and the nuclear pro­gramme, on 2th july 2009 the Cam­era (ital­ian par­lia­ment) approved the “DDL Svilup­po-pac­chet­to anti­crisi” that con­tains the reopen­ing of nuclear pow­er sta­tions. In the next 6 months, the gov­ern­ment will announce the sites, declared of “strate­gic-mil­i­tary inter­est”, in order to avoid clash­es with Local Author­i­ties: a open dec­la­ra­tion of war against the pop­u­la­tion!

After one year of meet­ings and pub­lic ini­tia­tives, that gave birth to the Nation­al Anti-Nuclear Coor­di­na­tion health-envi­ron­ment-ener­gy , the Pugliese Coor­di­na­tion is orga­niz­ing a resis­tance camp, in August in Salen­to, con­vivial days of “pizzi­ca” folk music and ded­i­ca­tion to the cause. The Pugliese Coor­di­na­tion was set up in 1985 to fight nuclear instal­la­tions in Puglia, and oth­er parts of Italy. Already, even before Cer­nobyl, in 1985, the move­ment was reject­ing the nuclear in Puglia.

The resis­tance camp will take place from 20th to 23rd of August in the “Masse­ria Fat­tezze”, 2km away from Ionio sea/Cesareo sea­port: this peri­od also sees the “Notte del­la Taran­ta”, that takes place in var­i­ous parts of Salen­to, fin­ish­ing the 22th of August in Melpig­nano.
We have choosen this site, a well know cul­tur­al ref­er­ence in Salen­to, because it wont cost to you to enter, but it will cost 5 euros per day and there’s a kitchen that will cook tipi­cal salen­tine food.

The resis­tance camp will basi­cal­ly focus on nuclear ener­gy and fos­sil-fuels, but will be also dis­cuss oth­er issues on the autum­nal polit­i­cal agen­da: the cri­sis, pre­ca­ri­ety and incomes, racism, “major-works” from the TAV to the Bridge over the Straits, from motor­ways to drilling, from incin­er­a­tors to regas­si­fi­ca­tors, so all that kind of things that are the con­ti­nu­ity of a mod­el that has left only death and destruc­tion over the ter­ri­to­ries.

The camp will also focus on the Inter­na­tion­al sit­u­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the lib­er­a­tion strug­gle in Pales­tine, Kur­dis­tan, Nige­ria.

The gen­er­al pro­gramme is:

Thurs­day 20th August
6:00pm Intro­duc­tion to the camp, and about cur­rent sit­u­a­tions
7:30pm Inter­na­tion­al overview

Fri­day 21th August
6:00pm Cri­sis: Work, pre­ca­ri­ety, income
7:30pm Com­mon goods – region­al ener­gy plan

Sat­ur­day 22nd August
6:00pm Anti-nuclear assem­bly and ener­gy choic­es

Sun­day 23rd August
6:00pm “Field-trip” on the nuclear select­ed site, in Ave­trana
9:00pm Par­ty with Salen­tine music

Pugliese Coor­di­na­tion / Nation­al Anti-Nuclear Coor­di­na­tion health-envi­ron­ment-ener­gy

boboaprile@tiscali.it
tel. 0039368582406

Tens of Thousands Protest for Democracy in the Forests, India

Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maha­rash­tra, Mad­hya Pradesh, Chhat­tis­garh, Jhark­hand, and Oris­sa wit­ness chak­ka jams, ras­ta rokos, dhar­nas, mor­chas and oth­er protests.

Today in State cap­i­tals and dis­trict head­quar­ters across the coun­try, many tens of thou­sands of peo­ple joined mor­chas, dhar­nas and ras­ta rokos with the fol­low­ing demands:

Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maha­rash­tra, Mad­hya Pradesh, Chhat­tis­garh, Jhark­hand, and Oris­sa wit­ness chak­ka jams, ras­ta rokos, dhar­nas, mor­chas and oth­er protests.

Today in State cap­i­tals and dis­trict head­quar­ters across the coun­try, many tens of thou­sands of peo­ple joined mor­chas, dhar­nas and ras­ta rokos with the fol­low­ing demands:

* Halt For­est Depart­ment inter­fer­ence, exclu­sion of rights hold­ers, and vio­la­tion of peo­ple’s rights under under the For­est Rights Act;
* Recog­nise our right and pow­er to pro­tect and con­trol our forests and resources;
* Stop ille­gal­ly destroy­ing forests and rob­bing us of our resources through diver­sion for pri­vate com­pa­nies and large projects.

In a tragedy, four pro­test­ers were killed and two seri­ous­ly injured in Devala, Udaipur Dis­trict, when a lor­ry hit the pro­test­ers as their ras­ta roko was end­ing. The organ­i­sa­tion is pur­su­ing the case to ensure that the dri­ver and oth­er con­cerned per­sons are arrest­ed and brought to jus­tice. Those who lost their lives in the strug­gle will be hon­oured as mar­tyrs.

Protests took place in the fol­low­ing States:

Rajasthan: Chak­ka jams took place in Ban­swa­da, Dun­garpur, Udaipur, Prat­ap­garh Dis­tricts, in total in 12 loca­tions. More than 6,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed. The ras­ta rokos includ­ed a block­ade on the Nation­al High­way at Chind­wara More.

Oris­sa: More than 5,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in a chak­ka jam in Bhubanesh­war, shut­ting down the main cross­roads in the city for more than two hours. Peo­ple joined the demon­stra­tion from across the state. Protests also took place in major dis­trict head­quar­ters.

Maha­rash­tra: Ras­ta rokos took place through­out the State, in sev­er­al loca­tions in Thane Dis­trict (on the Ahmed­abad – Mum­bai nation­al high­way), in two places in Raigad dis­trict, in 4 places in Nan­dur­bar dis­trict (ras­ta rokos will con­tin­ue over the next three days in oth­er loca­tions in the dis­trict).

Mad­hya Pradesh: Approx­i­mate­ly 4,000 peo­ple from 20 dis­tricts joined a chak­ka jam in Bhopal for sev­er­al hours. More than 3,000 peo­ple court­ed arrest and were arrest­ed.

Gujarat: Mass ral­lies took place in Rajpi­pla (10,000 peo­ple), Dharam­pur (4,000 peo­ple), Sabarkan­tha Dis­trict (dhar­nas at three loca­tions). Protests will take place in Cho­ta Udaipur, Vyara and Bhilwa­da are expect­ed in the com­ing days, in which sev­er­al thou­sand peo­ple are expect­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

Chhat­tis­garh: A mass dhar­na took place in Raipur in which approx­i­mate­ly 1,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed.

Jhark­hand: Peo­ple from Kun­ti, Haz­arib­agh and Ranchi dis­trict joined a mass demon­stra­tion in Ranchi. Ral­lies took place at the sub-divi­sion­al lev­el in East Singhb­hum and at the block lev­el in Late­har, Pala­mau, West Singhb­hum Dis­tricts.

The pas­sage of the For­est Rights Act in Decem­ber 2006 was a his­toric step for­ward for the strug­gle against the auto­crat­ic, bru­tal and repres­sive rule of colo­nial laws and the For­est Depart­ment in Indi­a’s forests. But the mere pas­sage of a law is not enough to over­turn a cen­tu­ry of oppres­sion. Today, the fight con­tin­ues for a new order in the forests – one built around democ­ra­cy instead of bureau­cra­cy, around the peo­ple rather than the offi­cials, and around the forests and their cit­i­zens rather than the cor­po­rates and cap­i­tal.

Mapuche communities mobilize to reclaim land

Sev­er­al Mapuche com­mu­ni­ties have begun to reclaim tra­di­tion­al lands in Arau­ca­nia, cen­tral Chile.

The recla­ma­tion began on July 23, about 2 weeks after the gov­ern­ment of Michelle Bachelet refused to sit down with a group of Mapuche activists and talk about their con­cerns as Indige­nous Peo­ple.

Mapuche mobilisationSev­er­al Mapuche com­mu­ni­ties have begun to reclaim tra­di­tion­al lands in Arau­ca­nia, cen­tral Chile.

The recla­ma­tion began on July 23, about 2 weeks after the gov­ern­ment of Michelle Bachelet refused to sit down with a group of Mapuche activists and talk about their con­cerns as Indige­nous Peo­ple.

The activists had trav­eled 680 km to meet with Bachelet, hav­ing already wait­ed for weeks to hear from from Araucania’s gov­er­nor about estab­lish­ing a dia­logue .

Before head­ing home, the group left Bachelet a let­ter, stat­ing they would take action unless the goven­r­ment addressed their con­cerns.

On July 23, the Mapuche began to occu­py prop­er­ties they iden­ti­fy as part of their tra­di­tion­al lands, includ­ing one held by a log­ging com­pa­ny. Road­blocks have also been set up in at least 5 dif­fer­ent areas in Arau­ca­nia.

The so-called left­ist gov­ern­ment final­ly decid­ed to respond—with vio­lence. The police were sent in to pro­tect the log­ging com­pa­ny and evict the Mapuche – a “vio­lent occu­py­ing force” as far as the gov­ern­ment is con­cerned. “Both Mapuche and police were injured in the clash­es” that fol­lowed, says IPS News.

Sev­er­al oth­er attacks against the Mapuche have also been report­ed.

Last week, the para­mil­i­tary group “Her­nan Trizano Com­man­do” also came for­ward and pub­licly threat­ened to blow up and “dis­ap­pear from the world” sev­er­al Mapuche lead­ers involved in the recla­ma­tion, start­ing August 3.

“In response, Sen­a­tor Ale­jan­dro Navar­ro, the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date of a new polit­i­cal par­ty, the Movimien­to Amplio Social (MAS – Broad Social Move­ment) announced… that he would file a law­suit invok­ing the anti-ter­ror­ism law against the para­mil­i­tary group,” IPS con­tin­ues.

The gov­ern­ment itself does not appear to be tak­ing any for­mal action against this imme­di­ate threat. Instead, they are embold­en­ing the vig­i­lante group by claim­ing the Mapuche effort is noth­ing more than “vio­lent actions” led by a small minor­i­ty: sev­en of Chile’s 2,800 indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.

Juan Car­los Curi­nao, a Mapuche “Lon­co” or Chief, respond­ed to the claims in a recent inter­view with IPS.Curinao said that the mobi­liza­tion is in fact led by 40 Lon­cos, who togeth­er rep­re­sent every Mapuche sub­group.

He also said that the recla­ma­tion is non-vio­lent. “We don’t car­ry weapons to go around hurt­ing non-indige­nous set­tlers, we are fight­ing for our cul­ture. It is the state that has attacked us, shoot­ing at us.”

“If I occu­py prop­er­ty, it’s not vio­lence; I am reclaim­ing my ter­ri­to­ry,” he added.

While “there is no solu­tion in sight”—-in large part because the gov­ern­ment refus­es to abide by inter­na­tion­al law and sit down with the Mapuche—there’s a small chance that things will turn for the bet­ter this week. The Sen­ate has announced that it will hold a spe­cial ses­sion on Wednes­day, Aug. 5 to dis­cuss “the secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion that is affect­ing the region of Arau­canía.”

Updates in English:www.mapuche.nl. Updates in Span­ish: www.observatorio.cl

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

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

SABOTAGE OF EARTH-DESTROYING COMPANY, MEXICO

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

SABOTAGE OF EARTH-DESTROYING COMPANY, MEXICO

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

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

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

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

Highgate Farm Protest Camp

Activists have occu­pied land near the entrance of High­gate Rab­bit Farm in protest against their breed­ing of rab­bits and fer­rets for the vivi­sec­tion indus­try. They sup­ply sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ty and com­mer­cial lab­o­ra­to­ries, includ­ing Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences (HLS).

Activists have occu­pied land near the entrance of High­gate Rab­bit Farm in protest against their breed­ing of rab­bits and fer­rets for the vivi­sec­tion indus­try. They sup­ply sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ty and com­mer­cial lab­o­ra­to­ries, includ­ing Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences (HLS). The campers are hold­ing a peace­ful occu­pa­tion of the land, call­ing on the clo­sure of the farm, and for the farmer Geof­frey Dou­glas to hand the ani­mals over to a suit­able organ­i­sa­tion for rehom­ing.

If you can make it to the camp for any peri­od of time, please ring the camp num­ber: 07941184529
The farm is locat­ed at: High­gate Farm, High­gate lane, Nor­man­by-by-Spi­tal, Mar­ket Rasen, Lin­colnshire, LN8 2HQ
Click here for a map and direc­tions.

There are sev­er­al ways you can sup­port the action:

• You can tele­phone the farm on: 01673 878259 and 01673 878 232.
• You can attend the camp to protest — whether it is for an hour, a day or a week your pres­ence would be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.
* You can write to the farm at the address above.
* You can attend the nation­al protest on the 26th Sep­tem­ber (click here for details)

Please keep all com­mu­ni­ca­tions to the farm infor­ma­tive and polite. The pur­pose of your cor­re­spon­dence is to urge them to stop breed­ing ani­mals for vivi­sec­tion, and to allow the ani­mals to be rehomed.

Mon­day’s time­line
Tues­day’s time­line
Wednes­day’s time­line
Thurs­day’s time­line
Fri­day’s time­line
Sat­ur­day’s Time­line

Titnore Woods threat — Tescos every little Hurts!!!

1.8.2009
Tescos & Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil agree to devel­op­ment of Tit­nore Woods!

Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil and Tescos HAVE agreed to destroy the ancient Tit­nore Woods,it was passed yes­ter­day.

Words fail me but Tescos REALLY are liv­ing in the age of stu­pid!

Please bring canned food and rope to the protest camp and your­selves please.

1.8.2009
Tescos & Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil agree to devel­op­ment of Tit­nore Woods!

Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil and Tescos HAVE agreed to destroy the ancient Tit­nore Woods,it was passed yes­ter­day.

Words fail me but Tescos REALLY are liv­ing in the age of stu­pid!

Please bring canned food and rope to the protest camp and your­selves please.

More Includ­ing direc­tions to camp can be found at www.protectourwoodland.co.uk

Wor­thing Bor­ough Coun­cil please hang your heads in shame those that vot­ed this insane appli­ca­tion through!

Latest EF! Action Update bursts forth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Borneo tribe mounts new blockades against rainforest destruction

30 July 2009
Dozens of Penan tribes­peo­ple armed with blow­pipes and spears have erect­ed block­ades across the roads cut by log­ging com­pa­nies deep into their for­est in Bor­neo. The block­aders are call­ing for an end to log­ging on their land.

30 July 2009
Dozens of Penan tribes­peo­ple armed with blow­pipes and spears have erect­ed block­ades across the roads cut by log­ging com­pa­nies deep into their for­est in Bor­neo. The block­aders are call­ing for an end to log­ging on their land.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for recog­ni­tion of the hunter-gath­er­er Penan tribe’s land rights and a halt to all devel­op­ment on their land with­out their con­sent.

Malaysian police are at the block­ades, but no arrests have been report­ed.

One Penan man told Sur­vival, ‘This piece of for­est is the only place left for us to hunt and find food. But there’s only a lit­tle bit left. Last night I went hunt­ing and came back with noth­ing. If we can’t save this bit of for­est, we will have noth­ing to eat.’

The Penan live in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of the island of Bor­neo. They have been strug­gling for more than twen­ty years to stop the com­pa­nies clear­ing their forests. Some have been suc­cess­ful, but many have seen their forests dev­as­tat­ed, their rivers pol­lut­ed and the ani­mals and plants they rely on for food dis­ap­pear.

Now, where the valu­able trees have all been tak­en, the com­pa­nies are start­ing to clear the land com­plete­ly for oil palm plan­ta­tions. Palm oil is used in many foods and cos­met­ics, and increas­ing­ly for bio­fu­els.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘The log­ging and oil palm com­pa­nies are rob­bing the Penan not just of their forests but of their food and water. It is essen­tial that the Malaysian gov­ern­ment rec­og­nizes the Penan’s rights to their land and stops allow­ing the com­pa­nies to take every­thing in sight.’

The noto­ri­ous Malaysian com­pa­ny Sam­ling is log­ging in the Long Daloh area, and a sub­sidiary of the com­pa­ny KTS is log­ging in the Ba Marong area.

Sur­vival researcher Miri­am Ross vis­it­ed the Penan ear­li­er this year, and is avail­able for inter­view.

Vis­it Survival’s web­page about the Penan

For more infor­ma­tion and images please con­tact Miri­am Ross:
T (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or (+44) (0)7504543367
E mr@survival-international.org

Two Irish Anti-Shell Campaigners Jailed for Civil Disobedience

31.7.2009

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

31.7.2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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