Category: Action Reports

Attempted RampArt Eviction Under False Pretence

12 March 2009

12 March 2009
Ear­li­er this morn­ing there was a minor fire in the derelict part of the block on Ram­part Street. After the fire had been put out, sev­er­al men knocked on the door at Ram­pARTS, claim­ing to be from the fire brigade. After they had gained entry under this false pre­tense, they were revealed to be agents of the own­er of the build­ing. The pro­ceed­ed to call the police and evict­ed the per­son inside. With­out both­er­ing to ascer­tain that there were no more peo­ple in the house, they start­ed to board up the build­ing, plac­ing secu­ri­ty per­son­nel at the doors. In the mean­time some peo­ple man­aged to climb back into the build­ing, car­ry­ing on with the suc­cess­ful occu­pa­tion. About 30 peo­ple are out­side and are ask­ing for every­one to join them and show their sup­port for this com­mu­ni­ty.

The evic­tion comes 20 days before the G20 hits Lon­don, on a day were one of sev­er­al relat­ed events was announced for ram­pART. The Social Cen­tre had also announced to keep the doors open dur­ing the G20.

++ 15:00 ++

Secu­ri­ty dragged on per­son out of house num­ber 7 and beat him up. Police have with­drawn, but fire­bri­gade is there.

Peo­ple are still inside ram­pART, and are call­ing for sup­port to defend it from being board­ed up.

++ 16:00 ++

Evic­tion has been suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed.

Secu­ri­ties are still next door, there are few­er peo­ple at ram­pART, and still call­ing for more peo­ple to come, as they want to retain a strong pres­ence.

WE NEED MORE NUMBERS.

Ram­parts has been an amaz­ing com­mu­ni­ty and polit­i­cal activ­i­ty cen­tre for a few years. There was an evic­tion order which ran out after the own­er failed to act for 6 months. nev­er­the­less, today’s events threat­en to take Ram­parts away once again, and for good. we need sup­port NOW.

ram­pART
15 ‑17 Ram­part Street, Lon­don E1 2LA (near Whitechapel, off Com­mer­cial Rd)
rampart[at]mutualaid.org
07050 618445
ram­pART | ram­pART MySpace |

Stop the Rot, Squat the Lot — new Brighton social centre

An attempt to cre­ate a social space in Brighton out­is­de of the banal injus­tice of land­lord­ship and cap­i­tal­ism, and all the highs and lows that come with it!

squat logo 1An attempt to cre­ate a social space in Brighton out­is­de of the banal injus­tice of land­lord­ship and cap­i­tal­ism, and all the highs and lows that come with it!

A cou­ple of weeks ago, in the depths of night, a small group of pesky squat­ters approached Van­tage Point with the intent of enter­ing and occu­py­ing one of the emp­ty ground floor shop fronts. After a suc­cess­ful entrance, the prop­er­ty was secured and some of our last remain­ing civ­il rights cel­e­brat­ed.

The occu­pied prop­er­ty, the old ‘Gamer Heav­en’ games café (7 – 8 Cir­cus Parade), is part of a large build­ing owned by St. James’ Invest­ments, a May­fair based prop­er­ty devel­op­er who buy up the hous­es, shops or any oth­er build­ing of those in finan­cial cri­sis for cash, but for sig­nif­i­cant­ly less than it’s actu­al val­ue. It is they that are build­ing the new Tesco super­store to the west of Lon­don Road, thus dis­plac­ing a mul­ti­tude of small busi­ness­es and gen­er­al­ly gen­tri­fy­ing the area.
The inten­tion of those involved was to open up the space as a social cen­tre, using it as a blank slate for any­one and every­one to get involved, so artists and musi­cians were invit­ed to come and make the one room as cre­ative and com­fort­able as pos­si­ble. After a fran­tic week of tat­ting, paint­ing, build­ing and gen­er­al­ly organ­is­ing with ridicu­lous­ly low funds, the space was opened to the pub­lic on Fri­day the 27th of Feb­ru­ary. There was live music, a con­tin­u­a­tion of the Smash EDO ‘Art not War’ art gallery, food and a small info shop, as well as some oth­er bits ‘n’ bobs. The whole event went down in a beau­ti­ful­ly hap­haz­ard way, and despite every­thing hap­pen­ing in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent man­ner to what was expect­ed, the con­sen­sus was that a good thing had hap­pened.
There was no con­tact for a week, despite the par­ty going on until 4am, but on Mon­day the 2nd of March, the build­ing man­ag­er attempt­ed to enter. After the briefest of con­ver­sa­tions through the door, with his con­tri­bu­tion being ‘f***ing squat­ters!’, a hand­ful of suits turned up. They did­n’t want to talk, and it was obvi­ous that they did­n’t know the law, but it was explained to them that there were prop­er legal chan­nels through which they had to go in order to evict the occu­piers.

Accu­sa­tions of sex­u­al abuse!

Despite this, on Thurs­day the 5th of March Rossendales secu­ri­ty, whose slo­gan is ‘Proud to be Pro­fes­sion­als’, issued the occu­pants with a ‘Notice to Quit’, pre­car­i­ous­ly claim­ing that under sec­tion 33 of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Act 1994 (CJA), and sec­tion 61 of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994 (CJPOA), they had the right to remove any peo­ple or vehi­cles still resid­ing in the prop­er­ty after twen­ty-four hours of issu­ing the notice.

How­ev­er, a quick liai­son with the the fan­tas­ti­cal­ly use­ful and great­ly appre­ci­at­ed Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters (ASS) revealed that there is no sec­tion 33 of the CJA, but sec­tion 33 of the CJPOA deals with the “Abo­li­tion of cor­rob­o­ra­tion require­ments under the Sex­u­al Offences Act 1956”. Now, despite the squat­ter stereo­type, we are not sex­u­al offend­ers, so it is hard to see where Rossendales were going with this!

Fur­ther on, and the ASS revealed that sec­tion 61 of the CJPOA deals with “Pow­ers to remove tres­passers on land”, but sub­sec­tion (9) makes it clear that this only refers to tres­passers on com­mon land, and since the occu­pied prop­er­ty is not com­mon land but pri­vate prop­er­ty, the sec­tion does not apply, and the mat­ter is only resolv­able in a court of law, as the suits were told when we first spoke to them!

Any­way, the mat­ter was resolved by the ASS fax­ing a let­ter explain­ing this to Rossendales secu­ri­ty, as well as con­tact­ing Brighton police to con­firm that any attempt at forced entry would result in a swift arrest, and guess what…the bailiffs nev­er showed.

Same old abstrac­tion bol­locks

To con­tin­ue the bom­bard­ment Brighton squat­ters receive by var­i­ous author­i­ties, the police reared their ugly head on Mon­day (the 5th) accus­ing those inside of abstrac­tion (the ille­gal use of elec­tric­i­ty). When an occu­pant asked who was at the door, one pig called him­self Phil and asked to be let in, but when they were refused entry they pro­ceed­ed to try and kick the door in, an ille­gal act con­sid­er­ing they did­n’t have a war­rant.

How­ev­er, due to this com­mon attempt by the cops at a quick an easy evic­tion, Brighton squat­ters have got quite savvy with the legal­i­ties of elec­tric­i­ty, and quick­ly pro­duced a let­ter from the occu­pants to the sup­pli­er con­firm­ing their intent to pay for any elec­tric­i­ty they used, and a reply from the sup­pli­er to the occu­pants accept­ing this affir­ma­tion. Even­tu­al­ly the police left, but what was inter­est­ing was that both of them were recog­nis­able by a num­ber of the squat­ters as the team that had ille­gal­ly evict­ed them from a res­i­den­tial prop­er­ty ear­li­er in the year. Nice try Sergeant Bell­field and the ille­gal squat evic­tion team, but you won’t get us out this time!

After all this malarkey, the space is still there and wait­ing to be used by any­one, for what­ev­er you want. So far we have had acoustic music nights, films, food, as well as ever-chang­ing art­work and an infos­hop. We still have not received court papers but are expect­ing them in the next few days, so come along and enjoy the space whilst it is still there! Just pop down, or email brightonfreespace@riseup.net.

Brighton Free­Space
http://www.brightonfreespace.webs.com

The Greening of Peter Mandelson & Hoon ‘hooned’ — arrrested update

6th March

Mandelson slimed6th March
Green cus­tard was this morn­ing thrown in the face of the Labour gov­ern­ments Busi­ness Sec­re­tary, Peter Man­del­son by Plane Stu­pid activist Leila Deen. The for­mer North­ern Ire­land Sec­re­tary was accost­ed moments after step­ping out of his limo to attend a so-called ‘low-car­bon’ sum­mit in Lon­don. In full view of the assem­bled TV cam­eras he got a face full of cus­tard and hur­ried inside. Leila then explained to the cam­eras that the action had been over Man­del­sons unelect­ed and unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic role in grant­i­ng per­mis­sion for Heathrows third run­way on behalf of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

Man­dle­son referred to the inci­dent as an ‘ado­les­cent protest’. He joked, “I sup­pose in a democ­ra­cy peo­ple are enti­tled to have their say but I would rather peo­ple said it to my face rather than throw it. I am pre­pared to take my fair share of the green rev­o­lu­tion on my shoul­ders but I am less keen on hav­ing it in my face.”

When inter­viewed lat­er on the BBC Leila Deen described the move as a “last resort” after the demo­c­ra­t­ic process failed. She said that Man­del­son was an unelect­ed politi­cian and he was sid­ing with the “inter­ests of busi­ness” rather than the “inter­ests of the peo­ple and the plan­et” in back­ing the new run­way.

She jus­ti­fied the “direct action” as the best way of bring­ing about change, claim­ing she and oth­ers were exclud­ed from the demo­c­ra­t­ic process. “When democ­ra­cy is fail­ing you have to resort to any means nec­es­sary as long as it is peace­ful and does not harm oth­er human beings,” she said.

She con­tin­ued, “Peter Man­del­son is the same per­son who effec­tive­ly bul­lied Ed Miliband and oth­er mem­bers of the cab­i­net to accept a third run­way that nobody wants, a third run­way that no one was con­sult­ed on and no one is able to say no to. It’s not right that some­one like Peter Man­del­son can stand up and talk about being green.”

Leila Deen, 29, said:

“That such a clear­ly cor­rupt human being is still in gov­ern­ment, despite being unelect­ed, is an affront to democ­ra­cy and a threat to any hope we have of stop­ping the impact that cli­mate change is already begin­ning to have on our lives. We have a tiny win­dow left to stop cli­mate change. I want to tell my chil­dren that I did not stand back and applaud as Man­del­son ruined our last chance.”

—-

March 5th 2009

Hoon ‘hooned’ in sil­ly stunt

Geoff Hoon woke up yes­ter­day and went out to give a speech to the Roy­al Soci­ety about the many solu­tions to avi­a­tion and cli­mate change. The solu­tion, of course, is to let every­one fly as much as they like, because tech­nol­o­gy would save us. Tech­nol­o­gy and the Emis­sions Trad­ing Scheme, which, as he remind­ed his audi­ence, is a real and effec­tive cap on avi­a­tion emis­sions in Europe…

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

The Sec­re­tary of State was cut off in mid-flow, as a loud honk­ing noise blared out across the room. Up popped a young woman who apol­o­gised for mak­ing a rack­et. She’d rather fool­ish­ly for­got­ten to turn off her lie detec­tor horn, which had picked up on Hoon’s rather bla­tant fib­bing. It would­n’t hap­pen again, she promised.

Of course it did; oth­er peo­ple in the audi­ence had brought their lie detec­tors and these kept sound­ing as Hoon tried to give his speech. If only, he thought to him­self, I’d remem­bered to tell the truth, instead of a bunch of non­sense that sound­ed good when Fly­ing Mat­ters told it to me. Maybe these sil­ly stunts have a pur­pose after all…

—-

Update: Leila Deen, Cus­tard Queen, Arrest­ed

8th March
Lon­don activist Leila Deen was arrest­ed Sat­ur­day for throw­ing green cus­tard over gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Peter Man­del­son on Fri­day to protest at his unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic involve­ment in the deci­sion to Heathrow air­port. She received a text mes­sage and phone call from the police to inform her she was to be arrest­ed for com­mon assault. After being inter­viewed she was released with­out charge, and bailed to return on the 9th of April.

Lelia had man­aged to avoid secu­ri­ty out­side the Roy­al Soci­ety on Fri­day morn­ing where Man­dle­son he was due to attend a co-called ‘low-car­bon’ sum­mit in Lon­don. After Leila threw the cus­tard over him, Man­dle­son rushed inside the build­ing drip­ping with green goo. About five min­utes lat­er he returned to face the media with some hasti­ly pre­pared dam­age con­trol ‘wit’.

There is con­flict­ing infor­ma­tion on whether Man­del­son had made a com­plaint or whether the police were oblig­ed to inves­ti­gate the inci­dent with­out a for­mal com­plaint being made. Lelia said that the police had been told that they had to take action although Man­del­son had appar­ent­ly not made a for­mal com­plaint but some of the main­stream media reports sug­gest­ed that Man­del­son had now mad a com­plaint. Man­del­son was also report­ed as say­ing he was sur­prised that his attack­er “could just saunter off with­out being appre­hend­ed”.

Bank climate rush at RBS

5th March 2009
About 100 peo­ple gath­ered out­side RBS this lunch time.

RBS Climate Rush 1RBS Climate Rush 25th March 2009
About 100 peo­ple gath­ered out­side RBS this lunch time.

Envi­ron­men­tal “Cli­mate Rush” activists gath­er out­side RBS (Roy­al Bank of Scot­land) to protest the pen­sion pay out to Sir Fred Good­win, for­mer RBS Chief Exec­u­tive, of 16 Mil­lion GBP.

The sec­ond event organ­ised by Cli­mate Rush in less than a week, around a hun­dred peo­ple gath­ered out­side the RBS head offices near Liv­er­pool Street Sta­tion, although a large per­cent­age of those were press or oth­ers with cam­eras. The police were there to in great num­bers guard­ing every door to the vast RBS build­ing and plen­ty more in reserve in vans hid­den away in the back street just in case. An uncom­fort­able mix of Met and City cops, they need­n’t have wor­ried as the hasti­ly organ­ised ‘rush’ had attract­ed only a small crew and the action turned into more of a pic­nic than an full frontal assault on the bank.

Despite being a cli­mate rush event it did attract the local Whitechapel Anar­chist, the Gov­ern­ment of the Dead and Class War’s Ian Bone. So-called ‘FIT’ were there too to take some snaps and make voice inac­cu­rate obser­va­tions about peo­ple per­son­al lives. Crowds of city work­ers took pho­tos with their mobiles from van­tage points on the oppo­site side of the road and RBS employ­ees watched from the bal­conies inside their glass fortress.

Speech­es where made (ampli­fied over the tan­dem towed trail­er sound sys­tem) and high­light­ed the how this bank which is now most­ly owned by the tax pay­er con­tin­ues to sup­ply fund­ing to indus­tries com­plic­it in cli­mate crimes. Much was made of a cer­tain wankers retire­ment pay-off and a cap was hand­ed round to top up his pen­sion should he choose to for­go his unde­served wind fall (the £8.27 col­lect­ed was lat­er giv­en to a home­less per­son who seemed more in need). Also raised dur­ing the speech­es was the mobil­i­sa­tions being planned around the G20 in April.

Many passers by enquired what was going on, at least one joined in. There were no arrests, no rush. Lots of cam­eras, lit­tle to shoot. Some food, some tea, lit­tle anger but a bit of danc­ing.

History Repeated — Skyr Thrown on Greenwashing PR Managers

March 5 2009
Yes­ter­day three black dressed indi­vid­u­als, masked with alu­mini­um foil, threw green Skyr (tra­di­tion­al Ice­landic dairy prod­uct) on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ice­landic ener­gy com­pa­nies dur­ing a green­wash pre­sen­ta­tion in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ice­land. In June 2005 Sav­ing Ice­land threw Skyr on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Alcoa and Bech­tel dur­ing an inter­na­tion­al alu­mini­um con­fer­ence in Reyk­javík.

Skyr chucked on PR greenwashersMarch 5 2009
Yes­ter­day three black dressed indi­vid­u­als, masked with alu­mini­um foil, threw green Skyr (tra­di­tion­al Ice­landic dairy prod­uct) on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ice­landic ener­gy com­pa­nies dur­ing a green­wash pre­sen­ta­tion in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ice­land. In June 2005 Sav­ing Ice­land threw Skyr on rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Alcoa and Bech­tel dur­ing an inter­na­tion­al alu­mini­um con­fer­ence in Reyk­javík.

Gaia — the stu­dent asso­ci­a­tion of Mas­ter stu­dents in Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, had orga­nized a “Green Week” in the uni­ver­si­ty. Among activ­i­ties was this par­tic­u­lar pre­sen­ta­tion by e.g. Landsvirkjun (Iceland’s nation­al ener­gy com­pa­ny), O.R. (Reyk­javík Ener­gy) and Geysir Green Ener­gy; all com­pa­nies who are involved in the devel­op­ment of the alu­mini­um indus­try in Ice­land.

Green­wash­No­body has claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the action and no press release has been sent to the media. But the his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ence is clear and one does not need a lot of imag­i­na­tion to get in mind what the mes­sage of this action was.

RÚV, Iceland’s nation­al TV sta­tion stat­ed in its evening news that Öskra!, a new­ly formed move­ment of rev­o­lu­tion­aly stu­dents, had claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty for the action. A lit­tle lat­er Öskra! sent out a press release say­ing:

Yes­ter­day green skyr (tra­di­tion­al Ice­landic food which has been used over the years in direct actions — show­ing dis­re­spect and dis­ap­proval) was thrown on the image man­agers of the ener­gy com­pa­nies that took part in the green-wash­ing days in the uni­ver­si­ty.

Öskra! — The rev­o­lu­tion­ary stu­dents move­ment, is not respon­si­ble for the skyr throw­ing action, and does not know who did it, but under­stands and sup­ports it com­plete­ly.

“Green Ener­gy” is one of the cap­i­tal­ists false solu­tions to the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion which threat­ens all life on earth. If the ener­gy com­pa­nies want to call them self green, they can just be green.

Green­washThe Skyr throw­ers got away and no one was arrest­ed but accord­ing to Ice­land Review, a “uni­ver­si­ty staff mem­ber caught hold of one of the activists, but lost his grip as a spec­ta­tor dis­rupt­ed him. Police are inves­ti­gat­ing the case.”

Like Öskra!, Sav­ing Ice­land announces a com­plete sup­port with this great action!

Shell due to restart work in Ireland soon

Shell will attempt to lay the off­shore pipe this Spring and prepa­ra­tion work both on land and at sea is due to start in the next few weeks. We are deter­mined to stop this prepa­ra­tion work and so peo­ple are need­ed from mid-March — May.
We expect Shell to begin putting up secu­ri­ty fences and build­ing the com­pound very soon, pos­si­bly in the next few weeks…

Don't let Shell destroy this!Rossport Solidarity Camp logoShell will attempt to lay the off­shore pipe this Spring and prepa­ra­tion work both on land and at sea is due to start in the next few weeks. We are deter­mined to stop this prepa­ra­tion work and so peo­ple are need­ed from mid-March — May.
We expect Shell to begin putting up secu­ri­ty fences and build­ing the com­pound very soon, pos­si­bly in the next few weeks…
get on our call out list: rossportsolidaritycamp-subscribe@lists.riseup.net and check www.indymedia.ie/mayo for updates

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp always wel­comes com­mit­ted & moti­vat­ed peo­ple to get more involved in the cam­paign, what­ev­er your expe­ri­ence or skills.
Come over & help out with actions, sup­port, house­keep­ing, equip­ment main­te­nance, PR, office work, media work, gar­den­ing etc

Please con­sid­er doing one of the fol­low­ing:
•Come vis­it Mayo:
You would be more than wel­come to stay at the camp. Find direc­tions here: http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/directions.html
There are jobs for every­one to do from mak­ing ban­ners, doing actions or start­ing this year’s gar­den. There real­ly was a good vibe at the camp last autumn and we’re hop­ing for more of the same this time round. Con­tact the camp if you’re com­ing or if you have any ques­tions.

•Take action at Home
There’s a load than can be done from wher­ev­er you are. See http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/support.html for some sug­ges­tions.
sol­i­dar­i­ty actions, info stalls, show­ing the cam­paign films, donate to the cam­paign, think of ideas for actions, put on a fundrais­er…
If you are inter­est­ed in help­ing to do research work about the new onshore pipeline appli­ca­tion please email us.

Win­ter update
Dur­ing the win­ter many court cas­es have been pro­ceed­ing against those who object local­ly, for a vari­ety of charges, from traf­fic offences, pub­lic order breach­es to Gar­da assaults. It goes with­out say­ing that no Gar­dai have been pros­e­cut­ed for their vicious assaults to date. While some fines and sus­pend­ed sen­tences have been hand­ed down, and Gar­dai have per­jured them­selves on the stand and the judges have lapped it up, no one has been found guilty of Gar­da assault to date (some cas­es had to be appealed to secure this). There are still many Shell to Sea cas­es before the courts, from local peo­ple refus­ing to bend to the cor­rupt will of Shell and the state. They need help to con­tin­ue resist­ing!

Shell have recent­ly put in plan­ning appli­ca­tions for the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline which can be seen here www.corribgaspipeline.com

The eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion has utter­ly changed and most peo­ple in the coun­try are seri­ous­ly ques­tion­ing cor­po­rate pow­er and gov­ern­ment sub­servience to that pow­er. Recent­ly even the Gar­daí took to the streets to oppose gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy (and no one threw them off the road!!!).
We are in a lot more favourable times to try to get our mes­sage and points across than this time last year.
We can win but we need your sup­port!

For trav­el direc­tions, leaflets, more info about the cam­paign pls check out:
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com

UK: Traps destroyed, shooting pens trashed, birds set free

“under the pink skies of a set­ting sun and across the rolling hills of the coun­try­side activists found a large shoot­ing estate; two squir­rel traps and a fox trap were destroyed. a lone bird trapped inside a cage was care­ful­ly tak­en from her prison and set free. 4 shoot­ing enclo­sures were destroyed; net­ting cut, wires cut, wood snapped, bat­tery sup­plies cut off, posts torn from the ground. enclo­sures used for shoot­ers to hide their cow­ard­ly faces and shoot ani­mals were destroyed.

UK: Traps destroyed, shooting pens trashed, birds set freeUK: Traps destroyed, shooting pens trashed, birds set free“under the pink skies of a set­ting sun and across the rolling hills of the coun­try­side activists found a large shoot­ing estate; two squir­rel traps and a fox trap were destroyed. a lone bird trapped inside a cage was care­ful­ly tak­en from her prison and set free. 4 shoot­ing enclo­sures were destroyed; net­ting cut, wires cut, wood snapped, bat­tery sup­plies cut off, posts torn from the ground. enclo­sures used for shoot­ers to hide their cow­ard­ly faces and shoot ani­mals were destroyed.

until all are free!”

report­ed anony­mous­ly to http://directaction.info

Arizona, US: Vivisector and mining executive visted at home

“Tuc­son Vivi­sec­tor Katal­in Gothard and Rose­mont min­ing scum­bag Kathy Arnold get a spe­cial home vis­it from Tuc­son H.A.A.N.D! (Hooli­gans Attack At Night Duh!) agents of change. Sol­i­dar­i­ty ded­i­ca­tion with those four recent­ly arrest­ed

“Tuc­son Vivi­sec­tor Katal­in Gothard and Rose­mont min­ing scum­bag Kathy Arnold get a spe­cial home vis­it from Tuc­son H.A.A.N.D! (Hooli­gans Attack At Night Duh!) agents of change. Sol­i­dar­i­ty ded­i­ca­tion with those four recent­ly arrest­ed

Beneath a secu­ri­ty blan­ket of dark­ness dur­ing the ear­ly morn­ing hours of Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 20, Tuc­son H.A.A.N.D. (Hooli­gans Attack At Night Duh!) vis­it­ed the homes of Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona Vivi­sec­tor Katal­in M. Gothard and Rose­mont Cop­per (RC) Direc­tor of Envi­ron­men­tal & Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs Kathy Arnold.

We chose Kathy Arnold because of all her work she does with RC as their Direc­tor of Envi­ron­men­tal & Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs. RC is attempt­ing to mine in the beau­ti­ful San­ta Rita Moun­tains for cop­per. We say no mine thank you!
Min­ing in the San­ta Ritas would threat­en numer­ous species, plants and sen­si­tive wild areas. Min­ing for cop­per to build solar pan­els is a false solu­tion and unac­cept­able. The San­ta Ritas are part of the Sky Island Region a Bio­log­i­cal Hotspot home to 404 bird species, 117 rep­tile species, 26 amphib­ian species, thou­sands of plant species. A num­ber of these species are endem­ic to this region. The San­ta Ritas should nev­er be home to a mine.

Dear Kathy destroy­ing the land of wild ani­mals and plants for more ingre­di­ents of a larg­er Infra­struc­ture night­mare is no way to live. You should know that our envi­ron­ment is no place for you to hold your twist­ed affairs! We slashed your tire so that maybe you will think of the Moun­tain Lions and Black Bears that live where you want to build a mine. We bet the etch­ing cream on the win­dow of your house will leave a last­ing impres­sion of our vis­it. Maybe the cost of replac­ing it will make you think twice about the last­ing irre­place­able costs your com­pa­nies pro­posed mine would inflict on the San­ta Ritas.

Katal­in Gothard is an assis­tant Pro­fes­sor (Vivi­sec­tor) with­in the Depart­ment of Phys­i­ol­o­gy, Col­lege of Med­i­cine Life Sci­ences in North Room 327 of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona Tuc­son, her Phone # is (520) 626‑1448. Her Email is kgothard@email.arizona.edu.
Her home addy is [removed by Indy­bay]. Her home # is [removed by Indy­bay].
Katal­in makes a liv­ing by per­form­ing research on rhe­sus mon­keys. Her research pro­ce­dures involve screw­ing met­al plates into the monkey’s skulls and affix­ing mag­net­ic search coils to their eyes. After these med­ical pro­ce­dures are per­formed she then trains the mon­keys to tol­er­ate head immo­bi­liza­tion and to fix­ate on objects pre­sent­ed on a com­put­er mon­i­tor.
What the fuck type of dement­ed mind could do such a thing? Appar­ent­ly, Katal­in Gothard and her cohorts.

To the sound of Coy­otes howl­ing in the moun­tains we lift­ed the util­i­ty cov­er to your water in front of your house, turned the water off and the poured in cement to make sure it stayed off for a damn long time! We bet it’s a lit­tle hard­er to wash the blood off your hands and scrub away all those thoughts of tor­tur­ing mon­keys all day long huh Katal­in. If you insist on work­ing, get a real job!

Kathy, stay the fuck away from our moun­tains you sick fuck! Katal­in, Leave the mon­keys alone (your a sick fuck too)!

We ded­i­cate this action to our four CA com­rades in the fight against vivi­sec­tion that were arrest­ed the same day.

Y’all fools can keep try­ing to stop us by throw­ing us in jail. Cause you can’t lock up Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Sol­i­dar­i­ty for the land and Ani­mals, duh!”

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/02/21/18572574.php

Final update: Climate Camp in London’s Square Mile, April 1 2009.

Final update at bot­tom of sto­ry — Because nature does­n’t do bailouts.

G20 CCA logo
Final update at bot­tom of sto­ry — Because nature does­n’t do bailouts.

April 1 in the evening… the sun has gone down, the sky is clear and stars are on view… instead of going home we get fire­wood from our back­packs, make tea and cof­fee on rock­et stoves and then, just as the hunger pangs start, jack­et pota­toes!

Yes, we are actu­al­ly going to camp in the city…

The G20 meet­ing is com­ing up fast, as are our plans to shut down car­bon mar­kets and be camp­ing in Lon­don’s Square Mile as the 20 heads of state arrive. Below we’ve includ­ed more infor­ma­tion and the lat­est update.

You can check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20 as we get clos­er to Finan­cial and Fos­sil Fools Day — April 1st.

In the mean­time, we all need to get the word out. Basi­cal­ly the suc­cess of the Camp in the City is a game of get­ting as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to the City on April 1.

**The call­out can be for­ward­ed to your friends and email lists- it is here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

**Invite your friends to the face­book event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=49600653225

**For­ward this update to your mates, any rel­e­vant lists you are on, and post it on web­sites.

**Hold a local group meet­ing to dis­cuss the G20

**Down­load the post­card ver­sion for pho­to­copy­ing and get it out:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/files/G20PostcardB_4onA4.pdf

**Stick­ers and colour post­cards are avail­able — email g20 at climatecamp.org.uk to get them.

Below you’ll find:

1) THE CLIMATE CAMP IN 2009
2) PRACTICAL INFORMATION
3) INFORMATION FOR NEIGHBOURHOODS AND AUTONOMOUS GROUPS
4) CALL OUT FOR WORKSHOPS
5) CALL FOR LEGAL OBSERVERS
6) FOOD AT THE G20 CAMP, MESSAGE FROM THE FOOD GROUP
7) DETAILS OF NEXT MEETING — NOTTINGAM MARCH 7/8

This infor­ma­tion is also avail­able at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20-practicalities.

1) THE CLIMATE CAMP IN 2009

The Cli­mate Camp new year nation­al gath­er­ing made huge progress, con­ceiv­ing a strate­gic deci­sion to focus on the failed eco­nom­ic sys­tem, and devel­op­ing four ambi­tious and excit­ing projects stem­ming from this. If you weren’t at the gath­er­ing, or haven’t yet had a chance to look over the deci­sions made, check them out: http://climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/501

The most urgent project going ahead is “Cli­mate Camp hits the City”, a one day and night camp in the square mile of Lon­don tak­ing place on April 1st, the eve of the G20. Cli­mate Camp has nev­er organ­ised an action at such a fast pace, and so every­one is encour­aged to get net­work­ing local­ly across the UK to make Cli­mate Camp first event of 2009 an enor­mous suc­cess! To find out more about the details of the G20, go to http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

2) PRACTICAL INFORMATION

CONVERGE. There will be a con­ver­gence cen­tre from Sat­ur­day the 28th April, so you can go to the ‘Put Peo­ple First’ march by the big NGO’s and Unions, and stay in Lon­don until the Wednes­day 1st April, and camp­ing in the City.
There will be plen­ty of work to do over those last days! See www.climatecamp.org.uk near­er the time for the exact loca­tion.

ARRIVE. Come for the day, or if pos­si­ble come for the day and night! The adven­ture will begin at noon, April 1st, Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, Hasil­wood House, 62 Bish­ops­gate, EC2N 4AW. More details near­er the time. For some back­ground on car­bon mar­kets, and why we’re shut­ting down the exchange, vis­it http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20-why

LOOK AFTER EVERYONE. Although we hope to pro­vide some food, and shel­ter for those who want to sleep, please try to arrive as self-suf­fi­cient as pos­si­ble — when you are camp­ing in the heart of the finan­cial dis­trict, there are no guar­an­tees that we’ll be able to have much infra­struc­ture!
Bring water, warm clothes, a pop-up tent if you’ve got one, sleep­ing bag, and if you can, some blan­kets and tarp. Car­ry­ing your own food to share and water will also put less strain on our kitchen, and please arrive well fed.

TRANSFORM. We also want to trans­form the finan­cial dis­trict, both sym­bol­i­cal­ly and visu­al­ly into a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of our desired worlds. Doing that is up to all of us. We want our space to look beau­ti­ful. So come with your own plans, cos­tumes, the­ater, enter­tain­ment and spec­ta­cle. Wind tur­bines, mobile cin­e­mas, action plans — what­ev­er you think you can pull off.

Let’s imag­ine anoth­er world or two or three.…

3) INFORMATION FOR NEIGHBOURHOODS AND AUTONOMOUS GROUPS

If you are part of a Cli­mate Camp neigh­bour­hood, or would like to be part of one, con­tact your local group: http://climatecamp.org.uk/node/40.

If you are in a local group, give the Process Group (process@climatecamp.org.uk) your details for the Cli­mate Camp web­site.

With an excit­ing process up and run­ning again, peo­ple are hope­ful­ly look­ing to get involved. How­ev­er, our Local Group page is out of date.

There­fore, if you are a local Cli­mate Camp group (whether or not you were a neigh­bour­hood at the Camp ’08), give us some text about the basic details (when and where you meet, con­tact details, a bit about your­selves) and we’ll get it on the web­site. We can also arrange for your local group to have an @climatecamp.org.uk email address.

If groups arrive sort­ed, that will put less strain on every­one. Think about how you would like to trans­form our space, and come with the mate­ri­als you need to do so. We are also urg­ing all groups to have back up plans and actions. There is no Plan­et B, but every­one should have a Plan B…

4) WORKSHOPS AT CLIMATE CAMP PART 1

The camp is look­ing for work­shops for the day. We would love to hear from you if you can offer a work­shop, espe­cial­ly (but not lim­it­ed to) work­shops on car­bon trad­ing, mar­ket solu­tions to cli­mate change, and the eco­nom­ic cri­sis. We are also real­ly keen to hear from you if you can offer music, street the­atre or any­thing else which will make the day inspir­ing and edu­ca­tion­al!

Please let us know if you would be able to offer a work­shop. Con­tact: at g20workshops at riseup.net

5) LEGAL OBSERVERS FOR CLIMATE CAMP PART 1

Want to be a trained legal observ­er? If so we real­ly want lots of legal obser­va­tion for the G20 camp on the 1st April. There will be a train­ing event on 31st March. Remem­ber we need peo­ple for both the 1st and 2nd of April. Email: legal at climatecamp.org.uk.

6) FOOD AT THE G20 CAMP, MESSAGE FROM THE FOOD GROUP

First. Bring plen­ty of fresh WATER; Bring Food; Bring a bog roll!; Bring bin lin­ers to take away rub­bish; bring a bowl, cup and fork.

Sec­ond. Do NOT bring propane bot­tles or sharp knives.

Third. If you can bring a Rock­et Stove — it would be won­der­ful — it’s prop­er camp­ing and visu­al­ly cool.

Fourth. There is a food and kitchens group who will work hard in col­lab­o­ra­tion with local groups to pre-pre­pare SUPPLEMENTARY veg­an food through­out the 24 hours of action — some in the loca­tion and in oth­er places. This could include a light din­ner on the 1st April and pos­si­bly hot break­fast on April 2nd. Dona­tions of £2–3 per head will be request­ed to fund this pro­vi­sion.

Fifth. Join the food group and help to make and dis­trib­ute food. Email tum­my­filler at riseup.net

7) NEXT MEETING — NOTTINGAM MARCH 7/8

The next nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action gath­er­ing is going to be in Not­ting­ham, from the 7th to 8th of March. The Venue is the won­der­ful Sumac Cen­tre, details of which can be found on their web­site at:
http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/welcome.html

The Gath­er­ing will run from 10.30am on the Sat­ur­day till 5pm on the Sun­day, so get book­ing your trains and coach­es. We’ll not only be dis­cus­sion the G20, but also, oth­er cli­mate camp projects.

——

Update (25th March):

The G20 Swoop & cru­cial infor­ma­tion for the Cli­mate Camp in the City of Lon­don!

April 1st is only a week away! Below is the cru­cial infor­ma­tion you will need for camp­ing in the square mile dur­ing the G20.

Please for­ward this to your friends, any groups you are a part of, and post it on web­sites. Check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20 for updates. Once again, our list goes to 11.

(1) THE SWOOP & OVER-POLICING
(2) TEXT ALERTS & COMMUNICATION
(3) THE MAP
(4) INFOPOINTS & BRIEFINGS
(5) SLEEPING SPACE
(6) THINGS TO BRING
(7) AUTONOMOUS ACTIONS & MEDIA
(8) LEGAL
(9) WORKSHOPS & CEILIDH
(10) PUT PEOPLE FIRST MARCH
(11) IT’S A NUMBERS GAME

(1) THE SWOOP & OVER-POLICING

To be suc­cess­ful, we must all arrive at the Cli­mate Exchange at the same time. We must swoop in from dif­fer­ent direc­tions, using dif­fer­ent means to arrive with­in a minute or two of each oth­er. Its a good idea to meet up with your friends ear­ly, and some­where with­in easy reach of the Cli­mate Exchange. Then, at the appro­pri­ate moment, leave quick­ly, to arrive at exact­ly 12:30. You may even want to prac­tice before­hand.

Be aware that in light of cur­rent over-polic­ing tac­tics, if you miss the swoop, you may be unable to join the camp. In places where our num­bers are too low, the police may attempt to stop and search indi­vid­u­als, and con­fis­cate items to pre­vent us from set­ting up the camp safe­ly. We can avoid this by mov­ing con­fi­dent­ly and togeth­er. The police may also attempt to sur­round peo­ple to pre­vent us from mov­ing (some­times called a “ket­tle”). Near­by tube sta­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly Liv­er­pool Sta­tion, as well as the Bank (where the G20-melt­down protest is occur­ring at noon), are pos­si­ble loca­tions where the police may try to ket­tle peo­ple. If you see a ket­tle form­ing and don’t want to be stuck for the day in one, move and help oth­ers move out of it before it clos­es.

You are like­ly to have greater free­dom of move­ment if you’ve planned your swoop and know the area. Because things may change on the day, please take copies of our map with grid ref­er­ence points, and have a per­son in your group sub­scribed to the text alerts.

(2) TEXT ALERTS & COMMUNICATION

Things may change on the day, per­haps sig­nif­i­cant­ly. There is a text mes­sage news ser­vice which will be avail­able in advance and dur­ing the G20 Lead­ers meet­ing. We strong­ly rec­om­mend that peo­ple sub­scribe to it. It is pos­si­ble, even like­ly, that the place that we final­ly set up camp will not be the Cli­mate Exchange.

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/text-updates

We also use Twit­ter http://twitter.co /ClimateCamp but please note that twit­ter does not reach mobile phone num­bers and is now a web-ser­vice, so on the day this will only be use­ful for those with web-enabled phones or those with friends at home ready to call.

You may want to also exchange phone num­bers with your friends and peo­ple in oth­er groups so that our com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work is as decen­tralised as pos­si­ble.

(3) THE MAP

A map of the city, with grid ref­er­ence points will be released at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/map in the com­ing days. Please print copies for you and your friends. It will be used on the day when the text alert gives the loca­tion of the camp, or any oth­er infor­ma­tion through­out the day.

Var­i­ous car­bon off-set com­pa­nies, car­bon trad­ing firms, green­wash­ing firms, and oth­er cli­mate-crim­i­nals will also be high­light­ed on the map. If the police pre­vent us from safe­ly set­ting up the camp, groups are espe­cial­ly encour­aged to do an action at one of these loca­tions, or any oth­er loca­tion they have researched. It can also aid com­mu­ni­ca­tion between you and your mates. Los­ing your friends in a crowd real­ly sucks!

(4) INFOPOINTS & BRIEFINGS

From Thurs­day March 26th until Thurs­day April 2nd ram­pARTS will be a G20 info­point, open to drop by from 2–10 pm. The Camp for Cli­mate Action will have infor­ma­tion there dur­ing this peri­od.

On Sat­ur­day March 28th at 5 pm, and on Sun­day March 29th at 2 pm, the camp will be serv­ing tea and cake for those who want to meet up and share infor­ma­tion, or make some ban­ners and props.

On Tues­day March 31st at 7 pm, there will be a brief­ing at ram­pART, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on new peo­ple who need infor­ma­tion about the April 1st camp.

ram­pART is locat­ed at 15 ‑17 Ram­part Street, Lon­don E1 2LA (near Whitechapel, off Com­mer­cial Rd). rampart[at]mutualaid.org, 07050 618445
http://therampart.wordpress.com/location-contact/

(5) SLEEPING SPACE

If you are com­ing from out of town, places are avail­able to stay! Please con­tact us ear­ly so that we can reserve you a place. Email iwanttocrashinasquatfortheg20@hushmail.com to let them know how many peo­ple will be stay­ing, and the dates you need.

(6) THINGS TO BRING

If you’re stay­ing for the full 24 hours, please check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/what-to-bring for what to bring.

(7) AUTONOMOUS ACTIONS AND MEDIA

Are you plan­ning an autonomous action and would you like to try and get media there as soon as it hap­pens? You can chat to the cli­mate camp media crew about it before­hand who can point the media your way, or can help you get your press release out. You don’t have to give them the details before­hand, but do get in touch with press@climatecamp.org.uk or call 07040 900905 to arrange some­thing.

(8) LEGAL

Our legal team have pre­pared a handy crib sheet of infor­ma­tion about your legal rights and what to do if some­thing goes wrong. These will be hand­ed out on the day, but there’s no guar­an­tee you’ll get one before encoun­ter­ing the police, so we advise you to print a copy to bring along.
Check it out at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/legal

(9) WORKSHOPS & CEILIDH

Work­shops and music are on! Work­shops will include: Trad­ing our way into trou­ble, the Fos­sil Fuel Econ­o­my, A his­to­ry of Direct Action, Tech­no fix­es, Tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­o­my, the lat­est cli­mate sci­ence from Copen­hagen, Mobil­is­ing for Copen­hagen, Debt and Cli­mate Change, Car­bon Trad­ing and Copen­hagen, Sus­tain­able Activism, Sam­ba, Poet­ry vs Cli­mate Change … and more!

Check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/events for the lat­est sched­ule

We also need more musi­cians to play at the ceilidh. More musi­cians and sound sys­tems are wel­come!

(10) PUT PEOPLE FIRST MARCH AND LEAFLETING

A Camp for Cli­mate Action block for the Put Peo­ple First March on Sat­ur­day the 28th of March will be meet­ing at 11 am out­side Char­ing Cross Nation­al Rail Sta­tion, on the strand. We need help hand­ing out leaflets dur­ing the march. 07534 598733 for more info.

(11) IT’S A NUMBERS GAME

The only way we can win this is through a mass mobil­i­sa­tion of peo­ple. With a week to go we can still get peo­ple to join us for the camp. Talk to your friends and bring them along; change your sta­tus and pro­file pic­ture on social net­works, and invite your con­tacts to our face­book event http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=49600653225 . On the day, make sure you let the peo­ple back home know how the camp is going, and how they can dis­sem­i­nate our mes­sage. If each of us brings some­one along, we dou­ble our num­bers and our strength.

——

Final update (31st March):

Hi campers, not long to go before we join each to set up camp in the city on April 1st! This is the final update, please read it care­ful­ly and for­ward it to all your friends who are com­ing…

WHAT TO BRING:

We hope many of us will be stay­ing overnight, please bring a pop­up tent, food, 4 litres of water, warm clothes, hand clean­ing gel (for hygiene, we might not get water) and what­ev­er you might need for 24 hours of rebel camp­ing adven­ture. (a full list is here http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/what-to-bring)

HOW TO DO IT:

1) SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCHES: It is impor­tant that we swoop at exact­ly the same time, and those arriv­ing too late or too ear­ly might not make it in. You can use the speak­ing clock or this: http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com

2) PLUG IN: Sign up to text mes­sages here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/text-updates You will only get text mes­sages if there is a change of plan.

3) PREPARE: Print out the map from http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/map and if you still need some­where to sleep the night before check http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/sleepspace Remem­ber that there may be lim­it­ed toi­let facil­i­ties so don’t arrive with burst­ing bow­els !!!

3) SWOOP DOWN: Arrive at 62 Bish­op’s Gate, the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange at 12:30 on the dot. Swoop swift­ly and stealth­ily from a loca­tion of your choice. It might be good to avoid Bank and Liv­er­pool Street sta­tions where oth­er protest groups are meet­ing at 11.00am as you may be unable to leave due to police Ket­tles (when police sur­round a crowd). Avoid ket­tles at all costs and if when you get to the Cli­mate Exchange the police invite you into a protest pen, say “no thanks, we’ll camp else­where”, keep mov­ing and wait for text mes­sages.

4) SPREAD INSPIRATION: You can use your phone to send reports, pic­tures, audio etc from the streets to Indy­media. Its very easy – see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/425262.html for num­bers and details.

If you are cov­er­ing the action using twit­ter, please include the hash­tags #g20cc or both #g20 and #protest so we can pull tweets into one sin­gle feed of the event.

5) AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST — ENJOY: The next few days will be extra­or­di­nary days for extra­or­di­nary times…

Plane Stupid Scotland shuts Aberdeen airport — updated

protest end­ed update — see below main arti­cle ::: 3rd March — Nine young pro­test­ers from the cli­mate action group Plane Stu­pid Scot­land have this morn­ing shut down Aberdeen air­port by set­ting up a golf course on the taxi­way. They have sur­round­ed them­selves with for­ti­fied secu­ri­ty fenc­ing whilst anoth­er group are occu­py­ing the roof of the ter­mi­nal build­ing and have unfurled a ban­ner read­ing, “Nae Trump Games with Cli­mate Change”.

Aberdeen airport fence cuttingPlane Stupid Scotland shuts Aberdeen airportprotest end­ed update — see below main arti­cle ::: 3rd March — Nine young pro­test­ers from the cli­mate action group Plane Stu­pid Scot­land have this morn­ing shut down Aberdeen air­port by set­ting up a golf course on the taxi­way. They have sur­round­ed them­selves with for­ti­fied secu­ri­ty fenc­ing whilst anoth­er group are occu­py­ing the roof of the ter­mi­nal build­ing and have unfurled a ban­ner read­ing, “Nae Trump Games with Cli­mate Change”.

The peace­ful protest began at 02.15am this morn­ing whilst the run­way was closed. Plane Stu­pid aims to pre­vent the sched­uled reopen­ing of the run­way at 5am. The group intends to main­tain its block­ade for as long as pos­si­ble to pre­vent the release of thou­sands of tonnes of green­house gas emis­sions into the atmos­phere.

Pho­tos avail­able for down­load and media on our Flickr site: www.flickr.com/photos/planestupid. All pho­tos licensed under Cre­ative Com­mons.

The activists entered the run­way by cut­ting the fence and scaled the roof climb­ing lad­ders. Dressed as Don­ald Trump, sport­ing wigs and golf­ing attire, with crazy golf clubs and balls, the group are ‘putting’ on the tar­mac. The ban­ner on the fenc­ing erect­ed by the group reads “Plane Stu­pid Scot­land Golf Open 2009”.

Don­ald Trump is sup­port­ing the expan­sion of Aberdeen air­port where his super-rich friends will arrive to play golf on his con­tro­ver­sial golf course. BAA Aberdeen said they wel­come Don­ald Trump’s Golf Course. Like Alex Salmond, Trump wants to bull­doze over demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­si­tion to envi­ron­men­tal­ly dam­ag­ing projects like air­port expan­sion. Both Trump and BAA’s plans face fierce local oppo­si­tion.

One of the activists on the taxi­way, Jon­ny Agnew, 22, from Edin­burgh, said:

“We have been failed by the gen­er­a­tion of Don­ald Trump and Alex Salmond. Despite a cat­a­logue of sci­en­tif­ic reports warn­ing them that they can’t keep on with avi­a­tion growth – even if that hin­ders their abil­i­ty to jet in for a week­end of golf – they con­tin­ue with dis­re­gard for all of us, who will end up deal­ing with the impacts of the cli­mate cri­sis.”

He added:

“The real­i­ty is that our generation’s future is van­ish­ing so that peo­ple like Don­ald Trump and his super-rich friends can jet into Aberdeen for a round of golf. The expan­sion of this air­port just can­not go ahead.”

Anoth­er, 24 year old Tilly Gif­ford, a social work­er from Glas­gow, said:

“Alex Salmond wants to let the Span­ish share­hold­ers of BAA, Don­ald Trump and his super-rich Amer­i­can friends con­crete over Scot­land and its efforts to stop run­away cli­mate change.”

She added:

“Arc­tic ice is melt­ing, the sea is already ris­ing and experts warn the world’s rain­forests could col­lapse. Our gen­er­a­tion is already start­ing to feel these impacts as the warm­ing kicks in so it’s obvi­ous that it’s going to need to be us that urgent­ly puts the brakes on expand­ing unnec­es­sary air­ports.”

The cam­paign­ers chose to close Aberdeen after the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment gave its back­ing to the expan­sion of capac­i­ty at the air­port by 1.5 mil­lion pas­sen­gers by 2015. Avi­a­tion is Britain’s fastest grow­ing source of emis­sions, already amount­ing to at least 13% of the UK’s cli­mate emis­sions.

With plans in the Scot­tish government’s ‘Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work’ for growth at Scot­tish air­ports includ­ing Glas­gow, Edin­burgh and Aberdeen — as well as Heathrow and Stanst­ed — experts from the Tyn­dall Cen­tre for cli­mate research say avi­a­tion pol­i­cy alone will scup­per any chance the UK has of hit­ting its cli­mate tar­gets.

25 year old Dan Glass, a com­mu­ni­ty work­er from Glas­gow, said:

“We’re here to say it can­not hap­pen, and our gen­er­a­tion won’t let it hap­pen. The sci­en­tists tell us we’ve got sev­en years to make emis­sions peak then drop, and if we fail, the peo­ple on this run­way and their entire gen­er­a­tion, and our chil­dren, willl live with the con­se­quences. That’s why we’re doing this.”

For more information/interviews:

Dan on 07507085963
Katie on 07786381674

For pho­tos – www.flickr.com/photos/planestupid

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Sev­en mem­bers of the cam­paign group Plane Stu­pid were detained at about 0820 GMT after releas­ing them­selves.

Two oth­er pro­test­ers, who remained on the roof of the main ter­mi­nal build­ing, were detained lat­er.

The protest began at about 0300 GMT. There were no flights to or from the air­port until after 0900 GMT.

BBC video
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At 09.30am Plane Stu­pid Scot­land’s protest at Aberdeen air­port has come to a close after six hours. The eleven peo­ple, includ­ing local res­i­dents that this morn­ing breached the air­port fence have now been arrest­ed.

The pro­test­ers were told by police to dis­man­tle their peace­ful protest because the taxi­way they were secured to was need­ed by an emer­gency heli­copter. A baby appar­ent­ly required urgent treat­ment, and any oth­er approach would cause delays. Obvi­ous­ly the safe­ty of the pub­lic was of para­mount con­cern to the activists and so they duly removed them­selves.

Plane Stu­pid has sub­se­quent­ly spo­ken to both the Acci­dent and Emer­gency unit of Aberdeen hos­pi­tal, and its press depart­ment. They were unaware of any trans­fers request­ed by air this morn­ing. Not only that, but spokesper­son Les­ley Mid­dle­ton said:

“We have our own heli­pad which we use in emer­gen­cies. Of course you can’t antic­i­pate what may hap­pen, but in all my years of work­ing here I can’t think of a time when we’ve used Aberdeen air­port. The only cir­cum­stances I can imag­ine where we’d need to get access to the area would be if there was an acci­dent at the air­port.”

The pro­test­ers are now look­ing into the con­duct of the police and are con­sid­er­ing mak­ing a com­plaint.

Plane Stu­pid Scot­land has, dur­ing the last week of Nation­al Plan­ning Frame­work con­sul­ta­tion, effec­tive­ly shed light on the illog­i­cal expan­sion plans. At a time of eco­nom­ic reces­sion and loom­ing cli­mate cri­sis Scot­land has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be at the fore­front of a secure and sus­tain­able future and to take a strong posi­tion to tack­le cli­mate change. They also linked the plans for air­port expan­sion with the cur­rent devel­op­men­t’s of Don­ald Trump’s Golf Course in Aberdeen­shire.

Katie Mor­ri­son, from the group Plane Stu­pid Scot­land said:

“It is unnec­es­sary to expand Aberdeen air­port as 58% of flights are domes­tic and could be replaced with high speed rail link. We ask that the gov­ern­ment stop play­ing around with big busi­ness and start win­ning the race against run­away cli­mate change. Trump’s golf course and our gov­ern­ments planned expan­sion will con­crete over Scot­tish democ­ra­cy.”

The activists were in high spir­its as they removed them­selves from the air­port but gen­er­al feel­ing was of annoy­ance at the under­hand­ed tac­tics used by the police which lured the pro­test­ers in and took advan­tage of their car­ing nature.

The activists are cur­rent­ly being held in cus­tody in Inverurie and are being charged with breach of the peace. It is like­ly that they will be appear­ing in court tomor­row morn­ing, all sup­port is wel­come and will be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

We will inform you of any updates as they hap­pen. Good work Plane Stu­pid Scot­land, time to cel­e­brate anoth­er suc­cess­ful action.