Category: Action Reports

Sea Shepherd Activists Make January a “No Kill” Month

The month of Jan­u­ary, usu­al­ly the prime whale catch­ing month for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Ocean, has come and gone with­out the death of a sin­gle whale, says Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety Aus­tralia Direc­tor Jeff Hansen.

The month of Jan­u­ary, usu­al­ly the prime whale catch­ing month for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Ocean, has come and gone with­out the death of a sin­gle whale, says Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety Aus­tralia Direc­tor Jeff Hansen.

It is the inter­na­tion­al organization’s ninth Antarc­tic Whale Defense Cam­paign, Oper­a­tion Zero Tol­er­ance. This season’s cam­paign is under the direc­tion of Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia, now that found­ing pres­i­dent Paul Wat­son has hand­ed author­i­ty to Hansen and for­mer Aus­tralian Greens leader and sen­a­tor Bob Brown.

Author­i­ty was trans­ferred in Decem­ber in com­pli­ance with a U.S. court restrain­ing order and after Watson’s escape last sum­mer from Ger­many, where he was detained on bail for pos­si­ble extra­di­tion to Cos­ta Rica.

The Sea Shep­herd fleet of four ships, one heli­copter, drones, and more than 120 vol­un­teer crew from around the world has to date suc­ceed­ed in keep­ing the four-ves­sel Japan­ese fleet of “research” whalers sep­a­rat­ed on the run, mak­ing it impos­si­ble for them to catch whales, Hansen says.

As an observ­er, Wat­son remains aboard the Sea Shep­herd ves­sel SSS Steve Irwin, named in hon­or of the late Aus­tralian nat­u­ral­ist and broad­cast­er.

Wat­son says he will “doc­u­ment the cam­paign” against Japan­ese whal­ing in Antarc­tic waters. The Steve Irwin is cap­tained this sea­son by for­mer first offi­cer Sid­dharth Chakravar­ty of India.

Now two inter­linked bat­tles are under­way – in the courts and at sea, where ships from both sides are maneu­ver­ing to block each oth­er.

On Jan­u­ary 31, the Japan­ese whal­ing secu­ri­ty ship Shonan Maru No. 2 entered the Aus­tralian Eco­nom­ic Exclu­sion Zone around Mac­quar­ie Island, chas­ing the Sea Shep­herd ship, the SSS Bob Bark­er.

The Bob Bark­er head­ed for World Her­itage list­ed Mac­quar­ie Island to lose the Shonan Maru No. 2 and escaped the Japan­ese ves­sel on Fri­day.

Cap­tain of the Bob Bark­er Peter Ham­marst­edt said, “The Shonan Maru No. 2 is an inte­gral part of the Japan­ese whal­ing pro­gram. On board are armed storm troop­ers from the Japan Coast Guard whose sole mis­sion is to vio­lent­ly pre­vent my crew of whale defend­ers, many of whom are Aus­tralian cit­i­zens, from uphold­ing Aus­tralian domes­tic law and inter­na­tion­al law pro­tect­ing whales.”

The Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment offi­cial­ly noti­fied the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment to order the Shonan Maru No. 2 to remain out­side of Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters, includ­ing the waters around Mac­quar­ie Island.

Since 2008, the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet has been in con­tempt of an Aus­tralian Fed­er­al Court order that pro­hibits them from killing whales in Aus­tralian ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. Despite the rul­ing, Japan’s Insti­tute for Cetacean Research announced that it intends to kill near­ly 1,000 minke and 50 endan­gered fin whales dur­ing its 2012/2013 whale-hunt­ing sea­son in the South­ern Ocean.

Only the Yushin Maru No. 2 remains with the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru and both ves­sels are far north of the whal­ing area and run­ning from con­ser­va­tion­ist ves­sels.

Co-Cam­paign Leader Bob Brown said, “The first 24 hours of con­tact with the whale poach­ers have been a vic­to­ry for Sea Shep­herd and a com­plete loss for the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet. I am delight­ed to report that not a sin­gle whale has been harmed so far.”

The speedy Sea Shep­herd ship Brigitte Bar­dot has chased the Japan­ese whaler Yushin Maru No. 3 some 300 miles to the south.

Today, a lawyer for the whalers is threat­en­ing the Sea Shep­herd with con­tempt of court action, claim­ing the Brigitte Bar­dot breached the order grant­ed by a U.S. appeals court that restrains Sea Shep­herd ves­sels from approach­ing with­in 500 yards of Japan­ese whalers.

The Decem­ber 17, 2012 injunc­tion issued in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton by U.S. Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals states, “Defen­dants Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and Paul Wat­son, and any par­ty act­ing in con­cert with them, are enjoined from phys­i­cal­ly attack­ing any ves­sel engaged by Plain­tiffs the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, Kyo­do Sen­paku Kaisha, Ltd., Tomoyu­ki Ogawa or Toshiyu­ki Miu­ra in the South­ern Ocean or any per­son on any such ves­sel, or from nav­i­gat­ing in a man­ner that is like­ly to endan­ger the safe nav­i­ga­tion of any such ves­sel.”

Kyo­do Sen­paku Kaisha oper­ates the whal­ing fleet for the Insti­tute of Cetacean Research, a gov­ern­ment agency, while Ogawa and Miu­ra are believed to be senior offi­cers.

The injunc­tion responds to an appeal by the Insti­tute for Cetacean Research against the deci­sion of a U.S. Dis­trict Court judge, who refused to grant an injunc­tion.

The injunc­tion will remain in place until the court decides on the mer­its of the Japan­ese case oppos­ing Sea Shep­herd in Wash­ing­ton State, where the U.S. chap­ter of the group is based.

The whalers’ lawyer claims that, in vio­la­tion of the injunc­tion, the SSS Brigitte Bar­dot came with­in 20.25 yards of the Yushin Maru No. 3 on Jan­u­ary 29.

Today “The Age” reports that the group’s Mel­bourne lawyer takes the posi­tion that Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia is respon­si­ble for the group’s Antarc­tic cam­paign and the Aus­tralian chap­ter is not sub­ject to the restrain­ing order of the U.S. court.

The U.S. Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has no shares in, nor con­trol over, the Aus­tralian chap­ter, which is now run by Aus­tralians – Hansen and Bob Brown, the for­mer sen­a­tor and leader of the Aus­tralian Greens.

Wat­son was arrest­ed in Ger­many last May on a 10-year-old Cos­ta Rican war­rant, issued after a Sea Shep­herd ves­sel he com­mand­ed inter­cept­ed a Cos­ta Rican shark-finning ves­sel and was escort­ing it to a Cos­ta Rican port. The Guatemalan gov­ern­ment sent a gun­boat to force release of the shark fish­ing ves­sel, while Cos­ta Rica charged Wat­son with attempt­ed mur­der. Cos­ta Rica has since banned shark finning.

Wat­son jumped bail and left Ger­many on July 22, 2012, say­ing that the Cos­ta Rican war­rant was a maneu­ver intend­ed to deliv­er him to Japan.

At the request of Cos­ta Rica, Inter­pol has issued a Red Notice ask­ing for infor­ma­tion about the where­abouts of the 62-year-old who holds dual cit­i­zen­ship in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da.

Brown has been a con­ser­va­tion­ist for decades, both before and dur­ing the time he rep­re­sent­ed the state of Tas­ma­nia in Par­lia­ment.

“I am hon­ored to serve the great whales of the South­ern Ocean and Sea Shep­herd in this way,” Brown said. “My admi­ra­tion for Paul Wat­son is inverse­ly pro­por­tion­al to the Japan­ese government’s anger at Sea Shepherd’s suc­cess at pre­vent­ing the slaugh­ter of almost 4,000 whales in recent years.”

The Dis­cov­ery Channel’s Ani­mal Planet’s Emmy-nom­i­nat­ed show “Whale Wars” has doc­u­ment­ed the Sea Shepherd’s whale defense cam­paigns for the past five years and is also onboard this sea­son.

construction vehicles torched at deforestation site

anony­mous report, from From Rus­sia With Love:

“10/02/2013 mem­bers of ALF-Kuban torched con­struc­tion vehi­cles used for destroy­ing a grove – one of the few left – in Krasnodar.

anony­mous report, from From Rus­sia With Love:

“10/02/2013 mem­bers of ALF-Kuban torched con­struc­tion vehi­cles used for destroy­ing a grove – one of the few left – in Krasnodar.

‘All of the riv­er basin is in dan­ger, because these woods act as lungs for three dis­tricts: Kom­so­mol­sky, Pashkovky and Hydrostroy. In their lust for prof­it devel­op­ment com­pa­nies won’t lis­ten to locals, eco­log­i­cal sur­veys or peti­tions. So we chose to sab­o­tage their efforts.

We are mak­ing them pay,’ – ALF-Kuban

Shell — Idiots at work

Hav­ing only just start­ed work­ing on the con­tro­ver­sial tun­nel, Shel­l’s engi­neers are already fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems.

As local peo­ple always pre­dict­ed, the doib, an unusu­al blue/grey min­er­al soil found under peat bog, is caus­ing issues.

Hav­ing only just start­ed work­ing on the con­tro­ver­sial tun­nel, Shel­l’s engi­neers are already fac­ing sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems.

As local peo­ple always pre­dict­ed, the doib, an unusu­al blue/grey min­er­al soil found under peat bog, is caus­ing issues.

This is the first time such a machine has had to deal with this unsta­ble vis­cous mate­r­i­al. This once again high­lights the exper­i­men­tal nature of the project.

Despite hav­ing tak­en more than a year to design and build, accord­ing to our sources the TBM got stuck after 30 meters hav­ing only just reached the doib. As we write there’s no end in sight for this headache.
The tun­nel and pipeline cuts right through Sruwad­da­con Bay which is a des­ig­nat­ed con­ser­va­tion site, a can­di­date Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) and Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA).

Shell has insult­ing­ly named the Cor­rib TBM ‘Fion­nu­ala’ after the female of the Chil­dren of Lir, one of the leg­ends most close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the Erris region.

Although the envi­ron­men­t’s help is wel­come, we could always use more peo­ple here. Now that the spring is here come and help make 2013 anoth­er unlucky year for Shell.

Back­ground infor­ma­tion on the tun­nel (source : Shell.ie) :

“The TBM for the Cor­rib tun­nel was designed and built in Schwanau, Ger­many by Her­renknecht, one of the world’s largest mak­ers of TBMs.”

“The tun­nel will have an exter­nal diam­e­ter of 4.2m and an inter­nal diam­e­ter of 3.5m and will run at depths of between 5.5m and 12m under Sruwad­da­con Bay”

“When con­struct­ed, the tun­nel will [if it’s built] be the longest tun­nel in Ire­land and the longest gas pipeline tun­nel any­where in Europe.”

“As the TBM moves for­ward, a series of 1.2m wide con­crete rings made up of pre­cast inter­lock­ing con­crete seg­ments is erect­ed.   These con­crete rings, which are fab­ri­cat­ed in Ire­land, will even­tu­al­ly line the entire tun­nel.”

“As the cut­ter head rotates, hydraulic cylin­ders attached to the spine of the TBM pro­pel it for­ward a few feet at a time.”

Relat­ed Link: http://www.shelltosea.com

Alexandra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site, 8th Feb

Alexan­dra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site
Tree felling in Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans

Alexan­dra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site
Tree felling in Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans

Tree felling has resumed at a Man­ches­ter park where activists climbed trees to pre­vent the clear­ance.

The felling was pre­vent­ed last week when up to 70 peo­ple got into Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range, on Thurs­day.

The pro­test­ers set up a camp and a num­ber of them scaled trees in the park.

A Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil spokesman said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans and legal action may be tak­en against the tree climbers.

Pro­tes­tor Ian Brew­er con­firmed some demon­stra­tors were still up trees but added: “There are not enough peo­ple at the camp, it is very dis­ap­point­ing.

“We’ve had good sup­port with our peti­tion but we need more peo­ple at the camp.”

The coun­cil intends to fell 280 trees as part of a £5.5m project to return the park to the way it is sup­posed to have looked in Vic­to­ri­an times.
Raised flowerbeds

The author­i­ty said only 10% of the park’s trees were being felled and local peo­ple have said they do not feel safe in the park.

But pro­test­ers claim the the actu­al num­ber of trees to be cut down is more than 400.

The trees are being removed and replaced by raised flowerbeds as part of the regen­er­a­tion of the park.

The plans also include cre­at­ing new ten­nis courts and foot­ball facil­i­ties and improve­ments to the lake.

More than 2,000 peo­ple have signed an online peti­tion oppos­ing the felling of trees in the project, which received £2.2m from the Her­itage Lot­tery Fund.

Eamonn O’Rourke, head of com­mu­ni­ties and cul­ture for Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil, said: “The actions of a small, noisy band of pro­test­ers have been hold­ing up much-need­ed improve­ments to the park which have wide­spread pub­lic sup­port and indeed all the evi­dence from our ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tions with local peo­ple sug­gest that the major­i­ty are behind the plans.“
Coun­cil plans for park The coun­cil said peo­ple did not feel safe in the park

Tim Cooke, from Hulme, who is also protest­ing against the tree felling, said: “It’s not improv­ing the park — it is destroy­ing the park by dec­i­mat­ing a third of the trees.

“I would under­stand it if they were dis­eased but they are cut­ting down per­fect­ly healthy trees.”

Greater Man­ches­ter Police con­firmed a woman was arrest­ed on Fri­day on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

She was not charged but giv­en a police cau­tion.

Protest camp evicted & restarted

7th Feb 2013: Mov­ing Camp and Climb­ing Trees

We are in the process of mov­ing the camp to anoth­er loca­tion in the park.

There is a pro­test­er up in the trees which have ari­al walk ways to them.

7th Feb 2013: Mov­ing Camp and Climb­ing Trees

We are in the process of mov­ing the camp to anoth­er loca­tion in the park.

There is a pro­test­er up in the trees which have ari­al walk ways to them.

If you are will­ing and able to active­ly pro­tect oth­er trees by var­i­ous means, we do have food sup­plies and a lim­it­ed amount climb­ing gear for use. 

The police have sur­round­ed anoth­er area of trees which are about to be felled.

6/2/13, noon: URGENT: An evic­tion notice has been served to us on the camp which will be enforced in 45 min­utes at 12.00 We need peo­ple to come down to the camp as soon as pos­si­ble!
To show how many peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty object to what MCC are doing…
To make the evic­tion dif­fi­cult which will give us more time….
To help move things out of camp so res­i­dents won’t loose all of there grear they have kind­ly donat­ed, as the police can hold equip­ment ‘as evi­dence’.

http://savealexandraparkstrees.wordpress.com

Stop the Chop — Alexandra Park trees, Manchester

JOIN THE COMMUNITY PROTEST
SATURDAY 2nd FEB @ 1pm

JOIN THE COMMUNITY PROTEST
SATURDAY 2nd FEB @ 1pm
Protest Camp Open Now
We need YOU to help!

Peace­ful Protest @ Alexan­dra Park to stop the felling of 400 trees against strong pub­lic oppo­si­tion. As of Thurs 31st Jan, 2382 peo­ple have signed a peti­tion to oppose the scale of tree felling and wildlife habi­tat destruc­tion in the park, yet the coun­cil are ignor­ing pub­lic opin­ion. The meet­ing on 28/01 to dis­cuss these plans fur­ther was can­celled hours before tak­ing place & the works have steam­rolled ahead felling 53 trees so far. On 31/01, around 80 local peo­ple of all ages and back­grounds gath­ered in peace­ful protest, with BBC North­west cov­er­ing the sto­ry. For now, they have suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing tree felling works to a halt. But the destruc­tion starts again TODAY ! We need your help to save the remain­ing 347 trees & wildlife habi­tat areas!

Tell your fam­i­ly and friends, your neigh­bours and your com­mu­ni­ty. Bring ban­ners, bring good­will — togeth­er we can make our voic­es heard! PEOPLE OF MANCHESTER UNITE!

Meet near the park gates on Alexan­dra Rd South and Clare­mont Rd. 

PLEASE PROMOTE THIS PROTEST

www.savealexandraparkstrees.wordpress.com
Email: savealexandraparkstrees@hotmail.com
Twit­ter: @SaveAPTrees
Facebook.com/Save Alexan­dra Parks Trees
Action Group Tel: 07757 639 668

Decoy Pond camp evicted but the campaign continues! (31 Jan)

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erect­ed on the path of the planned Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) – was final­ly evict­ed yes­ter­day (Wednes­day 30 Jan).

Decoy Pond camp – the third of three camps that had been erect­ed on the path of the planned Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) – was final­ly evict­ed yes­ter­day (Wednes­day 30 Jan).

In the end it took scores of secu­ri­ty, bailiffs and police three days to evict all of the climbers – not to men­tion tun­nel­ers, peo­ple in tripods and folk locked-on on the ground! Denied food, water and med­i­cine by East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil, the activists in the trees also had to con­tend with tor­ren­tial rain and gusts of wind of up to 54mph (Met Office fig­ure for near­by Bat­tle)! See below for pho­tos and films from yes­ter­day (30 Jan). In total, 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed, and the CHD is now help­ing to assist those charged, as they go through the court process.

After 48 days of con­tin­u­ous protest (with 28 arrests) some of those involved will prob­a­bly now be tak­ing a short but much need­ed rest. Nonethe­less, the Cam­paign con­tin­ues, with four activists in Court this morn­ing (Thurs­day 31 Jan), more news expect­ed from the High Court on Fri­day, the “Grannies’ Dinghy” action in the Val­ley this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary), and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for oppo­nents of the Road to get togeth­er to form groups and plan future activ­i­ties, this Sun­day (3 Feb­ru­ary: 4–6pm, The Roomz, 33–35 West­ern Road, St Leonards on Sea, TN37 6DJ).

Many more activ­i­ties and projects are also in the pipeline, so please sign the Pledge / like us on Face­book / fol­low us on Twit­ter (@combe_haven) / send a dona­tion (use the Pay­Pal but­tons on this site or send a cheque) and stay post­ed for more news on Phase 2. A luta con­tin­ua!

Anti-Surveillance Activists Begin Game to Destroy CCTV Cameras in Germany

The watch­ful eye of the Ger­man sur­veil­lance state may need some­thing of a patch soon as a rad­i­cal group of activists have launched a cam­paign to destroy as many CCTV sur­veil­lance cam­eras as pos­si­ble ahead of the 19 Feb­ru­ary Euro­pean Police Con­gress in Berlin.

The watch­ful eye of the Ger­man sur­veil­lance state may need some­thing of a patch soon as a rad­i­cal group of activists have launched a cam­paign to destroy as many CCTV sur­veil­lance cam­eras as pos­si­ble ahead of the 19 Feb­ru­ary Euro­pean Police Con­gress in Berlin.

The anti-sur­veil­lance activists have invit­ed their com­rades to join them in a game in which the only rules seem to be to destroy any and all CCTV cam­eras your “brigade” of cam­era smash­ers finds, and to not get caught doing it. The win­ning team of the “CamOver” game will be reward­ed with being “in the first line of the demon­stra­tion against the cops on 16 Feb­ru­ary,” and are remind­ed to “crouch down to avoid being hit by fly­ing cams.”

Cam Over

The game seems to be gath­er­ing play­ers as you can see in the above video. The blog host­ing the game, camover.blogsport.de, post­ed that two more cam­eras had been tak­en down on 14 Jan­u­ary by the “com­mand: Black Rab­bit of Death.”

———-

As a youth in a ski mask march­es down a Berlin U‑Bahn train, dressed head-to-toe in black, com­muters may feel their only pro­tec­tion is the ceil­ing-mount­ed CCTV cam­era near­by. But he is not inter­est­ed in steal­ing wal­lets or iPhones – he is after the cam­era itself. This is Camover, a new game being played across Berlin, which sees par­tic­i­pants trash­ing cam­eras in protest against the rise in close-cir­cuit tele­vi­sion across Ger­many.

The game is real-life Grand Theft Auto for those tired of being watched by the author­i­ties in Berlin; points are award­ed for the num­ber of cam­eras destroyed and bonus scores are giv­en for par­tic­u­lar­ly imag­i­na­tive modes of destruc­tion. Axes, ropes and pitch­forks are all encour­aged.

The rules of Camover are sim­ple: mobilise a crew and think of a name that starts with “com­mand”, “brigade” or “cell”, fol­lowed by the moniker of a his­tor­i­cal fig­ure (Van der Lubbe, a Dutch brick­lay­er con­vict­ed of set­ting fire to the Reich­stag in 1933, is one name being used). Then destroy as many CCTV cam­eras as you can. Con­ceal­ing your iden­ti­ty, while not essen­tial, is rec­om­mend­ed. Final­ly, video your trail of destruc­tion and post it on the game’s web­site – although even keep­ing track of the home­page can be a chal­lenge in itself, as it is con­tin­u­al­ly being shut down.

The use of sur­veil­lance cam­eras has become a thorny polit­i­cal issue in Ger­many. Inad­e­quate CCTV footage was high­light­ed in the inves­ti­ga­tion of a bomb scare in Bonn last Decem­ber (“Ger­mans con­sid­er Brit-style CCTV,” shout­ed Der Spiegel). This, along with the bru­tal killing of a man in Berlin’s busy Alexan­der­platz square in Octo­ber 2012 spurred the inte­ri­or min­is­ter, Hans-Peter Friedrich, to call for “effi­cient video sur­veil­lance and video record­ing in pub­lic areas”.

For those who oppose CCTV, peti­tions and let­ters only go so far in the Ger­man cap­i­tal. A group of 40 pro­test­ers walked the streets of Berlin for 1984 Action Day (protests against CCTV cam­eras and oth­er sur­veil­lance, named after the nov­el by George Orwell) in June and pres­sure group Con­trol Berlin has screened short films doc­u­ment­ing CCTV’s rise. But Camover’s direct-action approach revolves around a small but com­mit­ted group who call them­selves “work­less peo­ple – we are shoplifters, graf­fi­ti sprayers, home­less and squat­ters”. They claim to have snuffed out as many as 50 cam­eras since the game began a few weeks ago.

“We thought it would moti­vate inac­tive peo­ple out there if we made a video-invi­ta­tion to this real­i­ty-game,” the cre­ator of Camover (who want­ed to remain anony­mous) told me. “Although we call it a game, we are quite seri­ous about it: our aim is to destroy as many cam­eras as pos­si­ble and to have an influ­ence on video sur­veil­lance in our cities.”

The win­ner of the game does not get a tro­phy or a year’s sup­ply of spray paint. The com­pe­ti­tion ends on 19 Feb­ru­ary, to coin­cide with the start of the Euro­pean Police Con­gress. The prize, says Camover, is to be in the front­line of a protest that will take place three days ear­li­er, on 16 Feb­ru­ary. The loca­tion has yet to be con­firmed, but Camover advis­es any­one who turns up to “crouch to avoid the fly­ing cam­eras”.

 

Day 48 (30 Jan): Decoy Pond Camp eviction continues!

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day report­ed as cam­paign­er removed from tree.]

[Update, 10.43am: First arrest of the day report­ed as cam­paign­er removed from tree.]

30 Jan: Day 48 of the cur­rent phase of Combe Haven protests has begun with activists still in the trees at Decoy Pond Camp (see here for maps and direc­tions). The evic­tion con­tin­ues! East Sus­sex Coun­ty Coun­cil are still insist­ing that no food, water, blan­kets or med­i­cines be allowed up to the peo­ple high-up in the trees, who faced gusts of wind of up to 54mph last night.

Mean­while, local grand­moth­ers are mobil­is­ing to bring inflat­able dinghies to the flood­ed val­ley ths Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) for an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion of their sup­port for the peace­ful protests.

Five peo­ple were arrest­ed yes­ter­day, bring­ing the total num­ber of arrests so far to 26. All have now been released: one was cau­tioned, and the remain­ing four have been charged.

As we not­ed at the time of the evic­tion of “Base Camp”: This is only the end of the begin­ning for the protests against the Bex­hill Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR)!

If you can’t make it down to the Val­ley this week then please sign the Pledge / like us on Face­book / fol­low us on Twit­ter (@combe_haven) / send a dona­tion (use the Pay­Pal but­tons on this site or send a cheque) and stay post­ed for news on Phase 2!

Two short films from yesterday’s evic­tion:

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Press Infor­ma­tion Note
Combe Haven Defend­ers [1]
30 Jan­u­ary 2013

EVICTION OF HASTINGS ANTI-ROAD CAMP ENTERS THIRD DAY
Local grand­moth­ers to show sup­port with “Grannies’ Dinghy” action this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb)

30 Jan­u­ary, 8.15am: At least four activists are still in the tree­tops of the third [2] anti-road camp along the route of the pro­posed Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) this morn­ing, as local grand­moth­ers mobilise to bring inflat­able dinghies to the flood­ed val­ley ths Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) for an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion of their sup­port for the peace­ful protests.

Cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly peace­ful­ly resist­ing the evic­tion of the Camp, which is locat­ed just west of Upper Wilt­ing Farm in Crowhurst (TN38 8EG) [3]. East Sus­sex Coun­cil have denied food and water to the pro­test­ers – who have faced heavy rain and gusts of up to 54mph, fifty-feet up in the trees – since Mon­day morn­ing [4].

Local grand­moth­ers will be assem­bling with inflat­able dinghies at 12.45pm this Sat­ur­day (2 Feb­ru­ary) at the Plough Inn in Crowhurst (TN33 9AW), from where they plan to mount an aquat­ic demon­stra­tion against the Road in the near­by flood­ed fields – fields through which the Road is sup­posed to pass [5]. An ear­li­er action (“Grannies’ Tree”) was repro­duced in both the Dai­ly Mail and Dai­ly Tele­graph.

The £100m Road project is one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [6,7].

Sev­en peo­ple have been arrest­ed since Mon­day, includ­ing Natal­ie Hyn­de, daugh­ter of pop singer Chrissie Hyn­de [4]. The peace­ful protests against the Road– which have now been run­ning con­tin­u­ous­ly for 48 days, with 26 arrests – have seized nation­al atten­tion over the past sev­en weeks [8].

Adri­an Hop­kins of the Combe Haven Defend­ers said: “Resis­tance has been grow­ing to this awful scheme as each day pass­es and more peo­ple become inspired by the action so far tak­en to pro­tect the beau­ti­ful Combe Haven val­ley. This is only the begin­ning of a sus­tained cam­paign of peace­ful resis­tance to this envi­ron­men­tal­ly dis­as­trous white-ele­phant project.”

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] The first camp was estab­lished on 21 Decem­ber. Two oth­er camps along the route, ‘Three Oaks’ and ‘Adams Farm’, have already been evict­ed, on 14 Jan and 16–17 Jan respec­tive­ly, result­ing in sev­en arrests.
[3] For maps and direc­tions see http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/camp-groundrules-directions/
[4] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/29-jan-escc-still-denying-food-blankets-to-activists-facing-44mph-gusts/
[5] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/sat-19-jan-grannies-photoshoot‑2/
[6] See ‘Con­tro­ver­sial ‘zom­bie roads’ scheme to be resus­ci­tat­ed’, Guardian, 10 Octo­ber 2012, http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[7] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report
[8] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/

Tar Sands Blockade Activists Forced to Settle Lawsuit But Will Continue to Fight

TransCanada Claimed $5 Million in Damages

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 25th, a group of activists agreed to a se

TransCanada Claimed $5 Million in Damages

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 25th, a group of activists agreed to a set­tle­ment in TransCanada’s law­suit against Tar Sands Block­ade, Ris­ing Tide North Texas, Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca, and nine­teen indi­vid­u­als. The SLAPP suit (Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion) alleged that direct action against Key­stone XL has cost Tran­sCana­da $5 mil­lion. This con­tra­dicts fre­quent pub­lic state­ments by TransCanada’s spokes­peo­ple that block­aders were not imped­ing con­struc­tion in any mean­ing­ful way.

The eight Tex­ans who came to court to defend them­selves on Fri­day, some of whom had not been active­ly involved with Tar Sands Block­ade since protests in August, were threat­ened with los­ing their homes and life’s sav­ings if the law­suit went for­ward. In order to pro­tect the liveli­hoods and depen­dents of brave activists like Tam­mie Car­son, who locked her­self to a truck car­ry­ing Key­stone XL pipe, the activists agreed to set­tle the law­suit. The cor­po­ra­tion will not seek the $5 mil­lion in finan­cial dam­ages, and the named defen­dants and orga­ni­za­tions agreed to not tres­pass on Key­stone XL prop­er­ty in Texas and Okla­homa or face addi­tion­al charges.

Despite this legal set­back, mem­bers of Tar Sands Block­ade are as deter­mined as ever to stop Key­stone XL. The sus­tained direct action cam­paign will con­tin­ue. Here’s a chronol­o­gy of all the direct actions tak­en since August 2012.

Defen­dants made the fol­low­ing state­ments in response to the set­tle­ment:

Tam­mie Car­son, a life­long Tex­an, grand­moth­er, and defen­dant from Arling­ton, TX, said:

“I took action for my grand­kids’ future. I couldn’t sit idly by and watch as a multi­na­tion­al cor­po­rate bul­ly abused emi­nent domain to build a dirty and dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline right through Tex­ans’ back­yards. I had no choice but to set­tle or lose my home and every­thing I’ve worked for my entire life.”

 

Ram­sey Sprague, Tar Sands Block­ade spokesper­son, and defen­dant from Fort Worth, TX, said:

“Tran­sCana­da is dead wrong if they think a civ­il law­suit against a hand­ful of Tex­ans is going to stop a grass­roots civ­il dis­obe­di­ence move­ment. This is noth­ing more than anoth­er exam­ple of Tran­sCana­da repress­ing dis­sent and bul­ly­ing Tex­ans who are defend­ing their homes and futures from tox­ic tar sands.”

Lau­ren Regan, an attor­ney with the Civ­il Lib­er­ties Defense Cen­ter and one of the legal coor­di­na­tors for the Tar Sands Block­ade made the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“The SLAPP suit (Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion) filed against the peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions that are fight­ing against TransCanada’s uneth­i­cal and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive pipeline will nev­er stop the people’s resis­tance to the XL Pipeline. Tran­sCana­da has repeat­ed­ly attempt­ed to vio­late the law and bul­ly the peo­ple of Texas: through cor­po­rate cor­rup­tion and lies, they obtained “com­mon car­ri­er” sta­tus in Texas in order to steal pri­vate prop­er­ty from low income and hard work­ing Tex­ans; they have attempt­ed to bring the full weight of the police state upon non­vi­o­lent activists in an attempt to crush their peace­ful resistance–using mace, tasers, and phys­i­cal bru­tal­i­ty.

Despite phys­i­cal harm, lengthy incar­cer­a­tions, felony charges, and now civ­il law­suits to restrict their right to protest, the peo­ple have not been deterred and have only been embold­ened in the face of Transcanada’s attempt at repres­sion and bul­ly­ing. At each attempt by Tran­sCana­da to chill the cit­i­zens’ rights to protest the XL Pipeline, the people’s lawyers will stand up to defend them in the Court’s. For every pro­tes­tor that is jailed or beat­en, ten more arrive to take that person’s place. For every home­own­er who has had their land stolen, and dan­ger­ous tar sands oil now threat­ens their health and envi­ron­ment, peo­ple from around the coun­try will band togeth­er to pro­tect the next threat­ened com­mu­ni­ty through a vari­ety of non­vi­o­lent tools. Resis­tance is Fer­tile. The sur­vival of the plan­et in the face of glob­al cli­mate change deserves noth­ing less.”