Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

Corrib campaigner released from Castlerea prison

21st June 2013

Cor­rib cam­paign­er released from Castlerea prison

21st June 2013

Cor­rib cam­paign­er released from Castlerea prison

Liam Hef­fer­nan released after 10 days impris­on­ment and 5 days on hunger strike
 
Today at Har­ris­town court, Castl­rea Co. Roscom­mon, Liam Walsh Hef­fer­nan (28) of Castle­bar Co. Mayo, was released from Castlerea prison after 10 days in cus­tody. For the last 5 days of his impris­on­ment he had been on hunger strike protest­ing against his deten­tion and the extra­or­di­nary con­di­tions of the bail terms that he had thus far refused.
 
Mr Hef­fer­nan was arrest­ed on the 12th of June while protest­ing against the Shell Cor­rib gas project at Augh­oose Co. Mayo. At Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion he was charged under sec­tions 8 and 9 of the Pub­lic Order Act. He was offered bail, with the extra­or­di­nary con­di­tion that he stay away from Augh­oose, site of the Shell tun­nelling works for the Cor­rib gas project. Augh­oose is also the loca­tion of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and is a cen­tral focus of protest against the project. Mr Hef­fer­nan refused the bail con­di­tions, and has been held on remand until his release today.
 
On the 17th of June Mr Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike against his extra­or­di­nary bail terms and his con­tin­ued deten­tion. This morn­ing at a bail hear­ing in Har­ris­town court, Mr Hef­fer­nan, rep­re­sent­ing him­self, made an appli­ca­tion to the Judge Browne to change the terms of the bond, in order to per­mit him to return to Augh­oose. The Judge said that he was unable to alter the bail terms in that court. Mr Hef­fer­nan then signed the bail bond, stat­ing that he would chal­lenge the bail terms and con­test the pub­lic order charges. Mr Hef­fer­nan’s first appear­ance in rela­tion to the charges is on the 10th of July, Bel­mul­let dis­trict court.
 
Upon his release Mr Hef­fer­nan said: “The state has attempt­ed to lim­it my free­dom of speech and move­ment, by apply­ing these extra­or­di­nary con­di­tions on my bail. Peo­ple in Mayo have suf­fered decades of injus­tice because of the impo­si­tion of the Cor­rib gas project. What we do with our nat­ur­al resources should be open to nation­al debate, and for any project to pro­ceed, the con­sent of the peo­ple must be sought.”
 
 

Corrib campaigner on hunger strike in Castlerea prison

View image on Twitter

On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

View image on Twitter

On Mon­day 17th of June Cor­rib cam­paign­er Liam Hef­fer­nan began a hunger strike in protest against his con­tin­ued deten­tion in Castlerea prison.

On Wednes­day morn­ing the 12th of June Liam Hef­fer­nan — a cam­paign­er from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp — was arrest­ed at Augh­oose, Coun­ty Mayo under sec­tions 8 and 9 of the Pub­lic Order Act for alleged­ly obstruct­ing Shell con­struc­tion vehi­cles with­out law­ful author­i­ty or rea­son­able excuse.

At Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion Mr. Hef­fer­nan was offered to enter into a bail bond with the con­di­tion that he stay away from the Shell tun­nelling com­pound at Augh­oose. After refus­ing this extra­or­di­nary con­di­tion, he was remand­ed to Catlerea prison, Co. Roscom­mon for two days until the court sat on Fri­day morn­ing last.

In Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, Mr. Hef­fer­nan, defend­ing him­self, read a state­ment to the court say­ing that he believed he was being ille­gal­ly detained and informed the Judge of some of the his­to­ry of the Cor­rib gas project and his rea­sons for protest­ing at Augh­oose. The Judge replied that he should take up these issues with the High Court and/or the Gov­ern­ment. At this point Mr. Hef­fer­nan accept­ed to enter into the bail con­di­tions set out by the Judge and to appear before Bel­mul­let Dis­trict Court on the 10th of July.

The Judge how­ev­er found prob­lems with Mr. Hef­fer­nan’s sig­na­ture and remand­ed the cam­paign­er in cus­tody until the next sit­ting of Har­ris­town court.

Today, Thurs­day the 20th of June, marks Liam’s ninth day in prison and fourth day on hunger strike. Sup­port­ers of Liam are invit­ed to attend Har­ris­town Court, Castlerea, tomor­row,  Fri­day the 21st of June at 10.30am

 

Shell speedboats ram and sink kayaker for Corrib gas project

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

19 June 2013. On Sun­day Shell began lay­ing the off­shore umbil­i­cal pipeline for the Cor­rib Gas Project. Kayak­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp entered Broad­haven Bay to protest against the con­tin­ued impo­si­tion of the dis­as­trous project.

The Gar­dai are allow­ing Shell increas­ing­ly to police the protests them­selves, by using their pri­vate secu­ri­ty force — IRMS, and at sea, so called extra “safe­ty” boats.

Do you want pri­vate mili­tias oper­at­ing in Ire­land at the behest of the most pow­er­ful cor­po­ra­tions in the world?

If not you are wel­come to come to Mayo, check out the sit­u­a­tion for your­self, and if you like add your skill, cre­ativ­i­ty and time to the resis­tance.

Reclaim the Fields and Climate camp 2013 in Colone, Germany

Reclaim the Fields and AusgeCO2hlt invite you to an action­camp in Rhineland, close to Cologne (Ger­many), from 23.8. until 6.9. 2013.

Reclaim the Fields and AusgeCO2hlt invite you to an action­camp in Rhineland, close to Cologne (Ger­many), from 23.8. until 6.9. 2013. For three days we will take col­lec­tive direct action against the open cast min­ing in Rhineland. Fur­ther­more there will be a pro­gram includ­ing dif­fer­ent prac­ti­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal work­shops, dis­cus­sions and a lot more.

 

http://www.reclaimthefields.org/camp2013

On the back­ground of the strug­gles in Rhineland we want to facil­i­tate an exchange of dis­si­dent knowl­edge and action.We invite to 14 days of net­work­ing, col­lec­tive learn­ing and dis­cus­sion as well as prac­ti­cal activ­i­ties to exchange knowl­edge and skills and to resist in the Rhineland.

Apart from the three days of action there will be a lot of space for Work­shops and get­ting to know each oth­er to cre­ate new links.The Camp is a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry process and waits for your con­tri­bu­tion! We are look­ing for­ward to your ideas, con­tents and skills to cre­ate a pro­gram togeth­er.

You are artists, activists, peas­ants, urban gar­den­ers, are liv­ing on a col­lec­tive farm or are active in polit­i­cal cam­paigns or groups? You want to share you expe­ri­ences, pass and broad­en your knowl­edge? Then you are wel­come to do this in the course of work­shops, dis­cus­sions, prac­ti­cal work or in oth­er ways.

We look for­ward to alter­na­tive ideas on top­ics like col­lec­tive and sol­i­dariy form of liv­ing and work­ing beyond cap­i­tal­ism and struc­tures of exploita­tion. Every­thing that strength­ens our diverse dai­ly and orga­nized resis­tance is wel­come.

Con­tact us at pro­gram (at) reclaimthefields.org

Some poten­tial themes for work­shops to inspire you:

food­sou­ver­eign­ty // right wing pol­i­tics in eco move­ment // ani­mal rights/animal Lib­er­a­tion // self-sup­ply/-suf­fi­cien­cy // self-organ­i­sa­tion // access to land // con­nect­ing urban and rur­al strug­gles // urban sup­ply of rur­al col­lec­tives (Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port­ed Agri­cul­ture, Non-Com­mer­cial Agri­cul­ture) // per­ma­cul­ture // Pri­vate Prop­er­ties – Com­mons // His­to­ry and devel­op­ment of Agri­cul­ture: Agri­cul­ture and Cap­i­tal­ism (Green Rev­o­lu­tion) // land lib­er­a­tion through pur­chase of land (dif­fer­ent means of access to land: squat­ting, buy­ing, etc) // how to organ­ise strug­gles, „how to do resistance“/share and learn forms of resis­tance // ener­gy // botany/knowlegde of herbs and plants

What is Ausgeco2hlt?

Our Cam­paign sees itself as an open plat­form where dif­fer­ent groups and indi­vid­u­als can net­work with each oth­er, edu­cate them­selves and take col­lec­tive action. Our aim is to orga­nize a broad protest move­ment against RWE¹ and for the imme­di­ate shut down of the open cast mines in the Rhineland coal fields.

We see the protest against brown coal as part of a glob­al cli­mate move­ment against Coal-ener­gy, the exploita­tion of shale gas, Car­bon-diox­ide stor­age, etc. and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with ener­gy strug­gles against fos­sil-nuclear cap­i­tal­ism.

We are con­vinced that in order to facil­i­tate a true ener­gy trans­for­ma­tion, monop­o­lised pow­er struc­tures have to be ques­tioned and we have to change the rules of the game of the con­cur­rent econ­o­my, built upon lim­it­less growth and con­sump­tion of resources.Thus we sup­port ini­tia­tives for self-deter­mined ways of liv­ing as an alter­na­tive to super­flu­ous con­sump­tion. At the same time we demand a col­lec­tiviza­tion of ener­gy com­pa­nies and a decen­tral­ized ener­gy sup­ply with renew­able ener­gies.

What is Reclaim the Fields?

Reclaim the Fields is a europewide con­stel­la­tion of peas­ants, land­less and prospec­tive peas­ants, as well as peo­ple who are tak­ing back con­trol over food production.We sup­port and encour­age peo­ple to stay on the land and go back to the coun­try­side. We pro­mote food sov­er­eign­ty (as defined in the Nyéléni dec­la­ra­tion) and peas­ant agri­cul­ture, as well as alter­na­tive ways of life.We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real-needs-ori­ent­ed, small-scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives. We are putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.

Seeds

The “Reclaim the seeds” work­ing group invites peo­ple to come with self­pro­duced seeds and any doc­u­ment they think would be nice to share. With the prac­tise of seed swap’s we want to reflect about the sub­ject of seeds col­lec­tive­ly.

A Camp wel­com­ing Chil­dren

The Camp is meant to be a chil­dren friend­ly space, where chil­dren and their affin­i­ty per­sons have a space and are includ­ed in actions, the pro­gram and oth­er camp activ­i­ties. We are aware that polit­i­cal actions and camps often con­tain obsta­cles for par­ents and affin­i­ty per­son of chil­dren and thus exclude them. Tak­ing into account the real needs of chil­dren and affin­i­ty per­sons we want to cre­ate a space for every­one. Please feel wel­come to come to the camp and par­tic­i­pate! We would be hap­py if you would get in touch with us before­hand in order to talk about an ade­quate arrange­ment.

No space for Racism or Sex­ism – Not at the Camp nor any­where else

The camp explic­it­ly takes a stand against Sex­ism and Racism as well as oth­er forms of dom­i­na­tion on the basis of hier­ar­chi­cal social cat­e­gories, the camp posi­tions itself deter­mi­nant against sex­ist and racist acts.

Costs of the Camp

We try to orga­nize the camp as low-cost as pos­si­ble but are depen­dent on your sol­i­dar­i­ty con­tri­bu­tions. Please get in touch with us if you want to come but the trav­el is too expen­sive for you. We want to make it pos­si­ble for every­body to come and share trav­el costs in a col­lec­tive man­ner, but can not guar­an­tee any­thing.

Visa

If you need a Visa to get to the camp an want to be sup­port­ed in that case, get in touch with us at – camp2013_AT_reclaimthefields.org

Infor­ma­tion and con­tact

More, up to date, infor­ma­tion about the pro­gram, how to get to the camp, food, camp­ing, etc. can be found at www.reclaimthefield.org/camp/2013

Through the mailadress camp2013_AT_reclaimthefields.org you can reach us with ques­tions about the camp.

For work­shops please write to program[at]reclaimthefields.org.

For more infor­ma­tion about RtF and Ausgeco2hlt vis­it: reclaimthefields.org and ausgeco2hlt.de

Reg­is­ter for the camp at: reclaimthefields.org/registration

The more peo­ple reg­is­ter the eas­i­er it is for us to plan!

Feel free to for­ward this call to indi­vid­u­als or groups you know and come to the camp!

Resis­tance is fer­tile!

Your Camp-Organ­i­sa­tion

 

¹RWE is Ger­manys sec­ond biggest ener­gy sup­ply con­cern, that keeps on using cole as th main ener­gy and has com­pared to oth­er euro­pean com­pa­nies a very low share of regen­er­a­tive ener­gies in the mix of ener­gies. RWE is being criti­sised of doing gree­wash­ing with “cli­mate cam­paigns” whilst through open cast min­ing a lot of nature and towns are being destroyed, aswell as low­er­ing the ground­wa­ter.

Tree Sitters Successfully Turn Away Workers Sent to Cut Trees at former Hayes Valley Farm

On the morn­ing of Fri­day, June 7th, the tree sit­ters and par­tic­i­pants in the Lib­er­ate the Land action at Gezi Gar­dens, the for­mer Hayes Val­ley Farm, suc­cess­ful­ly turned away the work­ers sent to cut the trees down.  The tree cut­ting com­pa­ny arrived at about 8:00 a.m.

On the morn­ing of Fri­day, June 7th, the tree sit­ters and par­tic­i­pants in the Lib­er­ate the Land action at Gezi Gar­dens, the for­mer Hayes Val­ley Farm, suc­cess­ful­ly turned away the work­ers sent to cut the trees down.  The tree cut­ting com­pa­ny arrived at about 8:00 a.m. and had the gates locked on them as climbers mount­ed har­ness­es to climb the trees inside the fence and pre­pare to climb those on the edge.

There are 6 plat­forms built in trees on the land between Oak and Fell Streets on Lagu­na in San Fran­cis­co.  Below, gar­den­ers water the greens,
edi­ble peren­ni­als, and oth­er plants as oth­ers pre­pare meals, orga­nize work­shops and activ­i­ties, and build a vil­lage to demon­strate eco­log­i­cal liv­ing in the city.

This Sat­ur­day, June 8th, Gezi Gar­dens is host­ing a bar­be­cue, live music, work­shops, and a neigh­bor­hood meet­ing.  Live music will start as ear­ly as 10:00 a.m. with a bar­be­cue get­ting under­way around noon.  The neigh­bor­hood and com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing will start at 3:00 pm to open a dia­logue about pre­serv­ing this open green space and poten­tial­ly turn­ing it into a com­mons for the peo­ple of San Fran­cis­co.  This will be fol­lowed by a teach in on the sit­u­a­tion in Turkey that start­ed when the peo­ple of Istan­bul attempt­ed to stop the destruc­tion of one of the last open green spaces in the city.

The day before the green space was planned to be devel­oped into a com­mer­cial shop­ping mall, peo­ple popped tents or slept under the stars with their kids or a book.  In the morn­ing, peo­ple stood in front of the exca­va­tion machines to stop the trees from being cut down.  Police respond­ed with tear gas and burned the tents of peo­ple in the park. The next day, 10,000 peo­ple showed up and sat shoul­der to shoul­der, stop­ping devel­op­ment of the green space until anoth­er vio­lent police response.

This sparked a social upris­ing through­out all of Turkey that goes far beyond envi­ron­men­tal­ism.  The peo­ple of Gezi Park say they are try­ing to stop pri­vate inter­ests from prof­it­ing off of their land.  The #Gezi­Park protests, some of which call­ing them­selves #Occu­pyGezi, has been joined by a gen­er­al strike through­out Turkey of city work­ers and pri­vate employ­ees, bring­ing the gears of indus­try to a halt.  When Lib­er­ate the Land marched to the land in San Fran­cis­co, they called atten­tion to the Free Farm and Esper­an­za Gar­dens’ dis­place­ment for hous­ing devel­op­ment while call­ing for sol­i­dar­i­ty with Turkey and lib­er­a­tion of land from pri­vate inter­ests around
the world.

HumanBeIn.org

@LiberateLand

#Lib­er­ateTh­e­Land

LiberateLand@gmail.com

Brighton squat trial — longer update

Flyer27.05.2013

Flyer27.05.2013

One squat­ter con­vict­ed, two walk free. An appeal for the one has already been launched…


We are pret­ty shocked to report that the third and last defen­dant was found GUILTY under s144 on May 24. He was sen­tenced to 40 hours unpaid labour and a £250 fine. Pre­vi­ous updates can be found on the roofto­pre­sis­tance web­site. This deci­sion was imme­di­ate­ly appealed and we will let you know the next court date asap.

The mag­is­trates said in their “judge­ment” that:

The defen­dant was a tres­pass­er
The defen­dant was liv­ing there
The build­ing was res­i­den­tial

In sup­port of their claim that the defen­dant lived there, the mag­is­trates said there was show­er gel in the show­er, pots and pans in the kitchen and a light on in the fridge. This is clear­ly far from a legal def­i­n­i­tion of liv­ing, espe­cial­ly since the defen­dant was not actu­al­ly linked to any of the items in any way.

In sup­port of their claim that the build­ing was res­i­den­tial, the mag­is­trates appeared to rely on the tried and trust­ed adage that ‘the police said it was true so it must be true.’ They ignored evi­dence obtained from the Coun­cil that the build­ing had nev­er been con­vert­ed to res­i­den­tial.

What does this mean? We think this means that a judge (or indeed any­one with legal train­ing) will quick­ly over­turn this deci­sion. Mike Weath­er­ly says he is delight­ed that our friend is con­vict­ed. We will be inter­est­ed to hear his reac­tion when our friend returns to hav­ing no con­vic­tions again in about six weeks.

The oth­er two defen­dants had pre­vi­ous­ly had their cas­es dropped on grounds of no case to answer (no com­ment from Weath­er­ly about that). The only dif­fer­ence with the case for the third defen­dant was that a cop claimed the defen­dant had said to him that he lived in the build­ing. This evi­dence was used in court despite not being tak­en under cau­tion (there are grounds for appeal on that alone!) and the mag­is­trates took it as a vol­un­tary con­fes­sion, despite it being dis­put­ed by the defence.

In order to reach this deci­sion, the mag­is­trates appeared to prize the word of one police­man over anoth­er, since although one had claimed that the defen­dant had said he lived in the build­ing, anoth­er said he had not.

In the eyes of these right-wing dip­shits, it is fine for the police to act as prop­er­ty pro­tec­tors, an approach which has already had trag­ic con­se­quences.

All in all, this tri­al was a farce, with untrained mag­is­trates being asked to imple­ment an ill-thought out new law. They failed to do their job prop­er­ly and the only good thing to come out of this con­vic­tion is that hope­ful­ly a decent legal prece­dent will be set on appeal which makes clear what ‘liv­ing’ and ‘res­i­den­tial’ mean in the eyes of the law. We do not doubt that this will lead to our friend’s con­vic­tion being over­turned AND this new law becom­ing unwork­able in prac­tice.

PS Thanks to every­one for their con­tin­ued sup­port and props to the entire pub­lic gallery for walk­ing out when the mag­is­trates unveiled their prej­u­dices.

hous­ing­war at squat dot net
@housingwar

 rooftopresistance.squat.net

Faslane Peace Camp update

As you may know Faslane Peace Camp recent­ly put out an appeal for new mem­bers. For­tu­nate­ly the pub­lic­i­ty has gen­er­at­ed more peo­ple mov­ing to the camp and the good news is that it now looks like the peace camp is not going to close at this cru­cial time in the debate about nuclear weapons in Scot­land.

As you may know Faslane Peace Camp recent­ly put out an appeal for new mem­bers. For­tu­nate­ly the pub­lic­i­ty has gen­er­at­ed more peo­ple mov­ing to the camp and the good news is that it now looks like the peace camp is not going to close at this cru­cial time in the debate about nuclear weapons in Scot­land.
Vis­it Faslane Peace Camp from Cam­corder Guer­ril­las on Vimeo.

     To help the peace camp some for­mer res­i­dents and sup­port­ers of the camp have set up a Faslane Peace Camp Sup­port­ers net­work to help dis­trib­ute infor­ma­tion, fundraise, organ­ise events and protests, ben­e­fit gigs, trips out to the camp and stay­ing there reg­u­lar­ly etc.

    This sum­mer the Sup­port Net­work are plan­ning to build an eco-house using recy­cled mate­ri­als for use as a com­mu­nal space at the peace camp and we recent­ly held a suc­cess­ful ‘Phoenix Gath­er­ing’ at the peace camp. Some of us are meet­ing in Mono on Wednes­day 22nd May at 7.30 to dis­cuss set­ting up a Sup­port Net­work in Glas­gow and how we can do more to help the camp.

    Any­one inter­est­ed in help­ing to sup­port the camp is wel­come to come along!

Cheers!

Phill
Faslane Peace Camp Sup­port Net­work

faslanepeacecampsolidarity@gmail.com

Or Faslane Peace Camp 01436 820901 / faslane30@gmail.com

40,000 form human chain around the ZAD

20.5.13

If any more proof is need­ed that direct action works, take a trip to Nantes in west­ern France.

20.5.13

If any more proof is need­ed that direct action works, take a trip to Nantes in west­ern France.

Fif­teen or so miles out­side the city, the region­al author­i­ty backed by the French nation­al gov­ern­ment, has been try­ing to build “Nantes Inter­na­tion­al” Air­port. It claims it is required to replace the sin­gle run­way air­port in the city in order to attract invest­ment into the area. The oppo­nents com­mis­sioned their own study which refut­ed those claims. They also point out that Nantes is just a lit­tle over two hours by fast train from Charles de Gaulle Air­port in Paris. The new air­port is dis­missed as lit­tle more than an ego project of the for­mer major of Nantes, Jean-Marc Ayrault, now the Prime Min­is­ter of France. It has been dubbed ‘Ayrauo­port’.

Last week­end (11th May) I was one of the 40,000 or so peo­ple who formed a 25 kilo­me­tre-long human chain around the site of the air­port. The huge num­bers have been inspired by the direct action of last win­ter. Dur­ing the win­ter months there were tear-gas bat­tles in the woods as police fought to remove hun­dreds of young pro­test­ers who had set up make-shift homes in sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ty.  The courage of the pro­test­ers from the self-styled ZAD as they resist­ed the police in the bit­ter cold and dri­ving rain of last win­ter both cement­ed their sup­port in the local com­mu­ni­ty and inspired peo­ple from around France and beyond.

Now there are sup­port groups, called “com­mit­tees”, in 200 towns and cities.  Each group stages demon­stra­tions in their own towns and lob­bies politi­cians in their own areas in sup­port of the Nantes cam­paign­ers. Hard­ly a week goes by with­out one of the com­mit­tees cycling or walk­ing through France to the site of the pro­posed air­port. Last week­end on my way back from the protest I spied a bill­board in Le Mans– over 100 miles from Nantes– oppos­ing the air­port.

The ZAD resis­tance fol­lowed on from the 28 day hunger strike staged last year dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cam­paign by four peas­ant farm­ers against the plan to evict them from their prop­er­ties. 

The local com­mu­ni­ty has fought a great cam­paign over the years – and recent­ly won an impor­tant court case in the courts where the judge ruled that the airport’s pro­mot­ers had failed to car­ry out prop­er flood plain and envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments of the project, as required by the Euro­pean Union.  The cam­paign­ers believe that the rul­ing from the court may pro­vide a way for the Gov­ern­ment to drop the air­port and save face. But the rea­son the Gov­ern­ment is under so much pres­sure is because of the way that direct action – the hunger strikes and the resis­tance from ZAD – elec­tri­fied sup­port from across France. No won­der there was such a car­ni­val atmos­phere last Sat­ur­day. We were hold­ing hands around an air­port that will prob­a­bly now nev­er be built.

John Stew­art guest post’s blog

Resistance to the Nordic Mining Boom — Action Camp in Finnish North Karelia Starting 18 June 2013

Tal­vi­vaaras’ nick­el-ura­ni­um mine has caused the most seri­ous envi­ron­men­tal dam­ages in the finnish his­to­ry in decades. The mine has been con­tin­u­ous­ly pol­lut­ing the amaz­ing water­scapes of east­ern Fin­land.

Tal­vi­vaaras’ nick­el-ura­ni­um mine has caused the most seri­ous envi­ron­men­tal dam­ages in the finnish his­to­ry in decades. The mine has been con­tin­u­ous­ly pol­lut­ing the amaz­ing water­scapes of east­ern Fin­land. More and more peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions are demand­ing clos­ing of the mine and the locals can’t use water from sev­er­al lakes any­more, but it does­n’t seem to have any impact in a coun­try where the finance elite knows that the gov­ern­ment is in their ser­vice.
The eco-dis­as­ter in the Tal­vi­vaara mine is not a rare excep­tion: rather, it is busi­ness as usu­al wher­ev­er large min­ing cor­po­ra­tions are oper­at­ing. For the sur­round­ing areas, pol­lut­ed ground­wa­ter has been the price to pay for every sin­gle ura­ni­um mine in the world so far. Despite this, a num­ber of  projects for open­ing huge mines are under­way in Fin­land and Swe­den.

Dis­re­gard­ing the cost to the ecosys­tem or the oppo­si­tion of locals, the inter­na­tion­al elite has decid­ed to sac­ri­fice the Nordic flo­ra, fau­na and waters to fuel the growth-com­pul­sive econ­o­my.

Deter­mined resis­tance is need­ed to keep the envi­ron­ment viable. Join us to share knowl­edge and skills, and to act!

The camp is locat­ed ca. 30 km from the Tal­vi­vaara mine. The first week of the camp, we will share info about the min­ing sit­u­a­tion in the north and explore tac­tics for open direct action. These skills will be put to use dur­ing the sec­ond week.

More info & updates com­ing at turvaverkosto.wordpress.com

Feel free to offer your own pro­gram! The camp will work in a self-orga­nized man­ner, so par­tic­i­pants are expect­ed to do their share of run­ning the camp. To cov­er costs we ask for a dona­tion of 5–10 € per day, tak­ing into account peo­ple’s per­son­al eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tions. Rides from more acces­si­ble loca­tions will be arranged as often as pos­si­ble. When sign­ing up for the camp, please con­tact us if you would want a ride or have any oth­er spe­cial needs, aller­gies etc.

Let us know you’re com­ing by mail­ing turva@riseup.net before 10th of June, if pos­si­ble!

TURVA — Action net­work against ura­ni­um indus­try
turvaverkosto.wordpress.com

Hyökyaal­to net­work (Ris­ing Tide Fin­land)
hyokyaalto.org

Friends of the Land­less Fin­land
http://maattomienliike.wordpress.com/

 

Faslane Peace Camp: Phoenix Gathering 3–5 May 2013

meeting

Watch the great new video call-out.

meeting

Watch the great new video call-out.

A 3 day gath­er­ing at Faslane Peace Camp to work out logis­tics etc of rebuild­ing or tat­ting down the camp.  For every­one who wants to be involved as a new res­i­dent or part of the new sup­port group.  
Please get in touch if you want to attend either phone the camp on 01436–820901 or e‑mail the peace camp sol­i­dar­i­ty group:
faslanepeacecampsolidarity@gmail.com

3rd, 4th and 5th May
Faslane Peace Camp, Shan­don, Helens­burgh, Dun­bar­ton­shire G84 8NT

Faslane Peace Camp is look­ing for new mem­bers!

Faslane Peace Camp is the longest run­ning peace camp in the world.  Opened in 1982 by local peo­ple opposed to the bas­ing of Tri­dent mis­sile sub­marines here, the peace camp has been a sym­bol of hope and resis­tance for over thir­ty years.
Over that time num­bers at the camp have fluc­tu­at­ed from 2 to 25 peo­ple liv­ing there at any one time.
Now num­bers are falling and the peo­ple liv­ing at the camp want to move on.  They’ve decid­ed to set a dead­line of May 12th 2013 to find more peo­ple or they are going to start dis­man­tling the camp and turn­ing it into a peace gar­den in time for the peace cam­p’s 31st birth­day on 12th June 2013.  
We don’t have that much time to find a group of peo­ple who are com­mit­ted to stay­ing at the camp to con­tin­ue the resis­tance to British nuclear weapons on the Clyde.  
Some for­mer peace campers and friends at the peace camp have set up a group to try to do this and are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing sup­port for new peo­ple mov­ing to the peace camp.
Please if you don’t want to see the Peace Camp close at this cru­cial time in the debate about nuclear weapons in Scot­land and can offer help in any way or are inter­est­ed in find­ing out more about liv­ing at the peace camp please email us the Faslane Sup­port Net­work at: faslanepeacecampsolidarity@gmail.com
Or talk to the peace campers them­selves by con­tact­ing Faslane Peace Camp on 01436–820901 or faslane30@gmail.com

Lots more recent sto­ries here,