Earth First! summer gathering date change & contact details

The dates of the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing have been changed, to work bet­ter with oth­er events hap­pen­ing over the sum­mer such as the Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp and the Camp for Cli­mate Action.

The new dates are Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008.

This should give us all the space to recov­er & reflect, and to plot & plan onwards and upwards.

Rabbit with spanner & Earth First!The dates of the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing have been changed, to work bet­ter with oth­er events hap­pen­ing over the sum­mer such as the Sav­ing Ice­land protest camp and the Camp for Cli­mate Action.

The new dates are Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008.

This should give us all the space to recov­er & reflect, and to plot & plan onwards and upwards.

The new con­tact details for the EF!SG col­lec­tive is summergathering@earthfirst.org.uk

You can down­load pub­lic­i­ty — 2 posters & leaflet all in one: (front & back)

Watch this space for more info near­er the time.

How to Fitwatch

Fit­watch meet­ing — Sat­ur­day 8th March at the LSE (Con­naught House, Ald­wych) at 2pm. Room H103.

Fit­watch has proved to be a high­ly effec­tive tac­tic against sur­veil­lance by pub­lic order police.

Although real­ly, it is bet­ter described as a range of tac­tics. Some are as sim­ple as tak­ing a pic­ture, or mak­ing a note of police num­bers. Oth­er tac­tics are more con­fronta­tion­al and active­ly pre­vent the police accu­mu­lat­ing the data they use for their ‘pre­ven­ta­tive’ pub­lic order polic­ing. There is a tac­tic for every­one, and all of them are very effec­tive.

Fit­watch meet­ing — Sat­ur­day 8th March at the LSE (Con­naught House, Ald­wych) at 2pm. Room H103.

Fit­watch has proved to be a high­ly effec­tive tac­tic against sur­veil­lance by pub­lic order police.

Although real­ly, it is bet­ter described as a range of tac­tics. Some are as sim­ple as tak­ing a pic­ture, or mak­ing a note of police num­bers. Oth­er tac­tics are more con­fronta­tion­al and active­ly pre­vent the police accu­mu­lat­ing the data they use for their ‘pre­ven­ta­tive’ pub­lic order polic­ing. There is a tac­tic for every­one, and all of them are very effec­tive.

To get involved, you need only bring a cam­era, plac­ard or ban­ner to your next demo or meet­ing, and get fit­watch­ing. But you would also be very wel­come at the Fit­watch meet­ing on Sat­ur­day so that we can share expe­ri­ences, devel­op tac­tics and cre­ate an effec­tive response to FIT and pub­lic order polic­ing.

Just as an aside, it seems that even secu­ri­ty firms have tak­en notice. The fol­low­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als are tak­en from a Group 4 Securi­cor brief­ing, and from the web­site of the secu­ri­ty out­fit Inker­man, who make it their busi­ness to pro­tect com­pa­nies from the atten­tion of trou­ble mak­ing pro­tes­tors. Accord­ing to Inker­man, we are ‘counter-sur­veil­lance’. Sounds posh innit?

8 March 08 – Lon­don – The anar­chist group, Fit­watch, is arrang­ing a series of meet­ings that begin in Lon­don to dis­cuss the nature of polic­ing at protests and demon­stra­tions. Fit­watch are an active group that pre­vents Police For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams (FIT) from gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion dur­ing protests and demon­stra­tions. Fit­watch insist FIT are an oppres­sive reflec­tion of the state’s atti­tude towards protest groups. Fit­watch aim to use the meet­ings to dis­cuss ongo­ing tac­tics and to attract sup­port. The first meet­ing is to take place at the LSE (Group 4 Securi­cor)

Anoth­er protest group against the use of cam­eras and sur­veil­lance of activists has been estab­lished and holds grow­ing weight with­in activist move­ments. FITWATCH is a counter-sur­veil­lance group, who take pho­tos and try to obtain the per­son­al details and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers of the offi­cers in FIT. Pho­tographs of the offi­cers con­cerned have been post­ed on activist web­sites.”
(Inker­man. See http://www.inkerman.com/static/files/1197479765-theinkermanmonitorecoterror.pdf for their report on ‘eco-ter­ror­ism’.)

defycops@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.fitwatch.blogspot.com

Latest details: Earth First! Winter Moot 2008 — February 22nd – 24th 2008 — Nottingham

Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

EF! fist tree 1Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

Cost: £15 (to include accom­mo­da­tion and food)
Crèche and dis­abled access both avail­able,
but please call to let us know if you need either or if you have oth­er needs.

At The Sumac Cen­tre, Glad­stone Street Not­ting­ham, www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
For more info call 01508 531636 (num­ber not avail­able dur­ing the event)

Fri­day late after­noon and evening will be a chance to arrive, and for intro­duc­tions, plus a G8 talk & film, and an Intro­duc­tion to EF!

We’ll be kick­ing off ear­ly on Sat­ur­day morn­ing (9am break­fast) — start­ing with all shar­ing the most impor­tant rea­sons why we’ve come to Not­ting­ham, we’ll get on with some prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sions around the EF! Action Update, the web­site, and the sum­mer gath­er­ing.
From what we’ve all said, we’ll be able in the after­noon to move on to ‘where next?’, plus shar­ing cam­paigns we’re involved with & see­ing what they need, and get­ting togeth­er local­ly and region­al­ly with oth­er folk who are there.

On Sun­day we’ll move into groups to con­crete­ly take the ideas for­wards from the Sat­ur­day, from the cam­paigns we’re already work­ing on and what we want to do togeth­er. We’ll fin­ish at 4pm, after hav­ing shared what we’ve come up with. Hoorah.

Earth First! is not an organ­i­sa­tion, but a way of using non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. For fur­ther info check out www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/

Plus
All day Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, Sav­ing Ice­land UK meet­ing, also at the Sumac Cen­tre. Open to those inter­est­ed in trav­el­ling to Ice­land or tak­ing part in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against the con­struc­tion of large, wilder­ness wreck­ing dams in Ice­land.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and essen­tial book­ing con­tact 01508 531636 or savingiceland@riseup.org

Athens: Police surveillance camera deactivated

Athens, 13 Feb­ru­ary 2008

Yet anoth­er police sur­veil­lance cam­era was put out of use today dur­ing a large demon­stra­tion against pen­sion reform and the rest of the Greek gov­ern­men­t’s neolib­er­al poli­cies.

One activist climbed on a lad­der and paint­ed the cam­era lens using an exten­sion, while oth­ers unscrewed a com­part­ment at its base, cut the wires and filled it with foam that solid­i­fied soon there­after. Leaflets against sur­veil­lance and repres­sion by the state were hand­ed out.

CCTV painted with brush on a pole
Decommissioning CCTV camera
Athens, 13 Feb­ru­ary 2008

Yet anoth­er police sur­veil­lance cam­era was put out of use today dur­ing a large demon­stra­tion against pen­sion reform and the rest of the Greek gov­ern­men­t’s neolib­er­al poli­cies.

One activist climbed on a lad­der and paint­ed the cam­era lens using an exten­sion, while oth­ers unscrewed a com­part­ment at its base, cut the wires and filled it with foam that solid­i­fied soon there­after. Leaflets against sur­veil­lance and repres­sion by the state were hand­ed out.

The action was under­tak­en by the Net­work for Polit­i­cal and Social Rights, a group that ear­li­er this year cel­e­brat­ed 20 years in action.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcaJ8fCqs1E

Net­work for Polit­i­cal and Social Rights (greek only)
www.diktio.org

Direct action around Greece reports (1/2008) — banks, police cameras, luxury cars get it; rats saved

Attack against a bank, 14 tak­en into cus­tody (Athens, 30/1/2008)

Accord­ing to a report at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=821100

Bank windows smashedAttack against a bank, 14 tak­en into cus­tody (Athens, 30/1/2008)

Accord­ing to a report at: http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=821100

There was an attack with sledge ham­mers, stones and paints against the Eth­ni­ki Bank in Gizi dis­trict (were a com­pan­ion was arrest­ed after an armed expro­pri­a­tion). After they left, police spread into the area and took into cus­tody around 14 per­sons from the area.

Police cam­era destroyed, one per­son tak­en into cus­tody (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 29/1/2008)

From reports at athens.indymedia.org

Around 11:30 the pow­er sup­ply of a police cam­era was sab­o­taged in pub­lic. Riot-police­men and motor­bike cops attacked the peo­ple on their way back, and man­aged to take into cus­tody one per­son. Lat­er on two more per­sons were also tak­en to the police head­quar­ters, but set free after a few hours.


Series of incen­di­ary attacks (Athens-Thes­sa­loni­ki, 21/1/2008)

Report in eng­lish: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/01/21/europe/EU-GEN-Greece-Arson-Spree.php

Accord­ing to a report in “Eleft­herotip­ia” (Greek only): http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=25251808

From 12:51 to 01:18 the fol­low­ing tar­gets were attacked:

Athens:

12:51: Porsche deal­er­ship, Halandri‑4 cars dam­aged.
01:00: Eurobank open24 sub­sidiary, Ega­leo
01:05: Lux­u­rius car expo­si­tion “Car Col­lec­tion”, Nea Erithrea-16 cars and one motor­cy­cle dam­aged
01:08: Eurobank sub­sidiary, Dafni
01:08: Piraeus bank sub­sidiary, Dafni
01:09: City­bank sub­sidiary, cen­tral Athens
01:15: Eurobank sub­sidiary, Nea Filadelfia
01:17: PV MOTORS deal­er­ship, Argiroupoli
01:18: PPC crane vehi­cle, Keramikos

Anoth­er incen­di­ary device was found untouched in the entrance of an “Eth­ni­ki” bank, in Peri­s­teri, and was car­ried to the foren­sic office of the police.

Thes­sa­loni­ki:

Two arson attacks occured with­in five min­utes. A ppc car was dam­aged, as well as an ATM of Mil­len­ni­um bank in Analip­si.

Com­mu­nique sent to directactiongr@yahoo.gr:

“Last night’s series of incen­di­ary attacks against lux­u­ri­ous car deal­er­ships in Halan­dri, Kifis­sia and Argiroupoli, bank sub­sidiaries in Nea filadelfia, Dafni, Ega­leo, Ano Patisia, Dafni and in Thes­sa­loni­ki at 117, Mar­tiou Street, and against PPC (the state-run pow­er com­pa­ny) cars out­side its offices in both Athens and Thes­sa­loni­ki, is under­tak­en by the Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire Thes­sa­loni­ki-Athens.

We select­ed to strike the bank sub­sidiares because the con­sti­tute the sym­bols-tools of explo­ration and of the eco­nom­ic empire. In par­al­lel, the banks are the mod­ern day cor­po­ra­tions that accred­it with loa­nee dreams the con­sumers, so that they would beglam­our vol­un­tar­i­ly their mis­ery and their eco­nom­ic state of cap­tiv­i­ty.

We attacked the PPC cor­po­ra­tion as a response to the dozens assas­si­na­tions of work­ers that died in its work­place-pris­ons because of the lack of secu­ri­ty mea­sures, as well as for the dead­ly effects (such as can­cer) that appear at the zones around its pow­er plants.

We set on fire the deal­er­ships of lux­u­ri­ous cars that form pres­ti­gious sym­bols of author­i­ty inside the com­mod­i­ty fetishist fren­zy that has tak­en over the metrop­o­lis. We do not respect the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens’ wet dreams for a fast car in expense of the slow sui­cide offeed by the mod­ern life style.

The rev­o­lu­tion­ary char­ac­ter of an eco­nom­ic-cap­i­tal­ist tar­gets arson is n’t found only in its phys­i­cal destruc­tionm but also in the ille­gal­i­ty of the action itself. In the deci­sion to attack.

In this com­bat­ant sit­u­a­tion, there are also loss­es. Accord­ing­ly, we ded­i­cate last night’s attacks in Thes­sa­loni­ki and Athens to the empris­oned anar­chist V. Botzatzis who is accused for 3 arson attacks against 3 tar­gets, as weel as to the 3 fugi­tive com­rades accused under the same case, and that chose the way of a proud escape, than to give their­selves in.

We don’t for­get any empris­oned com­rade. We will be back soon…

Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire Thes­sa­loni­ki-Athens”


Bank fire­bombed and respon­si­bil­i­ty claim (Athens, 19/1/2008)

Accord­ing to reports (in greek) at athens.indymedia.org unknown per­sons attacked with molo­tov cock­tails a sub­sidiary of eurobank in Petralona dis­trict (Athens). Accord­ing to ANA-MPA news agency, the arson caused sev­er dam­ages to the bank. A group claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty by an anony­moys e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr stat­ing:

The “Cells of Incen­di­ary Sol­i­dar­i­ty” (Pirines Empris­tikis Alli­leg­gyis) claim respon­si­bil­i­ty for the arson at Eurobank on Tri­on Ier­arhon Street in Petralona, on Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 19, in sol­i­dar­i­ty to the empris­oned anar­chist Vagge­lis Botzatzis, accused with 3 arson attacks against gov­ern­men­tal-eco­nom­ic tar­gets and to the three com­pan­ions that are fugi­tive under the same case.

The insti­tu­tions of state-run enter­pris­es, car agen­cies and banks, have been and will be today’s tar­gets, tar­gets that every rev­o­lu­tion­ary choos­es to attack. These attack are born from a total per­cep­tion and a route of actions against the cap­i­tal­ist-eco­nom­ic dom­i­na­tion. These words here do not mean to recog­nise their-selves in a “typ­i­cal claim of respon­si­bil­i­ty” because their mean­ing is found in the trans­mis­sion of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary flame. WE ARE ON WAR. The per­se­cu­tions can­not stop the incen­di­ary actions and the rebel­lious con­sciences. Hon­our to those that in their lives, they set their own time and place, their “how” and “why”…

The ash­es of the burnt banks for the fugi­tive com­pan­ions and the empris­oned anar­chist Vagge­lis Botzatzis.

Cells of Incen­di­ary Sol­i­dar­i­ty

Note: Vagge­lis Botzatzis is an anar­chist from Thes­sa­loni­ki, in a pre-tri­al empris­on­ment in Komo­ti­ni pris­ons, accused for arsons in a french brand car yard, a mil­le­ni­um bank sub­sidiary and Pub­lic Pow­er Com­pa­ny vehi­cles. He is per­se­cut­ed based on a secu­ri­ty guard’s accu­sa­tions. Apart from him, anoth­er three anar­chists are fugi­tive for the same case.

Attacks on three banks (Athens, 17/1/2008)

http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=815410
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=815788

2 year after the arrest of Gian­nis Dim­i­trakis after a bank rob­bery, on 12 o’clock, were realised three simul­ta­ne­ous attacks on three banks and an ATM in cen­tral Athens.

Piraeus Bank on 12, George Street, Atti­ki Bank on 23 Omirou Street and Eth­ni­ki bank on 30 Omirou Street, had their glass­es bro­ken and oth­er dam­ages. An ATM was also dam­aged.

There were leaflets thrown around the banks stat­ing:
2 years lat­er…
WE DON’T FORGET, WE DON’T FORGIVE
sol­i­dar­i­ty to G. Dim­i­trakis, who is empris­oned for the bank robery at Eth­ni­ki Bank on Solonos Street at 16.01.2006
Sol­i­dar­i­ty to the 3 fugi­tive com­rades

as well as “FIRE TO THE BANKS”

Lab-rats lib­er­at­ed from tech­ni­cal insti­tute (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 16/1/2007)

A report on this action can be found at athens.indymedia.org where there are also more pho­tos and a short video, as well as a text in greek, trans­lat­ed here:

“On Jan­u­ary 15th, in the Thes­sa­loni­ki TEI (tech­ni­cal insti­tute) was pro­grammed a prac­ti­cal exper­i­ment on ani­mals alive in front of the stu­dents. This hideous action would be realised if some peo­ple from Thes­sa­loni­ki was n’t mobi­lized. Around twen­ty per­sons vis­it­ed the TEI and took not only one, as it was to expect­ed, but four ani­mals (lab rats). Lat­er on the four lab rats were set free in the nature were they should be from the very begin­ing.

We know that these spe­cif­ic ani­mals will not sur­vive for a long time in the nature, since they were born in a lab. Though, we believe it is bet­ter for them to die in the nature than in a lab or a cage.”

Car deal­er­ship fire-bombed (Athens, 17/1/2008)

Source (greek only): http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=11424&subid=2&tag=8334&pubid=336523#

Two self-made explo­sive devis­es were placed under­neath two cars in a Suzu­ki deal­er­ship in Peri­s­teri, Athens. One of them explod­ed at 3:45 in the night caus­ing minor dam­ages, while the oth­er one was found untouched by the police.


Bank arson and anony­mous communique(Athens, 1/1/2008)

Source (greek only): http://news.pathfinder.gr/greece/news/449097.html

“The first fact report­ed to the police for 2008 was an arson attack 20 min­utes after mid­night at the sub­sidiary of Geni­ki Bank at 75 Kipselis street in Athens. Uniden­ti­fied per­sons plant­ed an incen­di­ary device break­ing the glass entrance door.”

Anony­mous group claimed respon­si­bil­i­ty via e‑mail to directactiongr@yahoo.gr):

“The attack at Geni­ki Bank on 1/1/2008 was in sol­i­dar­i­ty to empris­oned fight­ers.

The same time that in the city cen­tre “cel­e­bra­tions” are organ­ised to wel­come the new year we, by strik­ing, mean to prove that the flame of nega­tion won’t cease to burn nor even this new year, against any repres­sive plan.

Free­dom to Chr. Kon­tore­vithakis and M. Tsoura­pas.”

December’s Greek round-up of bank, cash machine & Group 4‑Wackenhut vehicle attacks

Arson at a bank’s ATM (Athens, 24/12/2007)

Source (greek only-page bot­tom): http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=91228912

At 4:43 in the morn­ing, the ATM of a Kyprou Bank sub­sidiary in cen­tral Athens, was set on fire. There was no respon­si­bil­i­ty claim.

Arson at a bank’s ATM (Athens, 24/12/2007)

Source (greek only-page bot­tom): http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=91228912

At 4:43 in the morn­ing, the ATM of a Kyprou Bank sub­sidiary in cen­tral Athens, was set on fire. There was no respon­si­bil­i­ty claim.

Molo­tov cock­tail attack against secu­ri­ty vehi­cles (Athens, 24/12/2007)

Source (greek only): Eleft­herotyp­ia — http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text/c=112,id=91228912

Accord­ing to “Eleft­herotyp­ia news­pa­per report the “Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Attack Groups” (Epanas­ta­tikes Omades Epithe­sis) claim respon­so­bil­i­ty for the arsons of “Group 4 Securi­cor” vehi­cles in Kolonos, Athens. “On Dec. 24 we attacked the pri­vate guard com­pa­ny “Group 4‑Wackenhut” head­quar­ters destroy­ing around 15 vehi­cles used in mon­ey trans­fers. This com­pa­ny, apart from own­ing pri­vate pris­ons in Amer­i­ca and Eng­land, in our coun­try con­sti­tutes the most impor­tant piece of the grow­ing police-like corp of secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als that floods the streets, breed­ing the big broth­er shov­ing cam­eras, cir­cu­lat­ing the banks’ wealth and guard­ing diverse cap­i­tal­ist tar­gets con­tribut­ing in the increas­ing social con­trol and repres­sion.”
They also men­tion:
“The mes­sage here is clear. When deal­ing with the rage of insur­gents they can­not be safe, even in their head­quar­ters. Our attack was an action of sol­i­dar­i­ty to our empris­oned com­rades: Gian­nis Dim­i­trakis, Gior­gos Vout­sis-Vogiatzis, Mar­ios Tsoura­pas, Chris­sos­to­mos Kon­tore­vithakis, Vagge­lis Botzatzis as well as to the pris­on­ers of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Organ­i­sa­tion Novem­ber 17 that are being kept under a state of total iso­la­tion. It is an action of sol­i­dar­i­ty to the insur­gent pris­on­ers of April, many of whom face tor­ture and con­stant trans­fers. It all con­tin­ues…”

Police cam­era sup­ply box on fire (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 21/12/2007)

Accord­ing to reports at http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=807773 a group of indi­vid­u­als set on fire a police cam­era pow­er sup­ply box, on Ethikis Amy­nis Street, Thes­sa­loni­ki.

Arson at an Empo­ri­ki Bank (Volos, 21/12/2007)

Source: (greek only-page bot­tom: http://www.taxydromos.gr/article_detail.asp?node_serial=001001&node_id=2&article_id=7803)

Uniden­ti­fied per­sons caused a gas can­is­ter explo­sion at a bank sub­sidiary in Volos, around 4:30 in the morn­ing, at Empo­ri­ki Bank on Iolk­ou and Kon­stan­ta street, caus­ing dam­ages to the bank’s ATM. Police sus­pects indi­vid­u­als from the city’s anti­au­thor­i­tar­i­an milieu.

No Christmas Cheer as Arms Giant Lockheed Gets Locked Out

“We nev­er for­get who we’re mur­der­ing and spy­ing for”. Cor­ner­stone of the UK mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex / Orwellian state, US-based arms firm Lock­heed Mar­tin was tar­get­ed ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing (13th Decem­ber) at its cen­tral Lon­don HQ as activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares and Lon­don Catholic Work­er deliv­ered a sea­son­al mes­sage to the com­pa­ny, lock­ing work­ers out of the build­ing for 45 min­utes.

“We nev­er for­get who we’re mur­der­ing and spy­ing for”. Cor­ner­stone of the UK mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex / Orwellian state, US-based arms firm Lock­heed Mar­tin was tar­get­ed ear­ly on Thurs­day morn­ing (13th Decem­ber) at its cen­tral Lon­don HQ as activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares and Lon­don Catholic Work­er deliv­ered a sea­son­al mes­sage to the com­pa­ny, lock­ing work­ers out of the build­ing for 45 min­utes.

Lock­heed Mar­tin, whose cor­po­rate slo­gan is “We nev­er for­get who we’re work­ing for”, was paid a vis­it on Thurs­day morn­ing by a group of non-vio­lent activists from a Tri­dent Ploughshares affin­i­ty group called the Muriel Lesters, and Lon­don Catholic Work­er. The group chained shut and blocked off all the entrances to the build­ing for 45 min­utes, from around 8am. The anony­mous build­ing (Man­ning House, 22 Carlisle Place, Lon­don. SW1P 1JA), hid­den away in a side street near Vic­to­ria sta­tion, hous­es the UK cor­po­rate head­quar­ters of the arms giant, which makes Tri­dent nuclear weapons (war­heads and mis­siles) and pro­duces sur­veil­lance sys­tems used by intel­li­gence ser­vices to spy on the pub­lic and for com­mer­cial espi­onage. Sev­er­al ban­ners and plac­ards were on dis­play, includ­ing one that read “Lock­heed Mar­tin — Nuclear Crime Scene”, and work­ers and vis­i­tors to the build­ing were leaflet­ed, as well as passers by.

A crowd of work­ers and vis­i­tors try­ing to gain access to the build­ing had gath­ered on the pave­ment with­in a quar­ter of an hour. Sev­er­al accept­ed leaflets. Bel­gravia police were called to deal with the pro­test­ers. There was a delay as the police await­ed bolt-cut­ters and back-up, but the chains were even­tu­al­ly removed from the front door, after which the pro­test­ers block­ing the back entrances, includ­ing an elder­ly lady in a wheel­chair, decid­ed to unchain the doors and move round to the front. Police were admit­ted to the build­ing for dis­cus­sions, but no arrests were made (either of the peace cam­paign­ers or the arms deal­ers). The pro­test­ers were allowed to con­tin­ue demon­strat­ing and leaflet­ing peace­ful­ly out­side the build­ing, until final­ly leav­ing of their own accord at 9.30am.

Father Mar­tin Newell, a Catholic priest from east Lon­don, says: “I feel it is my duty as a Chris­t­ian to fol­low the prince of peace and oppose the hor­ror of nuclear weapons.”

Myra Gar­rett from east Lon­don says: “I felt I had to tar­get the com­pa­ny because of the new nuclear weapons facil­i­ties they are devel­op­ing right here in the UK, at Alder­mas­ton.”

Chris Gwyn­to­pher from east Lon­don says: “the build­ing had to be closed in the inter­ests of pub­lic secu­ri­ty and world peace. Unlike Lock­heed, I feel my pur­pose is to save life, not destroy it. I wish the work­ers would leave the build­ing for good and seek more humane employ­ment.”

Irene Willis from Essex says: “Christ­mas seems an appro­pri­ate time of year to reflect upon the hor­rif­ic effects the arms trade and nuclear weapons have in the world and to ask our­selves whether we real­ly need them.”

The group intends to pay the com­pa­ny anoth­er vis­it in the near future.

Notes:

1. Lock­heed Mar­tin, SERCO and — cur­rent­ly — British Nuclear Fuels Plc (BNFL) are equal share­hold­ers in AWE Man­age­ment Ltd, which the UK Min­istry of Defence has award­ed a mul­ti-bil­lion pound con­tract to man­age and oper­ate the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) sites at Alder­mas­ton and Burgh­field, both in Berk­shire, until at least 2025. This is where Britain’s nuclear weapons are devel­oped and main­tained, and where new facil­i­ties are being con­struct­ed to enable the pro­duc­tion of a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons.

http://www.awe.co.uk/main_site/about_awe/the_company/index.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385666.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385357.html
http://www.awe.co.uk/main_site/scientific_and_technical/publications/Strategy_Plans/index.html

2. Lock­heed Mar­tin pro­motes itself thus:

“Our vision: As an increas­ing num­ber of nations of all sizes around the world indi­cate the desire and capac­i­ty to devel­op nuclear, chem­i­cal and bio­log­i­cal weapons of mass destruc­tion, it is nec­es­sary to expand our field of vision.

“Our aim: To sus­tain capa­bil­i­ty to design a war­head to suc­ceed Tri­dent by facil­i­tat­ing pro­duc­tion of British nuclear war­heads.

“Our pri­or­i­ties: The key ele­ments of the sci­ence-based pro­gramme we are putting in place to main­tain the country’s nuclear stock­pile.

“Our future: We can now look for­ward to a long-term sta­ble future for AWE and for the UK nuclear weapons pro­gramme.”

Lock­heed Mar­tin is the world’s largest arms com­pa­ny. Besides nuclear weapons, it pro­duces a host of killing and spy­ing machines, devices and sys­tems, includ­ing ‘bunker buster’ bombs, clus­ter bombs and land­mines.

The com­pa­ny also pro­vides mil­i­tary inter­roga­tors for places like Guan­tanamo Bay and Iraq. It is also a lead­ing part­ner in the Ech­e­lon glob­al sur­veil­lance net­work. Its employ­ees work along­side the Amer­i­can NSA (Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency) at Men­with Hill spy sta­tion in York­shire.

See the fol­low­ing for details of the above: http://censusalert.org.uk/lockheed_martin.html

As well as being one of two lead bid­ders for the 2011 UK Cen­sus
http://censusalert.org.uk/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/09/census_boycott/ , Lock­heed Mar­tin also has civil­ian con­tracts in the UK with:

Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police Ser­vice
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/metpolice.html

Trans­port for Lon­don
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/lul.html

Net­work Rail
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/networkrail.html

Rail­ways — Pos­i­tive Train Con­trol
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/ptc.html

Roy­al Mail
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk/products/ai.html

More on the com­pa­ny here: http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news402.htm

The company’s cor­po­rate web­sites:
http://www.lockheedmartin.com
http://www.lockheedmartin.co.uk

3. Tri­dent Ploughshares is com­mit­ted to bring­ing about the dis­ar­ma­ment of British nuclear weapons through peace­ful non-vio­lent direct action. They call upon the British gov­ern­ment to stop deploy­ing its sub­ma­rine-launched Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem with imme­di­ate effect, safe­ly decom­mis­sion every one of its war­heads as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble, reverse its deci­sion to renew / replace its (US-depen­dent) Tri­dent sys­tem, and insist that the UN adopt a glob­al Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion out­law­ing all nuclear weapons at the very ear­li­est oppor­tu­ni­ty.

See: http://www.tridentploughshares.org

Reports on recent Tri­dent Ploughshares actions against Lock­heed Mar­tin (Oct 2007):

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384043.html
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384284.html

Reports and pics from Tri­dent Ploughshares Lon­don ‘weapons inspec­tions’ ear­li­er this year (Feb 2007), which includ­ed Lock­heed Mar­tin:

http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1485

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/363646.html

Reports from pre­vi­ous Tri­dent Ploughshares actions at Lock­heed Martin’s UK head­quar­ters:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/351270.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/314195.html

http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1248

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2004/12/302877.html

Strike, demonstrations, clashes (Athens-Thessaloniki-Larissa) — luxury cars, cash machines, CCTV & McD all trashed or burned

12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

CCTV camera bagged12/12/2007
All reports come from athens.indymedia.org Anoth­er report in greek can be found at www.anarchy.gr.

One-day long gen­er­al strike was called by fed­er­a­tions, labor unions and syn­di­cates that belong to the GSEE (gen­er­al syn­di­cal­ist union), PAME (tied to the Com­mu­nist Par­ty) but also inde­pen­dent syn­di­cates and oth­er groups, against gov­ern­ment plans to over­haul the pen­sion sys­tem (rais­ing retire­ment ages, cut­ting ben­e­fits etc).

Athens: The police repeat­ed­ly attacked with tear gas and flash light and sting ball grenades in order to tear apart the anarchist/antiautoritarian blocs (more than 1.500 per­sons) from the oth­er demon­stra­tors (more than 150.000) while the demon­stra­tors fought back with stones and sticks. A lux­u­rius car had its win­dows bro­ken and was set on fire, togeth­er with a bank’s ATM and a police sur­veil­lance cam­era. Near Great Britain hotel, the cops attacked again the demon­stra­tion but were held back by the peo­ple. In Omonoia Square, the cops attacked once again the demo and cut back the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs. In Panepis­timiou street, some demon­stra­tors attacked the cops and set free 2 per­sons that were hand­cuffed by the cops, in a pre­vi­ous police attack. Then, there was a con­stant tear gas attack and police strik­ing the demo in order to sep­a­rate the anarchist/antiatoritarian blocs from the rest of the demon­stra­tors, though they nev­er man­age to do so, thanks to the strong self-defence of the anarchists/antiautoritarians and the sup­port of the rest of the demon­stra­tors that did n’t run away, regard­less the amounts of tear gas and police attacks. In the same time, employ­ees of “Olympic Air­ways” some of them protest­ing with greek flags against the bunk­rupt­sy of this state-spon­sored com­pa­ny, were offer­ing flow­ers to the police­men ouside the par­lia­ment house… Dur­ing the demon­stra­tions, bank ATMs and sur­veil­lance cam­eras were destroyed, and 2 line­men of the Pub­lic Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion got arrest­ed a few hours after the demon­stra­tions, for cov­er­ing up police sur­veil­lance cam­eras with bags. In total, there were dozens of arrests, and 4 of them are pros­e­cut­ed under mis­de­meanours (dis­rup­tion of pub­lic order, dam­ag­ing pub­lic prop­er­ty).

Thes­sa­loni­ki: Demon­stra­tors broke down the McDon­alds at Lagka­da street and bank win­dows, and burnt up pow­er sup­ply box­es of police sur­veil­lance cam­eras. In total, more than 30.000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in the demon­stra­tions.

Laris­sa: Paint bombs and eggs were thrown at banks and par­ty offices.

March­es and open gath­er­ing were organ­ised in most cities and towns of the coun­try.

Activist Film Festival is seeking submissions

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Beyond TV 8 flierUnder­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Sub­ject: Polit­i­cal Activist videos want­ed
From: under­cur­rents

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS OF FILMS

FOR BEYONDTV FESTIVAL NOVEMBER 2007

What is BEYONDTV?
From Novem­ber 28 to Decem­ber 2, 2007, Rad­i­cal media char­i­ty, Under­cur­rents will host the 8th annu­al BEYONDTV fes­ti­val of polit­i­cal doc­u­men­taries, ani­ma­tions and music videos from inspir­ing media direc­tors.

Under­cur­rents is call­ing for sub­mis­sions of short videos and ani­ma­tions on the theme of the fes­ti­val: social jus­tice and envi­ron­men­tal action.

Impor­tant Note: We do not screen dra­mas using actors

BEYONDTV will be host­ed at the Dylan Thomas Cen­tre and Tal­iesin Cin­e­ma Swansea from Novem­ber 28 — Decem­ber 2, 2007

More details at http://www.beyondtvfestival.info
beyondtv@undercurrents.org

Under­cur­rents
Old Exchange
Pier st
Swansea
SA1 1RY
UK

Last week’s direct action news from Greece

direct action report 7–15 Octo­ber
DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

This blog is an attemp to cov­er, pub­li­cise and trans­late all known direct action news (most­ly con­cern­ing Greece but also near coun­tries as well), apart from the mass media medi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing an open data­base on sab­o­tage-van­dal­ism-riot­ing and oth­er fine pop­u­lar arts that blos­som through­out the ruins of our post-indus­tri­al soci­ety. It came as a per­son­al response to a wider need for all direct action to have its own prop­er spaces, in order to speak for itself, spaces avail­able to any­one that cares. So, i am will­ing to pub­lish all com­mu­niques and com­ments con­cern­ing the actions found here. There will not be pub­lished here actions claimed by any for­mal organ­i­sa­tions or par­ties. These gen­tle­men can ‑at least- afford their own image-mak­ing. You are wel­come to send your own reports to directactiongr@yahoo.gr

direct action report 7–15 Octo­ber
DIRECT ACTION NEWS FROM GREECE — http://directactiongr.blogspot.com

This blog is an attemp to cov­er, pub­li­cise and trans­late all known direct action news (most­ly con­cern­ing Greece but also near coun­tries as well), apart from the mass media medi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing an open data­base on sab­o­tage-van­dal­ism-riot­ing and oth­er fine pop­u­lar arts that blos­som through­out the ruins of our post-indus­tri­al soci­ety. It came as a per­son­al response to a wider need for all direct action to have its own prop­er spaces, in order to speak for itself, spaces avail­able to any­one that cares. So, i am will­ing to pub­lish all com­mu­niques and com­ments con­cern­ing the actions found here. There will not be pub­lished here actions claimed by any for­mal organ­i­sa­tions or par­ties. These gen­tle­men can ‑at least- afford their own image-mak­ing. You are wel­come to send your own reports to directactiongr@yahoo.gr

http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/search/label/english

LAST WEEK’S NEWS…

15 sur­veil­lance cam­eras destroyed, Poly­tech­ni­cal School (Athens, 15/10/2007)
Source & leaflet text (greek only): athens.indymedia.org

Today at 3 o’clock peo­ple from the self-man­aged infos­hop of the poly­tech­ni­cal school and oth­er com­pan­ions, broke down 15 sur­veil­lance cam­eras around the school’s library and destroyed the mon­i­tors and the whole con­trol room.

A leaflet explain­ing the rea­sons of this action cir­cu­lat­ed last days as well as dur­ing the action, slo­gans against sur­veil­lance and social con­trol were spray-paint­ed and two ban­ners were hanged on the library area.

***

Arson at Eth­ni­ki Bank and rul­ing par­ty’s offices (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 15/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_kathremote_1_15/10/2007_207901

A dou­ble arson attack was realised around 3:10 in the morn­ing, when a sub­sidiary of Eth­ni­ki Bank on Leon­tos Sofou Str. in the city cen­ter and the local offices of Nea Dimokra­tia (the greek rul­ing par­ty) were made tar­gets of gas-can­is­ter bomb­ings.

***

Deputy edu­ca­tion min­is­ter’s office attacked (Athens, 14/10/2007)
Source: http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100021_15/10/2007_88953

Uniden­ti­fied per­sons left a incen­di­ary device with gas can­is­ters that explod­ed in front of mr. Lyk­ourent­zos office, on the sec­ond floor of an apparte­ments block at Solonos Str. in cen­tral Athens.

Anoth­er res­i­dent of the block found the device and called the police, but in his effort to extin­guish the fire that burnst out, he got some minor burns him­self.

***

Munic­i­pal Police offices attacked (Athens 12/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://news.antenna.gr/articleDetail/0,3091,167424,00.html

Some 15 per­sons wear­ing hoods attacked the offices of the munic­i­pal police in Paleo Faliro, Athens, late Sat­ur­day night. They threw stones and caused minor dam­ages to the offices entrance.

Note: Two anar­chists are being detained for an alleged arson against a munic­i­pal police car in Faliro, Chris­sos­to­mos Kon­tore­vithakis and Mar­ios Tsoura­pas, (for more infor­ma­tion: http://www.geocities.com/anarcores/faliro3)

***

Two banks burnt up (Athens, 12/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://news.pathfinder.gr/greece/news/434581.htmlhttp://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp?catid=5592&subid=2&pubid=48619

A lit­tle before 22:00 around 20 per­sons wear­ing hoods attacked two banks (one “Eth­ni­ki” and one “Agroti­ki” bank) in Ilisia area in Athens. They broke the glass win­dows and threw molo­tov cock­tails inside the banks. They all man­aged to escape police forces and run to the Zografou uni­ver­si­ty area.

Lat­er on, the police arrest­ed eight per­sons but left them free because they found no evi­dence, except from one of them that car­ried a wood­en glob and will be pros­e­cut­ed.

***

OTE telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions office fire­bombed (Athens, 10/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.naftemporiki.gr/news/static/07/10/10/1423317.htm

A few min­utes before 6:00 a group of about ten unknown per­sons attacked the offices of OTE telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny in Exarcheia, Athens.

***

Sports Muse­um under attack (Thes­sa­loni­ki, 07/10/2007)
Source (greek only): http://www.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_kathremote_0_07/10/2007_206771

Accord­ing to the news­pa­per’s report, a small group of uniden­ti­fied per­sons, a few min­utes before 3:00, hurled molo­tov cock­tails at the entrance of the Sports Muse­um, locat­ed near the Aris­to­tle Uni­ver­si­ty. The fire caused minor dam­ages and was extin­guished by the muse­um’s guards. The group left the area when the police arrived.

***

Demon­stra­tors mess up “anti“terrorist con­ven­tion (Volos, 07/10/2007)
Source (greek only): Athens Indy­media

After a sol­i­dar­i­ty to the immi­grants march, demon­stra­tors invad­ed a con­ven­tion held at the Thes­salia Uni­ver­si­ty, dur­ing the crim­i­nol­o­gist Mairy Bossi’s speach.

Mairy Bossi has been the sci­en­tif­ic con­sul­tant of the min­istry of pub­lic order, she was as well will­ing to lead a “study of the social char­ac­ter­is­tics” of the 529 arrestees of the tech­ni­cal school’s occu­pa­tion in Athens, 1995, and she has also been a wit­ness of accu­sa­tion at the so-called ELA (peo­ple’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary strug­gle) jury, etc.
Her speach was inter­rupt­ed and she was forced to leave the room, when peo­ple threw cof­fees and snacks from the buf­fet at her.

The night before there was also an attack against the immi­grants con­cen­tra­tion cen­tre in Volos.

http://directactiongr.blogspot.com/search/label/english