Bikes against the bomb bikeride, London to Aldermaston, March 22–26

To mark the 50th anniver­sary of the Alder­mas­ton Peace March,a bike ride will be leav­ing Lon­don on 22 March arriv­ing at Alder­mas­ton on Mon­day 24 March to join ’ Sur­round the Base’ CND mass action planned for that day.

To mark the 50th anniver­sary of the Alder­mas­ton Peace March,a bike ride will be leav­ing Lon­don on 22 March arriv­ing at Alder­mas­ton on Mon­day 24 March to join ’ Sur­round the Base’ CND mass action planned for that day.

We intend to take an active stance against organ­i­sa­tions implic­it in the nuclear arms indus­tries.

Acco­mo­da­tion is organ­ised and we will be rid­ing about 30 miles per day.

Join us for part of the jour­ney or the whole ride.

More details at www.bikesnotbombs.org.uk

info@bikesnotbombs.org.uk

Stop the Swedish “Triangle of Death” Seven polar bears held for attempted air travel

Cli­mate activist group Kli­max in Swe­den are tired of unnec­es­sary short haul and nation­al flights. Espe­cial­ly between the major cities of Gothen­burg, Stock­holm and Malmo/Copenhagen, all direct­ly cou­pled by the near­est thing Swe­den has to a high speed train. That’s why that on Fri­day the 15th of Feb­ru­ary strange things start­ed hap­pen­ing at air­ports around Swe­den.

Gothenburg airport action 1
Stockholm airport action 2
Cli­mate activist group Kli­max in Swe­den are tired of unnec­es­sary short haul and nation­al flights. Espe­cial­ly between the major cities of Gothen­burg, Stock­holm and Malmo/Copenhagen, all direct­ly cou­pled by the near­est thing Swe­den has to a high speed train. That’s why that on Fri­day the 15th of Feb­ru­ary strange things start­ed hap­pen­ing at air­ports around Swe­den.

Time might be mon­ey but how much cli­mate change is ten min­utes worth? If you don’t have any lug­gage and check in on-line that’s about how much time you can save by fly­ing between Swe­den’s major cities. Con­sid­er­ing that the Swedish trains run on renew­able elec­tric ener­gy, that’s a hell of a lot of cli­mate change for ten min­utes. Ok, it’s not that sim­ple. Why would any sane per­son with­out a cli­mate con­science or a fat wal­let take the train when it’s cheap­er to fly? A rail­way sys­tem that makes the UK’s look mod­ern could also help weigh the bal­ance when it comes to choos­ing how to get there.

Here’s a round up of the dif­fer­ent actions around the coun­try:

Mal­mo http://svt.se/svt/play/video.jsp?a=1057410
At the time of writ­ing sev­en activists are being held in cus­tody. It seems that the crime of run­ning about the coun­try­side dressed as a polar bear is frowned upon in the south of Swe­den. The sev­en were arrest­ed run­ning towards the perime­ter fence of Stu­rup air­port out­side of Mal­mo by the large police pres­ence. It seems that the boys in blue were out on a mass train­ing exer­cise at the time. The police should be hap­py to get a bit of real life train­ing. Attempt­ing to get onto run­ways whilst dressed as a polar bear is def­i­nite­ly one of the fastest going crimes of our time. An inter­est­ing high pub­lic­i­ty court case seems to be in the pipe line. At least one sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tion (Gothen­burg 2pm Gustaf Adolfs Torg) is planned on Sat­ur­day in Swe­den to demand the release of the Mal­mo sev­en.
Stockholm airport action
Stock­holm
The polar bears of Stock­holm were treat­ed to ice cream by the air­port author­i­ties at Brom­ma. A pleas­ant ges­ture but hard­ly mak­ing up for help­ing to destroy the bears norther­ly habi­tat. Sor­ry you fam­i­ly drowned but here’s a rasp­ber­ry rip­ple to make up for it,sort of thing. A die in was staged as oth­er peace­ful pro­test­ers with ban­ners and fly­ers roamed the ter­mi­nal rais­ing aware­ness of the envi­ron­men­tal harm caused by air trav­el. There are present­ly plans to enlarge Brom­ma air­port in Stock­holm. The ques­tion is what are the politi­cians and plan­ners think­ing. In a time and a coun­try where every nine year old knows about glob­al warm­ing and its caus­es, the author­i­ties get the idea of expand­ing air­ports. It might be time to let the kids take over the pow­er. They could hard­ly do a worse job than the cli­mate crim­i­nals doing the job now. But then the kids are self­ish­ly more wor­ried about their future than in the hon­est busi­ness of mak­ing short term finan­cial gains.

Gothen­burg
A die in was staged in front of the secu­ri­ty gate at Land­vet­ter air­port out­side of Gothen­burg. Twen­ty activists arrived at the air­port to stage the protest on Fri­day evening. The die in was for the ben­e­fit of pas­sen­gers on their way to emit the largest pos­si­ble amount of green­house gas­es whilst cov­er­ing the 300 or so miles to Stock­holm. After mirac­u­lous­ly reviv­ing them­selves the activists formed a ban­ner wall to wel­come three plane loads of arrivals from the cap­i­tal. The whole thing went down peace­ful­ly with the mas­sive police pres­ence (at least three cop­pers for every cli­mate cru­sad­er) stand­ing around look­ing bored.
Uppsala airport action
Upp­sala
The uni­ver­si­ty town of Upp­sala north of Stock­holm does­n’t have a nice warm pas­sen­ger air­port to stage an action in. The com­pa­ny Upp­sala Air is doing its best to change this. They want to pro­vide a pleas­ant pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal so that local cli­mate activists would have some­where warm to stage protests. In the best “make do with what you’ve got spir­it“, the Upp­sala activist cre­at­ed their own run­way in the city cen­ter to illus­trate how pleas­ant­ly an air­port can con­vert a bor­ing piece of coun­try­side into noisy pol­lut­ing cli­mate chal­leng­ing strip of asfalt.

This is just the start of the Swedish resis­tance against cli­mate crim­i­nal­i­ty. Watch this space for the next move. We think cars are also plane stu­pid. Hon­est!

http://klimatet.org/

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

Tara campaign update: lock-ons and digger-diving, plus protest camp contact

I’m turn­coat ACS archae­ol­o­gist. I’m involved in Tara Cam­paign since June 2006 and thats my sto­ry about clamp­ing to a lor­ry at 31st of Jan­u­ary.

Wednes­day evening at Rath Lugh Ressis­tance Camp was quite nor­mal like every oth­er day. Few pro­test­ers were sit­ing in the Round­hause around burn­er, hav­ing tea and good con­ver­sa­tion about how bad multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions real­ly are. Approx­i­mate­ly about one o’clock when we were sit­ting in silence con­tem­plat­ing the idea of mega­lith­ic rock art being influ­enced by cymat­ic pat­terns caused by drum singing, six more pro­test­ers showed up. They bring with them idea of lock on to tar machine at Sol­diers Hill, which was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraced by all of us. Soon we formed think tank and brain­stormed through idea of that kind of Direct Action. After an hour we were ready and went to our beds to have a good rest.

I’m turn­coat ACS archae­ol­o­gist. I’m involved in Tara Cam­paign since June 2006 and thats my sto­ry about clamp­ing to a lor­ry at 31st of Jan­u­ary.

Wednes­day evening at Rath Lugh Ressis­tance Camp was quite nor­mal like every oth­er day. Few pro­test­ers were sit­ing in the Round­hause around burn­er, hav­ing tea and good con­ver­sa­tion about how bad multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions real­ly are. Approx­i­mate­ly about one o’clock when we were sit­ting in silence con­tem­plat­ing the idea of mega­lith­ic rock art being influ­enced by cymat­ic pat­terns caused by drum singing, six more pro­test­ers showed up. They bring with them idea of lock on to tar machine at Sol­diers Hill, which was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly embraced by all of us. Soon we formed think tank and brain­stormed through idea of that kind of Direct Action. After an hour we were ready and went to our beds to have a good rest.

I waked up ear­ly in the morn­ing and moved myself to the Round­haus. Some pro­test­ers were on quick sup­ply run, oth­er prepar­ing nec­es­sary equip­ment for action. Two of us were decid­ed to lock on to machin­ery, oth­ers were mak­ing sup­port for us. At 1020 GMT we depart­ed to cars. Morale was high, peo­ple smil­ing and jok­ing all over the road to Sol­diers Hill. At 1032 GMT we arrived at sites main gate and jumped out of car. Main objec­tive was tar machine so we moved quick­ly towards it, pass­ing by two work­ers with angle grinder rip­ping off tar­mac from the day before (they prob­a­bly had some flaws in it and need­ed to lay it again).

For­tu­nate­ly for us next to tar machine was lor­ry with tar trans­port so I chose that one as I knew that oth­er pro­test­er is aim­ing tar machine. When we approached them, there was a lit­tle bit chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion with work­ers run­ning around, obvi­ous­ly they had no idea about true nature of our action. I found­ed good spot under­neath the lor­ry and using work­ers igno­rance locked myself on. When they real­ized whats real­ly going on it was already to late. I placed my self com­fort­ably, make a rol­ly and attempt­ed to read Archae­ol­o­gy and Soci­ety by G. Clark. I was inter­rupt­ed by secu­ri­ty, Fer­rovial Span­ish work­ers and my favourite health and safe­ty offi­cer Mark Kleary.

Oth­er pro­test­ers left and were sup­port­ing two of us from out­side of con­struc­tion site. When fer­rovial or Kleary were not around I had nice chat with work­ers, they were quite sat­is­fied to have a break in their job. It was quite cold and one of them gave me gloves to warm my hands.

Then Gar­dai came in and start­ed usu­al drill (whats your name, would you live the site bla bla bla). We were ded­i­cat­ed to stay and make them cut us of from machin­ery. Mark Kleary him­self, was the man who cut my d‑lock. Before doing that he was say­ing some­thing about cut­ting dif­fer­ent parts of my body so he exposed him­self clear­ly as a psy­chopath. To be hon­est I’m lit­tle bit afraid of that man and I men­tioned that to Gar­dai. They did not com­ment­ed that.

It take three dif­fer­ent scis­sors and 2,5 hours to cut us off. After that we were hand­cuffed and tak­en to Gar­da Sta­tion at Navan. We were searched, sep­a­rat­ed and placed in dif­fer­ent cells. Oth­er pro­test­ers gath­er around Gar­da Sta­tion build­ing and were blow­ing whis­tles and shout­ing encour­ag­ing words. After some time we were tak­en to Dublin. There we expe­ri­enced very quick, fast food like court case.

We were col­lect­ed from court by fel­low pro­test­er. Now we are under bail con­di­tion until next court case which will be Feb­ru­ary the sixth, but keep work­ing for the cam­paign. In next hour I’m going to Sol­dier Hill to sup­port Dig­ger Divers by mean of ban­ner protest­ing. So that’s my sto­ry.

—————

Help is need­ed imme­di­ate­ly on site with cam­eras bat­ter­ies and gen­er­al sup­port. Please pur­chase phone cred­it for the vig­il phone 086 1758557 If you can’t come to the hill con­tact us at tarapark@sacredireland.org maybe there is some­thing you can do from your com­put­er or land­line.
Today, Feb 6th. Ash wednes­day.…. a dig­ger is on the arche­o­log­i­cal site less than 30 feet from Lis­mullen Henge but has been pre­vent­ed from work­ing. 12 activists have stopped con­struc­tion work­ers from unload­ing 3 dumper loads of hard core on the Lis­mullin arche­o­log­i­cal site. Gar­dai have been on site and tak­en names and threat­ened arrest. This work has been deemed ille­gal by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. It is also against pub­lic opin­ion, see full results of recent sur­vey on www.sacredireland.
A cer­e­mo­ny took place on the henge at Lis­mullin, Imbolg Feb 3rd. 2008. There will be anoth­er cer­e­mo­ny this Sun­day Feb 10th at 3pm
All wel­come.

—————

Demon­stra­tion at Lis­mullin morn­ing of 7th Feb — 8 AM

Time to get real. Time for hocus-pocus over.

Demo­li­tion works con­tin­ued today at the Lis­mullin nation­al mon­u­ment, which lies in the mid­dle of the M3 motor­way route, near the Hill of Tara, despite the fil­ing of High Court action yes­ter­day by Gor­don Lucas.

A large protest is planned for 8.00 AM tomor­row morn­ing, beside the Lis­mullin site. Demon­stra­tors are trav­el­ling from dif­fer­ent parts of Ire­land to object to the demo­li­tion works pro­ceed­ing, while the mat­ter is before the courts.

Small­er demon­stra­tions have been tak­ing place on a week­ly basis, and today two more demon­stra­tors appeared before Judge Bro­phy in Navan Dis­trict Court, charged with tres­pass, after being arrest­ed last week.

Rhi­an­non Cur­tis from the UK had her case dis­missed, because it was a first offence. Marcin Saw­ic­ki, from Poland, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as an archae­ol­o­gist on the M3, had his case adjourned until next week, when an inter­preter was ordered to be present.

—————

Mass action at Tara, Mon­day 11 Feb, 12 noon

Just back from a very inter­est­ing day at Tara. Pho­tos are to fol­low that show the dev­as­ta­tion afoot up there, espe­cial­ly at Sol­dier Hill where con­struc­tion work­ers are rush­ing to build the 50 acre Blun­del­stown Inter­change. Lis­mullin and Rath Lugh are also very vul­ner­a­ble right now.

A day of mass protest at Tara is now planned for Mon­day, 11 Feb, at 12 noon. We are aim­ing to get var­i­ous groups and indi­vid­u­als to take part, as the sit­u­a­tion is crit­i­cal. If we all pull togeth­er for this, then we can have a strong impact, on the ground and in the media.

So make a date in your diaries, spread the word, and hope­ful­ly we’ll see some of you on Mon­day.

For any­one who wants to stay around up there for a while, the camp in Rath Lugh is in real­ly good shape, with warm, dry accom­mo­da­tion avail­able for activists. The guys up there are doing a great job, and it’s now time for every­one who cares about Tara to act.

—————

11th feb —

The sit­u­a­tion is esca­lat­ing at Lis­mullin. Dig­gers are try­ing to cross the pro­tect­ed area of the Nation­al Mon­u­ment. There is no Gar­da pres­ence. More machin­ery is arriv­ing and pro­test­ers are attempt­ing a block­ade. Please sup­port in any way you can, con­tact all media, bring sup­plies, video and pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment. Join the peace­ful protest and spread the word. Urgent Call Out Now!
Dig­ger

It has been con­firmed that a dig­ger did indeed suc­ceed today in dri­ving right across the front of the Esker of Rath Lugh. This area is clear­ly marked and fenced as the Exclu­sion Zone/Preservation Area. Pro­test­ers also report oth­er machin­ery includ­ing huge earth movers com­ing right up as far as the fences.

There is ample room for dig­gers to manoeu­vre with­out going near the exclu­sion area. WHY WASNT THIS DRIVER ARRESTED ?

—————

The Rath Lugh Protest Camp needs your sup­port: The Rath Lugh Direct Action Camp is sit­u­at­ed two and a half kilo­me­tres from the Hill of Tara, on the Front Line of the pro­posed M3 between Lis­mullen and Baron­stown.

Rath Lugh is the out­er base camp for the Hill of Tara, enabling activists to keep a per­ma­nent vig­il on the move­ment of vehi­cles and per­son­nel work­ing on var­i­ous con­struc­tion sites through­out the val­ley. Activists also main­tain a con­stant pres­ence on the Rath Lugh Nation­al Mon­u­ment, which is cur­rent­ly under a tem­po­rary preser­va­tion order. The aim is to see this sig­nif­i­cant mon­u­ment per­ma­nent­ly pre­served in-line with the rest of the Tara Com­plex.

“We need peo­ple urgent­ly to halt the Val­ley’s destruc­tion. Every­one has a skill or tal­ent they can lend to this protest. Bring wellies, raingear, sleep­ing bags, torch, lighter, plen­ty of warm cloth­ing, and good spir­its. The protest is only going to get stronger, we will con­tin­ue to oppose the motor­way until it is moved, so come to Rath Lugh as quick­ly as you can. WE NEED YOU ALL NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Tara is call­ing, don’t ignore the call.”

Rath Lugh Camp Num­ber: +353 86 1537 146

Umea blockade

9 Feb­ru­ary. Some 30 activists put up a block­ade in the mid­dle of the high­way run­ning through Umeå, the largest city in north­ern Swe­den.

Umea blockade9 Feb­ru­ary. Some 30 activists put up a block­ade in the mid­dle of the high­way run­ning through Umeå, the largest city in north­ern Swe­den. Recent stud­ies have found the high­est con­cen­tra­tions of car­bon diox­ide ever record­ed in Umeå, due to increas­ing traf­fic, while Sweden’s car park remains the most fuel-guz­zling in the EU. Kli­max-Umeå demands a rapid expan­sion of pub­lic trans­porta­tion in the city and an end to sub­si­diz­ing new roads. The block­ade last­ed for half an hour, wreak­ing con­sid­er­able chaos in the inner city traf­fic

Critical Mass ‘Have a Go Hero’ cleared of all charges in Bristol (& London Critical Mass January ride report/video)

7.02.2008
In May of last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car, who had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist off their bike, from dri­ving away. For that he was arrest­ed for obstruct­ing the high­way, thrown to the floor by his neck whilst hand­cuffed, and then — sur­prise sur­prise — also arrest­ed for assault­ing a police offi­cer.

Bicycle Triumph7.02.2008
In May of last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car, who had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist off their bike, from dri­ving away. For that he was arrest­ed for obstruct­ing the high­way, thrown to the floor by his neck whilst hand­cuffed, and then — sur­prise sur­prise — also arrest­ed for assault­ing a police offi­cer.

Today, after 9 months of ner­vous wait­ing, he was final­ly cleared of all charges, as Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court accept­ed a sub­mis­sion that the police evi­dence was at best ‘severe­ly flawed’ and at worst, fab­ri­cat­ed, and the tri­al was stopped.

A man that became involved after the event was also charged with assault and is await­ing to see if his charge will also be quashed as he can also argue that he was pre­vent­ing a police ‘mis­car­riage of jus­tice’.

The tri­al took a day and a half to realise what was evi­dent all along — that the defen­dant was only guilty of try­ing to do the police’s job when they bla­tant­ly weren’t inter­est­ed in doing it, for bla­tant­ly polit­i­cal rea­sons. Unbe­liev­ably, the police admit­ted to get­ting togeth­er to watch the cctv (pre­sum­ably over a nice cup of bovril) BEFORE writ­ing their state­ments, of fail­ing to fol­low PACE pro­ce­dures in the arrests, and of try­ing to pass off a wrestling move (clear­ly shown on the CCTV footage) as a form of ‘rea­son­able force’ in an arrest!

But the most unbe­liev­able part of the whole sor­ry mess is the police’s delib­er­ate allow­ing of the hit-and-run dri­ver to escape, and then nev­er fol­low­ing up the inci­dent, despite the fact leav­ing the scene of an acci­dent is a more seri­ous crime than those the defen­dants were charged with, and despite hav­ing a full descrip­tion of the car, dri­ver AND THE REGISTRATION PLATE. Makes you won­der who the ‘mys­tery dri­ver’ was does­n’t it .……

The next steps for the defen­dant is, first, cel­e­brate his nar­row escape from a polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed con­vic­tion, and then sue the police for the shock­ing way in which he was han­dled dur­ing the ‘prac­tice dum­my ses­sion’ that passed for his arrest. The local chief con­sta­ble observed the tri­al, so we assume that his full apol­o­gy and com­pen­sa­tion won’t take too long to sort.

Crit­i­cal Mass’s con­tin­ue in Bris­tol on the last Fri­day of every month, meet­ing at 5.30pm out­side the Hip­po­drome.

———–

A sub­dued start to a good ride, held up by a mas­sive traf­fic jam in the Strand, but it livened up lat­er with a bike high in Pic­cadil­ly Cir­cus and taunts to impa­tient car horns. Joy­ful chants of ‘More bikes less cars’ and ‘Whose streets? Our streets’.

Video: http://www.archive.org/details/cml25‑1–08

Sev­er­al sound sys­tems this time, some were threat­ened with SOCPA pros­e­cu­tion if they dared to play in the vicin­i­ty of Par­lia­ment. Cycle police were back after their Christmas/New Year break, about 28 in all — they usu­al­ly don’t turn up at all to the Decem­ber ride. They barked orders and blocked the ride at some inter­sec­tions but did a good job of cork­ing and even told off a few dri­vers. Lat­er they shut down a sound sys­tem in White­hall.

Just before Oxford Cir­cus, a wannabe sabo­teur threw a glass bot­tle into the road which shat­tered into lots of punc­tur­ing shards, some­thing to watch out for in future.

More:
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/socpasounds.html

Support the Eco-Prisoners — Imbolc 2008 — they’re in there for us out here, please write

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!”
(For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we enter Feb­ru­ary so we await three major events. First off, Jeff ‘Free’ Luers is due to be re-sen­tenced. We hope its good news. Sec­ond­ly, Eric McDavid is also due to be sen­tenced. As soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we urge every­one to send him let­ters of sup­port. And third­ly, the police infor­mant Jacob Fer­gu­son is also due to be sen­tenced. His cow­ard­ly deals and treach­ery means he won’t be sent to prison. But we await with inter­est to see what sen­tence this piece of scum does receive. If any­one hears, please do let ELP know. But whilst we await those three sen­tenc­ings, please don’t for­get all the oth­er eco-pris­on­ers. Remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy.

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez — Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Jef­frey Luers, #1306729, Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions, 101 West 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401–2695, USA. Await­ing resen­tenc­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing been found guilty of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh #30512–013, FCI Fair­ton, PO Box 420, Fair­ton, NJ 08320, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for set­ting fire to a McDon­ald’s restau­rant.

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, C.P. Pri­sion De Pam­plona, 31080, Iruna (Navar­ra), Spain.
Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing.

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Joy­an­na Zach­er — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion that turned into a riot.

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack.

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish.

Gub­s­ki Max­im, VK‑2 — 21, Batowa str. 4, Bobruisk, 213800 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Vladislav Vladimirovich Plyashke­vich, IK-10 otryad 4, Novopoltsk‑5 Viteb­skaya oblast, 211440 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self.

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA.
Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

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.”

Newts delay A47 — M1 is left for us to stop

Newts halt work on vil­lage bypass
Work on a long-await­ed bypass in Leices­ter­shire has been held up because a pro­tect­ed species of newt has been found in the con­struc­tion area.

Newts halt work on vil­lage bypass
Work on a long-await­ed bypass in Leices­ter­shire has been held up because a pro­tect­ed species of newt has been found in the con­struc­tion area.

Work start­ed in Sep­tem­ber on the Earl Shilton bypass — planned for more than 20 years — and is set to cost £15m.

But a colony of great crest­ed newts has been found and their pro­tect­ed sta­tus means it is ille­gal to dis­turb them.

When tem­per­a­tures rise, the newts will come out of hiber­na­tion and move to a pond, allow­ing work to con­tin­ue.

‘Hor­ror sto­ries’

The coun­ty coun­cil’s direc­tor of high­ways, Matthew Lugg, said he was hope­ful the lost time could be made up.

Mr Lugg said: “It is very dif­fi­cult to detect these species and no mat­ter how much you do to detect these crea­tures, it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly going to be com­pre­hen­sive.

“We are hope­ful though that we can make up the time and get back on track. There have been some real hor­ror sto­ries in oth­er parts of the coun­try and our sit­u­a­tion could have been much worse.”

The bypass is due to open late in 2008.

The route is about 5km (three miles) long and fol­lows the cor­ri­dor that links the A47 perime­ter road from a new round­about at Carrs Hill to the A47 Leices­ter Road.

»»»»»>
A small part of the M1 has already been widened, but the bat­tle remains to be fought — 115 miles of it and we can still stop it!

http://www.nowideningm1.org.uk/

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.