Category: Unnecessary Developments

Nantes, France: Call for a Demo and Decentralized Solidarity Actions Against Repression of the Anti-airport Movement

17-mai8th May 2014 On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2014, more than 50,000 peo­ple gath­ered in Nantes for the biggest anti-air­port demon­stra­tion ever.

17-mai8th May 2014 On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, 2014, more than 50,000 peo­ple gath­ered in Nantes for the biggest anti-air­port demon­stra­tion ever. As it was declared ille­gal by the pre­fec­ture, it quick­ly faced stun­ning repres­sion; hun­dreds of over-armed cops sur­round­ed the demo while a huge anti-riot wall blocked the cen­tral street of the city (le cours des 50 otages). It was the first time in Nantes’ social strug­gles his­to­ry that a demo couldn’t pass by there. Politi­cians and media talked about “loot­ings” and “dev­as­ta­tions”, deplor­ing the vio­lence after a group of demon­stra­tors attempt­ed to walk the orig­i­nal route.

How­ev­er, the Pow­er and its accom­plices failed to men­tion the extreme feroc­i­ty in the crack­down on this demon­stra­tion. On Feb­ru­ary 22nd, hun­dreds of peo­ple were hurt by police weapons. At least three of them lost an eye from rub­ber-bul­let shots. A lot of peo­ple breathed tear gas, were shak­en up from stun grenades, or wound­ed from dis­per­sion grenades, or repulsed by water can­nons.

 

A few weeks lat­er, on March 31st, media exul­tant­ly declared a first “drag­net” fol­low­ing a spe­cial police force’s inves­ti­ga­tion. Nine com­rades had their hous­es searched and were arrest­ed in the ear­ly morn­ing. Two of them were imme­di­ate­ly released, as one of them was not even in Nantes on the day of the demon­stra­tion. Four oth­ers couldn’t pre­pare their defense since they were sent to the court through the imme­di­ate arraign­ment pro­ce­dure. Sen­tences are as heavy as the records are emp­ty: indeed, the only real evi­dence the pros­e­cu­tion had were the con­fes­sions of the accused. Three of them have been con­demned to prison terms with­out remis­sion. Dur­ing this par­o­dy of a tri­al, judge Tchalian did not hes­i­tate to dou­ble the prosecutor’s req­ui­si­tions and put our com­rade Enguer­rand direct­ly in prison. One year in prison with­out remis­sion for some stones and smoke cans.

The pur­pose of the repres­sion from police and the jus­tice sys­tem that the anti-air­port move­ment is now fac­ing is only to ter­ror­ize those who revolt and start fight­ing against capitalism’s hold on our liv­ing spaces. It is to psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly touch a social move­ment, to muti­late and incar­cer­ate some of us to reach all the oth­ers. The sen­tences and muti­la­tions of the 22nd of Feb­ru­ary are not only an appli­ca­tion of laws or peace­keep­ing techniques—they are deeply polit­i­cal. This real state ter­ror­ism express­es clear­ly what must be expect­ed for those who resist.

Today, Enguer­rand, Quentin, Damien, Emmanuel, Philippe, J. and G. are its vic­tims. It could have been any one of us. Accord­ing to the State and its so-called jus­tice, tak­ing part in a demon­stra­tion is suf­fi­cient to jus­ti­fy the loss of an eye or a prison term.

We shouldn’t step back as we are fac­ing such vio­lent repres­sion. By doing so, we would only prove their case. The best sup­port we can give to our wound­ed and incar­cer­at­ed com­rades is to keep on fight­ing. Our strug­gle has nev­er been so pow­er­ful, and we have nev­er been so close to real­iz­ing a future with­out con­crete. More than ever, we must keep on fight­ing and not give any­thing up in the strug­gle against the air­port and the world that pro­duces it.

Against the assas­sin Pow­er that muti­lat­ed and incar­cer­at­ed, we have a weapon that it can­not take back. In a let­ter, on April 8th, Enguer­rand stat­ed: “The strength of activist sol­i­dar­i­ty can­not be defeat­ed,” and indeed, we agree. Actions in sup­port of those wound­ed and accused in the strug­gle have already been diverse and numer­ous, mod­eled on the diver­si­ty with­in the move­ment. Infi­nite are the poten­tial actions. Orga­nize a con­cert or a fundrais­er to finan­cial­ly sup­port the accused and their fam­i­lies. Call for a demon­stra­tion (“peace­ful­ly hel­met­ed”? —a ref­er­ence to the “Flash­balles” song) to express revolt against police crimes. Cov­er the walls with paint­ed slo­gans or posters to make sure that no one ignores what is hap­pen­ing…

Every ini­tia­tive is wel­come to bring reas­sur­ance to our com­rades and remind the Pow­er of our rage and deter­mi­na­tion. Against the con­niv­ing silence of the media spec­ta­cle, we can only rely on our­selves to make “jus­tice” a mean­ing­ful word again. We strong­ly encour­age every sol­i­dar­i­ty action against repres­sion of the anti-air­port move­ment, no mat­ter whether it hap­pens in Nantes or any­where else, today or any­time.

No jus­tice, no peace!
Sol­i­dar­i­ty with the wound­ed and the accused!
No to the air­port and its world!

DEMONSTRATION Sat­ur­day, May 17th, 2014 at 3pm – Nantes pre­fec­ture

To write to the sup­port com­mit­tee for Enguer­rand or to sign this call: soutien.enguerrand(at)riseup.net

Former ELF Member Pleads Guilty to Arsons; Snitches on Friends for Reduced Sentence

liammulholland3 Tomor­row, May 5, 2014, Liam Mul­hol­land will be sen­tenced for his involve­ment in a 2003 ELF arson.

liammulholland3 Tomor­row, May 5, 2014, Liam Mul­hol­land will be sen­tenced for his involve­ment in a 2003 ELF arson.

Mul­hol­land plead­ed guilty to set­ting fire to a house at Mys­tic For­est hous­ing devel­op­ment in Ann Arbor, Michi­gan, on March 21, 2003. Spray paint­ed on the garage of a neigh­bor­ing house were the words “ELF – No Sprawl.”

In Michi­gan, the manda­to­ry min­i­mum for this kind of prop­er­ty destruc­tion is five years in prison. How­ev­er, the gov­ern­ment has request­ed a reduced sen­tence because of Mulholland’s “coop­er­a­tion” with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.

From his plea agree­ment and the Government’s Sen­tenc­ing Mem­o­ran­dum, it seems Mul­hol­land hand­ed the feds a lot of infor­ma­tion. He claimed involve­ment in sev­er­al more ELF and ALF actions, includ­ing arsons that destroyed two homes at anoth­er hous­ing devel­op­ment in Michi­gan in June of 2003; using incen­di­ary devices to destroy chick­en deliv­ery trucks in Bloom­ing­ton, Indi­ana in May of 2002; an arson at a hous­ing devel­op­ment in Bloom­ing­ton, Indi­ana in June of 2002; and a failed attempt to set fire to a pump­ing sta­tion in Stan­wood, Michi­gan, in Sep­tem­ber of 2003.

Mul­hol­land also pro­vid­ed feds with the names of the oth­er activists with whom he car­ried out these actions—as well as where and how they trav­eled, where and when they planned and dis­cussed their actions, what they pur­chased for the actions, how they dis­posed of the pur­chased items, and how they car­ried out each action.

The gov­ern­ment is request­ing a sen­tence of 18 months for Mulholland—a reduc­tion of 42 months from the state’s manda­to­ry minimum—because his coop­er­a­tion will aid the gov­ern­ment in crack­ing down on the oth­er ELF and ALF sus­pects: “The gov­ern­ment has deter­mined that the defendant’s coop­er­a­tion to date amounts to sub­stan­tial assis­tance in the inves­ti­ga­tion or pros­e­cu­tion of oth­ers.”

Photo captured from Local 4 Defenders.

Pho­to cap­tured from Local 4 Defend­ers.

The agree­ment also asserts that, because of his coop­er­a­tion, all his charges relat­ed to the oth­er admit­ted ELF and ALF arsons will be dis­missed.

And it seems that Mul­hol­land isn’t the only one snitch­ing. The Sen­tenc­ing Mem­o­ran­dum states that, though Mul­hol­land often assert­ed that he was sim­ply “along for the ride” dur­ing these actions, the feds have received con­tra­dic­to­ry infor­ma­tion: “Accord­ing to wit­ness­es, it was the defen­dant who had the exper­tise to con­struct incen­di­ary devices and did so for both the arson of the deliv­ery trucks at Sim’s Poul­try, as well as the attempt­ed arson of the Ice Moun­tain pump­ing sta­tion.”

Stay tuned for more infor­ma­tion after tomorrow’s sen­tenc­ing hear­ing. If any­one has pic­tures of Liam Mul­hol­land, or more infor­ma­tion, please send them to col­lec­tive [at] earth­firstjour­nal [dot] org, so that the word can be spread, and activists and activist groups can be on guard for the pres­ence of this snitch.

For more infor­ma­tion on snitch­es and infor­mants, be sure to check out our online Infor­mant Track­er.

Rab­bit is an edi­tor for the Earth First! Jour­nal and Newswire. He can be reached at rab­bit [at] earth­firstjour­nal [dot] org. If you appre­ci­at­ed read­ing this arti­cle, or want to sup­port the infor­mant track­ing and pris­on­er sup­port ser­vices, please con­sid­er sub­scrib­ing or donat­ing today.

Karadere beach Bulgaria

Karadere beach is one of the last stretch­es of the Bul­gar­i­an Black Sea coast not yet cov­ered in con­crete, and free camp­ing is still per­mit­ted there. A plan to devel­op the beach into a “hol­i­day vil­lage” has been on the cards for sev­er­al years and recent­ly, devel­op­ers began cut­ting trees, prompt­ing thou­sands to protest in the streets in Sofia and Var­na.

Karadere beach is one of the last stretch­es of the Bul­gar­i­an Black Sea coast not yet cov­ered in con­crete, and free camp­ing is still per­mit­ted there. A plan to devel­op the beach into a “hol­i­day vil­lage” has been on the cards for sev­er­al years and recent­ly, devel­op­ers began cut­ting trees, prompt­ing thou­sands to protest in the streets in Sofia and Var­na.

After a lot of secre­cy, some of the investors in the pro­posed devel­op­ment have been named. The com­pa­ny known as Madara hold­ings (for­mer­ly May­fair hold­ings) or Madara Europe which is owned by Rain­bow Mal­ta, head man Paul Riley seems to be the main play­er All these com­pa­nies are based in the chan­nel islands, and the investors seem to be British (although the whole affair is very murky with cor­rup­tion, and there are prob­a­bly oth­er Bul­gar­i­an and/or Russ­ian investors lurk­ing in the shad­ows). The British involve­ment seems to be sig­nif­i­cant, and if the British investors could be pur­suad­ed to with­draw, the project would be set back.The British investors are named on this excel­lent jour­nal­ism page, and the site has oth­er info about Karadere

http://tinyurl.com/lg8p86e

It also seems that some of the investors are in south wales, and are linked to a rug­by club in Cardiff

https://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/03389199

More info on these peo­ple could cer­tain­ly be uncov­ered by some­one on the ground in Britain. It would be great to get this issue raised in Britain, and see some of these investors pub­li­cal­ly shamed.

There is lots of stuff about Karadere on face­book and youtube

love and rage!

 

 

Nearly a thousand environmental activists murdered since 2002

April 15, 2014  At least 908 peo­ple were mur­dered for tak­ing a stand to defend the envi­ron­ment betwe

April 15, 2014  At least 908 peo­ple were mur­dered for tak­ing a stand to defend the envi­ron­ment between 2002 and 2013, accord­ing to a new report today from Glob­al Wit­ness, which shows a dra­mat­ic uptick in the mur­der rate dur­ing the past four years. Notably, the report appears on the same day that anoth­er NGO, Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al, released a video of a gun­man ter­ror­iz­ing a Guarani indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in Brazil, which has recent­ly reset­tled on land tak­en from them by ranch­ers decades ago. Accord­ing to the report, near­ly half of the mur­ders over the last decade occurred in Brazil—448 in all—and over two-thirds—661—involved land con­flict.

“There can be few stark­er or more obvi­ous symp­toms of the glob­al envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis than a dra­mat­ic upturn in killings of ordi­nary peo­ple defend­ing rights to their land or envi­ron­ment,” said Oliv­er Court­ney of Glob­al Wit­ness. “Yet this rapid­ly wors­en­ing prob­lem is going large­ly unno­ticed, and those respon­si­ble almost always get away with it. We hope our find­ings will act as the wake-up call that nation­al gov­ern­ments and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty clear­ly need.”

But as gris­ly as the report is, it’s like­ly a major under­es­ti­ma­tion of the issue. The report cov­ers just 35 coun­tries where vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal activists remains an issue, but leaves out a num­ber of major coun­tries where envi­ron­men­tal-relat­ed mur­ders are like­ly occur­ring but with scant report­ing.

“Because of the live, under-rec­og­nized nature of this prob­lem, an exhaus­tive glob­al analy­sis of the sit­u­a­tion is not pos­si­ble,” reads the report. “For exam­ple, African coun­tries such as Nige­ria, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, Cen­tral African Repub­lic and Zim­bab­we that are endur­ing resource-fueled unrest are high­ly like­ly to be affect­ed, but infor­ma­tion is almost impos­si­ble to gain with­out detailed field inves­ti­ga­tions.”

In fact, reports of hun­dreds of addi­tion­al killings in coun­tries like Ethiopia, Myan­mar, Venezuela, and Zim­bab­we were left out due to lack of rig­or­ous infor­ma­tion.

Even with­out these coun­tries includ­ed, the num­ber of envi­ron­men­tal activists killed near­ly approach­es the num­ber of jour­nal­ists mur­dered dur­ing the same period—913—an issue that gets much more press. Envi­ron­men­tal activists most at risk are peo­ple fight­ing spe­cif­ic indus­tries.

“Many of those fac­ing threats are ordi­nary peo­ple oppos­ing land grabs, min­ing oper­a­tions and the indus­tri­al tim­ber trade, often forced from their homes and severe­ly threat­ened by envi­ron­men­tal dev­as­ta­tion,” reads the report. “Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties are par­tic­u­lar­ly hard hit. In many cas­es, their land rights are not rec­og­nized by law or in prac­tice, leav­ing them open to exploita­tion by pow­er­ful eco­nom­ic inter­ests who brand them as ‘anti-devel­op­ment’.”

As if to high­light these points, Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al released a video today that the groups says shows a gun­man fir­ing at the Pyeli­to Kuê com­mu­ni­ty of Guarani indige­nous peo­ple. The inci­dent injured one woman, accord­ing to the group. The Guarani have been cam­paign­ing for decades to have land returned to them that has been tak­en by ranch­ers.

“This video gives a brief glimpse of what the Guarani endure month after month—harassment, intim­i­da­tion, and some­times mur­der, just for try­ing to live in peace on tiny frac­tions of the ances­tral land that was once stolen from them,” the direc­tor of Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al, Stephen Cor­ry, said. “Is it too much to expect the Brazil­ian author­i­ties, giv­en the bil­lions they’re spend­ing on the World Cup, to sort this prob­lem out once and for all, rather than let the Indi­ans’ mis­ery con­tin­ue?”

Accord­ing to the report, two major dri­vers of repeat­ed vio­lence against envi­ron­men­tal activists are a lack of atten­tion to the issue and wide­spread impuni­ty for per­pe­tra­tors. In fact, Glob­al Wit­ness found that only ten peo­ple have been con­vict­ed for the 908 mur­ders doc­u­ment­ed in the report, mean­ing a con­vic­tion rate of just 1.1 per­cent to date.

“Envi­ron­men­tal human rights defend­ers work to ensure that we live in an envi­ron­ment that enables us to enjoy our basic rights, includ­ing rights to life and health,” John Knox, UN Inde­pen­dent Expert on Human Rights and the Envi­ron­ment said. “The inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must do more to pro­tect them from the vio­lence and harass­ment they face as a result.”

BREAKING THE FRAME

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

A GATHERING ON THE POLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY

2nd — 5th May 2014

Unstone Grange, Der­byshire

YOU NEED TO BOOK ‑SEE BELOW

Organ­ised by Lud­dites 200, Cor­po­rate Watch, and Sci­en­tists for Glob­al Respon­si­bil­i­ty

Tech­nol­o­gy can bring some ben­e­fits for ordi­nary peo­ple, but its devel­op­ment is almost entire­ly con­mtrolled by cor­po­rate, mil­i­tary and tech­no­crat­ic elites, so it usu­al­ly serves their inter­ests and rein­forces their pow­er.

The pol­i­tics of food, ener­gy, work, gen­der, peace, eco­nom­ics, health, etc are all shaped by choic­es about tech­nol­o­gy made by those elites. The whole way our soci­ety devel­ops is mas­sive­ly influ­enced by tech­nol­o­gy, yet ordi­nary peo­ple nev­er have a prop­er say in it.  We’re always left react­ing to the tech­nocrats’ lat­est plan, whether it’s drones, inter­net sur­veil­lance, GM food, frack­ing, design­er babies or nuclear pow­er.

We think all these issues are linked. So it’s time for a more joined up and more proac­tive approach, one which address­es the root caus­es of prob­lems and is not lim­it­ed by the dog­ma that tech­nol­o­gy equals progress.

  • We want to cre­ate a new pol­i­tics of tech­nol­o­gy based on bring­ing togeth­er the insights of dif­fer­ent move­ments and learn­ing from each oth­er.
  • We want a human-scale tech­nol­o­gy that serves real human needs, not cor­po­rate bot­tom lines.
  • We want demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol of tech­nol­o­gy.

An world fac­ing envi­ron­men­tal melt­down and mas­sive inequal­i­ty ‑both caused byb 200 years ofn indus­tri­al cap­i­tal­ism- needs bet­ter solu­tions than more dan­ger­ous tech­no-fix­es such as cli­mate engi­neer­ing.

Whether you’re a tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics cam­paign­er, trade union­ist, envi­ron­men­tal­ist. altech devel­op­er, artist or just plain con­cerned, BREAKING THE FRAME IS NOT TO BE MISSED.

YOU NEED TO BOOK

www.breakingtheframe.org.uk      

email: luddites200@yahoo.co.uk

(020) 7426 0005

Accom­mo­da­tion is either in the con­fer­ence cen­tre OR camp­ing (which is cheap­er).  The con­ces­sion­ary rate for camp­ing is £36, which includes all meals for 4 days (it’s a bank hol­i­day week­end).

BUT if £36 is more than you can man­age, we’re com­mit­ted to mak­ing sure nobody is left out for lack of mon­ey.  So get in touch now.  Rich peo­ple can make extra dona­tions, of course!

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al. To sup­port this pub­li­ca­tion, pre­order your copy or donate today.

After sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al is ready to go to press. A group of front­line activists has assem­bled over 300 pages of dia­grams, descrip­tions of tech­niques and a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the role direct action plays in our cam­paigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundrais­ing cam­paign to ensure that this crit­i­cal book gets out to peo­ple who can use it. You can pre­order your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your ear­ly endorse­ment by donat­ing today. More impor­tant­ly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowl­edge. Every dona­tion over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the man­u­al to a cam­paign of your choice. The more you give, the more man­u­als we can put in the mail.

The man­u­al will be print­ed in the com­ing month with long­time Earth First! part­ner, The Gloo Fac­to­ry. This com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed, union print shop has sup­plied Earth First! and its affil­i­ates with stick­ers and mer­chan­dise for decades and remains com­mit­ted to using a high stan­dard for recy­cled and reclaimed mate­r­i­al, as well as sup­port­ive work­er con­di­tions.

The man­u­al was first print­ed near­ly two decades ago and has been out of print since its ini­tial dis­sem­i­na­tion. Though many of the con­sid­er­a­tions for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and inter­ven­tion have remained tried and true, new ele­ments have altered the ways we put these tac­tics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Man­u­al will con­tin­ue the role of safe and effec­tive actions in stop­ping the destruc­tion of the plan­et.

Sup­port this effort today!

Earth First! Winter Moot 7–9 March 2014: programme up

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Evening Fri­day 7th — after­noon Sun­day 9th March 2014, Not­ting­ham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion.

It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat. Train to Not­ting­ham then tram to Bea­cons­field street– walk to the end turn right on to Glad­stone St — 245 Glad­stone St, Not­ting­ham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or ques­tions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30–17.30 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop
17.30–18.30 Film

18.30 Din­ner

20.00 Ben­e­fit Gig

Saturday

8.30–9.30 Break­fast
9.30–10.45 Intro go round of cam­paigns

10.45–11.00 Break

11.00–12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00–13.00 Secu­ri­ty Work­shop

13.00–14.00 Lunch

14.00–14.30 Lush/fundraising work­shop
14.30–18.15 Cam­paign Work­shops (tim­ings to be finalised to include Frack­ing, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15–18.30 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing han­dover

18.30 Din­ner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00–10.00 Break­fast fry up
10.00–10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30–11.30 Feed­back go round
11.30–12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30–14.00 Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Plan­ning (and time of oth­er work­shops to run in par­al­lel)

14.00–15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Anti-Highway Protester Faces Eight Year Sentence

Will Parrish in the wick drain stitcher. Jan­u­ary 22nd From June 20th to July 1st, local­ly well-known jour­nal­ist and activist Will Par­rish lived 50 feet above ground in a wick drain &l

Will Parrish in the wick drain stitcher. Jan­u­ary 22nd From June 20th to July 1st, local­ly well-known jour­nal­ist and activist Will Par­rish lived 50 feet above ground in a wick drain “stitch­er” in the north­ern Lit­tle Lake Val­ley (ie, Willits Val­ley) wet­lands, where the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (Cal­Trans) is build­ing an unnec­es­sary and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive free­way bypass.

By putting his body inside the frame­work of this destruc­tive equip­ment, which is in the process of installing rough­ly 55,000 80-foot drainage tubes into the Lit­tle Lake wet­lands, Will blocked it from oper­at­ing and brought nation­wide atten­tion to the harm Cal­Trans is caus­ing the Lit­tle Lake Val­ley water­shed.  This harm includes destroy­ing the largest North­ern Cal­i­for­nia wet­lands area of any project in over 50 years.

As pun­ish­ment for Will’s more than 11 day stand on behalf of the Valley’s land and peo­ple, Men­do­ci­no Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney David Eyster is charg­ing him with 16 mis­de­meanors (14 counts of “unlaw­ful entry” and two of “resist­ing arrest”), with a max­i­mum eight-year jail sen­tence.  He also wants Will to pay Cal­trans a mind-bog­gling $490,002 in resti­tu­tion. This is an unheard of move by a dis­trict attor­ney in Men­do­ci­no and Hum­boldt Coun­ties, which each have a rich tra­di­tion of strug­gle for social jus­tice and the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment.  If the DA and Cal­trans have their way, Will would spend the rest of his life pay­ing off these absurd penal­ties.

About The Case

When Men­do­ci­no Coun­ty DA David Eyster first filed a com­plaint against Will on July 2nd, the charges con­sist­ed of three infrac­tions cor­re­spond­ing to each of Will’s three non-vio­lent arrests protest­ing the Bypass.  This com­plaint includ­ed a require­ment to pay undis­closed resti­tu­tion fees.

Under an infrac­tion, the defendant’s case is presided over by a judge rather than a jury.  Will was unwill­ing to accept the uncapped resti­tu­tion stip­u­la­tion and was also adamant about his right to receive a jury tri­al, so his attor­ney (Omar Figueroa of Sebastopol) asked that Eyster re-file the charges as mis­de­meanors.  Will under­stood and accept­ed that the infrac­tions would become mis­de­meanors, and would include the pos­si­bil­i­ty of jail time, but was not pre­pared for Eyster’s arbi­trary deci­sion to add thir­teen addi­tion­al counts for mis­de­meanor vio­la­tions.

Notably, Will already endured a form of house arrest in the wick drain stitch­er and was deprived of food, water and med­ical atten­tion by the CHP (at the behest of Cal­Trans). The CHP even arrest­ed six peo­ple who attempt­ed to bring him sup­plies.  Will went for almost six days with no food, sur­vived par­tial­ly on rain water, and was bit­ter­ly cold after being drenched by more than two days of unsea­son­al rain.

Why Will Is Pur­su­ing a Jury Tri­al

This part of the case bears repeat­ing. There is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that Will is seek­ing a jury tri­al because he wants to lever­age his case for max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty.  This claim has been repeat­ed in numer­ous media accounts of the case.  But it is large­ly untrue.  While Will is indeed inter­est­ed in max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty for his case, he is exer­cis­ing his Con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a jury tri­al pri­mar­i­ly because of DA Eyster’s dra­con­ian insis­tence that he pay crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion to Cal­trans.

Will believes a jury tri­al pro­vides the best oppor­tu­ni­ty for him to oppose the crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion stip­u­la­tion.

Will adamant­ly oppos­es this harsh crim­i­nal­iza­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activism on prin­ci­pal, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the real crim­i­nals in this case are those who pre­side over Cal­trans’ Willits Bypass con­struc­tion.  Crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion has not been pur­sued against direct action pro­test­ers in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia in recent mem­o­ry.  Thus, the impo­si­tion of resti­tu­tion would also have a chill­ing effect against future activism.  Besides not want­i­ng to be in a posi­tion of pay­ing off Cal­trans for the rest of his life, Will is dead set against see­ing peo­ple who stand on their rights to defend the earth from ille­gal plun­der be per­se­cut­ed for it. He is will­ing to risk a jail sen­tence to oppose this dan­ger­ous prece­dent.

Moscow, Russia: ELF Torch Excavator and Dozer During New Year Festivities

Dur­ing the night of Decem­ber 31 – Jan­u­ary 1 we torched 2 vehi­cles used in devel­op­ment project in South­ern Moscow. Secu­ri­ty didn’t expect us to show up as they were busy drink­ing them­selves into obliv­ion at the guard­house. So we used 2 jel­ly cans of gaso­line and some rags to destroy unguard­ed machin­ery.

Dur­ing the night of Decem­ber 31 – Jan­u­ary 1 we torched 2 vehi­cles used in devel­op­ment project in South­ern Moscow. Secu­ri­ty didn’t expect us to show up as they were busy drink­ing them­selves into obliv­ion at the guard­house. So we used 2 jel­ly cans of gaso­line and some rags to destroy unguard­ed machin­ery. No harm came from our actions (only harm being made was that to the developer’s purse).

We ded­i­cate this action to anar­chists from Belarus, those who stay impris­oned. Guys, we remem­ber you, we miss you and wait for you to become free again. We ask for ABC Belarus to help us in spread­ing this infor­ma­tion and let­ting our impris­oned com­rades know of our words and deed. We hope the news will help to light­en up the mood and keep you warm and smil­ing in the grey prison real­i­ty.

As for our ecode­fence activism, we are not plan­ning to make a U‑turn. Unlike Mrs. Chiriko­va [self-pro­claimed leader of mass protests dur­ing Khim­ki for­est strug­gle — trans.] we are not look­ing for a com­fort­able chair in local admin­is­tra­tion. So we can afford to do what needs be done. We don’t accept moan­ings like: “Vio­lence is bad, we shouldn’t be torch­ing vehi­cles, we should get more sig­na­tures under peti­tion, so as to be heard by fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.” This reminds us of the fears of a per­son who’s afraid to loose the good­will of pow­ers-that-be. If we allow some­body to com­mit vio­lence against our­selves, it means we’re rais­ing the white flag. It is time to ques­tion the ratio­nale behind con­tin­u­ous with­draw­al under the blows of author­i­ties. It is time to stop hid­ing your inabil­i­ty to act behind phras­es like: “we shouldn’t act, this is vio­lent tac­tics” or “this is too macho-ist” or “this is ille­gal”. If you want to ask for per­mis­sion to protest, you must under­stand that you’re in fact sell­ing your­selves. Only uncon­trol­lable forms of resis­tance can hope to remain free. Any protest coor­di­nat­ed from under lib­er­al umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion is doomed to a fail­ure. Gath­er your strengths, stay free and be wild, god damn it!

Blockade of Mine Site Enters Third Day

mb_wide_maules-20140115000958462076-620x349 14th Jan­u­ary 2014 Activists have block­ad­ed the Maules Creek mine site at Bog­gabri in New South Wales, Aus­tralia, for three days now.

mb_wide_maules-20140115000958462076-620x349 14th Jan­u­ary 2014 Activists have block­ad­ed the Maules Creek mine site at Bog­gabri in New South Wales, Aus­tralia, for three days now.

On Mon­day, 30 pro­tes­tors, includ­ing mem­bers of Abo­rig­i­nal groups and the orga­ni­za­tion Leard For­est Alliance, descend­ed on the site, with some lock­ing them­selves to heavy machines.

Yes­ter­day, 10 more pro­tes­tors joined the group, re-enforc­ing an ad-hoc encamp­ment and lock­ing down to bull­doz­ers.

The Leard For­est is set to be destroyed by the open pit coal mine, and the heavy machines are sup­posed to start clear­ing for­est for Wite­haven Coal’s oper­a­tion. The for­est is impor­tant habi­tat, as well as a cul­tur­al and bur­ial site for Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple in the area.

Activist group the Leard For­est Alliance said the heavy vehi­cles were at the site to begin clear­ing for­est for a road and rail­way line to ser­vice White­haven Coal’s $767 mil­lion open-cut coalmine. The alliance says the mine will destroy Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al and bur­ial sites and valu­able for­est and ani­mals.