Billionaire’s for Coal strike in Bank of America’s home state, 4 protests in 3 days

July 11th 2008

Bank of America, Asheville protestJuly 11th 2008
Today Asheville Ris­ing Tide’s bil­lion­aire bloc descend­ed on Bank of America’s region­al head­quar­ters to demand that BoA con­tin­ue to invest their mon­ey in coal. The Bil­lion­aires for Coal car­ried signs read­ing “More Prof­it, Less Moun­tains” and sipped on dirty (coal) mar­ti­nis to applaud BoA for its fund­ing of moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing as well as the new gen­er­a­tion of dirty coal plants. The Asheville Police Depart­ment did an excel­lent job of block­ing access to the bank entrance and the ATM sure­ly scar­ing off a num­ber of bank cus­tomers.

Two days before, activists with Croatan Earth First! vis­it­ed three Bank of Amer­i­ca branch­es in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. The activist entered the banks rais­ing a ruckus and hand­ing out fliers to cus­tomers until being forced to leave. The mot­ley crew of bil­lion­aires then pro­ceed­ed to demon­strate out­side and inform­ing the pub­lic of BoA’s dirty deeds. A few weeks before sev­er­al activists were detained by police in Char­lotte, NC (BoA’s home­town) for hang­ing anti-coal poster’s in the neigh­bor­hoods of sev­er­al BoA exec­u­tives homes. After inten­sive inter­ro­ga­tion, they were let go with­out charge (remem­ber kids, nev­er talk to cops).

Bank of Amer­i­ca is guilty of fund­ing such noto­ri­ous human rights abusers and eco­log­i­cal destroy­ers as Massey Ener­gy, Arch Coal, and Peabody Ener­gy. They have recent­ly hand­ed over heaps of cash to com­pa­nies such as Duke Ener­gy that is cur­rent­ly build­ing the 800 MW Cliff­side coal plant in Cliff­side, NC.

Spirit of Freedom (July 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)

Prisoner Solidarity 8Pro­duced 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 July 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As a num­ber of ELP sup­port­ers will be aware, ELP has tra­di­tion­al­ly ded­i­cat­ed our newslet­ters to fall­en friends, who have either been killed or seri­ous­ly injured as a result of their protest activ­i­ties. For the past few months ELP has­n’t car­ried any ded­i­ca­tion and we hoped that we would not have to ded­i­cate anoth­er newslet­ter to a fall­en friend again. How­ev­er last month, ELP received the heart­break­ing news about the death of Marie Vesco. Marie was a French activist liv­ing in Eng­land. She was involved with a num­ber of groups includ­ing ‘Food Not Bombs’. On Wednes­day the 4th of June 2008 Marie was cycling to the Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade when a Four Wheel Dri­ve
vehi­cle (an SUV if your Amer­i­can) swerved across two lanes hit­ting Marie. A sec­ond vehi­cle then also hit Marie. Marie died instant­ly: she was just a few days away from her 20th birth­day. Marie is remem­bered as a warm, loud, fun, viva­cious fig­ure with an infec­tious laugh that was always ready to help oth­ers. ELP under­stands that at least two Crit­i­cal Mass cycle rides have already been ded­i­cat­ed to Marie. Like­wise in mem­o­ry of Marie ELP is ded­i­cat­ing this newslet­ter to her mem­o­ry. The loss of Marie is a blow for the move­ment and our thoughts are with her fam­i­ly and friends.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing of six and a half years impris­on­ment hav­ing reached a non-coop­er­a­tion plea-bar­gain with the author­i­ties who accuse him of involve­ment in two arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

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. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

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. (Diet unknown).

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. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, Colum­bia Coun­ty Jail, 403 Jack­son Street, Portage, Wis­con­sin 53901, 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. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters, 36432–086, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

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. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

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. (Jon is a veg­an).

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. (Gregg is a veg­an).

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. (Nat is a veg­an).

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. (Mel is a veg­an).

Mar­tin Bal­luch, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Mar­tin is a veg­an)

Christoph, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Christo­pher does not wish to have his full name pub­lished.

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. (Jake is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Rod is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

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. (Don is a veg­an).

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. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

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. Due for release at the end of July (Sarah is a veg­an).

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. (Josh is a veg­an).

Jan, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an ‘s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Jan does not wish to have his full name pub­lished.

Kevin Kroem­mer, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Kevin is a veg­an)

Leo, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Leo does not wish to have his full name pub­lished.

Sabine, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Sabine does not wish to have their full name pub­lished.

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HM Prison Blak­en­hurst, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

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

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. (Heather is a veg­an).

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. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

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. (Andrew is a veg­an).

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. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

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. (Diet unknown).

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

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. (Diet unknown).

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. (Diet unknown).

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

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

OTHER PRISONERS

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. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who
died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Michael W. Sykes, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

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. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. 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

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

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

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info 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.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

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

Bristol Tree Felling Protest

July 8th 2008
A protest organ­ised by the Snuff Mills Action Group attract­ed a very healthy turnout last night despite adverse weath­er con­di­tions. Around 250 peo­ple turned out to express their dis­gust at Bris­tol City Coun­cils approval of a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to fell 27 trees in a con­ser­va­tion area.

Snuff Mills protestJuly 8th 2008
A protest organ­ised by the Snuff Mills Action Group attract­ed a very healthy turnout last night despite adverse weath­er con­di­tions. Around 250 peo­ple turned out to express their dis­gust at Bris­tol City Coun­cils approval of a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to fell 27 trees in a con­ser­va­tion area.

Grove Wood on Black­ber­ry Hill in Sta­ple­ton has been part of the hos­pi­tal site since it was orig­i­nal­ly built to house French pris­on­ers of war dur­ing the Napoleon­ic Wars but was sold off at auc­tion last year to Mr Hus­sain Jafari Najafaba­di of Clifton for £39,000 as part of the Gov­ern­ments dri­ve to sell off sur­plus state owned assets. The land forms part of the con­ser­va­tion area that runs from East­ville right through to Dow­nend.

Mr Jafari has a record of plan­ning vio­la­tions (most of which have been grant­ed ret­ro­spec­tive­ly) and, it is alleged, has been heard to be brag­ging of his long term plan to turn the site into a hotel and con­fer­ence cen­tre. His busi­ness deal­ings are car­ried out under a num­ber of alias­es.

Short­ly after pur­chas­ing the wood, the new landown­er set about cut­ting down trees with impuni­ty and sit­ed a por­tak­abin with­in sight of the main road, near the entrance to the Wood.

Bris­tol City coun­cil took no action and when he sub­mit­ted a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to fell the trees lin­ing the road, locals thought that con­ser­va­tion area sta­tus would prob­a­bly lim­it health and safe­ty work to prun­ing alone, giv­en the mas­sive impact on visu­al ameni­ty that felling would have.

Bris­tol City Coun­cil grant­ed the per­mis­sion cit­ing that the list­ed wall was being under­mined, a sew­er was affect­ed and high­way obstruc­tion.

The protest last night was the first of its kind in the cam­paign to save Grove Woods and Snuff Mills Action Group Spokesman Steve Mick­lewright said:
“We want to know the real ratio­nale behind this deci­sion, we are very sus­pi­cious about what’s hap­pened here and we want prop­er answers imme­di­ate­ly”.

He went on to say
“Come on Bris­tol City Coun­cil, do your job and stop pan­der­ing to rogue devel­op­ers.”

This full details of this cam­paign can be obtained from the link below, and the online peti­tion can be accessed also.
http://snuffmills.blogspot.com/

Issue Two of the ‘Roadblock Report’ Now Out!

3/7/2008
Issue two of the inde­pen­dent newslet­ter of the I‑69 cam­paign is now out for your down­load­ing, print­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plea­sure.
You can find both the first and the sec­ond issue on the web­site of Road­block Earth First! http://stopi69.wordpress.com/resources or on the media archive sec­tion of the I‑69 Media Office’s web­site http://i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com/media-archive

3/7/2008
Issue two of the inde­pen­dent newslet­ter of the I‑69 cam­paign is now out for your down­load­ing, print­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing plea­sure.
You can find both the first and the sec­ond issue on the web­site of Road­block Earth First! http://stopi69.wordpress.com/resources or on the media archive sec­tion of the I‑69 Media Office’s web­site http://i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com/media-archive
In this issue:

- let­ter from the edi­tors about media/independent media
‑break­ing news sto­ries about
• the tree sit evic­tion,
• Bloom­ing­ton torch march,
• retal­ia­to­ry actions across Indi­ana,
‑action reports on:
• home demos,
• sol­i­dar­i­ty demos,
‑updates on
• the nature walks on the route,
• the com­mu­ni­ty bar­bq,
‑opin­ion pieces about
• the flood­ing in Indi­ana,
• a response to alle­ga­tions of vio­lence in office demos.
‑I-69 Lis­ten­ing project inter­view
‑Crit­i­cal thought piece on the future of the ‘anti-glob­al­iza­tion move­ment.

The sec­ond issue is for­mat­ted in 8.5”X11”, to be dou­ble sided. Email road­block­re­port (at) yahoo.com if you would like a dif­fer­ent for­mat.

As well, the I‑69 Media Office is announc­ing the launch of its new web­site, i69mediaoffice.wordpress.com . The I‑69 Media Office is an inde­pen­dent clear­ing­house for anti-I-69 infor­ma­tion and action report­ing. Please explore our ‘under con­struc­tion’ web­site for more infor­ma­tion on what we do.

Activists disrupt work at site of opencast coal mine

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.
All remained until the police arrived, which was a con­sid­er­able time lat­er. How­ev­er, the spon­ta­neous action clear­ly delayed their work, as the site fore­man spent much time talk­ing to the police etc.

Con­cerned of Smal­l­ey
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground/

Arrests As International Whaling Commission Fails To Protect Whales

Fif­teen peo­ple were arrest­ed by police at a meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC), held this year in San­ti­a­go, Chile.

IWC protest

Fif­teen peo­ple were arrest­ed by police at a meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC), held this year in San­ti­a­go, Chile. The pro­test­ers were sup­pos­ed­ly try­ing to ‘storm’ the meet­ing but oth­er reports state that the mere pres­ence of peo­ple in front of the meet­ing’s venue was seen as a ‘secu­ri­ty threat’.

The IWC meets annu­al­ly to reg­u­late the whal­ing indus­try and make deci­sions on con­ser­va­tion of whale pop­u­la­tions. So far the meet­ing has­n’t reached any agree­ments and the com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be strong­ly dev­id­ed between the pro- and anti-whal­ing nations. Skye Bor­toli, an activist from Teens Against Whal­ing described the meet­ing this year as ‘pathet­ic’, say­ing “this body will be known in the future as a small group of eco­log­i­cal­ly arro­gant peo­ple who are con­demn­ing the world’s whales to agony and obliv­ion for pet­ty pol­i­tics and a few lousy bucks.”

Relat­ed Audio: Sea Shep­herd Cap­tain Paul Wat­son Talks in Lon­don | Inter­view With Not­ting­ham Activist On Return From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion

Relat­ed Newswire: Ice­land Defies Mora­to­ri­um On Com­mer­cial Whal­ing — Whale Hunt Start­ed | Nor­way Starts Whale Hunt­ing Sea­son

Pre­vi­ous Fea­tures: Armed Cana­di­an Coast Guard Storms Con­ser­va­tion Ves­sel | Not­ting­ham Activist Returns From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion In Antar­ti­ca | Injured Among Sea Shep­herd Crew As Japan­ese Mil­i­tary Open Fire | Activists Held Hostage By Japan­ese Whalers In South­ern Ocean

Links: IWC offi­cial web­site | Wikipedia on IWC | Teens Against Whal­ing | Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety | Green­peace | San­ti­a­go Indy­media | Indy­media Ocean Defence

This year, like many a year before, the IWC fails to make progress in their pro­tec­tion of whales. Japan and oth­er pro-whal­ing nations push for a par­tial lift­ing of the ban on com­mer­cial whal­ing. Also, the US (which has been involved with Japan’s whal­ing indus­try) has been push­ing for the reg­u­la­tion of ‘sci­en­tif­ic whal­ing’, some­thing which con­ser­va­tions argue would only legit­imize an already ille­gal activ­i­ty. Japan uses the ‘sci­en­tif­ic research’ as a smoke­screen for their ille­gal com­mer­cial whal­ing prac­tices.

There has been a debate about whether Green­land should be allowed a big­ger quo­ta of whales for their hunt and dis­cus­sions are ongo­ing about Japan’s hunt in the South­ern Ocean. It has been report­ed that the ear­li­est the IWC might come to some kind of agree­ment is by next year’s meet­ing, which is to be held in Madeira, Por­tu­gal. The com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be strong­ly divid­ed between pro-whal­ing (Japan, Den­mark, Nor­way, Ice­land) and anti-whal­ing (Aus­tralia, Unit­ed King­dom, New Zealand, South Africa) nations.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, from the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, did man­age to get into the hotel this year. He nor­mal­ly nev­er makes it inside as the Sea Shep­herd is the only organ­i­sa­tion offi­cial­ly banned from attend­ing IWC meet­ings. Paul, like Skye Bor­toli, isn’t impressed with the state of affairs at this year’s meet­ing: “There were many things that could come out of this meet­ing. Japan could with­draw from the IWC and become a rene­gade whal­ing nation along with their part­ners in con­ser­va­tion crime Nor­way and Ice­land. Or a com­pro­mise may be bro­kered that will allow the Japan­ese to with­draw from the South­ern Ocean with­out los­ing face or third­ly, and most like­ly, noth­ing will come out of this meet­ing at all. From the way things are going so far it looks like Sea Shep­herd will be return­ing to the South­ern Ocean to once again enforce the reg­u­la­tions that the IWC and the nations of the world refuse to uphold. Oh well, I come to these meet­ings with no expec­ta­tions hop­ing to be pleas­ant­ly sur­prised. After more than three decades I am still wait­ing.

Green­peace was also present in Chile, with a dom­i­nant pres­ence among the var­i­ous anti-whal­ing NGO’s and con­ser­va­tion­ists. Dave writes on the Green­peace blog: “We hope some­thing good comes out of these meet­ings, and that the com­mis­sion trans­forms itself into a body that pro­tects the whales and not the whalers. While com­mis­sion­ers sit in rooms talk­ing, whales are still dying in the South­ern Ocean and around the world from com­mer­cial whal­ing, ship strikes, sonar-relat­ed deaths, net­ting and pol­lu­tion, amongst oth­er human-induced haz­ards.”

On a pos­i­tive note, Chile, the host of this year’s meet­ing has declared a per­ma­nent ban on whal­ing in its waters. Speak­ing at a for­mer whale pro­cess­ing plant that Chile closed in 1967, Pres­i­dent Michelle Bachelet said she sent a bill to Con­gress propos­ing a whale sanc­tu­ary along Chile’s coast­line and declared the whale a nation­al mon­u­ment.

imc-uk-fea­tures

Anniversary of the first week at Shipley Bodge (& upcoming protest dates)

It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Bodge graffitti 2Bodge flowers 3It has been a week already since cli­mate chaos activists took occu­pa­tion of a farm house on the site of the UK’s newest open cast site. Here is an update. The pos­ses­sion court case was chucked out of court for the moment — more here. Don’t for­get the 14th July noise demo (link to left).

UK Coal have start­ed some prepara­to­ry works at the Ship­ley open cast site. Many Tonnes of con­crete has been cast to rein­force the pub­lic access road near the squat­ted site. This is allow 200 tonne machines to trav­el back and forth with­out doing dam­age to the pub­lic right of way. (I’ll pause here while you un-flab­ber­gast your­self………)

Mean­while, fur­ther along Bell Lane, tele­com engi­neers were busy with their under­ground cable detec­tors. I don’t know why they couldn’t just phone BT and ask where they put them!

Clear­ly the angry own­er of White­house Farm gate­house (map ref SK41619 44026) is grad­u­al­ly get­ting knack­ered from hav­ing to keep open­ing the gate for vehi­cles on UK Coal busi­ness, as he was hav­ing fan­cy new hinges fit­ted to the gateposts.

The route is still pass­able on foot or horse, which is just as well. We have con­firmed with Der­byshire Coun­ty Coun­cil that the path from Smal­l­ey to the gate at White­house Farm is a des­ig­nat­ed foot­path and from there to Ship­ley Park it is a pub­lic bri­dle­way. The Rights of Way Offi­cers at DCC are very keen to hear of any prob­lems mem­bers of the pub­lic expe­ri­ence when try­ing to exer­cise their right to trav­el freely along this path.

There is no prob­lem with vehi­cle access from the Ship­ley Park end, although the gate may be locked on Sun­days (please con­firm before you trav­el)

Mean­while, back at Ship­ley Bodge…

The new res­i­dents have con­tin­ued to mod­ernise the old farm­house so it now boasts a loft apart­ment, new flags and exte­ri­or décor. The gar­den has not been over­looked with nice new fenc­ing, and sev­er­al tree-hous­es under con­struc­tion.

The pro­test­ers are in good spir­its and well stocked but please keep the sup­plies com­ing. Peo­ple are also need­ed, for an hour, a day or prefer­ably longer.

Please bring water, tim­ber and food etc.

See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20918 for ini­tial occu­pa­tion report, and con­tact, map, wish list, access to the site, court papers & a protest.
See http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20943 for a report of some­one’s vis­it there.

http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Bodge graffitti 1
Bodge flag
Bodge flowers 1
Bodge flowers 2
Bodge flowers 4

Anti-Sprawl Direct Action in Montana

Flat­head Val­ley, Mon­tana, U.S. — A group call­ing itself Amer­i­cans Stop­ping Sprawl­ing Devel­op­ment (ASSD) has tak­en cred­it for a rash of inci­dents involv­ing the removal of sur­vey­or stakes and graf­fi­ti that is esti­mat­ed to have cost devel­op­ers as much as $20,000 so far.

Stop Sprawl!Flat­head Val­ley, Mon­tana, U.S. — A group call­ing itself Amer­i­cans Stop­ping Sprawl­ing Devel­op­ment (ASSD) has tak­en cred­it for a rash of inci­dents involv­ing the removal of sur­vey­or stakes and graf­fi­ti that is esti­mat­ed to have cost devel­op­ers as much as $20,000 so far.

A three page anti-cap­i­tal­ist man­i­festo was left behind by the van­dals after the first inci­dent which took place on May 17th. The doc­u­ment call urban sprawl “one of the great­est issues fac­ing our soci­ety” and promised more actions against it.

The non-prof­it envi­ron­men­tal group Cit­i­zens for a Bet­ter Flat­head has joined devel­op­ers and their allies and offered a cash reward for infor­ma­tion lead­ing to the arrest and con­vic­tion of indi­vid­u­als respon­si­ble for a cam­paign anti-sprawl van­dal­ism.

Cit­i­zens for a Bet­ter Flat­head pledged $100 towards the reward fund. A rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Sier­ra Club’s Mis­soula office also dis­avowed the action.

open cast plans for the north of england — meet in Newcastle to make plans, and for the Camp for Climate Action

The 2008 camp for cli­mate action is to be held near to the pro­posed site for a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion. E‑on the com­pa­ny that wants to build the pow­er sta­tion has stat­ed that it will use a sys­tem called Car­bon Cap­ture and stor­age. C.C.S is still in an ear­ly devel­op­ment stage and has not been used on such a large scale.

The 2008 camp for cli­mate action is to be held near to the pro­posed site for a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion. E‑on the com­pa­ny that wants to build the pow­er sta­tion has stat­ed that it will use a sys­tem called Car­bon Cap­ture and stor­age. C.C.S is still in an ear­ly devel­op­ment stage and has not been used on such a large scale. The pow­er sta­tion will have to begin life with­out any c.c.s mean­ing mega-tons of unfil­tered Co2 emis­sions’ head­ing into our atmos­phere .

The cli­mate camp(www.climatecamp.org.uk) at Kingsnorth in the Med­way val­ley will high­light and take direct action against the black hole in the gov­ern­ments cli­mate change pol­i­cy. COAL.

Pow­er sta­tions like Egg­brough, Drax and Kingsnorth pro­duce huge amounts of filthy emis­sions, drax alone pro­duces approx 21 mil­lions tones of Co2 per year.
All this coal has to come from some­where and it would ‘seam’ the mon­ey men have set their greedy eyes on the north of Eng­land again.
U:k coal and the banks group have sev­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tion to sur­face mine/open cast across the North East.
*Bradley Co. Durham- 550 000 tonnes
*Park wall north Co. Durham- 1 275 000 tonnes
*pot­land burn Northum­ber­land- 2 000 000 tonnes
*Shot­ton Northum­ber­land- 3 000 000 tonnes
*An exten­sion to the exsist­ing site at wid­dring­ton

In addi­tion to these appli­ca­tions there is already one of the largest open cast sites in the U:K at Sto­b­swood near Mor­peth. Sur­face min­ing sites are also oper­at­ing in Wid­dring­ton, Blag­don estate in Northum­ber­land. Stead­burns and stoney heap near to Con­sett Co. Durham.

In the case of shotton/cramlington plan­ning appli­ca­tion, Shot­ton is in an open­cast con­straint area which means that there is a pre­sump­tion against Sur­face min­ing. Northum­ber­land coun­ty coun­cil up held the con­straint and re-ject­ed the appli­ca­tion. How­ev­er the com­mu­ni­ties and local gov­ern­ment sec­re­tary Hazel Blears M.P Stepped in and over­ruled the coun­ty coun­cil allow­ing the open­cast oper­a­tion to go ahead much to dis­may of the local com­mu­ni­ty
(www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2008/02/08/ministers-quizzed-on-opencast-policy-61634–20450633/ )
The pot­land burn site is also in a con­straint area yet U:K coal has still lodged an appli­ca­tion prob­a­bly because they feel the polit­i­cal cli­mate is in their favor.

As if the eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion, indus­tri­al injuries/deaths and dis­rup­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty that open­cast min­ing leaves behind Npow­er have stat­ed that they have an immi­nent plan­ning appli­ca­tion to build a new coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Blyth on the site of the exist­ing pow­er sta­tion. Con­struc­tion is due to begin 2014 on the same time­line as Kingsnorth.
Whilst the focus is on the cli­mate camp and Kingsnorth, the North of Eng­land and our resources are cen­tral to the U:K gov­ern­ment and their cap­i­tal­ist boss­es plans for a new gen­er­a­tion of dirty pow­er sta­tions .
This new gen­er­a­tion of coal fired pow­er sta­tions and the unac­cept­able min­ing prac­tices that accom­pa­ny them must be stopped.
One of the key fea­tures of the cli­mate camp is direct action.
The Banks group have offices in West Corn­forth near Fer­ry­hill, U:K coal head offices are in Don­cast­er’ leave it in the ground’ have began reg­u­lar noise demos out­side the next is 14th July. All the open­cast sites are eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.

Peo­ple are meet­ing to dis­cuss and plan for the upcom­ing cli­mate camp at the star and shad­ow cin­e­ma, New­cas­tle upon tyne. Next meet­ing is Thurs­day July 3rd at 6pm why not come along and join the move against cli­mate change.

Links and info:

www.climatecamp.org.uk
www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground
www.greenpeace.com
www.thecoalhole.org
www.indymedia.org.uk
www.pontvalley.net
www.banksdevlopments.com
www.ukcoal.com

A visit to the Opencast Squat

21.06.2008
I decid­ed to take a trip to Ship­ley today to see how the new res­i­dents of Prospect farm were set­tling in.

Bodge House with roof-tripodBodge fencing21.06.2008
I decid­ed to take a trip to Ship­ley today to see how the new res­i­dents of Prospect farm were set­tling in.

Just to recap the sto­ry so far. In the ear­ly hours of last Wednes­day morn­ing a group of car­ing indi­vid­u­als took pos­ses­sion of a build­ing on the site of UK Coals planned new open cast site in Der­byshire. There aim is to protest/prevent the coun­try­side and wider envi­ron­ment being dev­as­tat­ed by the extrac­tion and burn­ing of the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel.

As if we need­ed any remind­ing of the cli­mate chaos coal burn­ing con­tributes to, when I arrived on Sat­ur­day (21st June!) it was wet and driz­zly and the fore­cast was for storms.

But the rain had not damp­ened the spir­its of the crew now liv­ing at Prospect Farm (now re-chris­tened Bodge farm). While they were still busy with all those jobs that need doing when you move into a new home they had already achieved a great deal and the place was very home­ly. A well-stocked kitchen was set up and a wel­com­ing open fire means there is always a ket­tle on the go.

To the sounds of acoustic gui­tar from one of the tree-hous­es I watched a cou­ple of peo­ple fix­ing fenc­ing and looked up to admire the sus­pend­ed car­go net­ting between the trees.

There have been oth­er vis­i­tors com­ing to show their sup­port includ­ing three gen­er­a­tions of the fam­i­ly who used to live in the house before UK Coal kicked them out.

I was delayed on leav­ing as a large van full of pro­vi­sions had just arrived and need­ed unload­ing. This had been spon­ta­neous­ly arranged and paid for by locals and includ­ed just about every­thing you could think of from tinned beans to cot­ton buds, fresh veg to bot­tled water.

Please get along there and sup­port them, it’s a love­ly loca­tion and the squat/camp has a great feel.

But get along there because at some point we have just got to draw a line. For all our futures and for gen­er­a­tions to come, leave it in the ground.

http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk