upcoming Shell to Sea protests — 14th, 23rd and big-up 29th Feb

12 Noon Feb­ru­ary 14th, Kil­dare Street Dublin 2.
On Thurs­day this week, there will be a protest at Lein­ster House in Dublin to bring atten­tion to the sweet­heart deal between the Irish Gov­ern­ment and the Cor­rib Part­ners (Shell, Statoil,and Marathon) for the exploita­tion of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. Pro­test­ers will gath­er at Kil­dare Street at 12 noon. More info here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86192

Shell sweethearts12 Noon Feb­ru­ary 14th, Kil­dare Street Dublin 2.
On Thurs­day this week, there will be a protest at Lein­ster House in Dublin to bring atten­tion to the sweet­heart deal between the Irish Gov­ern­ment and the Cor­rib Part­ners (Shell, Statoil,and Marathon) for the exploita­tion of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. Pro­test­ers will gath­er at Kil­dare Street at 12 noon. More info here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86192

1PM Feb­ru­ary 23rd, Shell Glas­nevin, Fin­glas Road Dublin 11
On Sat­ur­day 23rd of Feb­ru­ary there will be a pick­et of the Shell Ser­vice sta­tion oppo­site the main gate of Glas­nevin Ceme­tery. Although Shell no longer run the fore­court busi­ness, all the fuel sold in this and oth­er Shell garages is still sourced from Roy­al Dutch Shell. Pro­test­ers will be ask­ing motorists to boy­cott the sta­tion until con­cerns about the Cor­rib scheme are addressed by the company.The protest will start at 1PM sharp. More info here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/86187

The next large-scale protest in Mayo will be on Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 29th. Shell are set to announce the new route for the pro­duc­tion pipeline link­ing the gas field to the Bel­lan­aboy Refin­ery site some­time towards the end of Feb­ru­ary. Many peo­ple in Erris expect the com­pa­ny to apply for per­mis­sion to run the pipeline under the water of Sruth Fáda Conn, the inlet bay that runs along­side Ross­port. This will mean the Min­is­ter for the Envi­ron­ment will have to apply for per­mis­sion from the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to break the rules which are designed to pro­tect endan­gered habi­tats and pro­tect­ed envi­ron­ments.

More details of the Feb­ru­ary 29th protest will fol­low near­er the time.

Keep up to date with Shell to Sea by check­ing indymedia.ie/mayo

You can see Shell to Sea videos on youtube here: www.youtube.com/shelltohell

For more infor­ma­tion call 0871323369.

Community halts Shell

Feb­ru­ary 12 2008

Sur­vey work was halt­ed
This morn­ing sur­vey work stopped when mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty ques­tioned Ollie Mur­ray (Shell Com­mu­ni­ty Lia­son Offi­cer) on whether he had the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion. He is a man of few words and our ques­tions were met with his mantra of ‘I don’t know, con­tact RPS’. ‘’Do you have the RPS num­ber? No. ‘’. It was a beau­ti­ful day and whilst we were wait­ing for the RPS engi­neer to ring back with details (at 22.00pm he still hasn’t), the sur­vey­or admired the view of the pris­tine bay in Glen­gad. No sur­vey work was under­tak­en. The bore hoels ille­gal­ly con­struct­ed 5 months ago are still there, despite Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley order­ing their removal asp.

BroadhavenFeb­ru­ary 12 2008

Sur­vey work was halt­ed
This morn­ing sur­vey work stopped when mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty ques­tioned Ollie Mur­ray (Shell Com­mu­ni­ty Lia­son Offi­cer) on whether he had the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion. He is a man of few words and our ques­tions were met with his mantra of ‘I don’t know, con­tact RPS’. ‘’Do you have the RPS num­ber? No. ‘’. It was a beau­ti­ful day and whilst we were wait­ing for the RPS engi­neer to ring back with details (at 22.00pm he still hasn’t), the sur­vey­or admired the view of the pris­tine bay in Glen­gad. No sur­vey work was under­tak­en. The bore hoels ille­gal­ly con­struct­ed 5 months ago are still there, despite Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley order­ing their removal asp.

Blockad­ing of trucks
Of course the com­mu­ni­ty are still attempt­ing to slow down con­struc­tion on the Shell refin­ery site. Block­ades hap­pen as much as pos­si­ble; last week work­ers were once again block­ad­ed and today lor­ries were blocked from enter­ing. When the author­i­ties fail to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty and the Spe­cial Pro­tect­ed Area, the com­mu­ni­ty have no choice but to active­ly do it our­selves. For rea­sons of health, safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, we can­not let this refin­ery be built at Bal­linaboy.

’Peo­ple are enti­tled to a healthy and pro­duc­tive life in har­mo­ny with nature. Envi­ron­men­tal issues are best han­dled with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of all con­cerned cit­i­zens. Devel­op­ment today must not under­mine the devel­op­ment and envi­ron­men­tal needs of present and future gen­er­a­tions.’ Local Agen­da 21

————–

12.2.08 Local peo­ple block Shell from ille­gal work in a SAC at Glen­gad, Erris for 4 hours until Gar­dai force through work­ers, injur­ing pro­test­ers.

At approx 8am this morn­ing, local res­i­dents became aware of a Shell con­tract­ed sur­vey team in the Glen­gad area on the SAC. To work in this area we under­stand that per­mis­sions must be obtained pri­or to any work being under­tak­en by Shell. Shell have still yet repaired the ille­gal work done last Octo­ber.

To our knowl­edge, they are only enti­tled to remove the ille­gal bore­holes, as ordered by Min­is­ter Gorm­ley. Our requests for evi­dence of oth­er per­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be ignored by both Shell, RPS and NPWS. Today’s sur­vey­ing had noth­ing to do with repair­ing the dam­age how­ev­er, despite claims to the con­trary by secu­ri­ty staff.

Despite con­tact­ing Shell’s sup­posed pub­lic lia­sons offi­cer in the last few days no attempt has been made by Shell to clar­i­fy if they have any oth­er of the required per­mis­sions.

A group of local peo­ple were forced to enter upon the land to stop this ille­gal work. Work was halt­ed between 8am until approx 12 noon when a force of over a dozen Gar­dai came to escort the sur­vey team back onto the SAC.

Despite explain­ing why the local com­mu­ni­ty had rea­son­able excuse to stop fur­ther dam­age being done, the Gar­dai very force­ful­ly removed all pro­test­ers from the entrance gate, ush­er­ing in the sur­vey team. In their zeal­ous pur­suit of Shell’s best inter­ests, the Gar­dai assault­ed many of the approx 10 pro­test­ers present at the time. 1 man was arrest­ed after being shoved onto a barbed wire fence, cut­ting his arm in sev­er­al places before hav­ing his head banged off the ground by sev­er­al Gar­dai. Oth­ers were dragged off, received kicks, shoves, had hair pulled, while the Gar­dai simul­ta­ne­ous­ly obstruct­ed the only cam­era from film­ing. The man who was arrest­ed was lat­er released with­out charge.

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

Shell to Sea protest at Bellanaboy and Belmullet

Feb­ru­ary 2 2008
To coin­cide with Shell announc­ing their annu­al prof­its (of around €18 bil­lion), yes­ter­day morn­ing around 80 peo­ple gath­ered at Bel­lan­aboy to show their con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s plans for Mayo. Fac­ing a bit­ing wind and show­ers of hail and snow, the pro­tes­tors high­light­ed the fact that even with all this prof­it, Shell still haven’t clean up their act. As if the ele­ments weren’t bad enough, the pro­tes­tors also had to con­tend with being out­num­bered by about 2 to 1 by the hero­ic guardians of the State. This local day of protest against Shell was met with a exces­sive Gar­da pres­ence of at least a 150 to act as pri­vate secu­ri­ty for Shell. Of course the whole Cor­rib project fails to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land and all Shel­l’s con­struc­tion costs are writ­ten off against tax.

Belmullet Shell to SeaFeb­ru­ary 2 2008
To coin­cide with Shell announc­ing their annu­al prof­its (of around €18 bil­lion), yes­ter­day morn­ing around 80 peo­ple gath­ered at Bel­lan­aboy to show their con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion to Shel­l’s plans for Mayo. Fac­ing a bit­ing wind and show­ers of hail and snow, the pro­tes­tors high­light­ed the fact that even with all this prof­it, Shell still haven’t clean up their act. As if the ele­ments weren’t bad enough, the pro­tes­tors also had to con­tend with being out­num­bered by about 2 to 1 by the hero­ic guardians of the State. This local day of protest against Shell was met with a exces­sive Gar­da pres­ence of at least a 150 to act as pri­vate secu­ri­ty for Shell. Of course the whole Cor­rib project fails to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land and all Shel­l’s con­struc­tion costs are writ­ten off against tax.

At around 9.30am a sec­tion of the pro­tes­tors went in to Bel­mul­let to con­tin­ue their protest and to hand out leaflets regard­ing Shel­l’s dead­ly record. Around 30 peo­ple stood around the main round­about and received a very pos­i­tive response. They wait­ed until all their leaflets were hand­ed out, before retir­ing for some well earned warm tea & cof­fee around 12.30pm. At first, the Gar­dai con­tin­ued to use overkill tac­tics but soon realised they can’t get away with this in the full view of Bel­mul­let. Despite the bit­ter weath­er, there was lots of sup­port and it felt a good suc­cess.

One dis­taste­ful aspect to the day was the fact that, for the first time, mem­bers of the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp were pre­vent­ed from mak­ing their way to Bel­lan­aboy gates. On 3 sep­a­rate routes the camp van was blocked from mak­ing their way to the pick­et. Ini­tial­ly the gar­daí sought to open up the back of the camp van with­out quot­ing a nec­es­sary sec­tion of law. Under the Road Traf­fic Act, the guards don’t have author­i­ty to search a vehi­cle even though this has­n’t stopped them doing it on many occa­sions around the Bel­lan­aboy area. At the ini­tial road block, the guard also opened both the dri­vers and a side door before he was told that this behav­iour was not allowed. When ques­tionned, the gar­daí kept on quot­ing the Road Traf­fic Act and gave the dri­ver of the van the choice of either turn­ing around or allow­ing the gar­daí to search the vehi­cle. The dri­ver refused both these options and stayed where he was for a con­sid­er­able time on each occa­sion. As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, the dri­ver refused to allow a vehi­cle search unless they quot­ed a suf­fi­cient law. On numer­ous occa­sions the gar­daí direct­ed the dri­ver to leave. How­ev­er it shows the shaky ground that the gar­daí knew they were on as they nev­er cau­tioned the dri­ver that he would be arrest­ed.
Over­all the 6 camp mem­bers in the van tried for over 2 hours (from around 7–9am) to try to get to the gates dur­ing which time many cars were sim­ply waved through with­out being searched. They were stopped on 5 dif­fer­ent occa­sions and on each occa­sion any­thing from 3 to 6 gar­da vans and squads were around the van. At the Bel­lan­aboy bridge car park, pas­sen­gers in the van ques­tioned both one of the gar­daí who stopped them and an Inspec­tor in charge. At one stage the gar­da stat­ed the “Offences against the State” gave them author­i­ty to search the vehi­cle, while the Inspec­tor stat­ed that ‘Com­mon Law’ gave them the author­i­ty. The dri­ver con­firmed that the only law quot­ed at him was the Road Traf­fic Act which the Inspec­tor basi­cal­ly admit­ted did­n’t give them the author­i­ty to search.

The gar­daí often claim that they are there to uphold the right to peace­ful­ly protest but this event clear­ly showed a com­plete mis­use of pow­er. How­ev­er this failed to dis­tract pro­tes­tors from high­light­ing Shel­l’s €18bn prof­it at the expense of com­mu­ni­ty’s world­wide. Over­all it was a very pos­i­tive day and a nice start to the spring.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/north+sea+safety+concerns/1460452
————

Leaflet text:

Shell prof­its rise — Ire­land gets 0%

Shell has announced record prof­its of €18 bil­lion for the year, that’s €49.3 mil­lion per day! Shell has stat­ed that it is too expen­sive to refine at sea. How­ev­er, Shell’s prof­its clear­ly show this is untrue and unbe­liev­ably, the Irish law was changed so that all their build­ing costs can be writ­ten off against tax!

Increased cost to refine at sea = €360 mil­lion
That’s about one week of Shell’s prof­its!

It is clear that these vast prof­its come at the expense of the coun­tries, com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ments that Shell oper­ate. Look at the dis­as­ters of Rus­sia and Nigeria…will you allow Shell to do this here?

In Texas, where Shell oper­ates a large oil refin­ery, med­ical sur­veys have found that 70% of the town’s inhab­i­tants have asso­ci­at­ed med­ical com­plaints.

Shell always put prof­its first
Shell in fact has the worse work­force death record of all the major oil com­pa­nies.

Com­pa­ny 2003 Deaths 2004 Deaths 2005 Deaths 2006 Deaths
Exxon Mobil 23 6 8 10
Shell 45 37 36 37
BP 20 11 27 7
Work­force deaths for the 3 biggest oil & gas com­pa­nies

If Shell care so lit­tle for the lives of their own work­ers, do you trust them to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty?

So far in Erris we know that every sin­gle water mon­i­tor­ing report car­ried out by Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil is above the lim­its for alu­mini­um since Shell removed peat from Bel­lan­aboy. The water from the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site goes direct­ly into Car­row­more Lake. Shell acknowl­edged respon­si­bil­i­ty for this prob­lem and installed the Axon­ics water treat­ment plant. How­ev­er, it was unable to cope with the demand dur­ing Shell’s peat haulage and so the alu­mini­um lev­els have increased and the prob­lem has wors­ened.

The Scot­tish EPA (who has licensed numer­ous refiner­ies in Scot­land) has stat­ed that a refin­ery which falls with­in the catch­ment area of a drink­ing water sup­ply would not get per­mis­sion to oper­ate in Scot­land.

Con­sent can­not be bought
Shell has recent­ly announced their new wish “to be a good neigh­bour”. Send­ing 5 men to jail for try­ing to pro­tect their com­mu­ni­ty was not a great start! And things haven’t improved since then. Shell have not tak­en on board our con­cerns and con­tin­ue to ignore the peo­ple who are threat­ened with this exper­i­men­tal project on their doorstep. Shell is still intent on forc­ing through a raw gas pipeline through unsta­ble land in close prox­im­i­ty of hous­es and a school.

“No oth­er coun­try in the world has giv­en the oil company’s such favourable terms” Mike Cun­ning­ham, for­mer Sta­toil direc­tor

We deserve a bet­ter deal: Don’t take Shell’s crumbs!
Giv­en the obscene­ly gen­er­ous terms at which Shell got the Cor­rib Gas, it’s no sur­prise that Shell are hap­py to give out a few col­lege schol­ar­ships and grants here and there. Instead our nat­ur­al resources should be going to ben­e­fit our edu­ca­tion and health sys­tems and coun­try as a whole.
In the ear­ly 70’s, Nor­way chose to use their nat­ur­al resources to ben­e­fit their peo­ple and today the coun­try ranks as hav­ing the best qual­i­ty of life in the world.
Because all of Shell’s con­struc­tion costs can be writ­ten off against tax, the mon­ey Shell are try­ing to offer to our com­mu­ni­ty belongs to us in the first place! The per­cent­age giv­en back is noth­ing com­pared to the €50 bil­lion worth of Irish gas they own!

For more infor­ma­tion or to request a copy of the Chan­nel 4 ‘Polic­ing the pol­lu­tion’ film, please con­tact 0851141170.

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.

Tasmanian Forest Defenders ‘Lose Their Exclusion’ in the Styx Valley, Tasmania

It’s been a busy week for Tas­man­ian for­est defend­ers in the Styx Val­ley, set­ting up two block­ades in two days as part of the ‘Gunns and Doz­ers Lose Your Exclu­sion Tour’.

Styx exclusion tour action 1Styx exclusion tour action 2It’s been a busy week for Tas­man­ian for­est defend­ers in the Styx Val­ley, set­ting up two block­ades in two days as part of the ‘Gunns and Doz­ers Lose Your Exclu­sion Tour’.

Yes­ter­day’s work halt­ed con­struc­tion on a new log­ging road being pushed into pris­tine for­est near the Tas­man­ian Wilder­ness World Her­itage Area. Today, two dif­fer­ent access points to old growth log­ging coupe SX10F were block­ad­ed, effec­tive­ly stop­ping the destruc­tive log­ging of ancient for­est all day.

See the media releas­es below…
THURSDAY 24th JANUARY 2008

Tas­man­ian Activists High­light Destruc­tive Log­ging in the Styx Val­ley

Com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened have halt­ed work on the con­struc­tion of a new log­ging road in the Styx Val­ley today as part of the “Gunns and Doz­ers Lose Your Exclu­sion Tour”. The “Gunns and Doz­ers Lose Your Exclu­sion Tour” is an aware­ness rais­ing event high­light­ing the ancient for­est destruc­tion occur­ring behind locked gates in Tasmania’s South­ern Forests. The road­ing oper­a­tion will open up more areas of the inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned Val­ley of the Giants for destruc­tive log­ging.

“Today’s action high­lights the community’s grave con­cerns with the alarm­ing rate at which Tasmania’s old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests are being destroyed behind locked gates all over the state. The ancient forests of the Styx, Weld and Upper Flo­ren­tine Val­leys have been inter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised as being of World Her­itage Val­ue and yet indus­tri­al activ­i­ty like log­ging and road­ing con­tin­ues every­day” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened Spokesper­son Jess Wright.

“Our ancient forests also play an essen­tial role in the mit­i­ga­tion of dan­ger­ous cli­mate change, soak­ing up and stor­ing car­bon diox­ide from the atmos­phere. At this crit­i­cal time in the inter­na­tion­al debate about the mas­sive con­tri­bu­tion of for­est degra­da­tion to cli­mate change, more road­ing into and log­ging of our car­bon stor­ing forests is the last thing our plan­et needs” said Jess Wright.

“How much longer will our lead­ers stay silent and let these cli­mate crimes con­tin­ue? We are call­ing on Sen­a­tor Pen­ny Wong, the Min­is­ter for Cli­mate Change and Water to show strong lead­er­ship on this issue and act imme­di­ate­ly to pro­tect Tasmania’s car­bon dense ancient forests” Jess Wright said.

FRIDAY 25th JANUARY

Tas­man­ian For­est Defend­ers ‘Lose Their Exclu­sion’ in the Styx Val­ley, Tas­ma­nia

Com­mu­ni­ty activists from Still Wild Still Threat­ened have returned to the Styx Val­ley today, pre­vent­ing the destruc­tion of ancient for­est in old growth log­ging coupe SX10F as part of the ‘Gunns and Doz­ers Lose Your Exclu­sion Tour’. The ‘Gunns and Doz­ers Lose Your Exclu­sion Tour’ is an aware­ness rais­ing event high­light­ing the ancient for­est destruc­tion occur­ring behind locked gates in South­ern Tasmania’s threat­ened forests. Today’s action comes after for­est defend­ers halt­ed con­struc­tion on a new log­ging road into pris­tine for­est near the Tas­man­ian Wilder­ness World Her­itage Area yes­ter­day.

“While the chain­saws and bull­doz­ers have been tear­ing apart this pris­tine tract of old growth for­est, the pub­lic has been denied access to one of the Styx Valley’s most pop­u­lar tourist attrac­tions, the ancient for­est walk known as ‘The Tolkien Track’. It is com­plete­ly unac­cept­able that not only is our unique nat­ur­al her­itage being lost for­ev­er but the pub­lic is miss­ing out on the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence ancient for­est that isn’t being logged” said Still Wild Still Threat­ened spokesper­son Jess Wright.

“In this era of dan­ger­ous cli­mate change the destruc­tive log­ging of old growth for­est in the Styx Val­ley is tru­ly a glob­al issue. Stud­ies show that Euca­lyp­tus reg­nans forests, like those typ­i­cal of the Styx Val­ley can store up to 1200 tonnes of car­bon per hectare when ful­ly mature*. The log­ging of these ancient car­bon stores releas­es mas­sive amounts of green­house gas­es into the atmos­phere great­ly con­tribut­ing to cli­mate change.” said Jess Wright.

“Sen­a­tor Pen­ny Wong has to step up to her respon­si­bil­i­ty as the Min­is­ter for Cli­mate Change and act imme­di­ate­ly to pro­tect Tasmania’s car­bon stor­ing old forests. Pro­tect­ing Tasmania’s old growth and high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests is an essen­tial step in the glob­al chal­lenge to mit­i­gate the effects of dan­ger­ous cli­mate change” Jess Wright said.

Two for­est defend­ers are perched high in tree sits attached to struc­tures block­ing both access points to the old growth log­ging coupe SX10F.

Tas­ma­ni­a’s South­ern Forests…Still Wild Still Threat­ened
The Huon Val­ley Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre
Cool Forests…Conservation cools the plan­et

Mayo Shell blockade & 15–17th March London demo & action call-out

Block­ade of Shell site, thurs morn­ing, 24/1/8, approx 100 cars blocked for 45 mins

This morn­ing, local res­i­dents’ yet again braved the bit­ter­ly cold wind to show Shell that it will nev­er have their con­sent. Know­ing that only they can pro­tect the health and safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­ment, peo­ple peace­ful­ly held ban­ners at the gates, shut­ting down the site and pre­vent­ing approx. 100 Shell cars from enter­ing. There were no Gar­dai for approx. 45 mins!

Block­ade of Shell site, thurs morn­ing, 24/1/8, approx 100 cars blocked for 45 mins

This morn­ing, local res­i­dents’ yet again braved the bit­ter­ly cold wind to show Shell that it will nev­er have their con­sent. Know­ing that only they can pro­tect the health and safe­ty of their com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­ment, peo­ple peace­ful­ly held ban­ners at the gates, shut­ting down the site and pre­vent­ing approx. 100 Shell cars from enter­ing. There were no Gar­dai for approx. 45 mins!
Yes­ter­day, peo­ple were stood by the side of gate 2, not block­ing the cars, but were forcibly removed by the Gar­dai, who refused to give a rea­son. As usu­al, there was dis­agree­ment between the Gar­dai them­selves on why we were being removed and some were clear­ly uncom­fort­able with their col­leagues’ unrea­son­able behav­iour (‘pub­lic order act’ ‘Tres­pass’ ‘mis­cel­la­neous hous­ing act’ and my per­son­al favourite, ‘you are caus­ing a destruc­tion’). The morn­ing pick­ets are still hap­pen­ing and there are fre­quent block­ades, so come and sup­port the Kil­com­mon Parish who are sim­ply call­ing for the gas to be refined at sea and to rene­go­ti­ate the deal to ben­e­fit the peo­ple of Ire­land. Shell to Sea!
Who’s cops?
It came as no sur­prise to see the recent Shell Project Mon­i­tor­ing Com­mit­tee prais­ing Supt Gan­non for his work in the local­i­ty.

»»»»»»»

hey all, hope you can join us in Lon­don to bring the pipeline back to Shell — 15–17th March.

Glu­aiseacht are mobil­is­ing peo­ple from all over Ire­land to trav­el to Shell Head­quar­ters in Lon­don on St Patrick­’s Day to protest the give­away and mis­man­age­ment of our nation­al resources. We will be car­ry­ing a 200ft pipeline to Shel­l’s front door.

The Irish peo­ple will not ben­e­fit from the Cor­rib Gas Project. We will have to buy back any gas that Shell will sell to us at the ever increas­ing full mar­ket val­ue. As well as this, Shell will destroy a pris­tine envi­ron­ment and the health and safe­ty of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

If you can’t get to Lon­don, there’s a call out for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions to hap­pen at St Pad­dy’s Day parades, Shell offices & garages and Irish Embassies all over the world dur­ing this week­end.

What is Glu­aiseacht?
Glu­aiseacht is a non-hier­ar­chi­cal envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice move­ment bring­ing togeth­er grass­roots organ­i­sa­tions, con­cerned indi­vid­u­als and stu­dent groups from all over Ire­land to take action on social, envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal issues.

For more infor­ma­tion, please email back. many thanks!

http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/

Anti-LNG action at NW Natural, USA

Jan 23rd, 2008
Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing Tide joined forces with Stump­town Earth First! to hold an action and ral­ly at the down­town Port­land office of NW Nat­ur­al (local gas util­i­ty), for their involve­ment in Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) relat­ed pipelines, which threat­en to clear-cut strips of for­est through­out Ore­gon for new fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture.

US LNG pipeline protest bannerJan 23rd, 2008
Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing Tide joined forces with Stump­town Earth First! to hold an action and ral­ly at the down­town Port­land office of NW Nat­ur­al (local gas util­i­ty), for their involve­ment in Liq­ue­fied Nat­ur­al Gas (LNG) relat­ed pipelines, which threat­en to clear-cut strips of for­est through­out Ore­gon for new fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture.

Pil­ing dozens of trees on NW Natural’s down­town office entry­way, activists with Stump­town Earth First! and Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing Tide, sent a mes­sage to the LNG-invest­ed gas com­pa­ny: “There’s noth­ing Green about Clear-cuts, No new pipelines”.

“NW Nat­ur­al claims to be fight­ing cli­mate change, but all we see is new fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment projects knock­ing down trees and destroy­ing rivers,” says Paige Crown, a par­tic­i­pant in the ral­ly, “its com­mon sense that an impor­tant step in fight­ing cli­mate change is to pro­tect car­bon-absorb­ing trees and forests, not clear-cut them.”

The Palo­mar pipeline, Ore­gon LNG pipeline and the Pacif­ic Con­nec­tor, which total over 600 miles of pipe, threat­en to cross over 1000s streams, rivers and wet­lands and require wide clear-cut con­struc­tion cor­ri­dors through pub­lic lands, includ­ing road­less areas and old growth forests.

After com­ple­tion of the projects per­ma­nent right-of-way will be main­tained, which — in the case of heav­i­ly forest­ed areas—may cre­ate more fuel for wild­fires (which rep­re­sents even greater dan­ger in the event of a pipeline leak). The clear­ing of trees and brush in these areas may also con­tribute to ero­sion, impact­ing soil via­bil­i­ty and water qual­i­ty.

The Palo­mar pipeline project, pro­posed to con­nect NorthernStar’s Brad­wood Land­ing ter­mi­nal to the Tran­scana­da pipeline, is posi­tioned to snake over Mt. Hood. Map­ping avail­able from the Mt. Hood Nation­al For­est shows the pipeline would go through Late Suc­ces­sion­al Reserves for spot­ted owls and bor­der pro­posed Wilder­ness areas.

The Pacif­ic Con­nec­tor, attached to the Jor­dan Cove pro­pos­al in Coos Coun­ty demands a 95 ft. clear-cut con­struc­tion cor­ri­dor through Rogue Riv­er Nation­al For­est, Kla­math Nation­al For­est and Umpqua Nation­al For­est.

*This action was inspired by the NW Nat­ur­al ral­ly on Decem­ber 12, 2007, in which Cas­ca­dia Ris­ing Tide orga­nized with impact­ed com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to bring hun­dreds of peo­ple to down­town Port­land bring­ing farm equip­ment and fish­ing boats, cre­at­ing a loud and col­or­ful “No LNG” coali­ton.

Sea Shepherd Hostages Return Back to Steve Irwin — Lack of Cooperation May Kill the Whales

Japan­ese Poach­ers Release Sea Shep­herd Hostages
18/01/08 http://www.seashepherd.org

Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane were trans­ferred from the Yushin Maru No. 2 to the Aus­tralian Cus­toms ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking ear­ly in the morn­ing at 0200 Hours Mel­bourne time (1300 Hours GMT). The two men were trans­ferred to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin at 0930 Hours Mel­bourne time (2030 Hours GMT).

Sea Shepherd hostages returnJapan­ese Poach­ers Release Sea Shep­herd Hostages
18/01/08 http://www.seashepherd.org

Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane were trans­ferred from the Yushin Maru No. 2 to the Aus­tralian Cus­toms ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking ear­ly in the morn­ing at 0200 Hours Mel­bourne time (1300 Hours GMT). The two men were trans­ferred to the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin at 0930 Hours Mel­bourne time (2030 Hours GMT).

Both men were hap­py to be reunit­ed with their ship­mates and eager to return to chas­ing the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Oceans. Both men report­ed that although they were roughed up when they first board­ed the whal­ing ship, that they were treat­ed well dur­ing their time onboard. The only injury was a bruised wrist suf­fered by Giles Lane.

“It did not take long before the whalers real­ized that they made a huge pub­lic rela­tions mis­take in keep­ing us on their ship,” said Ben­jamin Potts. “We made it clear to them that Sea Shep­herd was com­mit­ted to stop­ping their ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties.”

“Although we appre­ci­ate the con­cern that peo­ple have expressed for our wel­fare, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that this is not about us.” said Giles Lane. “It’s about stop­ping this cru­el and ille­gal whale hunt. The treat­ment that we received was triv­ial in com­par­i­son to the suf­fer­ing that the whales expe­ri­ence at the hands of the Japan­ese whalers. They may have been rough with us but at least we were not har­pooned, elec­tro­cut­ed and muti­lat­ed. This is not about us, it’s about the whales.”

The Steve Irwin is con­tin­u­ing its pur­suit of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet. “This is the 8th day that whales have not been killed,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Every day that we stop the whalers is a vic­to­ry. We will con­tin­ue to inter­vene, harass, block, and obstruct the whalers at every oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

The Steve Irwin is present­ly at 59 Degrees 46 Min­utes South and 85 Degrees 59 Min­utes East and on the tail of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet.
http://www.seashepherd.org/migaloo/video/2008–01-18_video_clip_05_Sea_Shepherd_crew_members_released_back_to_the_Steve_Irwin.wmv

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“With “allies” like the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and Green­peace, it is becom­ing increas­ing dif­fi­cult to keep the Japan­ese fleet from killing whales,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Aus­tralian Cus­toms delib­er­ate­ly led us away from the fleet and Green­peace is guard­ing the coor­di­nates like the crown jew­els to pre­vent us re-locat­ing the fleet.”

Lack of Coop­er­a­tion May Kill the Whales
From onboard the Steve Irwin in the South­ern Oceans (18/01/08)

The Aus­tralian Cus­toms and Fish­eries Patrol ves­sel Ocean­ic Viking has thrown the Sea Shep­herd ship Steve Irwin off the trail of the Japan­ese fleet.

After pick­ing up the two Sea Shep­herd crewmem­bers from the Yushin Maru No. 2 the Ocean­ic Viking noti­fied the Steve Irwin to head for a ren­dezvous point a few hours away.

This was unusu­al con­sid­er­ing that the Yushin Maru No. 2 was only about ten miles away at the time. The Steve Irwin was forced to stop tail­ing the Yushin Maru No. 2 to meet up with the Ocean­ic Viking. This allowed the whaler to head off in an unknown direc­tion to rejoin the fac­to­ry ship Nis­shin Maru.

After drop­ping off Ben­jamin Potts and Giles Lane, the Ocean­ic Viking head­ed off in a direc­tion away from the Japan­ese fleet. The fleet then appar­ent­ly changed course and has now been lost from Sea Shep­herd. Green­peace tag­ging along with the Nishin Maru has report­ed that the catch­er boats have met back up with the main fleet.

Although Sea Shep­herd has been relay­ing the posi­tion of the catch­er boats to the Green­peace ship Esper­an­za for the last three days, Green­peace refus­es rec­i­p­ro­cate and refus­es to reveal the present loca­tion of the fleet.

“With “allies” like the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment and Green­peace, it is becom­ing increas­ing dif­fi­cult to keep the Japan­ese fleet from killing whales,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “Aus­tralian Cus­toms delib­er­ate­ly led us away from the fleet and Green­peace is guard­ing the coor­di­nates like the crown jew­els to pre­vent us re-locat­ing the fleet.”

Com­pli­cat­ing the search is the fact that the Japan­ese have sent a new ship the Fukoyoshi No. 68 to shad­ow the Steve Irwin at all times. The ves­sel is not part of the whal­ing fleet. It’s a large Japan­ese drag trawler. It does not have any fish­ing gear onboard and seems to have more elec­tron­ic gear than nor­mal for a fish­ing ves­sel. This ship is appar­ent­ly report­ing the Steve Irwin’s posi­tion to the Japan­ese fleet.

Sea Shep­herd has shut down whal­ing for a week. Unless the Steve Irwin can find the fleet soon, the killing will begin again. The Ocean­ic Viking will take pic­tures of dying whales and Green­peace will hang ban­ners, take pic­tures and con­tin­ue on with their inef­fec­tive stunts. They will not stop the killing.

“If whales begin to die with­in the next few days, I will hold Green­peace and the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment respon­si­ble,” said Cap­tain Paul Wat­son. “They know we can stop the killing because whales don’t die when Sea Shep­herd arrives. By lead­ing us off the tail of the whalers and refus­ing to coop­er­ate on coor­di­nates they are delib­er­ate­ly help­ing the whalers to escape from Sea Shep­herd and to resume the slaugh­ter of the whales. I under­stand that Green­peace needs kill footage and images of “hero­ic eco-war­riors” buzzing about in inflat­a­bles but that does not stop the har­poons. Our very pres­ence will deter the Japan­ese from killing whales. Sea Shep­herd is the best weapon that Green­peace can use to stop the resump­tion of whal­ing. By with­hold­ing coop­er­a­tion they are con­tribut­ing to the death of the whales. If any whales are killed with­in the next week I will hold Green­peace respon­si­ble for their deaths because they have the pow­er to coop­er­ate with Sea Shep­herd to pre­vent the killing from con­tin­u­ing.”

The Steve Irwin is con­duct­ing heli­copter sur­veil­lance patrols to re-locate the whal­ing fleet. The fleet should be with­in two hun­dred miles of Sea Shep­herd.

http://seashepherd.org

Friday 11th jan 08 Soldier Hill & the next Friday actions

Anoth­er suc­cess­ful day as the cam­paign con­tin­ues, activists occu­pied one of the last remain­ing tree’s on the route from 6.30am onwards on the com­pul­so­ry pur­chase line at sol­dier hill.

Solders Hill last treeAnoth­er suc­cess­ful day as the cam­paign con­tin­ues, activists occu­pied one of the last remain­ing tree’s on the route from 6.30am onwards on the com­pul­so­ry pur­chase line at sol­dier hill.

Fri­day 11th jan 08

Two of them hung a ban­ner from the tree in an attempt to make it clear that the protest will be con­tin­u­ing for the fore­see­able future, whilst oth­ers on the ground hung more ban­ners in order to raise aware­ness of our con­tin­u­ing defi­ance of this cor­rupt and crooked route. activists were over­joyed at the over­whelm­ing sup­port from mem­bers of the pub­lic, and local media cov­er­age.

As the new year begins we are wit­ness­ing more activ­i­ty from local and inter­na­tion­al activists all bold­ly defend­ing our cul­tur­al her­itage and nat­ur­al resources.

Report just in, 4.30pm, A con­cerned mem­ber of the pub­lic has just informed us that SIAC work­ers have been spot­ted mov­ing toward’s the tree with chain­saws, we need more peo­ple to attend the ongo­ing protest at sol­dier hill each fri­day so we can halt the increas­ing destruc­tion of this sacred land­scape once and for all.

http://www.tarapixie.net

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Please attend demo Fri 3pm Soldier@ Hill. You will see us there. We will be the ones with the ban­ners !
Save Tara banner
Fri­day 18th action report:

The high winds and rain did not damp­en our spir­its at Sol­dier’s Hill today. In fact it all helped to add to the laugh­ter as we tried not to set sail with our ban­ners 🙂

Thanks to all who beeped their sup­port.