Earth Liberation Front political prisoner and Rockaway native Daniel McGowan was released from the Communication Management Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indiana this morning. He was driven by federal authorities to Indianapolis International Airport, where he met up with his wife.
Though the two have been able to visit during Daniel’s imprisonment, today marked the first time in years that they could hug, hold hands, or make any physical contact (save for a few month stint when Daniel was in general population in Marion, Illinois– between the CMU there and the one in Terre Haute). The two flew back to New York City together, where they were met by a small group of close friends at the airport.
From the airport, Daniel had one hour to make it to the halfway house, where he will be living for as long as the next six months. Though he has secured employment, it is unclear when he can start work (at the discretion of the halfway house, not his new employer). Until he has had time to settle in, there are more questions than answers.
After being released from the halfway house, Daniel will be under supervised release for three years.
Regardless, this is great news and we’re excited to see our comrade on the other side of the wall.
Please remember that prisoner support doesn’t end when a comrade is released. Through halfway houses, supervised release, parole, or probation, there is usually state supervision beyond the initial sentence. Also, prison is traumatic. And of course there is the stigma of being a former prisoner that effects nearly every aspect of one’s life. All of this adds up to the less obvious, but equally necessary, support needed when our loved ones come home.
"Green Scare" Defendants
The term "Green Scare," alluding to the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s, refers to legal and extralegal actions taken by the U.S. government against environmental and animal rights activists. Like the Red Scare, the Green Scare uses new laws and new arms of the state to harshly punish a few individuals in order to repress an entire movement.
In December 2005, government agents carried out a nationwide sweep of arrests, charging fourteen individuals with actions claimed by the Earth Liberation Front and/or Animal Liberation Front in the Northwestern U.S. dating back to the mid-90's. The actions include a 1997 fire that destroyed a horse slaughterhouse in Oregon (the plant was not rebuilt), and fires that destroyed pens and chutes at Bureau of Land Management wild horse holding compounds in Oregon, Wyoming and California (horses were also freed during the actions). Despite no injury caused to any living being, a judge determined that some of the arsons constituted "terrorism" under Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
In November 2006, Nathan Block, Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul and Joyanna Zacher entered non-cooperation plea agreements in which they accepted responsibility for their own roles in environmentally-motivated property crimes, but did not agree to provide information or testify against anyone now or in the future.
Unfortunately, other individuals admitted guilt after their arrests and proceeded to provide information to the government. In order to receive reduced sentences, these individuals agreed to cooperate with the state in ongoing investigations against the environmental and animal rights movements. Those individuals are not listed here.
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Nathan Block
Joyanna Zacher
In May 2012, Joyanna Zacher ("Sadie") and Nathan Block ("Exile") were released from prison and will complete their sentences at a halfway house.
In June 2007, Sadie and Exile were sentenced to 7 years and 8 months imprisonment each. For more information, please contact their support campaign: solidaritywithsadieandexile@gmail.com.
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Daniel McGowan
Daniel was released from prison in December 2012.
In June 2007, Daniel McGowan was sentenced to seven years in prison. Learn more about Daniel at the following websites: www.SupportDaniel.org, www.facebook.com/supportdanielmcgowan
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Jonathan Paul
Jonathan was released from prison in January 2011 and completed his sentence at a halfway house.
Jonathan Paul was sentenced to 51 months. He began his sentence in October 2007. Jonathan said as he reported to prison, "This is way bigger than us, this is for the animals and the planet, we will never suffer as much as they do."
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Justin Solondz #98291-011
FCI Loretto
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 1000
Loretto, PA 15940
USA
In early 2009, Justin Solondz was arrested in China on local charges, more than three years after he was indicted on arson and conspiracy charges related to actions in the U.S. claimed by the ELF/ALF. In July 2011, Justin was taken into federal custody upon his expulsion from China, after completing a prison sentence. In March 2012, Justin was sentenced to seven years in prison.
MANILA – One farmer and two environmental advocates have been killed in two separate incidents on December 7.
MANILA – One farmer and two environmental advocates have been killed in two separate incidents on December 7.
Rolando Quijano, a farmer and active member of Alliance of Farmers Union in Zamboanga Del Sur (AFUZS) was shot to death at around 12:00 noon last Friday at purok 4, Ocapan village, San Miguel town in the province of Zamboanga Del Sur by suspected elements of the 53rd Infantry Battalion – Philippine Army, according to initial data gathered by Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).
Antonio Flores, KMP spokesman, said: “Quijano’s relatives and colleagues believe his death was due to his active opposition to large-scale mining and illegal logging in Zamboanga Del Sur.” KMP said 53rd IBPA has built a military detachment inside the village.
On the same day at around 6 p.m., two anti-mining advocates– Cheryl Ananayo, a member of Didipio Earthsavers’ Multipurpose Association (Desama), and her cousin-in-law Randy Nabayay — were also killed by unidentified assailants in Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya.
According to initial data gathered by the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (PNE), Ananayo was carrying her three-month-old baby and her four year-old child when the assassins attacked. Both children are unharmed.
Desama is a people’s organization opposed to the ongoing implementation of the 17,626-hectare Didipio gold-copper project in Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya owned by Australian large-scale miner OceanaGold Corporation. The Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) of Oceana Gold in Didipio commenced only this November.
“Oceana Gold’s crimes to the environment and the people started way before its commencement this last November, and it continues to grow,” Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE. “As early as during its mine development stage, it has already caused massive siltation that led to the disappearance of aquatic species in some affected rivers. Its campaign of attrition towards the indigenous people’s communities included threats of bulldozing homes, actual demolition operations, and letting loose gunfire upon civilians. We can think of no other person or institution with a track record and motive.”
“The climate of impunity remains and it’s a blood-stained Human Rights Day for the Aquino administration,” Flores said.
Impunity
“It seems that the mining regime perpetrated by the Aquino government is not content with the death toll of environmental activists this year, now pegged at 15 cases in 2012 alone. Is this how Aquino wants to celebrate Human Rights Day, with more impunity towards our beleaguered environment defenders?” said Fr. Oliver Castor, spokesperson of Task Force-Justice for Environment Defenders (TF-JED).
“We cannot continue turning a blind eye on the killings of environmental advocates. We have seen how destructive large-scale logging and mining activities have resulted in the intensified disaster impacts of hazards such as the most recent Typhoon Pablo that hit Mindanao. If we allow this impunity towards the likes of Ananayo to continue, who will be left to ensure the integrity of the environment that nurtures and protects us?” Bautista said.
Meanwhile, KMP’s Flores noted that Quijano’s death occurred while 74 farmers and Lumad from Mindanao are here in Manila for Manilakbayan (Journey to Manila) to protest the unabated killings linked to the large-scale mining in the South.”
Aida Seiesa, secretary general of KMP-Southern Mindanao, expressed outrage over the killing of Quijano.
“While we are here calling on government agencies to stop the killings in Mindanao, state security forces killed one of our colleagues,” Seiesa said in Filipino in an interview with Bulatlat.com.
She said she and Quijano attended a Congressional inquiry on the spate of extrajudicial killings held in Davao City a few months ago. “We came face to face with the military higher-ups,” she said.
Oplan Bayanihan
The KMP attributed the killing of Quijano as part of the Aquino administration’s counter-insurgency operation plan Bayanihan.
“Oplan Bayanihan enjoy the blessings of the haciendero president because it conceals the escalating terror and human rights abuses perpetrated by the military against farmers with the very same anti-peasant peace and development projects by the government,” Flores said.
According to the yearend report of Karapatan, of the 129 victims of extrajudicial killings since July 2010 to October this year, 71 were peasants and 25 were indigenous peoples.
“Aquino’s human rights record is tainted by the blood of the Filipino peasantry,” Flores said. “We hold Aquino as commander-in-chief of the armed forces responsible for the death of Quijano and all other farmers killed under his administration.”
A 39-year-old woman accused of eco-sabotage in three Western states turned herself in to U.S. authorities at the Canadian border on Thursday morning.
Rebecca Jeanette Rubin, a Canadian, had been on the run for a decade before surrendering in Blaine, Wash. She is accused of multiple counts of arson as part of a conspiracy with 12 other people from 1996 to 2001 in five Western states.
The charges against Rubin include a Nov. 30, 1997, arson at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse and Burro Facility in Harney county near Burns and the Dec. 22, 1998, attempted arson at the offices of the U.S. Forest Industries, Inc., in Medford. She’s also accused of involvement in the Oct. 19, 1998, arson attack that destroyed the Two Elk Lodge and other buildings at the Vail ski resort in Eagle County, Colorado.
Rubin faces federal charges in California as well in the attack Oct. 15, 2001, of the Bureau of Land Management Wild Horse and Burro Corrals near Susanville, Calif.
Federal authorities say Rubin was part of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, both underground movements that the government has labeled terrorist organizations. She was indicted on federal charges in Oregon along with 12 others in January 2006 in connection with a coordinated campaign that caused an estimated $23 million in damage between 1996 and 2001 in Oregon, California, Washington, Wyoming and Colorado.
When the indictment was issued eight had already been arrested in a nationwide sweep in the most extensive bust of suspected eco-saboteurs in U.S. history.
The group took oaths of secrecy and called itself “The Family.” They built firebombs, scouted their targets, took dry runs then dressed in black, donned masks and carried two-way radios during attacks.
Rubin shares a name with an 18-inch American Girl doll, produced by a Middleton, Wis., company which was released in 2009. The FBI hoped publicity from the doll would help bring Rubin to justice, according to a story in The New York Times.
“Any publicity that gets the word out that our Rebecca Rubin is wanted on various charges is certainly beneficial,” said Beth Anne Steele, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. in Oregon.
In August 2007, 10 other defendants were sentenced to prison terms from about three to 13 years after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court in Eugene to conspiracy and multiple counts of arson. Two defendants — Joseph Mahmoud Dibee and Josephine Sunshine Overaker — are still at large.
Rubin will make an initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Seattle and then will be transferred to Oregon to face trial.
December 4, 2012….Traditional territory of the Algonquin Peoples (Ottawa, Ontario)…Okimaw (Chief) Wallace Fox lead a procession of over 300 First Nation Chiefs, leaders, elders, women, youth and community members during an impromptu rally on Parliament Hill today. The First Nations movement is a result of frustration over the Canadian government’s current legislation. Bill C-45 is being debated in the house and Chiefs wanted to take part in the discussions of what will ultimately affect the future of their Peoples.
“We put Canada on notice today that we are a Sovereign Nation and that we won’t be intimated by them cause we know who we are and the Rights we have as Indigenous Peoples. We are disgusted by this governments lack of respect shown to us today when trying to enter into the House. We were pushed and shoved by security and told we weren’t welcome there. When a pipe is present in which it was today, no force is intended or appropriate. We are asserting our voices as Indigenous Peoples.”
This warning comes after an incident at Parliament today when MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-Kapuskasing) invited Chief Fox and nine other First Nations leaders to enter into Parliament to call out Minister of Indian Affairs, John Duncan and Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver to listen and respond to their concerns over C-45 and the debate that was taking place in the house today.
“We tried to enter into the house in order to deliver our message to all Members of Parliament and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a peaceful way that our Inherent and Treaty Rights aren’t negotiable. We weren’t consulted on C-45 which outlines a new legislation on land surrender and wanted to be included in these discussions. These actions have strained a already fragile relationship. We have no other choice now but to take a course that will have impacts on all Canadians, ” stated Okimaw Wallace Fox.
Onion Lake Cree Nation is an Indigenous Nation which believes in Sovereignty and the Protection of Inherent & Treaty Rights. The Cree Nation has over 5000 members and is governed by their own Cree Governance Structure. Onion Lake Cree Nation is located 30 minutes north of Lloydminster on highway 17 and is in Treaty No.6 territory.
WINONA, TX – MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 7:30 AM – Several protestors with Tar Sands Blockade sealed themselves inside a section of pipe destined for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to stop construction of the dangerous project. Using a blockading technique never implemented before, Matt Almonte and Glen Collins locked themselves between two barrels of concrete weighing over six hundred pounds each. Located twenty-five feet into a pipe segment waiting to be laid in the ground, the outer barrel is barricading the pipe’s opening and neither barrel can be moved without risking serious injury to the blockaders.
The barricaded section of the pipeline passes through a residential neighborhood in Winona, TX. If TransCanada moves ahead with the trenching and burying of this particular section of pipe, it would run less than a hundred feet from neighboring homes. Tar sands pipelines threaten East Texas communities with their highly toxic contents, which pose a greater risk to human health than conventional crude oil. TransCanada’s existing tar sands pipeline, Keystone XL’s predecessor, has an atrocious safety record, leaking twelve times in its first year of operation.
“TransCanada didn’t bother to ask the people of this neighborhood if they wanted to have millions of gallons of poisonous tar sands pumped through their backyards,” said Almonte, one of the protesters now inside the pipeline. “This multinational corporation has bullied landowners and expropriated homes to fatten its bottom line.”
Recently, over 40 communities worldwide planned actions with Tar Sands Blockade during a week of resistance against extreme energy extraction and its direct connection to the climate crisis. A growing global movement is rising up against the abuses of the fossil fuel industry and its increasingly desperate pursuit of dangerous extraction methods.
“I’m barricading this pipe with Tar Sands Blockade today to say loud and clear to the extraction industry that our communities and the resources we depend on for survival are not collateral damage,” said Collins, another blockader inside the pipe and an organizer with Radical Action for Mountain Peoples Survival (RAMPS) and Mountain Justice, grassroots campaigns in Appalachia working to stop mountaintop removal coal mining.
“This fight in East Texas against tar sands exploitation is one and the same as our fight in the hollers of West Virginia. Dirty energy extraction doesn’t just threaten my home; it threatens the collective future of the planet.”
“At this late stage, doing nothing is a greater danger than the risks of taking direct action to stop destructive projects like Keystone XL,” said Ron Seifert, a spokesperson for Tar Sands Blockade. “That’s why folks working with groups like RAMPS, the Unist’ot’en Camp fighting a natural gas pipeline in British Columbia and Tar Sands Blockade are willing to use everything including their own hands and feet to ensure we all have a safe climate and healthy, thriving communities.”
Today also marks day 5 of the Houston Hunger Strike in which Gulf Coast activists with Tar Sands Blockade are going without food to demand that Valero divest entirely from the Keystone XL pipeline and invest in the health and wellbeing of the communities it’s poisoning.
UPDATE: 7:30 am – Workers arrive. Construction is effectively halted.
Twenty-two trucks and over thirty workers are on the scene with nothing to do.
UPDATE: 8:45 a/m – Sheriffs arrive on site and are consulting with workers and talking into the pipe.
UPDATE: 9:00 am – Police warn blockaders to leave the pipe or face arrest.
Police are demanding that the blockaders leave the pipe or be arrested. The blockaders refuse to comply.
UPDATE: 9:20 am – Police threaten to use tear gas on peaceful protesters
Several sheriffs are shining flashlights into the pipe and threatening to use tear gas on the people inside. The blockaders are standing strong and remain barricaded inside the pipe. Holding fast to their principles of nonviolent resistance, Matt and Glen respond: “we will not be deterred by threats of violence.”
UPDATE: 9:50 am – Officers are threatening to send a police dog into the pipe
Police are saying that they will send a canine unit into the pipe after the protesters. There are no dogs on scene but the police claim that they are having them brought to the scene.
UPDATE: 10:40 am – Police threaten to lift pipe and dump out Glen and Matt
Police are continuing to threaten tear gas and canine units. They are also saying that they could raise the pipe and dump out the blockaders. Doing so would cause serious harm or even death; Matt and Glen are locked between two barrels of concrete which weigh over six hundred pounds each.
UPDATE: 10:55 am – Crowd gathers to support blockaders inside Keystone XL pipeline
People driving by the scene are showing their support by honking and stopping to talk to protesters about the dangers of toxic tar sands. Despite threats of violence, spirits are high; the crowd and Glen and Matt are singing together.
UPDATE: 11:20 am – Police attempting to block view of pipe and move supporters further from scene
Police have moved several trucks and vans in order to obstruct the view of the pipe in which Glen and Matt are locked. They have threatened arrest and forced supporters off the property immediately adjacent to the pipeline easement, despite the fact that the homeowner gave protesters explicit permission to be in her yard. Police are also forcing protesters to move further along the public road along which they were standing.
Security forces used water cannons, tear gas and smoke bombs to clear protesters from a copper mine in northwestern Myanmar, wounding villagers and Buddhist monks in the biggest use of force against demonstrators since the reformist government of President Thein Sein took office last year.
Security forces used water cannons, tear gas and smoke bombs to clear protesters from a copper mine in northwestern Myanmar, wounding villagers and Buddhist monks in the biggest use of force against demonstrators since the reformist government of President Thein Sein took office last year.
Monks and other protesters had serious burns after the crackdown at the Letpadaung mine near the town of Monywa. Protesters who oppose the mine’s impact on villagers and the environment had occupied the area for 11 days.
The police action risks becoming a public relations and political fiasco for Thein Sein’s government, which has been touting its transition to democracy after almost five decades of repressive military rule.
Photos of the wounded monks showed they had sustained serious burns on parts of their bodies. It was unclear what sort of weapon caused them, or whether the burns were caused by their shelters catching fire from whatever devices police used.
