Global – Page 65 – Earth First!

Demonstrations in Kenya against Ethiopian dam

2 February 2010

Demonstrators have protested in four towns in Kenya, against the construction of a controversial dam that threatens the survival of a hundred thousand indigenous people throughout the Lower Omo Valley in Ethiopia and around Lake Turkana in Kenya.

2 February 2010

Ethiopia’s Omo River is a lifeline for various tribes, who cultivate crops on the fertile floodplains in an otherwise challenging environment. The river is the largest source for Kenya’s famous Lake Turkana, the most saline of Africa’s large lakes, essential to the survival of many Kenyan tribes. The Lower Omo Valley and Lake Turkana are both UNESCO World Heritage sites, in recognition of the ‘exceptional’ conditions there.

Friends of Lake Turkana organised the simultaneous demonstrations, but had to hold a press conference in Nairobi, because of a ban on public demonstrations in the capital.

A FoLT representative said, ‘Based on research and advice from environmentalists, we the Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT) are concerned about the drastic two year infilling of the dam as well as the limited amount of water to be let out into Lake Turkana to maintain ecological needs.’

In Ethiopia it is much harder for people to demonstrate against the project. The government has introduced legislation to stop local organisations from working on human rights, democracy, justice and law issues. Most people know virtually nothing about the dam and its impacts.

The Italian company Salini Construttori has already built one third of the dam, called Gibe III. The Italian government and various multinational banks are now considering funding the project.

However, independent experts say it will disrupt the seasonal flooding of the Lower Omo Valley, decimating the forests around the river and making it almost impossible for the tribes of the valley to grow their crops.

Several NGOs have made formal complaints to the Africa Development Bank urging it not to fund the dam.

The volume of water flowing in to Lake Turkana is likely to fall dramatically. Tribes including the Turkana, Dassanech, Rendille and Samburu rely on lakeside livestock grazing, crop cultivation, as well as fishing in the lake itself.

Survival is calling on the Ethiopian government to freeze the dam project until an independent environmental and social impact assessment has been carried out and the Omo Valley tribes have been properly consulted.

http://www.friendsoflaketurkana.org/

The new EF! Action Update – bursting onto the seams…

In the Spring edition of the EF! Action Update, see how King Coal is being confronted – chimneys climbed, conveyors locked-on to, mines invaded, machinery occupied, ecotage, and more.

Marvel at the Mainshill strategy of continuous action, look with awe at the range of tactics they used in the many months before eviction…and then think about what you can do, with who, where and when.

“If not you, who? If not now, when?”

The Mainshill feature includes an action timeline, local community links and ideas for the future.

The Nuclear New Build CONsultation is over on 22nd February – read about what happens next, who’s involved, and an anti-nuclear camp in April.

“in the end we just need rebellion. Everywhere.” – what was your response to the Copenhagen climate chaos, whether you went or stayed at home?

Be inspired by an interview with “D Lock,our mystery digger diving activist” – get out there, bicycle lock in hand. In January, one person so-armed brought a whole coal terminal to a halt for many hours.

And from across the seas, read about our brothers and sisters struggling against high-speed train destruction in Italy, high-voltage power lines in Catalonia, and whale hunting on the High Seas.

And if you don’t get high on all that, try not to be inspired by conferences blockaded, dams delayed, earth-trashing machinery sabotaged, trees hugged, architects imposted, genetics roofed, biomess biomassed and much more.

“We are going to inherit the earth . There is not the slightest doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We carry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.” – Durruti

To download the latest EF!AU for printing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10print.pdf

To read the latest EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_feb10.pdf

Mexico: Two Jailed For Earth Liberation Front Actions

Abraham López Martínez (age 16) and Fermín Gómez Trejo (age 17), have been held since December 15, 2009 at a youth detention center in Mexico City. They are accused of damaging property and criminal association, related to the burning of nine privately-owned cars and a bomb attack against a Harley Davidson dealer, actions claimed by the Frente de Liberación de la Tierra [Earth Liberation Front]. They are awaiting trial. Both are vegan.

Source: http://www.directaction.info/prisoners.htm

Mexico: Coca-Cola targeted by ALF/ELF

On the night of January 17 we decided to go out to once again prove that this war has not ended, that our actions have not stopped and that we continue to feel the rage that we have put into every action.
This time we put two packages of explosives in the front windows of the offices of the bottler FEMSA, owned by the filthy multinational Coca-Cola. The windows were completely destroyed in the explosion. The attack was carried out in Ecatepec, Mexico City.
Coca-Cola is an earth-destroying company that causeS the extinction of animal species, that uses extreme human exploitation to produce goods like soft drinks, and that claims and privatizes natural resources. Coca-Cola, one of the companies directly responsible for environmental deterioration, has been visited by us, anarchists and liberationists; we have decided in these cells to focus on quality actions, strengthening ourselves to expand our acts of sabotage.
While it is true that 2008 and 2009 were years of quantitative expansion, now it is 2010, a new year, with new strategies and new tactics, but with the same courage to act.
This action is dedicated with all our desire for freedom to the prisoners Víctor, Emmanuel, Abraham, Fermín, and Socorro of Tijuana. We hope that direct solidarity multiplies in clandestine actions, for their unconditional liberation.
We prepare our weapons for the climate change summit!
Hitting hard and fleeing!

Frente de Liberación Animal
Frente de Liberación de la Tierra

anonymous communique translated by Bite Back

European protests to stop bulldozers on uncontacted tribe’s land

26 January 2010
Protestors gathered in London, Madrid and Paris today to oppose the destruction of land belonging to one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes.

The protestors stood outside the Paraguayan embassies in Madrid and London holding placards reading, ‘Save the Ayoreo.’ The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode are losing their forest to a Brazilian company bulldozing it to graze cattle for beef.

In Paris, a letter was handed in to UNESCO’s head office expressing their concern for the Totobiegosode. The forest being destroyed by the cattle-ranchers is part of a UNESCO ‘biosphere reserve’, but despite pleas from the Totobiegosode to stop the destruction UNESCO has yet to respond.

The company, Yaguarete Pora S.A., recently won Survival’s ‘Greenwashing Award 2010’ for its decision to create a ‘nature reserve’ on the Totobiegosode’s land while destroying thousands of hectares of their forest. Yaguarete denies it is acting illegally and claims the land it is destroying does not belong to the Totobiegosode, despite the fact that many studies prove it belongs to them and a legal claim made by the Totobiegosode is based on one of those studies.

See the company’s deforestation plans.

Satellite photos clearly show the destruction of the Totobiegosode’s forest. They are the only uncontacted tribe in the world losing their land to beef.

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘People all over the world are beginning to wake up to what is happening to the Totobiegosode. Paraguay risks being more famous for this tragedy than anything else.’

First Nation pushes back against ‘Ring of Fire’ mine, rail project

26th January 2010
A Thunder Bay mineral symposium of the Matawa First Nations tribal council in February could be a raucous affair.

The aggressive push by Cliffs Natural Resources and Canada Chrome to develop a $1.5 billion chromite deposit in the James Bay ‘Ring of Fire’ and ore haul railroad has drawn heat from one remote community.

Last week about 15 protesters from Marten Falls First Nation pitched tents last week at Kopper and McFauld’s Lakes near the exploration camps of Noront Resources and Freewest Resources.

“We’re prepared to stay there as long as possible,” said Chief Eli Moonias, who isn’t pleased that Canada Chrome has staked mineral claims along a 350-kilometre long proposed rail corridor between McFauld’s Lake and the Town of Nakina in northwestern, Ontario.

He’s angry the staking was done in advance of the implementation of the Ontario’s Far North Planning Act and wants Northern Development, Mines and Forestry Minister Michael Gravelle to “claw back” those claims.

Moonias said his community of 300 was not consulted by Canada Chrome and claims the McFauld’s Lake deposits and most of the proposed railroad corridor falls within Marten Falls’ traditional territory.

We don’t like this underhanded business,” said Moonias. “They should have come to the community to do that.”

Moonias said he told ministry officials in December he wanted a community-based land use plan that will include their 10-year-old strategy for an access road running into the James Bay Lowlands and eventually linking up with Attawapiskat on the coast.

Moonias said his community’s position is to support the mine provided their corridor plan is adopted, but Canada Chrome has largely ignored this.

He said the mining companies and Queen’s Park must address a list of concerns and wants an agreement signed with the mining companies before the protest camps are pulled out.

Canada Chrome, a subsidiary of KWG Resources has been dealing with the Matawa First Nation, a tribal council representing nine area communities, including Marten Falls.

But Moonias said the council doesn’t speak for his community.
“They’ve got nothing to do with traditional territories. What happens there is our business.”
KWG Resources and Canada Chrome president and CEO Frank Smeenk chalked up the protest to an internal squabble inside the council.

“We were given to understand that we were to follow a protocol by the nine members of Matawa Council,” said Smeenk, referring to the Matawa Interim Mineral Measures protocol. “Now we are to understand that’s not necessarily the case.”

Moonias said he never agreed to any such protocol.

“I never heard of it. I’ve got nothing to do with that.”

Smeenk said it’s obvious Marten Falls wants to be consulted with separately.

“Eli’s trying to get attention to a cause and one of those is one that pre-dates all of us, a plan for a winter road.”

Smeenk said he met Moonias in Thunder Bay this month after hearing of the community’s plan to blockade of airstrips at McFauld’s and Kopper Lakes.

He said the protest may be a negotiating ploy to force the government to re-open an illegal airstrip in the Ring of Fire along the Muketei River closed down last November by the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Marten Falls had partnered with Wilderness North Air to provide a logistic support base for the exploration efforts.

The MNR said the development of this airstrip was not authorized and a warrant was authorized under the Public Lands Act prohibiting the use and occupation of this airstrip. A restriction remains in place until a final decision is made by the MNR regarding an ongoing investigation and review of the airstrip proposal.

Smeenk said his company has no objections to the airstrip being permitted for use.

Canada Chrome’s proposed rail route follows glacier eskers that run north-south through the swampy terrain between Nakina and McFauld’s Lake.

“If God had a place for a railroad to go that would be it,” said Smeenk.

With an adjoining service road, Smeenk said nearby communities could access it with branch roads as well as run fibre optics and power lines.

Moonias said he met privately with Smeenk in Thunder Bay before Christmas to discuss the transportation corridor and said the company president “made some overtures.”

Last September, Marten Falls signed a compensation agreement with Noront Resources for past exploration work already performed at their exploration camp. Moonias said it amounted to $2 per metre for holes already drilled, but added no agreements for future exploration work has been signed with Noront or any other company.

Noront said in a Jan. 18 statement,despite the inconvenience of a “logistics halt” at their ice airstrip” it was supporting the actions of Marten Falls.

Moonias said a meeting is scheduled next week with government officials and some mining players in Marten Falls.

He wants the mining companies to use their winter toll roads to haul fuel and bulk items, and for the government to allow them to finish construction of an airstrip to create a service hub for McFauld’s Lake.

“We’re saying let’s build this strip where the ground is good for the environment and let us build the camps there and do business.”

Moonias said some companies had been landing on the partially-completed airstrip last fall. “We told the MNR about it and they shut it down. We’re trying to finish that so we can start building our camps there to do business.”
He also wants jobs and contracts to service these camps instead of the companies bringing in outside suppliers and support personnel.

Moonias also wants an environmental clean-up and compensation at McFauld’s Lake for raw sewage, grey water, fuel and chemical spills dumped by exploration companies in the summer of 2007.

Smeenk expressed confidence the issue could be resolved to benefit all and doesn’t suspect the protest will raise any red flags with Cliffs Natural Resources.

“The First Nations just want to figure out how to get our attention.”

He said it may involve community ownership of the enterprise and didn’t rule out a First Nation equity stake in the project.

When asked if the Ontario government was actively involved helping in mediating the dispute, Smeenk paused and said he found he found MNDMF and MNR staff to be “exceedingly helpful and careful of everyone’s rights.”

Anne-Marie Flanagan, spokeswoman for Michael Gravelle, said the ministry is talking with all the parties toward resolving a “complicated situation” that involves the MNR, the air strip and how people in the Far North can all benefit.

“We’re looking into the whole situation because this is something that’s going to have to be sorted out big time and rather quickly when you look at what Cliffs is doing.

“There has to be reasonable decisions by the First Nation about what they want to go ahead with and how they want to do it.”

Gravelle is scheduled to deliver a speech Feb. 10 at the symposium.

Ontario’s newly revised Mining Act includes a dispute resolution mechanism for issues between First Nations and mining companies, but the details of how it is supposed to work has yet to be defined since the government is conducting another round of public consultation.

Police clash with protesters in China in land dispute

26th January 2010
Authorities in the southwestern Chinese region of Guangxi have sealed off a village and ordered a news blackout following violent clashes between local residents and police in a land dispute.

“The villagers put up some reports about what happened on the Internet, but they were taken down by the authorities very quickly,” said a resident of Tongle township near the scenic tourist city of Guilin.

“Right now the authorities have totally sealed off the area. The villagers are using text messaging to exchange news,” said Zhang, adding that he had been warned by other villagers that the police were still detaining people.

Zhang said riot police fired tear gas and used electric shock batons on elderly protesters trying to prevent the takeover of their farmland for development.

“Things got very serious at the scene,” he said. “The people trying to protect the land were all elderly, women, and children. How could they resist?”

“They were attacked by the riot police first, and a lot of those injured were then taken away by police.”

Photos posted online of the clashes showed crowds of people, many of them elderly, some of whom had sustained injuries to their arms and legs. Some showed people bandaged, and still bleeding from head injuries.

‘Handled according to law’

An employee who answered the phone at the Pingle county government, which oversees Tongle village, said the authorities had already issued the legally required amount of compensation to the villagers.

“Our leaders here have already dealt with this situation,” the employee said. “Everything we did went through the municipal level authorities for approval, and the entire affair was handled according to law.”

An official who answered the phone at the Guilin municipal politics and law committee confirmed the clashes had taken place as part of a land dispute.

“There was a land dispute there. But I haven’t got time to explain the details to you.”

An official who answered the phone at the Guilin municipal public security department declined to comment on the incident.

However, an officer at the Tongle village police station said: “We are currently dealing with this issue. If you want to know more, you’ll have to go to the [county level] public security department.”

Cut off

Local residents said around 700 riot police were dispatched to the village, and that the community was still cut off from the outside world.

An engineer surnamed Li at the Tongle Village Transformer Station said police had sealed off several entrances to the village, and blocked roads in the area.

“Right now, vehicles from outside can’t get into Tongle village. The roads have all been sealed off by the authorities,” Li said.

“They have blocked the exit for the village on the Chajiang Bridge highway.”

The dispute flared after villagers saw officials begin to move in to begin work last Tuesday on a plot of around 1,000 mu (67 hectares) of land in the village, which was requisitioned more than two years ago by the Pingle county government for redevelopment.

Local residents were angry because the authorities had sold the land for 10 times the amount of the compensation doled out to villagers, and because they have been promised 20,000-30,000 yuan (U.S. $4,394) per mu but have yet to receive it.

An open letter posted online by villagers cited guidelines issued by the central government, which “states clearly that it is not permitted to take possession of the land before the compensation has been paid.”

Rural communities ‘disempowered’

Yao Lifa, a civil rights activist from the central province of Hubei, said such land disputes involving violence between police and local residents are increasingly common.

“China rural communities have been a disempowered segment of the population all through the past 60 years of Communist Party rule in China,” Yao said.

He cited comments made publicly by cabinet-level official Cheng Xiwen, who said that around 80 percent of land disputes across China were the result of illegal actions by government officials.

“The people have no power to oversee the government,” Yao said.

“Official and commercial interests nowadays are the same thing, combining forces in an alliance which has a huge amount of power.”

“There is no evil that they will not stoop to.”

He called on central government officials to take note of events in Guilin and help protect the villagers’ rights and interests.

Land disputes have spread across China in recent years, with local people often complaining that they receive only minimal compensation when the government sells tracts to developers in lucrative property deals.

Attempts to occupy disputed land frequently result in violent clashes, as police and armed gangs are brought in to enforce the will of local officials.

Stalled Korean Mining Operations Face Fresh Protests

Jan 21, 2010 – The Indian government’s grant of the final environmental clearance to a Korean giant firm, allowing it to acquire 3,000 acres of ‘forest lands’ in the eastern state of Orissa, has prompted a fresh spate of protests from more than 4,000 families that will be affected by a proposed mining project.

Pohang Steel Company (POSCO) has been trying to set up operations in Orissa since 2005, which have been stalled since then due to a rash of sometimes violent protest movements, prominent among them being Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS or Committee for Resistance against POSCO), against the company’s land acquisitions for the project.

The PPSS held its latest protest on Jan. 13 after the steelmaker obtained the much awaited clearance early this month. The group is composed of local indigenous or tribal folk whose combined population is estimated at 22,000.

In June 2005 the state government and POSCO signed a Memorandum of Understanding allowing the company to set up a steel plant .

POSCO, which has the largest foreign direct investment in India so far, at 51,000 crores (11 billion U.S. dollars), plans to build a 12-million-tonne steel plant with a ‘captive’ port in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa, an integrated township with water supply infrastructure from two important barrages. The project is expected to generate some 45,000 jobs.

India’s government policy on mining, cautious till 1997, was amended in 2006 to allow full direct investment by foreign companies. It was seen as a means to ‘developing’ the country.

Since then, international firms like De Beers and Broken Hill Properties, both with controversial human rights and environmental company practice records in countries like South Africa and Papua New Guinea respectively, have acquired huge prospecting rights in Orissa as well as Madhya Pradesh state in central India.

Alongside China’s demand for iron and steel, fuelled by its furious pace of development , iron ore production in India jumped from 59 metric tonnes in 1993-94 to 154 million tonnes (mt) in 2005-06, bauxite from 5 mt to 12 mt in the same period, while coal-production increased from 267 mt to 437 mt.

Yet, this huge spiraling production has contributed a mere 2.5 percent to the country’s gross domestic product in the last 10 years and yielded much smaller revenues for the government than it should have, given its panoramic increase, according to the Centre for Science and Environment, a well respected New Delhi-based organisation that is campaigning against exploitative mining.

The Orissa state government’s no-holds-barred entry to POSCO gives the company 600 mt of iron ore at half its market price, enabling it to make significantly handsome profits. This was based on a study conducted by environmental researcher and social activist Manshi Asher of the National Centre for Advocacy Studies (NCAS), based in Pune district in Maharashtra, located on the western coast of India.

The government, which also gives the company tax-free status and incentives, will supply iron ore to POSCO at a discount of 2,000 rupees (approximately 44 U.S. dollars) per tonne, and allow it to export high-quality ore even while it imports low-alumina content ore.

Brazil and China had earlier turned down POSCO’s proposed deals due to the company’s refusal to buy iron ore at market prices. The company is now facing protests in Uruguay over land acquisition for a carbon sequestration project.

In Orissa, the company will also receive approximately 150,000 million litres of water, affecting water supply to the nearest city of Cuttack and irrigation to four districts. It will likewise get an unspecified number of ‘captive’ coal mines and over 6,000 acres of land (comprising the newly cleared forest areas for the Korean firm), excluding an unspecified acreage for establishing transportation, water and ‘any other project-related infrastructure facilities’, as per its agreement, according to Asher.

Official statistics indicate that merely 438 acres of the land involved is private, displacing 471 families. Government records, however, do not reflect that most of the approximately 3,000 acres of land belonging to the forest department have been under cultivation for generations, or used by communities for fodder and non-timbre forest produce.

Repeated calls by IPS to K.C. Sahu, who is in charge of mining operations in POSCO’s Indian arm at Bhubaneshwar, drew no response.

There are also environmental concerns over deforestation, destruction of coastal and estuarine ecosystems including the destruction of a natural drainage system by the construction of a captive port.

The Garhirmatha turtle sanctuary in Orissa, home to hundreds of nesting Olive Ridley turtles every year, faces significant risk by the construction of POSCO’s captive port.

The PPSS is also worried about the port affecting the livelihoods of nearly 30,000 fisherfolk.

“There are mangroves where the port is planned, and salt mounds that serve to stop seawater flowing in,” says Prashant Paikare, spokesperson of PPSS. ” What about natural disasters because of their destruction ?” he asks.

In 1999, a devastating cyclone killed thousands and displaced as many on this coastline, destroying 275,000 homes.

Concerns about health also hound the project. According to the NCAS study, the local tribal population also faces serious health problems, especially among mine workers in the region. Many others, having lost their lands and forests, appear to have migrated, with their whereabouts unknown.

“We will offer mass resistance,” warns Paikare. “We still don’t believe the rehabilitation package that the government has said POSCO must fulfill will take care of all the issues involved.”

POSCO has yet to announce the components of the package, but locals news reports said the company was willing to offer land to those who would be displaced by its project. No other details were given, however.

Soon after the PPSS’s Jan. 13 protest, the government of Orissa announced it was convening a rehabilitation and periphery development advisory committee. Steel and mines state secretary A.M.R. Dalwai said he would now focus on the rehabilitation package.

The Indian government’s environmental approval to POSCO comes with 15 riders, including compulsory afforestation; that lands remain with the government and that no damage be caused to flora and fauna. It also specifies that the project cannot be undertaken without the consent of the tribal community living in the area.

The proposed mining site in Keonjhar district, which will supply POSCO its iron ore, is already reeling under the negative effects of large-scale mining activity.

Protected against land alienation under India’s constitution because of its being a tribal area, Keonjhar still faces constitutional violations by even state-run organisations like the Orissa Mining Corporation, taken to court for land illegalities.

“We cannot have development which is only about extraction,” says activist Rosemary Vishwanath, believing it impoverishes the affected communities and destroys their culture.

Philippine community blocks entry of large mining firm

January 19, 2010
The community of Anislagan on the island of Mindanao has successfully blocked the Philex mining company from entering their lands.

According to a press release from the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRC-CdO), nearly the entire community gathered to greet Philex, the largest mining firm in the Philippines, with a makeshift checkpoint they put together, on January 11, 2010.

The company was planning to commence work on a “livelihood training center.” However, “The Philex 6-vehicle convoy backed out after they failed to pass through the thousand residents of Anislagan,” states the LRC-CdO.

To reinforce the checkpoint, the community formed into a human a human barricade, leaving the company with nowhere else to go

“Women and children here are ready anytime to defend our land. This land is where we survived. We should fight for it!” said Rizalina Lisbos, a mother of four, who was on the front line of the barricade.

Providing some background, the LRC-CdO explains: “Philex started its actual mining operation in the adjacent Barangay (village) of Timamana, Tubod, Surigao del Norte in the 1st quarter of 2009. Philex’s operation in Tubod, also known as the ‘Bayugo Project’, started as early as 1999 for their exploration activities. There was strong opposition from the Tubod people until the mining company started their community relations projects, like livelihood, drainage improvement, sports activities etc. After that people started to begrudgingly agree to the mining project.”

“However, the adjacent village of Anislagan sustained their opposition to mining for almost ten years, led by Anislagan Bantay Kalikasan Task Force (ABAKATAF), which is composed of multi-sectoral and interfaith groups in the village.”

“Anislagan provides irrigation to rice field in their village and to adjacent villages.We don’t need a livelihood training center inside our village from a mining company. What for?” states Mr. Ormega, the new president of ABAKATAF. “We have an existing self-sustaining and community livelihood here. The mining company already affected our irrigation, our rivers, and even to our water supply from their Bayugo project and now they are proposing a livelihood center.”

If the proposed “livelihood center” is the insult, than the mining project is the injury—and its bitterly ironic: If mining in the region goes ahead as planned, it would destroy the communities’ livelihood and their natural resources.

For more information, please visit: http://saveanislaganwatershed.blogspot.com and http://lrcksk.org

Eric McDavid Update – 1/13/10

Dear friends,

Today marks the fourth year of Eric’s incarceration. These are not the kind of milestones we would like to be writing about to you. While other people have been celebrating the New Year, we have been incredibly conscious of the passage of time in an entirely different way. For four years, New Years has served as a reminder to us – as it probably does to millions of others – of how long we have been separated from our loved one. While others are celebrating new beginnings, we are faced with the reality that, so far, there has been no new beginning as far as Eric’s physical freedom is concerned. Some things remain painfully the same. Eric is still locked away by the state.

Dear friends,

Please remember that this time of year can be particularly difficult for folks who are locked up. Take a minute to write Eric – or another political prisoner – and let them know that folks on the outside are still thinking of them and supporting them.

Appeal Update
——————
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of news about the appeal. The government’s response to Eric’s opening brief is currently due on Feb. 1 (they’ve now asked for two extensions). We will let you know as soon as we hear anything more. Once the government files their response, Eric’s lawyer will have two weeks to file his final response (more potential extensions notwithstanding ). Once everything is filed it could be more than a year before a decision is made.

How to Help
————
We recently added a PayPal button to Eric’s website (again). You can find it on the “Help” page: http://www.supporteric.org/howtohelp.htm Please consider making a donation to Eric’s support fund. Currently the majority of these funds are being used to help his partner cover the costs of going to visit him. These visits are incredibly important to Eric and his partner and are imperative for maintaining everyone’s sanity. They would not be possible without all of the support that Eric has received. Our sincerest thanks to everyone who has donated in the past. If you would like to donate but would prefer not to use PayPal, please let us know and we will send you the details about who to make the check out to and where to send it.

If you cannot donate money, there are other ways you can help. Eric is locked away from his loved ones and his communities and he doesn’t have access to a lot of information. Receiving news from the outside helps him feel a little more connected to the issues he cares about. If you run across a good article from an independent media source that you think Eric might like, please send it his way. Just keep in mind that Eric is still in the appeals process, and everything he receives is read by the authorities. Even unsolicited mail can result in sanctions against prisoners. Be prudent with your choice of material.

Our thanks to everyone for all of your support these last 4 years.

Yours,
Eric’s Support Crew

http://www.supporteric.org