Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Italy: more NO TAV protests planned for December

More ini­tia­tives being planned by the NO TAV move­ment against a high speed rail line being built in the Susa Val­ley (Pied­mont).

More ini­tia­tives being planned by the NO TAV move­ment against a high speed rail line being built in the Susa Val­ley (Pied­mont).

On Novem­ber 24, the NO TAV move­ment held a pub­lic assem­bly in Bus­soleno to dis­cuss and plan December’s ini­tia­tives and protests. For more than 3 hours par­tic­i­pants debat­ed and exchanged views on the present state of the NO TAV strug­gle and future ini­tia­tives. More protests are planned in par­tic­u­lar around the date of Decem­ber 8, anniver­sary of the great vic­to­ry of Venaus in 2005*. In 2005, the media pres­sure and the mobil­i­sa­tions were enough to make a very clum­sy and churl­ish gov­ern­ment yield. Today, the big dif­fer­ence is that the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic lob­by behind the TAV project, after years of study­ing and observ­ing the NO TAV move­ment, is much more ruth­less. The cur­rent mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion in the Susa Val­ley doesn’t excel in speed (to this date, no build­ing has com­menced, and the exca­va­tion sites are still occu­pied by the NO TAV), but it’s cer­tain­ly deter­mined: the for­ti­fied fences around the exca­va­tion sites have become a sym­bol­ic show of strength. Decem­ber 8 2011 comes after 6 months of resis­tance in the area, where the con­flict between the local NO TAV activists and the mil­i­tary is felt every­day.

The assem­bly opt­ed for a dou­ble-protest day: a protest will take place around the fenced areas, while anoth­er group will be march­ing from Susa to the head­quar­ters of Sitaf. Sitaf is a part­ly pub­lic com­pa­ny that man­ages one of the motor­ways from Turin and that de fac­to assist­ed the mil­i­tari­sa­tion of the Val­ley by pro­vid­ing a cor­ri­dor and tech­ni­cal help to the troops trans­ferred from Turin.

Mean­while, a few nights after the assem­bly, some NO TAV witch­es held a night-time coven, armed with very dan­ger­ous seca­teurs to cut the fence down. My favourite chant: “My nan was a par­ti­san and she taught me that cut­ting down fences isn’t a crime” 🙂 There was some ten­sion when the secu­ri­ty forces start­ed mea­sur­ing the length of the cut in the fence with their batons (??!!), but they then left, and the witch­es cir­cle end­ed unharmed. Watch the video:

* On 5/6 Decem­ber 2005 the police and secu­ri­ty forces vio­lent­ly evict­ed one of the per­ma­nent look­out posts in Venaus, injur­ing about 20 pro­test­ers. On the 8th the NO TAV had a mas­sive march from Susa to Venaus and man­aged to estab­lish a new look­out post. Fol­low­ing the clash­es and pres­sure from the NO TAV move­ment, the gov­ern­ment decid­ed to put the works on hold.

Sources: arti­cles from www.notav.info, no 1 and no2.

 
italycalling.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/no-tav-more-protests-planned-for-december/

Stop Shell’s peat removal!

Fri­day 25th Novem­ber saw over 5 hours of Shel­l’s peat and stone haulage com­plete­ly blocked by cam­paign­ers, and no arrests were made. First thing in the morn­ing four cam­paign­ers had trucks blocked for over an hour and a half, and lat­er on one per­son climbed on top of a peat truck out­side Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery, remain­ing there for 3 and a half hours stop­ping all haulage.

At about 7.15am Fri­day 25th Novem­ber four peo­ple went out to Shel­l’s haulage route to stop work­ers from get­ting to the Augh­oose tun­nel­ing com­pound. A van full of work­ers was stopped, along with the first load of quar­ry trucks which came along about 10–15 min­utes lat­er.

A squad car with one gar­da was present, but he was unable to stop peo­ple from block­ing on his own. Even­tu­al­ly more gar­daí arrived so peo­ple stopped block­ing, and the trucks that had been stopped up all morn­ing start­ed mak­ing their way to the com­pound. No arrests made.

Lat­er that day at 3.30pm, three peo­ple stopped a peat truck out­side Gate 1 of Shel­l’s Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery. See­ing as there were only three peo­ple to block the truck and gar­daí would sure­ly arrive soon to move peo­ple out of the road, one per­son climbed on top of the lor­ry to ensure all haulage would be stopped.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp mem­ber Grainne Clan­cy speaks, “We are doing all we can with the num­bers we have at the moment, but we real­ly need more peo­ple up here right now. Some­times there’s only a cou­ple of us block­ing, if we had even a few more peo­ple we could be doing a lot more to dis­rupt Shel­l’s peat removal”

She con­tin­ues, “There have been some actions like the last Bar­ret­t’s [quar­ry in Ban­gor] one, where secu­ri­ty could bare­ly han­dle us as it was, and with a cou­ple more peo­ple we would have been suc­cess­ful”

See report and pho­tos from Bar­ret­t’s quar­ry action here: http://shelltosea.com/content/shells-peat-haulage-has‑b…upted

On Fri­day the per­son remained on top of the truck for three and a half hours, until Shell stop work at 7pm. All Shell traf­fic was blocked but local traf­fic was still able to pass on the oth­er side of the road, aside from when gar­daí rather arbi­trar­i­ly claimed the entire road was blocked, turn­ing local traf­fic around.

At a lock-on protest ear­li­er in the week a gar­da was over­heard giv­ing orders to “shut the road down to local traf­fic, if they see a local in the lock-on they’ll be delight­ed,” appar­ent­ly try­ing to stop local traf­fic from see­ing one of their neigh­bours with an arm in the con­crete lock-on.

At the protest on Fri­day gar­daí were over­heard explain­ing to dri­vers that pro­test­ers have the entire road shut down, when clear­ly traf­fic could pass and it was actu­al­ly gar­daí shut­ting the road down. Even­tu­al­ly the gar­daí gave up block­ing the whole road and resumed direct­ing local traf­fic around the stopped lor­ry.

By 4.30pm a lot of locals had shown up with tea and snacks, and at least 20 peo­ple remained there for the ear­ly evening. At 7pm the per­son got down from the top of the peat truck and walked away, escap­ing arrest.

Grainne Clan­cy con­tin­ues, “Fri­day was great, but the pos­si­bil­i­ties of what we could do with a few more peo­ple is real­ly excit­ing. Shell are only allowed to use one haulage route, and with us block­ing it all the time they’ll hard­ly get any work done. Please come up to Mayo”

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is a wel­com­ing base for any­one inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the cam­paign or any­one inter­est­ed in tak­ing action against Shell. All are wel­come at any time, come vis­it and see what it’s about for your­self. And tak­ing action against shell does­n’t have to mean climb­ing on trucks or doing lock ons. Help is need­ed with tak­ing pho­tos and video, mak­ing din­ner, build­ing lock ons, chop­ping wood, and lots of oth­er things it takes to keep the camp run­ning smooth­ly.

The camp is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, next to Augh­oose Church (between Pul­lath­omas and Bel­lan­aboy).

To ring for direc­tions, ques­tions or to let us know you’re com­ing: 085.114.1170 or email: rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

Shell’s Peat Haulage Has Begun… And Been Disrupted !

Shell is remov­ing peat bog from the tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo, Ire­land, and replac­ing it with stone and grav­el from near­by quar­ries. The increased truck move­ments has not gone unchal­lenged.

 

Shell is remov­ing peat bog from the tun­nelling com­pound in Augh­oose, Co. Mayo, Ire­land, and replac­ing it with stone and grav­el from near­by quar­ries. The increased truck move­ments has not gone unchal­lenged.

 

Fol­low­ing the peat truck protest last Wednes­day that result­ed in 4 peo­ple being arrest­ed –  https://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/content/campaigners-block-shells-peat-haulage-morning-after-taisce-faces-local-community – protests have been hap­pen­ing almost every day.

On Sat­ur­day 19th Novem­ber, around 12pm, 4 peo­ple stopped peat and quar­ry trucks along the haulage route. By the time Gar­dai arrived, most of the work­ers in the com­pound had gone home and work had stopped for the day.

On Mon­day the 21st , 8 peo­ple entered into Bar­ret­t’s Quar­ry in Ban­gor and tried to get onto dig­gers to stop work. One cam­paign­er reached one of the dig­gers, but was dragged down by secu­ri­ty before climb­ing on top. The IRMS secu­ri­ty grabbed every­one and held them down until they could drag them out of the quar­ry. This is the first time enter­ing Bar­ret’s Quar­ry that no-one suc­ceed­ed in get­ting on top of machin­ery. If there had been a cou­ple more peo­ple on the action, it may have suc­ceed­ed (i.e. come up to Mayo!)

On Tues­day 22nd Novem­ber around 12:15pm, 2 peo­ple locked their arms into a con­crete bar­rel; block­ing the main haulage route. This hap­pened after the week­ly Tues­day morn­ing protest with locals and sup­port­ers from 8 to 11am. The morn­ing was very effec­tive in its own right as over 20 peo­ple spread out along the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery road and stopped many of the peat and quar­ry trucks at sev­er­al points. The Gar­dai present were stretched in deal­ing with the sit­u­a­tion at hand.

The lock-on was put in place an hour after the end of the morn­ing protest. At one stage Gar­dai briefly attempt­ed to pull out one per­son­’s arm while they were scream­ing that they were locked into the bar­rel, which required some angry reminders from oth­ers present that cut­ting them out was going to be the only accept­able way. The lock-on was high­ly effec­tive and last­ed from 12:15pm until 5:30pm. There was local sup­port for a while before the Gar­dai pro­ceed­ed to close down the road. Up to 12 trucks were sat wait­ing in the Augh­oose com­pound and dig­gers and oth­er machin­ery there­fore had noth­ing to do. The 2 cam­paign­ers were arrest­ed and released lat­er that evening.

Also worth men­tion­ing were sev­er­al trucks being stopped or slowed down through­out the week for half an hour or so when the oppor­tu­ni­ty arose. No arrests were made on those occa­sions.

If you and/or your friends are inter­est­ed in com­ing down to the ongo­ing cam­paign and being almost cer­tain of halt­ing work for all or most part of the day, then now is the time !

Show your sup­port – the bat­tle goes on !

www.shelltosea.com

www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

Campaigners block Shell’s peat haulage morning after An Taisce faces local community

Fri­day 18th Novem­ber 2011

Fri­day 18th Novem­ber 2011

On Tues­day 15th Novem­ber, An Taisce board mem­ber Attrac­ta Uí Bhroin trav­elled to Bel­mul­let Civic Cen­tre to defend the with­draw­al of An Taisce’s legal chal­lenges to the valid­i­ty of con­sents for the Cor­rib Gas project. An Taisce have claimed that their set­tle­ment is a ‘vic­to­ry for the envi­ron­ment’ despite the fact that the State remains in breach of Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal direc­tives in pro­ceed­ing with the Cor­rib project. The next day cam­paign­ers stopped Shell’s peat haulage out­side Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery site to demon­strate that despite An Taisce set­tling with the State, local cam­paign­ers will con­tin­ue to defend the safe­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We’ll have to fight for anoth­er day, the whole com­mu­ni­ty. Ye might set­tle for mon­ey with them, but we are not going to.”

The next morn­ing, peat extrac­tion trucks were spot­ted for the first time trav­el­ling from the Augh­oose com­pound to the Srah­more peat depo­si­tion site in Ban­gor Erris. Shell’s use of these very large trucks sig­nals the start of their attempts to remove peat from Augh­oose and haul stone in order to begin the process of tun­nel­ing through Sruwad­da­con estu­ary.

Shell plan up to 475 truck move­ments a day through the affect­ed route and vil­lages in this peri­od of con­struc­tion. Mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty and Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp respond­ed by gath­er­ing at 12.30pm out­side the Bel­lan­aboy refin­ery to show their con­tin­u­ing oppo­si­tion to the project. A peat truck was stopped at 12.45pm, as three cam­paign­ers climbed inside. A fourth cam­paign­er locked on under­neath the lor­ry at 2.30pm. With cam­paign­ers occu­py­ing the peat truck, local res­i­dents record­ed that ten fur­ther trucks were pre­vent­ed from either leav­ing the Augh­oose com­pound and or leav­ing the refin­ery. The peat lor­ry blocked all Shell trucks to and from the Augh­oose com­pound until 3.20pm.

Last Fri­day over 80 local res­i­dents and sup­port­ers came to Bel­lan­aboy to demon­strate their oppo­si­tion and hon­our eleven years of resis­tance. Ban­ners were hung at the gates of Bel­lan­aboy gas refin­ery which stat­ed that the State is vio­lat­ing the Euro­pean habi­tats direc­tives in pro­ceed­ing with the Cor­rib project. Local cam­paign­ers are ask­ing peo­ple to trav­el to Erris and help to defend the safe­ty of this com­mu­ni­ty and place.

The militarisation of the Susa Valley: final act & Brief History of the No TAV movement

12.11.11

12.11.11

Berlusconi’s mori­bund gov­ern­ment has final­ly man­aged to pass a decree – with the opposition’s approval – that for­malis­es the cur­rent state of mil­i­tari­sa­tion in the Susa Val­ley. The con­struc­tion site in La Mad­dale­na will become a “site of strate­gic nation­al inter­est”, that is, a mil­i­tary area. The con­se­quences for those who tres­pass will be the same imposed by law for any oth­er mil­i­tary area tres­pass: a prison sen­tence between 3 months and one year, or the pay­ment of a fine between 51 and 309 Euro. That’s not it, though! The rock extract­ed on the site will become a legal con­struc­tion mate­r­i­al, even if con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by ura­ni­um, asbestos and oth­er chem­i­cal prod­ucts released by the exca­va­tion process. This will have a huge impact on the indus­try of the “great use­less pub­lic works” beloved by the cur­rent gov­ern­ment; and it’s a huge present to the con­struc­tion mafia. Also, it’s anoth­er heavy attack to free­dom of protest and dis­sent, and a clear mes­sage for the peo­ple of the Val Susa: don’t dis­turb the con­struc­tion!

In the mean­time, a cou­ple of weeks ago a pub­lic youth hos­tel man­aged by an organ­i­sa­tion close to the NO TAV move­ment was attacked and van­dalised. The build­ing is often used by NO TAV pro­test­ers com­ing from the sur­round­ing areas. The attack­ers stole mon­ey and dam­aged the fur­ni­ture. Spe­cial atten­tion was reserved to the books, mag­a­zines and orig­i­nal mate­ri­als about the Antifas­cist Resis­tance which the build­ing makes avail­able to the pub­lic. Just in case it wasn’t clear who was behind the attack.

Nev­er­the­less, the state of per­ma­nent mobil­i­sa­tion declared last May by the NO TAV car­ries on; the nation­al tour that start­ed in Octo­ber in Bologna will con­clude in the next few days in Genoa, and more ini­tia­tives have been announced to protest against the new decree. 

Sources: this arti­cle, and var­i­ous oth­er things bor­rowed and recy­cled from Italy Indy­media.

Written/translated by Italy Calling.

NO TAV (No to the High Speed Train) is a move­ment based in the Susa Val­ley in Pied­mont that oppos­es the cre­ation of the new high speed rail­way line between Turin and Lyon in France. This line is part of a EU project which plans to con­nect Lyon to Budapest and then onto Ukraine. Sim­i­lar protest move­ments were active in the ear­ly 90s in Flo­rence, Bologna and Rome, but their mil­i­tan­cy and the bru­tal repres­sion that this trig­gered in the Susa Val­ley has made the Pied­mon­tese move­ment the most talked about.

The sim­ple prin­ci­ple behind the move­ment is that a new high speed rail­way line in the Val­ley is com­plete­ly use­less and not need­ed, its only pur­pose being the prof­it of the many pri­vate com­pa­nies that have shares in it. The NO TAV  think that the cur­rent rail­way line between Pied­mont and France is more than suf­fi­cient, con­sid­er­ing that traf­fic in the area has nev­er been incred­i­bly high. More impor­tant­ly, the con­struc­tion of the line would utter­ly and irre­versibly destroy a huge part of the Susa Val­ley, caus­ing not only an envi­ron­men­tal but also an eco­nom­ic and social dis­as­ter, with busi­ness­es clos­ing down and vil­lages being com­plete­ly dis­fig­ured or dis­ap­pear­ing.

High speed rail­way lines in Italy are con­sid­ered to be of “strate­gic inter­est”, which trans­lat­ed from polit­i­cal bull­shit lan­guage means that the law allows this type of works WITHOUT con­sult­ing the local pop­u­la­tion and insti­tu­tions what­so­ev­er. At a time of eco­nom­ic col­lapse such as Italy is going through, the works require bil­lions of Ital­ian tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey, at the expense of pri­ma­ry ser­vices like edu­ca­tion and health. It would main­ly be con­struc­tion and oth­er pri­vate com­pa­nies prof­it­ing from it, but when fin­ished and in use, the low demand for the line would end up mak­ing it a loss-mak­ing bur­den on the tax­pay­ers. Like in Ross­port, Ire­land, the locals’ con­cerns and pro­pos­als are being com­plete­ly ignored in the name of the only Mod­ern God: mon­ey.

The NO TAV came up with their own plan for the area which would include:
- chang­ing the pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion process­es to decrease trans­port of peo­ple and goods, espe­cial­ly on long dis­tances
- sup­port­ing local sus­tain­able trades instead of big indus­tries  
- cre­at­ing or improv­ing local means of sus­tain­able and green trans­port for work­ers and stu­dents
- sup­port­ing and incre­ment­ing the use of the already exist­ing local rail­way line

The main source of this arti­cle is Turin’s NO TAV web­site.

Solidarity Call ANTI-HSL DEFENDANTS for pie throwing on Mrs Barcina

 

 

Call of the move­ment Mugi­tu! to pub­lish press releas­es, notes or let­ters of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the oppo­nents to the HSL pros­e­cut­ed for pieing the Navar­rese pres­i­dent Yolan­da Barci­na:

 

From the move­ment of dis­obe­di­ence to the HSL of Euskal Her­ria  Mugi­tu! we call all the groups and peo­ple defend­ing the civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as a way of strug­gle to express your sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port of the three oppo­nents to the HSL pros­e­cut­ed in the Span­ish Spe­cial Court “Audi­en­cia Nacional” as a result of the action of pie throw­ing against the HSL car­ried out on the Navar­rese pres­i­dent Yolan­da Barci­na last 27 of Octo­ber in Toulouse. The action of pieing, which in any place of the west­ern world is mere­ly a humor­ous action of protest that has very few legal con­se­quences, is in our case, how­ev­er,  object of a polit­i­cal and media crim­i­nal­iza­tion that bor­ders on ridicule: so much so that the three authors of the protest may be sen­tenced to jail sen­tences as they have been pros­e­cut­ed under the accu­sa­tion of “attack” against the author­i­ty in the Spe­cial Court “Audi­en­cia Nacional” of Madrid, the excep­tion­al court which most­ly deals with crimes described as “ter­ror­ism” and before which they will have to make a state­ment on 16 of Novem­ber.

 

For this rea­son, we want to call you all to express your sol­i­dar­i­ty with the defen­dants pub­lish­ing a press release, a brief note in the media or a let­ter of sup­port in terms of denun­ci­a­tion of the manip­u­la­tion and polit­i­cal crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion, rejec­tion of the HSL and sup­port to dis­obe­di­ence; that is to say, denounc­ing the clear manip­u­la­tive and crim­i­nal­is­ing spir­it of the process dri­ven by the Gov­ern­ment of Navarre and defend­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as a way of fight­ing the impo­si­tion of great infra­struc­tures that bring about seri­ous eco­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and social impacts, as it is the case of the HSL in our coun­try.

 

The call is framed with­in the ini­tia­tives of sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty with the defen­dants which have been decid­ed in an assem­bly of last Sun­day 6 of Novem­ber in Pam­plona under the mot­to “I would do also it!  HSL STOP: Dis­obe­di­ence”.

 

Look­ing for­ward to your sol­i­dar­i­ty, we also want to invite you to spread this call around you and to send any man­i­fes­ta­tion of sup­port that is made pub­lic to the fol­low­ing address. Thank you very much…

                                     

                                      Move­ment Mugi­tu!

                                      @mail: mugituaht@gmail.com

                                      Tel: (0034) 654480589

                                      http://mugitu.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

Account of what hap­pened between the anti-HSL pieing in Toulouse and the trans­fer of the case to the Span­ish Spe­cial Court “Audi­en­cia Nacional”:

 

The move­ment Mugi­tu! of dis­obe­di­ence to the HSL –in fight against the impo­si­tion of the “Basque Y” and the “Navar­rese cor­ri­dor of High speed”–, sup­port­ed by the Occ­i­tan move­ment Lib­er­tat, made a protest action on 27 of Octo­ber inter­rupt­ing the 29th Ple­nary Coun­cil of the CTP (Com­mu­ni­ty of Work of the Pyre­nees) that was being held in the Occ­i­tan city of Toulouse and throw­ing three meringue pies in the face of the pres­i­dent of the Foral Com­mu­ni­ty of Navarre Yolan­da Barci­na, with the aim of denounc­ing the impo­si­tion of the HSL in our coun­try. Indeed, the Basque Gov­ern­ment and the Navar­rese are deter­mined to impose these dis­put­ed projects at a time when the con­struc­tion of new lines of High speed is ques­tioned in many coun­tries because of its ruinous and destruc­tive char­ac­ter. At the same time of the pieing, we demon­stra­tors explained the rea­sons of the action in the meet­ing room, showed posters and shout­ed slo­gans against the HSL as we threw leaflets demand­ing the imme­di­ate paraly­sa­tion of the “Basque Y” works and the aban­don­ment of the project of the Navar­rese cor­ri­dor of the HST, infra­struc­tures of high eco­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and social impact in our coun­try and char­ac­ter­ized by an absolute lack of infor­ma­tion and social debate, refus­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the pop­u­la­tion in the deci­sion mak­ing. “In any case — we said–, the solu­tions must be found in a deep trans­for­ma­tion of the present soci­ety, because the cri­sis is becom­ing worse and it is evi­dent that we must not only reduce and dis­trib­ute the “pie”, but also and main­ly change its recipe”.

 

In Toulouse , the action of the pieing was made with­out any oth­er inci­dents, tak­ing place like any­where else in the world as a humor­ous action of protest that  has very few legal con­se­quences. There was no inter­ven­tion from the police or  from the agents in charge of the secu­ri­ty of the meet­ing, so nobody was arrest­ed and after the action, the activists even gave a small press con­fer­ence in the out­side of the build­ing explain­ing the rea­sons for the protest. Nev­er­the­less, in the Span­ish state, the Gov­ern­ment of Navarre imme­di­ate­ly made a pub­lic dec­la­ra­tion of “con­dem­na­tion”, con­ceived with clear aims of polit­i­cal­ly manip­u­lat­ing and crim­i­nal­is­ing the anti-HSL pie throws, final­ly sus­pend­ing the activ­i­ty of the foral par­lia­ment and boast­ing about being a vic­tim, which bor­dered on ridicule, where­as in the street the action was received with an enor­mous delight in ample sec­tors of the pop­u­la­tion.

 

In view of the infor­ma­tive poi­son­ing start­ed by the Gov­ern­ment of Navarre, those of us who took part in the action quick­ly decid­ed to call a press con­fer­ence for the fol­low­ing day in Pam­plona, with the pur­pose of giv­ing all the details about the protest and in order to deny the sup­posed “vio­lent” char­ac­ter of the pie throws, mak­ing clear that this form of action does not mean to cause phys­i­cal harm to the cho­sen per­son, but to dam­age the image of the author­i­ty that he /she rep­re­sents. But as soon as we arrived in Pam­plona in the after­noon of the 28th, the Foral Police arrest­ed the three activists of the group in the street, when they were going to the press con­fer­ence. The police said that they were accused of “Attack to the author­i­ty” and trans­ferred them to police sta­tion. When we con­tact­ed sev­er­al lawyers, these showed their sur­prise about the cir­cum­stances in which the arrests were made, as there were appar­ent­ly no judi­cial dili­gences in the coun­try where the protest had tak­en place. Con­cern­ing the arrests, it must be said that the last per­son who was set free had spent 22 hours in jail and denounced the treat­ment received since he had been pre­vent­ed from sleep­ing dur­ing the night. The arrest­ed were forced to give DNA sam­ples as an indis­pens­able con­di­tion to be released, although nei­ther is it   oblig­a­tory nor did it have any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion in this case since the action had been pub­lic and the arrest­ed peo­ple were going to give a press con­fer­ence, also pub­lic.

 

Final­ly, our com­pan­ions were set free by the Foral  Police that charged them for a crime of “attack to the author­i­ty”, in addi­tion  trans­fer­ring the case to the Span­ish Spe­cial Court “Audi­en­cia Nacional”. In oth­er words,  the Navar­rese pres­i­dent Yolan­da Barci­na, who con­sid­ered, in her first dec­la­ra­tions, the action of the anti-HSL pieing to be “a very sweet begin­ning” for her pres­i­den­cy at the front of the CTP, has not accept­ed the “sweet­ness” of our protest very well. It is so much so that with the accu­sa­tion made, these three peo­ple may be sen­tenced to jail by an excep­tion­al court, before which they have been called to make a state­ment next 16 of Novem­ber

 

 

Occupy Shellanaboy set up at refinery gates in Erris (& solidarity with Ogoni 9)

Novem­ber 11, 2011

Novem­ber 11, 2011

About 40 Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers blocked the Augh­oose com­pound this morn­ing — all Shell employ­ees pre­vent­ed enter­ing com­pound 7.30 to 9.30. The road was kept open to local traf­fic by the cam­paign. There was no Gar­da pres­ence. Just after 10 Shell to Sea activists start­ed set­ting up an Occu­py Shell Cor­rib Camp at the gates of the refin­ery in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty with the glob­al Occu­py move­ments!

At 9.30 cam­paign­ers start­ed mov­ing from the Augh­hoose com­pound to the refin­ery site where there will be meet up at 10. This action was part of the day of sol­i­dar­i­ty called both to remem­ber the exe­cu­tion of Ken Saro Wiwa and for peo­ple from around Ire­land to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty in Erris, Mayo.

Local res­i­dents and their sup­port­ers will gath­er at 10am at the gates of Shell’s inland refin­ery. From there they will walk to Bel­lan­aboy Bridge to com­mem­o­rate a baton charge by Gar­daí on Novem­ber 10th, 2006. The baton charge result­ed in numer­ous injuries to cam­paign­ers and is one of the low points of the 11-year strug­gle against the inland refin­ery and high pres­sure pipeline. They will also be mark­ing the 16th anniver­sary of the exe­cu­tion of nine activists in Ogo­ni­land, Nige­ria. Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight oth­ers were hanged by the Niger­ian gov­ern­ment on Novem­ber 10th, 1995 for their oppo­si­tion to Shell’s envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion in the Niger delta. The walk which is now (11.20) under­way is lead by peo­ple car­ry­ing the 9 cross­es to com­mem­o­rate the Ogo­ni 9 exe­cut­ed on this day in 1995. Over 100 peo­ple are tak­ing part

http://www.dublins2s.com

EXCAVATORS VANDALIZED, SET ON FIRE, SWEDEN

report­ed anony­mous­ly to Öre­bro’s ALF/DBF Press Office:

“The night to the 7th of Novem­ber we van­dal­ized 3 exca­va­tors in Ladugård­sän­gen Öre­bro. We crushed the win­dows of all of them and set one on fire with two explo­sive devices.

We did it for main­ly three rea­sons:

report­ed anony­mous­ly to Öre­bro’s ALF/DBF Press Office:

“The night to the 7th of Novem­ber we van­dal­ized 3 exca­va­tors in Ladugård­sän­gen Öre­bro. We crushed the win­dows of all of them and set one on fire with two explo­sive devices.

We did it for main­ly three rea­sons:

1. For ALL the ani­mals that get killed direct­ly by these hell­ma­chines– worms, snakes, ants and snails, and all the oth­er liv­ing beings.

2. They are build­ing a big road through the Wild ani­mals habi­tat. They not only clearcut the for­est and bush, they also crush the so often for­got­ten life under the ground.

3. For all the ani­mals that could get killed on this road if we did­nt do any­thing– and for the total suf­fer­ing fol­low­ing glob­al warm­ing that roads con­tribute to.

This is for every­one that sim­ply wants to live and not get crushed by a killing machine of mass destruc­tion.

For all beings

ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT SWEDEN

DBF”

http://www.youtube.com/embed/67jNXebCUP8

10.11.11
anony­mous report received by Öre­bro’s ALF/DBF Press Office:

“I saw anoth­er exca­va­tor in Öre­bro city van­dal­ized. It was stand­ing near the store Lidl on the west side.

Thanks alot! They mess up my home!

An obser­vant rab­bit”

Protests Continue Against Iron Mining in Armenia

9.11.2011

9.11.2011

Oppo­si­tion politi­cians and envi­ron­men­tal activists joined on Wednes­day about two hun­dred res­i­dents of the cen­tral Armen­ian town of Hraz­dan in protest­ing against the open­ing of an iron mine which they believe would have grave eco­log­i­cal con­se­quences.

The crowd ral­lied in Hrazdan’s cen­tral square before head­ing to a near­by hill rich in iron ore in a con­voy of bus­es and cars.

Boun­ty Resources Arme­nia Lim­it­ed (BRAL), a com­pa­ny part­ly owned by a Chi­nese firm, plans to launch open-pit oper­a­tions there and in two oth­er, larg­er iron deposits else­where in the coun­try in the com­ing years. A team of geol­o­gists hired by BRAL is cur­rent­ly work­ing there to ascer­tain iron reserves hid­den under­ground through test drilling.

Envi­ron­ment pro­tec­tion groups are strong­ly opposed to iron min­ing in the area, say­ing that it would pol­lute air, agri­cul­tur­al land and the Hraz­dan riv­er, the main sup­pli­er of irri­ga­tion water to the fer­tile Ararat Val­ley in the country’s south.

Many Hraz­dan res­i­dents share these con­cerns. Some of them already demon­strat­ed against the project late last month.

“There is a ghost town in Chi­na near a sim­i­lar­ly exploit­ed mine,” said one woman tak­ing part in the protest. “We would have the same sit­u­a­tion here.”

Mias­nik Malkhasian, a geol­o­gist coor­di­nat­ing test drilling at the site, dis­missed such con­cerns as he and his work­ers were con­front­ed by the angry crowd. “There is no dan­ger what­so­ev­er,” he said.

The pro­test­ers remained uncon­vinced. Some of them smashed wood­en box­es con­tain­ing drilling sam­ples. Police offi­cers mon­i­tor­ing the demon­stra­tion did not inter­vene.

“Such crim­i­nal deci­sions are not made in Hraz­dan,” Karine Hako­bian, a leader of the oppo­si­tion Zha­rangutyun (Her­itage) par­ty, told the pro­test­ers before the march. “They are made in Yere­van, at the pres­i­den­tial palace and the gov­ern­ment build­ing. They have turned us into slaves in our own coun­try.”

Sasun Mikaelian, a Hraz­dan-based for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an affil­i­at­ed with the oppo­si­tion Armen­ian Nation­al Con­gress (HAK), sin­gled out for­mer Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Var­tan Ayvaz­ian for blame.

The Hetq.am news ser­vice report­ed last Jan­u­ary that by Ayvaz­ian and his fam­i­ly at least part­ly con­trol BRAL. The ex-min­is­ter, who now chairs one of the stand­ing com­mit­tees of the Armen­ian par­lia­ment, did not deny that.

The Hetq report fol­lowed the announce­ment by the Chi­nese com­pa­ny For­tune Oil that it has paid $24 mil­lion to acquire a 35 per­cent share in BRAL. For­tune Oil has the option of rais­ing the stake to 50 per­cent for an addi­tion­al $16 mil­lion.

Ayvaz­ian had con­sid­er­able reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ty over the min­ing indus­try when he served as envi­ron­ment min­is­ter from 2001–2007.

http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/24386103.html

Shell Deliveries Halted by Road Protest

Tues­day 25th Octo­ber at 8am, peo­ple gath­ered for what has become the week­ly local protest at gate one of Shel­l’s refin­ery. After some tea and scones, peo­ple decid­ed to stop a Shell truck. For about 30 min­utes peo­ple stood in front of the truck with­out has­sle, let­ting traf­fic pass on the oth­er side of the road. Even­tu­al­ly the Gar­daí removed peo­ple, in some cas­es being quite rough. One per­son was pinned to the ground for 5–10 min­utes, immo­bilised. Oth­er peo­ple were thrown off the road into ditch­es. The Gar­daí did not hold back against one elder­ly pro­test­er who is almost 80, throw­ing him around with­out a sec­ond thought. After 10 or 15 min­utes of peo­ple get­ting pulled off the road by guards, the truck inch­ing for­ward as more peo­ple got in front of it and then once again get pulled off the road in a con­tin­u­ous rolling block­ade, one per­son got up on top of the truck. She said she would­n’t have done this except that she was sick of see­ing peo­ple get­ting thrown around on the road and she knew get­ting on top of the vehi­cle would defuse the sit­u­a­tion by halt­ing things until she either came down her­self or could be removed Gar­daí. After stay­ing up on top of the truck for about 30 min­utes, the pro­test­er climbed down and then was arrest­ed, brought to Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion and released with­out charge lat­er that day. Shell are sched­uled to begin remov­ing peat from the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound at the end of Octo­ber or ear­ly Novem­ber, which will mean hun­dreds of truck move­ments a day. Come up any­time and sup­port the actions, or sim­ply to vis­it the area and see for your­self what is going on. The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is open to vis­i­tors and is locat­ed in a field in Augh­oose, between Bel­lan­aboy and Pul­lath­omas. This Hal­loween week­end the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is host­ing a week­end of direct action train­ing work­shops. Also there will be a Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty on the 11th of Novem­ber 2011, at the Augh­oose com­pound. It will mark 5 years since the baton charge on pro­tes­tors at Bel­lan­aboy. Please come and offer your sol­i­dar­i­ty to the com­mu­ni­ty who have been protest­ing against the Cor­rib Gas project. To con­tact the camp, ring 085 114 1170 or email rossportsolidaritycamp[at]gmail[dot]com

Video of day