Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

A Number of Small Actions in Reykjavík

Dur­ing the last days, a num­ber of small actions have tak­en place in Reykavík; ban­ner drop in the cen­ter of Reyk­javík, graf­fi­ti and stinky liq­uid at Jarðb­o­ranir and a night­time shut-down of Útlendin­gastof­nun.

UtendDur­ing the last days, a num­ber of small actions have tak­en place in Reykavík; ban­ner drop in the cen­ter of Reyk­javík, graf­fi­ti and stinky liq­uid at Jarðb­o­ranir and a night­time shut-down of Útlendin­gastof­nun.

This morn­ing, July 30th, a huge ban­ner was dropped in the cen­ter of Reyk­javík, bring­ing atten­tion to the con­nec­tion and co-oper­a­tion between the alu­mini­um indus­try and the weapon indus­try. The ban­ner said: “30% of all alu­mini­um goes to the weapon indus­try – Stop the alu­mini­um indus­try!” From the begin­ning of our cam­paign we have not only focused on the destruc­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact of alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion and big dams, but also the social and humane impacts. Alcoa in Ice­land has steadi­ly refused the con­nec­tion, but with only a lit­tle look at the web­site of n.b. Alcoa Defense, one sees with own eyes that Alcoa does not only pro­duce alu­mini­um for weapon man­u­fac­tur­ing, but proud­ly takes a huge part in the design of mil­i­tary equip­ment of all types.

Sev­er­al arti­cles have been writ­ten about the issue as well as many press releas­es fol­low­ing Sav­ing Iceland’s actions:
Lygar og Útúrsnúningar (in Ice­landic only)
Agya, What Do You Mean With Devel­op­ment?
Sav­ing Ice­land Block­ades Rio Tinto-Alcan’s Smelter in Haf­nar­fjörður
Sav­ing Ice­land Dis­rupts Inter­na­tion­al Alu­mini­um Con­fer­ence in Ger­many

Drill your own heads!
Yes­ter­day night Sav­ing Ice­land received an anony­mous let­ter titled Sol­i­dar­i­ty Action, which though did not include any pho­tos:

“The work­ers of Jarðb­o­ranir received a dis­gust­ing sur­prise this after­noon. The company’s fan­cy entrance was cov­ered in rot­ten and smelly liq­uid. Rot­ten like their hearts, smelly like the mon­ey they earn by drilling the Earth. The mes­sage we wrote to the work­ers was: DRILL YOUR OWN HEADS — BASTARDS!”

Jarðb­o­ranir (Earth Drilling ) owns the drills that are used to search for geot­her­mal ener­gy. Jarðb­o­ranir have recent­ly signed con­tracts with sev­er­al ener­gy com­pa­nies; Landsvirkjun, Reyk­javík Ener­gy and Þeistareykir ehf. about drilling for ener­gy, which is meant to run already con­struct­ing and upcom­ing alu­mini­um smelters.

The lack of pub­lic knowl­edge about test drilling is one of the main rea­sons for the myth about geot­her­mal ener­gy being ‘green’ and sus­tain­able. For each test drill, a piece of land in the size of a foot­ball field has to evened out, e.g. for road con­struc­tion. The test drilling’s effi­cien­cy is very lim­it­ed; only very few of the holes end up pro­vid­ing ener­gy. By then the area is already destroyed and the destruc­tion won’t be tak­en back.

Com­pa­nies like Jarðb­o­ranir have not been very vis­i­ble in the cri­tique and resis­tance against the destruc­tion of Iceland’s wilder­ness, but is as impor­tant as the alu­mini­um and ener­gy com­pa­nies. With­out every sin­gle part of the chain, the chain does not work.

Útlendin­gastof­nun

Poke in a bel­ly!
And a lit­tle off-top­ic but still con­cern­ing the Ice­landic gov­ern­ment…

On Wednes­day morn­ing, Útlendin­gastof­nun (The Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion) was tar­get­ed by no-bor­der activists. The anar­chist web­site Afta­ka pub­lished this press release:

“This morn­ing, when the work­ers of The Direc­torate of Immi­gra­tion showed up to work, they faced closed and locked doors. There­fore they could not start their every­day job: To look for ways how to deport refugees to depor­ta­tion camps in Greece or to the open death in their own home coun­tries.

After long-last­ing and inef­fec­tive protests, arti­cle writ­ing and meet­ings with the author­i­ties, a small group to the issues in its own hands, glued the locks of the office’s doors, threw red paint on the walls and wrote S.S. on win­dows.

The group real­izes that the action is very small-scale, only a tiny lit­tle poke in the bel­ly of a gigan­tic insti­tu­tion, but hopes that it will become a fig­ure­head and an inspi­ra­tion for oth­er groups who are tired of protest­ing against fas­cism and will rather break it down with their own force.

The action group Poke in a Bel­ly!”

This hap­pened only one day after Sav­ing Ice­land glued and closed the offices of six insti­tu­tions and com­pa­nies that are involved in the heavy indus­tri­al­iza­tion of Ice­land.

Saving Iceland Closes Nature Killer’s Offices

July 28 2009
Last night Sav­ing Ice­land closed the offices of com­pa­nies and insti­tu­tions that are heav­i­ly respon­si­ble for extreme destruc­tion of nature. Super-glue was put in to the locks and signs put up say­ing: “Closed because of destruc­tion of nature!” Lock­smiths had to be called to open the doors when work­ers showed up in the morn­ing.

July 28 2009
Last night Sav­ing Ice­land closed the offices of com­pa­nies and insti­tu­tions that are heav­i­ly respon­si­ble for extreme destruc­tion of nature. Super-glue was put in to the locks and signs put up say­ing: “Closed because of destruc­tion of nature!” Lock­smiths had to be called to open the doors when work­ers showed up in the morn­ing.

The com­pa­nies and insti­tu­tions that were tar­get­ed have all shown their deter­mined crim­i­nal will against Ice­landic nature and don’t stop at any­thing in their search for an easy finan­cial growth and favor­able con­tracts, even with com­pa­nies who have scan­dalous his­to­ry. These com­pa­nies should have been closed long time ago to pre­vent more destruc­tion to take place.

The fol­low­ing com­pa­nies and insti­tu­tions were tar­get­ed: the Min­istry of Indus­try and the Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment, who have cleared the way for heavy indus­try here in Ice­land; ÍSTAK (con­struc­tion com­pa­ny), which takes care of most of the earth destruc­tion that has to take place before test drills and the con­struc­tion of heavy indus­try relat­ed build­ings; Jarðb­o­ranir (Earth Drilling), which owns the drills that are used for geot­her­mal drilling all over the coun­try; and HRV (engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny), which does most of the Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ments for heavy indus­try projects as well as tak­ing a big part in design­ing the infra­struc­tures con­nect­ed to heavy indus­try.

Sav­ing Ice­land also closed an office shed on one of ÍAV’s (con­struc­tion com­pa­ny) con­struc­tion areas in Reyk­javík, but the com­pa­ny is now busy with build­ing Century’s alu­mini­um smelter in Hel­gu­vík.

EARTH FIRST! @ DEMOCRATIC PARTY, ROME

ACTIVISTS OF EF! ROME YESTERDAY PROTEST IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEFORE BIG CONFERENCE OF SEGRETARY. LOT OF MEDIA IMPACT.
NEWS IN ITALIAN FROM OUR BLOG EF! ITALY

HOka hey! broth­ers and sis­ter!

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FUORI PROGRAMMA ALLA FESTA DEL PD
da agen­zia ADNKRONOS

ACTIVISTS OF EF! ROME YESTERDAY PROTEST IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BEFORE BIG CONFERENCE OF SEGRETARY. LOT OF MEDIA IMPACT.
NEWS IN ITALIAN FROM OUR BLOG EF! ITALY

HOka hey! broth­ers and sis­ter!

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FUORI PROGRAMMA ALLA FESTA DEL PD
da agen­zia ADNKRONOS

Roma, 16 lug. (Adnkro­nos) — Fuori pro­gram­ma alla fes­ta del Pd a Roma per unain­cur­sione ‘ecol­o­gista’ sul pal­co in cui il can­dida­to alla seg­rete­ria Pier­Lui­gi Bersani sta­va per iniziare il suo inter­ven­to. Alcu­ni ragazz­i­ambi­en­tal­isti han­no con­seg­na­to una let­tera a Bersani (che avreb­bero volu­to­leg­gere ma l’or­ga­niz­zazione del­la fes­ta ha ritenu­to che non fos­se il caso)nella quale si denun­cia la scarsa atten­zione all’am­bi­ente del­la fes­tade­mo­c­ra­t­i­ca di Roma. “Cer­to ambi­en­tal­is­mo pro­duce solo rifiu­ti ‑dice­Mas­si­mo, uno dei ragazzi che han­no insce­na­to la protes­ta- perche’ non e’pos­si­bile che ad una man­i­fes­tazione del genere non si fac­cia la rac­coltad­if­feren­zi­a­ta”. Dopo che i ragazzi sono sta­ti fat­ti scen­dere dal pal­co Bersani ha volu­to­co­munque subito rispon­dere alla loro sol­lecitazione: “si crit­i­ca lo scar­soe­col­o­gis­mo di ques­ta fes­ta ed io rispon­do che si puo’ sem­pre fare di meglioe ricor­do che i gov­erni di cen­trosin­is­tra sono sta­ti quel­li che per prim­i­han­no pos­to le tem­atiche ambi­en­tali tra le pri­ori­ta’ delle azioni digov­er­no”. (Mon/Ct/Adnkronos) 16-LUG-09 21:24

PD: BERSANI CONTESTATO DA AMBIENTALISTI A FESTA DE L’UNITA’ DI ROMA
da Agen­zia IRIS

ROMA, 16 LUG — Pier­lui­gi Bersani, ospite al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty di Roma, è sta­to con­tes­ta­to da alcu­ni ragazzi di un movi­men­to ecol­o­gista, Earth First Roma. “Si può sem­pre far meglio, tutte le critiche sono accetta­bili ma voglio ricor­dare che quan­do erava­mo al gov­er­no abbi­amo fat­to i prim­is­si­mi pas­si per accen­dere il motore verde nel­l’e­cono­mia ital­iana. La legge per i pan­nel­li foto­voltaici l’ab­bi­amo fat­ta noi. Bisogna fare di più per­ché ques­ta è la fron­tiera per rilan­cia­re l’e­cono­mia” risponde Bersani.

RAGAZZI CONSEGNANO UNA LETTERA DI CRITICHE AL CANDIDATO SEGRETARIO
da APCOM (nel­la foto lo striscione espos­to)

Pic­co­lo fuori pro­gram­ma alla fes­ta del Pd a Roma dove ques­ta sera viene inter­vis­ta­to Pier­lui­gi Bersani. Quan­do il can­dida­to alla seg­rete­ria prende pos­to sul pal­co alcu­ni ragazzi di un movi­men­to ecol­o­gista che si chia­ma Earth First! Roma, cer­cano di pren­dere la paro­la per denun­cia­re lo scar­so ecol­o­gis­mo del­la fes­ta, espo­nen­do un cartel­lo con la scrit­ta ‘Cer­to ambi­en­tal­is­mo pro­duce solo rifiu­ti’. Mas­si­mo spie­ga che non c’era alcun inten­to vio­len­to nel­l’inizia­ti­va ma solo il deside­rio di con­seg­nare una let­tera a Bersani per denun­cia­re il fat­to che “alla fes­ta del Pd non c’è la rac­col­ta dif­feren­zi­a­ta, non si usano prodot­ti rici­clati, non ci sono pan­nel­li foto­voltaici”. Bersani dal pal­co spie­ga e risponde: “Si può sem­pre far meglio, tutte le critiche sono accetta­bili ma voglio ricor­dare che quan­do erava­mo al gov­er­no abbi­amo fat­to i prim­is­si­mi pas­si per accen­dere il motore verde nel­l’e­cono­mia ital­iana. La legge per i pan­nel­li foto­voltaici l’ab­bi­amo fat­ta noi. Bisogna fare di più per­ché ques­ta è la fron­tiera per rilan­cia­re l’e­cono­mia”.

Update from Rossport Solidarity Camp

10th July 09
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp remains strong at Glen­gad with peo­ple tak­ing action and plan­ning for ongo­ing resis­tance to Shel­l’s gas pipeline in Erris, both off­shore and onshore.

Rossport Solidarity Camp10th July 09
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp remains strong at Glen­gad with peo­ple tak­ing action and plan­ning for ongo­ing resis­tance to Shel­l’s gas pipeline in Erris, both off­shore and onshore.

A recent nation­al meet­ing of Shell to Sea groups at the camp last week­end saw peo­ple moti­vat­ed to con­tin­ue with the fight. The camp on the clifftops at Glen­gad will con­tin­ue over the com­ing months and, despite heavy-hand­ed bail con­di­tions which have banned peo­ple from Mayo, a steady stream of vis­i­tors to the camp keeps spir­its high.

The focal point of the camp for a long time has been the arrival of the pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire. The ship is now far out into the bay lay­ing pipeline on its way to the well-head. The navy have also left the bay, still leav­ing a heavy secu­ri­ty pres­ence guard­ing the dredgers as they back-fill over the pipe. The most recent action has focused on the sup­ply ships which go out reg­u­lar­ly from Kil­l­libegs in Done­gal, to sup­port the Soli­taire and the well head con­struc­tion.

Atten­tion is now also turn­ing to the onshore sec­tion of the pipeline which would run from Broad­haven bay for 9km to the refin­ery under con­struc­tion at Bel­len­aboy. Shell have yet to be grant­ed plan­ning per­mis­sion, although a deci­sion is expect­ed soon. Grant­i­ng per­mis­sion would open the way for drilling and con­struc­tion work across pris­tine riv­er estu­ary, peat bog­land and heav­i­ly con­test­ed farm­land and com­mon­age.

This remains a very impor­tant time to come to the camp to take action against the build­ing of the pipeline at all stages. There are many and var­ied ways to make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion. Sup­port is invalu­able to sus­tain the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp, which has been a tar­get for legal repres­sion, and the local com­mu­ni­ty who have also recent­ly faced trau­mat­ic acts of vio­lence.

Whether it is for a few days or a few weeks this sum­mer come and be in this beau­ti­ful place and join the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp in a fight against cor­po­rate greed, the arro­gance of the state, and envi­ron­men­tal and com­mu­ni­ty dev­as­ta­tion.

Pitched battles over open refuse dump outside Athens

8th July

Pitched bat­tles between locals of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, and riot police forces over the con­struc­tion of an open refuse damp with locals dig­ging trench­es, build­ing bar­ri­cades and torch­ing bull­doz­ers; scores have been wound­ed as bat­tles con­tin­ue amidst spread­ing fires.

8th July

Pitched bat­tles between locals of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, and riot police forces over the con­struc­tion of an open refuse damp with locals dig­ging trench­es, build­ing bar­ri­cades and torch­ing bull­doz­ers; scores have been wound­ed as bat­tles con­tin­ue amidst spread­ing fires.

More than 1500 locals of the Black Moun­tain vil­lage of Gram­mati­co, out­side Athens, have erect­ed bar­ri­cades and dug trench­es in order to stop the begin­ning of an open refuse damp (XYTA) con­struc­tion in their area. The locals torched the com­pa­ny’s bull­doz­ers after riot police forces arrest­ed and beat the resist­ing may­or, refus­ing to take him to the hos­pi­tal to treat his wounds.

One of the local coun­cil mem­bers has been declared: “There are fires every­where and strong police forces. We are afraid of a mas­sacre. The police is using bru­tal force and we have scores of wound­ed cit­i­zens. The riot police forces (MAT) have reached our last bar­ri­cade. If they man­age to cross it, then the sit­u­a­tion will be out of con­trol. How­ev­er this will prove hard, as it is our strongest bar­ri­cade. We have dug the earth plant­i­ng trac­tors and bull­doz­ers in it. All the vil­lage is here and is ready to fight”. Many peo­ple have been arrest­ed dur­ing the clash­es, and sev­er­al police­men have been wound­ed by pro­jec­tiles. The fire brigade has deployed 3 air­plane, 3 heli­copters and over 15 fire engines in order to fight the fires caused by the riot police mind­less use of tear gas and “blast and flash” grenades and are threat­en­ing a chil­dren sum­mer camp near­by.

The con­struc­tion of XYTA around the coun­try has cre­at­ed a chain of vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles, whose pro­to­type is Lefkim­mi, a Cor­fu vil­lage which has been resist­ing State plans for 18 months, los­ing one com­rade in the bat­tles with the police.

Rossport Solidarity activists board supply ship to Solitaire in Killybegs

Today Shell to sea pro­tes­tors broke through a weak spot in the arma­da deployed to defend the Soli­taire — the sup­ply port in Killy­begs. One S2S activist occu­pied a tyre at side of Shell ship in Killy­begs.

Boarded ship activist in tyreToday Shell to sea pro­tes­tors broke through a weak spot in the arma­da deployed to defend the Soli­taire — the sup­ply port in Killy­begs. One S2S activist occu­pied a tyre at side of Shell ship in Killy­begs. The Soli­taire whilst being an enor­mous ship is depen­dent on a con­stant flow of ships bring­ing sup­plies from Killy­begs in Done­gal.

This morn­ing sev­en kayak­ers pad­dled out to the ship, the Toisa Inde­pen­dent, which was being loaded with a fresh batch of pipes for the Soli­taire. With very lit­tle secu­ri­ty the sev­en pad­dled up to the boat and as we speak one of the Kayak­ers is block­ing the ship from depart­ing after climb­ing aboard.

After a week­end where the Sun­day papers car­ried on the usu­al bar­rage against Shell to Sea with many claim­ing the cam­paign to be over Shell to Sea answered back in style today. The past fort­night saw the Erris area occu­pied by 200 Shel­l’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty IRMS, 300 Gar­dai (includ­ing 150 pub­lic order units), the navy backed up by a heli­copter and an aero­plane. Todays actions have shown the cam­paign is far from over

This week sees the state har­ras­ment and intim­i­da­tion of the cam­paign step up a gear with over two dozen Shell to sea pro­tes­tors being hauled before the courts on trumped up charges. But the fight con­tin­ues!

—

Shell to Sea demonstration6th July 2009
This after­noon sev­en Shell to Sea activists in kayaks vis­it­ed the Toisa Inde­pen­dent, which sup­plies pipe to the Soli­taire, a ves­sel used by Shell to lay the Cor­rib gas pipeline. The Soli­taire, which left Broad­haven Bay (1) yes­ter­day after lay­ing the first sec­tion of pipe for the project, has been the tar­get of sev­er­al actions recent­ly in the con­tin­u­al cam­paign against Shell. (2) Despite Shel­l’s increas­ing­ly heavy hand­ed response to protests, Shell to Sea activist’s have con­tin­ued their fight.

Niall Har­nett, speak­ing from the protest in Killy­begs today said “We demand that this port stops sup­port­ing the Cor­rib gas project which is destroy­ing the lives of the peo­ple in Erris. There has been much mis­in­for­ma­tion about the Cor­rib gas pipeline in the media, as cam­paign­ers con­tin­ue to protest in order to bring a halt to this unsafe project which threat­ens the homes and liveli­hoods of many in the local area”. The pipeline would car­ry unprocessed gas across the region to the refin­ery at Bel­lan­aboy. (4)

Har­nett con­tin­ued “We are also act­ing in protest against the theft of Ire­land’s nat­ur­al resources. At a time when unem­ploy­ment lev­els are set to reach record num­bers and the gov­ern­ment attacks ordi­nary peo­ple with levies tax­es and pay cuts it is obscene that Shell are allowed to steal bil­lions of euro’s of our resources.” (5)

St.John O Donob­hain, also on the protest, said. “Shel­l’s attempts to pre­tend the Cor­rib project is a done-deal is mis­lead­ing. This is project is unjust, ille­gal, and immoral. It will fail.”

Rossport solidarity demo at Irish Embassy

2nd July 2009

2nd July 2009
Peo­ple gath­ered in Lon­don out­side the Irish Embassy at 1pm yes­ter­day to protest at the dra­con­ian jail­ing of 7 Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors in Co. Mayo, Ire­land. The 4 women and 2 men were arrest­ed on Sun­day June 28th for their part in the ongo­ing cam­paign against the con­struc­tion of the Shell Cor­rib gas pipeline in Erris, Mayo. They were remand­ed on Mon June 29th to appear at court this Fri­day, 3rd July at 10.30am. Those being held on remand were all charged with minor pub­lic order offences (sec­tion 6: breach of the peace, sec­tion 8: refus­ing instruc­tions of a guard and sec­tion 9: will­ful obstruc­tion of a high­way — 3 of them were arrest­ed for sim­ply walk­ing across the road). None of these offences would usu­al­ly result in some­one being put on remand. We are con­cerned that the treat­ment of the pro­tes­tors has been unjust for the fol­low­ing rea­sons;

- None of the pro­tes­tors had pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, yet they were refused nor­mal bail con­di­tions
— Judge Devins denied and/or deferred deci­sions on their kegal aid, although it was evi­dent that some of the pro­tes­tors are not able to afford their legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.
— Judge Devins has shown her dis­dain and bias against Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors. Send­ing peo­ple to jail whose first offence is to be arrest­ed for not obey­ing the direc­tions of a guard is ridicu­lous and unprece­dent­ed.

We deliv­ered a let­ter to the Irish Ambas­sador call­ing for him to ensure that the pro­tes­tors are treat­ed fair­ly, released from remand, and are allowed access to the legal aid to which they are enti­tled. It also express­es gen­er­al con­cerns regard­ing the recent treat­ment of pro­tes­tors by the Gar­dai and by the secu­ri­ty that Shell have employed have employed to pro­tect their gas project — Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices. I‑RMS have been con­tin­u­al­ly accused of using exces­sive force against the pro­tes­tors. The let­ter also calls for a fair and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the recent alle­ga­tions and for assur­ances that cam­paign­ers who are car­ry­ing out their demo­c­ra­t­ic right to protest are treat­ed fair­ly and their human rights upheld.

* The protest also hoped to raise aware­ness of events in Co. Mayo by hold­ing ban­ners and giv­ing out leaflets ask­ing peo­ple to sup­port the sev­en on remand, and to make their protest against the actions of Shell and the Irish Gov­ern­ment.

For fur­ther info­ma­tiona and updates: www.indymedia.ie and www.corribos.com
Email: info@corribos.com

Shell to Sea spokesper­sons: Ms Mau­ra Har­ring­ton (T.087 9591474) an Mr Ter­rence Con­way (T.086 0866264). Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp media co-ordi­na­tor: Mr Niall Har­nett (T. 086 8444966)

Rossport: A Tripod, A Lock-On And A Compound Infiltration

Sun­day June 28th saw the most intense burst of direct action against Shell in Erris so far in this phase of the cam­paign to thwart the Great Gas Rob­bery and the destruc­tion of Erris along with its com­mu­ni­ty.

Rossport tripod in roadSun­day June 28th saw the most intense burst of direct action against Shell in Erris so far in this phase of the cam­paign to thwart the Great Gas Rob­bery and the destruc­tion of Erris along with its com­mu­ni­ty. A tri­pod on a road bridge near McGrath’s Bar held up vital repair gear for the pipeline winch­ing oper­a­tion for over four hours. This was fol­lowed up by a five-per­son lock-on on the same road a bit near­er the Shell com­pound. Togeth­er, they delayed winch­ing oper­a­tions for twelve hours, and there were nine arrests in all. Mean­while, three Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers man­aged to sneak into the Shell com­pound at Glen­gad and get out with­out being arrest­ed.

At about two o’clock Sun­day lunchtime a Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp action team erect­ed a tri­pod on the road to Shel­l’s Glen­gad com­pound, upon a bridge near McGrath’s Bar in Pul­lath­omas. This action was exe­cut­ed on foot of infor­ma­tion received that the winch gear in Shel­l’s com­pound had bro­ken down and need­ed replace­ment parts and extra gear, all of which was to arrive on a truck con­voy trav­el­ling the Pul­lath­omas road to Glen­gad. The first Gar­da car on the scene revved up attempt­ed to ram the tri­pod, and this reck­less endan­ger­ment of the tri­pod occu­pi­er was pre­vent­ed only by a brave camper stand­ing before the appa­ra­tus and com­pelling the Gar­da car to stop. The car touched against the shins of the camper as it stopped, once again illus­trat­ing the mad­ness of a mur­der-mind­ed police force drunk on impuni­ty.

Hav­ing cau­tioned the tri­pod occu­pi­er under the pub­lic order act, the Gar­dai then went on to declare an ‘exclu­sion zone’ and then rough­ly pushed out his com­pan­ions off the road under threat of arrest. They found refuge from Gar­da harass­ment in an adja­cent field, and from there kept vig­il over their col­league, who was being con­tin­u­al­ly endan­gered by igno­rant med­dling by the Gar­dai on the scene with the tri­pod appa­ra­tus. Local peo­ple and campers began to arrive to sup­port the tri­pod occu­pi­er, get­ting as close to him as they could in the fields at either side of the road.

One Gar­da com­mit­ted an unpro­voked assault on a Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camper on the road about 100m away from the tri­pod, trip­ping him, gash­ing his hand bad­ly and also leav­ing him with a bad chest injury. Gar­dai began attempt­ing to arrest any­one who entered the road any­where near the tri­pod, arrest­ing three peo­ple with­out giv­ing them any chance to leave vol­un­tar­i­ly. One of the arrestees was act­ing as a recorder of inci­dents; his log book was seized by the cops in anoth­er act of cyn­i­cal impuni­ty. The arrests were con­duct­ed with no lit­tle vio­lence on the part of the Gar­dai.

In a bizarre inter­lude dur­ing this action, a table and desk was pro­duced from a horse­box-type trail­er the Gar­dai brought to the scene, and four cops in blue hard-hats pro­ceed­ed to fill in forms on the table. Screens were then erect­ed around the tri­pod area in a futile attempt to pre­vent pho­tograph­ing or film­ing of Gar­da activ­i­ty. The Gar­dai present attempt­ed to ques­tion the tri­pod occu­pi­er as if he were already arrest­ed and in cus­tody in a Gar­da sta­tion, which struck many wit­ness­es as an abuse of pro­ce­dure.

An hour-and-a-half after the tri­pod was erect­ed, a truck from AGS Scaf­fold­ing Ltd. from Cross­moli­na arrived at the McGrath’s Bar side of the tri­pod. Not coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the AGS stands for Antho­ny Gill Scaf­fold­ing, and Antho­ny Gill is the broth­er of Gar­da Sgt James Gill, an ever-present men­ace to the cit­i­zens of Erris. Fur­ther­more, from the nature of the equip­ment the scaf­fold­ers brought with them and the man­ner in which the scaf­fold­ers worked with the cops, it can be rea­son­ably sus­pect­ed that this com­pa­ny’s per­son­nel have trained along­side Gar­dai for this kind of ‘work’.

After two hours or so of plat­form build­ing by the scaf­fold­ers two Gar­da detec­tives climbed up and began to remove the tri­pod occu­pi­er. The man­ner in which they effect­ed the arrest was cal­cu­lat­ed to inflict injury and dis­played a lev­el of petu­lant spite­ful­ness that the peo­ple of Kil­com­mon and sur­round­ing parish­es have endured for far too long. The tri­pod suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the road for near­ly four hours and the dis­man­tling of the scaf­fold­ing plat­form must have added anoth­er 90 min­utes of road block­age to this.

With­in an hour of the tri­pod being dis­man­tled and before the truck con­voy could get any far­ther, a lock-on team from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp got into posi­tion on the road only 300m or so from the gates of the Shell com­pound. Even though it was rain­ing steadi­ly in the evening gloom, the Gar­dai sup­plied only an insuf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty of cov­er for the pro­tes­tors, who were soaked to the skin with­in min­utes of lock­ing-on. Sup­port­ers from the camp and the local area began to gath­er at the site, and then about an hour into the action, the num­ber of Gar­dai began increas­ing. The Gar­dai used their num­bers to begin pro­gres­sive­ly push­ing peo­ple back using threats of arrest under the pub­lic order act, and once again erect­ed screens and tents to block the view of peo­ple sup­port­ing the lock-on team, and to frus­trate film­ing and pho­tograph­ing of their actions.

The Gar­dai assent­ed to allow­ing an observ­er to remain with the lock-on team, but then cyn­i­cal­ly removed her under the pre­tence of arrest­ing her for the ‘crime’ of hav­ing a mobile phone passed to her from an out­side sup­port­er. She was searched (no doubt ille­gal­ly), dragged out and put into a Gar­da van for almost a quar­ter of an hour, and was then released from Gar­da cap­tiv­i­ty. The cops then pro­ceed­ed to begin cut­ting out the lock-on team.

The lock-on was dis­as­sem­bled final­ly only at around a quar­ter to two on Mon­day morn­ing. By this time, the two actions on the road had delayed Shell by a full twelve hours. It had also spoiled the plans and pricked the arro­gance of Shel­l’s cops, who were seri­al­ly out­wit­ted by brave and com­mit­ted Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers. The tri­pod action arrestees and two of the five lock-on arrestees were brought to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion, and the oth­er three lock-on arrestees were brought to Castle­bar Gar­da sta­tion. At the time of writ­ing the four tri­pod arrestees have been remand­ed in Gar­da cus­tody and will be up in West­port dis­trict court lat­er today. It is not yet known whether the oth­er five have been remand­ed or released.

Mean­while on Sun­day evening as the lock-on action was hap­pen­ing, three Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers drove into the Shell com­pound when the met­al front gates were opened for oth­er traf­fic, util­is­ing the tech­nique of ‘social cam­ou­flage’ to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed. The campers got to the sec­ond inter­nal set of gates and were about to have them opened for them when they were recog­nised. Gar­dai threat­ened to tow the car out, but even­tu­al­ly the campers were allowed to dri­ve out and were not arrest­ed. With the kayak team mak­ing the Soli­taire run away on Thurs­day evening and now this pen­e­tra­tion of the Glen­gad Shell com­pound, not only are the mer­ce­nary ‘secu­ri­ty firm’ IRMS fas­cist scum, they are crap fas­cist scum too!

Mayo update — resisting Shell on Wednesday & Thursday

25.6.09
Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

Shell2Sea David vs Goliath25.6.09
Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

The Soli­taire, the huge pipe lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

As the Soli­taires arrival looms large, the state ups the pres­sure with more friv­o­lous arrests.

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force, for oppos­ing Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. Both were quite a dis­tance out­side of Shel­l’s so-called ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the Bay when they were arrest­ed by Gar­dai jump­ing towards them from RIBs (Rigid Inflat­able Boats). The protest was against prepara­to­ry cable work being done before the arrival of the Soli­taire. Nei­ther pro­test­er was close to any machin­ery, or stop­ping any work from tak­ing place. This brings to 22 the num­ber of peo­ple arrest­ed this month for oppos­ing Shell.

This forms part of a larg­er pat­tern of arbi­trary arrest, through which Gar­dai are seek­ing to repress peace­ful protest against Shel­l’s dis­as­trous Cor­rib Gas Project. Recent weeks have seen dra­con­ian attempts to remand first-time offend­ers to cus­tody for rel­a­tive­ly minor offences, along with very high bail mon­ey being demand­ed for pro­test­ers. The attempt­ed crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cam­paign­ers rais­es very seri­ous ques­tions about civ­il lib­er­ties and the infring­ing on the right to protest.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “The hun­dreds of Gar­dai and Naval per­son­nel draft­ed into the area in the last 48 hours shows just how far the gov­ern­ment will go to facil­i­tate Shell, despite the fact that this project is com­plete­ly against the inter­ests of the peo­ple of this coun­try. These lat­est arrests are mere­ly the Gar­daí and Navy try­ing to jus­ti­fy the immense and total­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate force that has been sent down by the State to force this project through”

LE Emer is cur­rent­ly sta­tioned in Broad­haven Bay and Navy RIBs crewed by Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly being used against pro­tes­tors.

.…

The 24th of June began with an oppres­sive Gar­da pres­ence in the Glen­gad area and end­ed with two swim­mers from the camp being arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay this evening. Shel­l’s con­tract­ed pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire began its jour­ney to Glen­gad this after­noon and is expect­ed to be in the bay by morn­ing.

At lunchtime two squadrons of kayak­ers set out into Broad­haven bay as a prac­tise run for actions when the Solitare arrives. Kayak­ers were con­front­ed by a heavy Gar­da and navy pres­ence sup­port­ed by Shell secu­ri­ty in rigid inflat­able boats (ribs). Two kayak­ers were rough­ly han­dled, being dragged at speed by Gar­da ribs while Gar­dai hung on to their craft. All kayak­ers man­aged to return safe­ly to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. At the same time the Irish naval ves­sel the LE Emer entered Broad­haven Bay, cir­cled the bay and dropped anchor near Baly­glass pier. This war­ship remains at anchor tonight in the bay.

In prepa­ra­tion for attach­ing the pulling cable to the Solitare one of Shel­l’s tug boats drew a small­er cable from the Glen­gad com­pound to one of the dredg­ing plat­forms in the bay at aprox­i­mate­ly 5:30pm. Two swim­mers set out to inves­ti­gage what was hap­pen­ing, sup­port­ed by two kayak­ers. They were imme­di­ate­ly met by Gar­dai, navy per­son­nel and Shell secu­ri­ty in a total of 18 ribs. Even though the swim­mers did not enter the exclu­sion area they were sur­round­ed by ribs and arrest­ed at about 6 pm. The swim­mers were put at some dan­ger dur­ing the arrests by Gar­dai because of the lack of pro­peller guards on the ribs while they sur­round­ed the swim­mers. They also denied the swim­mers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of swim­ming back to shore by sur­round­ing them with ribs before they arrest­ed them. They were then tak­en to the Shell Glen­gad com­pound where they were held by Gar­dai for over 2 hours before being tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion for pro­cess­ing. One of the arrestees has since returned to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp but the oth­er per­son is being detained in a care home in Gal­way because they are 2 months short of their 18th birth­day.

In a fur­ther inci­dent lat­er on Gar­da park­ing cones were removed by locals and campers after it was dis­cov­ered that Gar­dai had no legal basis for putting them there. Soon after, two van loads of Gar­dai arrived at the road out­side the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, claim­ing that campers and locals were block­ing the road. A stand-off devel­oped which last­ed for over a half an hour. Dur­ing this inci­dent sev­er­al local peo­ple iden­ti­fied a man dri­ving a four wheel dri­ve jeep on the road as the dri­ver of the dig­ger involved in the incin­dent at Pul­lath­omas pier on the 11th of June, 2007; this was when numer­ous peo­ple were injured after a dig­ger was dri­ven through a crowd of local pro­tes­tors. This was brought to the atten­tion of the Gar­dai present but they chose to ignore this com­plaint, instead claim­ing that the assem­bled locals and campers were block­ing the road.

There has been a heavy Gar­dai pres­ence in the area through­out the area, includ­ing a pub­lic order unit sta­tioned inside the Shell Glen­gad com­pound. Gar­dai have also been stop­ping traf­ic on the roads around Glen­gad check­ing for insur­ance, tax, etc. A mys­te­ri­ous white van with Mayo plates has been parked on the road­side dur­ing the day­time, adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp with the side door open, with some­one in there tak­ing pho­tographs or car­ry­ing out some oth­er type of espi­onage activ­i­ty. The occu­pants of this van are remark­ably cam­era-shy. Gar­da num­bers in ribs on the bay have also increased marked­ly in the last 24 hours. All in all, the state is mak­ing an extra-spe­cial effort on Shel­l’s behalf here in Co. Mayo.

—-

Pat & Jonathan O’Don­nell Arrest­ed and Boats Com­man­deered by Gar­dai As Soli­taire’s Arrival Immi­nent

June 25 2009

Fish­er­men arrest­ed for the crime of fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay

In a reprise of last year’s repeat­ed arrests on the waters of Broad­haven Bay, Shel­l’s Gar­dai have arrest­ed Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan while they were fish­ing in Broad­haven Bay this morn­ing. Their two boats were com­man­deered by Gar­dai and brought to Bal­ly­glass pier under tow and naval escort. Gar­dai claim that the two boats were ‘loi­ter­ing’, the new term for crim­i­nal­is­ing fish­er­men exer­cis­ing their rights to fish in their native waters. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is cur­rent­ly still on the water in the bay fish­ing in his boat. Mean­while the Soli­taire is less than an hour away from arriv­ing off Glen­gad.

Ear­li­er this morn­ing Pat and Jonathan O’Don­nell were arrest­ed by Gar­dai while exer­cis­ing their right to fish in Broad­haven Bay, waters that Pat and his fam­i­ly have fished for five gen­er­a­tions. Gar­dai board­ed the O’Don­nells’ two ves­sels, arrest­ed the men for ‘loi­ter­ing’, and brought their ves­sels under tow and naval escort to the near­by pier at Bal­ly­glass. All this hap­pened while Pat and his boat was under Gar­da ‘pro­tec­tion’. Jonathan has been tak­en to Bal­li­na Gar­da sta­tion, but there is no word as yet of where Pat is detained. Pat’s broth­er Mar­tin is still fish­ing in the bay at the time of writ­ing.

In anoth­er devel­op­ment, a mixed group of thir­ty-five reg­u­lar and pub­lic order Gar­dai have tak­en up a posi­tion on the beach adja­cent to the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, pre­sum­ably in an attempt to pre­vent actions hap­pen­ing on the water today. When the Gar­dai were asked by campers and locals what law­ful author­i­ty they had to do this they were not answered by any Gar­da.

The pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire is due to arrive in Broad­haven Bay in an hour or so, as of the time of writ­ing. The arrest of the fish­er­men and their pro­cess­ing by Gar­dai in dis­tant sta­tions is a bla­tant attempt to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project works in the bay with every under­hand­ed method at their dis­pos­al. If there ever was a time to get to Mayo to sup­port this com­mu­ni­ty fight­ing back against state cor­rup­tion and cor­po­rate greed it is now!

Solitaire Arrives in Rossport

25.6.2009
The Soli­taire, the huge pip lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

25.6.2009
The Soli­taire, the huge pip lay­ing ship, that will lay the pipeline in Broad­haven Bay has arrived. If you were think­ing of com­ing to Ross­port this sum­mer now is the time. Resis­tance con­tin­ues whilst 200 Gar­dai and the Irish Navy are draft­ed in to facil­i­tate Shel­l’s project.

Soli­taire on the horizon,more arrests — the resis­tance con­tin­ues — Sol­i­dar­i­ty!

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force

As the Soli­taires arrival looms large,the state ups the pres­sure with more friv­o­lous arrests

At approx­i­mate­ly 5.30pm on Wednes­day, two swim­mers were arrest­ed in Broad­haven Bay by the joint Gar­daí and Naval force, for oppos­ing Shel­l’s Cor­rib Gas Project. Both were quite a dis­tance out­side of Shel­l’s so-called ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the Bay when they were arrest­ed by Gar­dai jump­ing towards them from RIBs (Rigid Inflat­able Boats). The protest was against prepara­to­ry cable work being done before the arrival of the Soli­taire. Nei­ther pro­test­er was close to any machin­ery, or stop­ping any work from tak­ing place. This brings to 22 the num­ber of peo­ple arrest­ed this month for oppos­ing Shell.

This forms part of a larg­er pat­tern of arbi­trary arrest, through which Gar­dai are seek­ing to repress peace­ful protest against Shel­l’s dis­as­trous Cor­rib Gas Project. Recent weeks have seen dra­con­ian attempts to remand first-time offend­ers to cus­tody for rel­a­tive­ly minor offences, along with very high bail mon­ey being demand­ed for pro­test­ers. The attempt­ed crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cam­paign­ers rais­es very seri­ous ques­tions about civ­il lib­er­ties and the infring­ing on the right to protest.

Shell to Sea spokesper­son Mau­ra Har­ring­ton said: “The hun­dreds of Gar­dai and Naval per­son­nel draft­ed into the area in the last 48 hours shows just how far the gov­ern­ment will go to facil­i­tate Shell, despite the fact that this project is com­plete­ly against the inter­ests of the peo­ple of this coun­try. These lat­est arrests are mere­ly the Gar­daí and Navy try­ing to jus­ti­fy the immense and total­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate force that has been sent down by the State to force this project through”

LE Emer is cur­rent­ly sta­tioned in Broad­haven Bay and Navy RIBs crewed by Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel are cur­rent­ly being used against pro­tes­tors.

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