Category: Rest of Europe

Rest of Europe

Rossport: 150 people attempt to take down Shell’s compound

On Sat­ur­day 9th May approx 150 S2S sup­port­ers both from across the coun­try and with­in the local com­mu­ni­ty have made a sus­tained effort to halt the ongo­ing work at the head of the pro­posed Shell pipeline at its site in Glen­gad. Peo­ple of all ages par­tic­pat­ed in the action, where ropes and chains where used to attempt to pull down the out­er fenc­ing of the site.

On Sat­ur­day 9th May approx 150 S2S sup­port­ers both from across the coun­try and with­in the local com­mu­ni­ty have made a sus­tained effort to halt the ongo­ing work at the head of the pro­posed Shell pipeline at its site in Glen­gad. Peo­ple of all ages par­tic­pat­ed in the action, where ropes and chains where used to attempt to pull down the out­er fenc­ing of the site. These effort have so far been repulsed by a very large secu­ri­ty oper­a­tion from both the state and pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm IRM secu­ri­ty. There is in excess of 150 gar­da, incud­ing the noto­ri­ous pub­lic order units. Most are post­ed and lined out at the out­side rear of the com­pound, com­pli­ment­ed on the inside by a fur­ther 100 hired hands IRM Secu­ri­ty

At present there have been some “arrests ” of sup­port­ers at tonight action so far. Fig­ures at present range from 6–8. These peo­ple are being phys­i­cal­ly detained but the cops are refus­ing to offi­cial­ly arrest them, or at least refus­ing to com­ment pub­li­cal­ly that the arrests have been made, and won’t tell observers which Gar­da sta­tion those detained are being tak­en to. Gar­da seem to be delib­er­ate tar­get­ing peo­ple from out­side the local area, and avoid­ing arrest­ing local mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. It has been sug­gest­ed that this make much bet­ter media cov­er­age, no doubt some of which we will see in tomor­row papers. There is a prison van, the type used to car­ry pris­on­sers to court, inside the com­pound where Shell and secu­ri­ty staff work. Whilst there is move­ment of cops in and out of the van, it is unclear if peo­ple are being detained in it at the moment.

The sit­u­a­tion has been described by one sup­port­er as calm, though there are con­ti­n­ung skir­mish­es as peo­ple attempt to dis­rupt the ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sial and devi­sive work being car­ried out by Shell again­ist the wish­es of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

EUROFLASHMOB: EUROPE UNITED AGAINST AIRPORT EXPANSION

Sat­ur­day 16 May 2009. The day of the Euro­vi­sion Song Con­test.
12 noon on the dot at Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 1 Depar­tures.
www.euroflashmob.com.

Join Heathrow Flash­mob­bers in a Europe-wide Flash Mob – tak­ing place on the same day at 6 air­ports across Europe.

Euroflashmob logoSat­ur­day 16 May 2009. The day of the Euro­vi­sion Song Con­test.
12 noon on the dot at Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 1 Depar­tures.
www.euroflashmob.com.

Join Heathrow Flash­mob­bers in a Europe-wide Flash Mob – tak­ing place on the same day at 6 air­ports across Europe.

Flash Heathrow! Flash Paris! Flash Frank­furt! Flash Schipol! Flash Brus­sels! Flash Dublin!

Each flash­mob will be singing Euro­vi­sion clas­sics (song-sheets pro­vid­ed), so down­load your favourite euro­vi­sion song onto your ipod or phone and bring your friends, instru­ments, hats, wigs, and your danc­ing shoes and let’s par­ty.

Now for the seri­ous bit: air­port expan­sion is seri­ous­ly bad for local peo­ple, increased noise, air pol­lu­tion, and espe­cial­ly the cli­mate. The avi­a­tion indus­try want to expand air­ports across the UK and Europe, but oppo­si­tion is huge, and the sci­en­tists are telling us we have to dras­ti­cal­ly cut emis­sions if we are to beat cli­mate change. Flash­mobs are a fun way to high­light the real oppo­si­tion there is to expan­sion at air­ports across Europe. Here’s anoth­er big chance to show our oppo­si­tion to a 3rd run­way at Heathrow.

See you in Heathrow Ter­mi­nal 1 Depar­tures at 12 noon on the dot!

Tell BAA to get in tune: No Third Run­way.

www.euroflashmob.com

Shell compound in glengad is currently being removed and Remove Shell’s Illegal Fences — National Day of Action 9 May — CALL OUT

May 3, 2009
Direct action against Shell in Mayo

Glengad fence pulling down 2Glengad fence pulling down 1May 3, 2009
Direct action against Shell in Mayo
Around 100 mem­bers of the Erris com­mu­ni­ty are cur­rent­ly remov­ing shel­l’s ille­gal fenc­ing in Glen­gadd. Whilst some peo­ple have locked onto the fence more have thrown ropes over oth­er sec­tions of the fence and are attempt­ing to pull the pal­lisade fenc­ing down. The pri­vate secu­ri­ty firm IRMS (with links to euro­pean fas­cists) have a heavy pres­ence and are attempt­ing to cut the ropes.
A gar­da pres­ence is start­ing to assem­ble. The mood is pos­i­tive.

This is the third time in ten days Shel­l’s com­pound has faced direct action from the com­mu­ni­ty

—-

Sat­ur­day 9th May, 2009 at 6pm — Day of Action — Sup­port Need­ed to Remove Shell Fences from Glen­gad.

Tear­ing Down the Bar­ri­cades
This is a Call Out from the unit­ed com­mu­ni­ty of Erris Co Mayo to all our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sup­port­ers, ask­ing you to come to Glen­gad this com­ing Sat­ur­day 9th May at 6pm in the evening, on a Day of Action to help us remove Shel­l’s ille­gal fences from the area.

As you know, Shell returned to Glen­gad with fences and machin­ery on Wednes­day 22nd April, with force and vio­lence. Since then there have been a num­ber of attempts at remov­ing the fences and stop­ping the work, with a mix­ture of fail­ure and suc­cess.

As you can see from the pho­tos and footage below, the will is clear­ly there to fight Shell, in spite of the fact that large num­bers of Shell secu­ri­ty and Gar­dai have been draft­ed into the area. But what is also clear is that num­bers are need­ed to achieve suc­cess. Num­bers, Peo­ple, Bod­ies. That means you. Please come.

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Con­tact Details: Phone 085 1141170 or email ross­port­sol­i­dar­i­ty­camp (at) gmail (dot) com
By way of back­ground to the cur­rent mood in Erris, let’s remind our­selves of 2 key recent events.

In the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day 13rd April, Shell mer­ce­nar­ies vicious­ly attacked Willie Cor­duff with­in the con­fines of the Shell com­pound.

On Thurs­day 30th April at a com­mu­ni­ty meet­ing with Min­is­ters Eamon Ryan and Eamon O’Cuiv, peo­ple realised that try­ing to ‘talk’ to these guys was a fruit­less exer­cise. There were calls from all cor­ners of the com­mu­ni­ty for civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, the phys­i­cal stop­ping of the project and the tak­ing of the ‘law into our own hands’, when the min­is­ters refused to invite Shell to pull back to allow breath­ing space to resolve the con­flict.

This is seri­ous stuff. The mood in Erris now is that peo­ple are will­ing to pay any price to Stop Shell, and to take action accord­ing­ly.

But we need sup­port, in num­bers, to achieve the crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple required to be effec­tive. To be effec­tive in pulling down Shell fences in order to remove them.

This protest is about tak­ing direct action against the Shell machine and remov­ing it from Glen­gad.

The pic­tures and footage includ­ed in this arti­cle, which show local peo­ple attempt­ing to remove fences today, demon­strate that Action has begun in earnest this Spring and will con­tin­ue in the com­ing weeks and months. But it’s going to be a bat­tle, when faced, like today, with strong fences and large num­bers of Shell secu­ri­ty and Gar­dai. A sim­i­lar attempt was made last Fri­day by mem­bers of the local com­mu­ni­ty which includ­ed Pobal Le Cheile, Pobal Cill Chomain, the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp and Shell to Sea, but num­bers were lim­it­ed. All groups agreed, at a meet­ing on the ground, that a Nation­al Day of Action next Sat­ur­day 9th May was required to build momen­tum. That is why local peo­ple are call­ing for sup­port, in num­bers, to build strength against the show of force against us.

The weath­er is improv­ing steadi­ly and The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp is being rebuilt near the shore. Peo­ple are wel­come to come and stay at the camp or the camp house. Phone 085 1141170 or email ross­port­sol­i­dar­i­ty­camp (at) gmail (dot) com

Join us in tak­ing action against Shell. Don’t come emp­ty-hand­ed. Please spread the word amongst your friends, groups and net­works.

See you in Glen­gad.

http://www.shelltosea.com

Abseil blockade of nuclear waste train in Germany

An abseil­ing 27-year-old female activist from France held up a train car­ry­ing over 1000 tonnes of ‘deplet­ed’ ura­ni­um through a dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed region of Ger­many for two hours on Mon­day 27 April, the day after the 23rd anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter — the world’s worst ever civ­il nuclear acci­dent.

An abseil­ing 27-year-old female activist from France held up a train car­ry­ing over 1000 tonnes of ‘deplet­ed’ ura­ni­um through a dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed region of Ger­many for two hours on Mon­day 27 April, the day after the 23rd anniver­sary of the Cher­nobyl dis­as­ter — the world’s worst ever civ­il nuclear acci­dent.

A 25-car train half a kilo­me­tre long has just car­ried 1,250 tonnes of deplet­ed ura­ni­um through the most dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed region of Ger­many – des­ti­na­tion unknown, pre­sum­ably France. The train left Germany’s only ura­ni­um enrich­ment plant at Gronau (52° 12′, 160 km south of Ham­burg) in the night from 27 to 28 April. Usu­al­ly trains from the Ger­man-Dutch-British-owned enrich­ment plant close to the city of Mün­ster and the Dutch bor­der have tak­en deplet­ed ura­ni­um to Rot­ter­dam for ship­ment to Rus­sia, where it’s been dumped in the open air.

The Ure­n­co com­pa­ny is extreme­ly secre­tive about the trans­ports. This time jour­nal­ists were told by fed­er­al police that the train head­ed for Duis­burg and on to France.

That would have tak­en the dan­ger­ous car­go through the dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed Ruhr and Rhineland areas – if the police infor­ma­tion is cor­rect.

Anti-nuclear activists say they can only spec­u­late what’s to be done with the ura­ni­um waste in France.

They expect it will be processed into ura­ni­um oxide in the Pier­re­lat­te nuclear cen­tre to make it eas­i­er to store. Con­struc­tion of an inter­im stor­age for ura­ni­um oxide has been approved. Activists say it could be decades before the waste is returned to Ger­many.
Very close to Pier­re­lat­te are four pres­surised water reac­tors at Tri­c­as­tin, where ura­ni­um was found in ground water last sum­mer.

The train from Gronau was held up by two hours because a female French activist who lives in Ger­many, 27-year-old Cécile Lecomte, had abseiled over the tracks from a road over­pass. She and oth­er climbers have made such a name for them­selves in dis­rupt­ing nuclear trans­ports that police now always have climb­ing spe­cial­ists along on the trains to take the pro­test­ers down.

In Jan­u­ary last year Lecomte held up a train for near­ly sev­en hours by abseil­ing over its route. This most recent climb­ing action was her third in one and a half years on this non-elec­tri­fied sec­tion of rail­way.

The protest a day after the Cher­nobyl anniver­sary got some pub­lic atten­tion from a demon­stra­tion at Mün­ster cen­tral sta­tion and near the abseil­ing over­pass.

“The aim is to reveal the secret atom­ic trans­ports from the Gronau ura­ni­um enrich­ment plant and to draw people’s atten­tion to the pol­i­cy of Ure­n­co,” she writes. ( http://de.indymedia.org/2009/04/248604.shtml )

“Ure­n­co does not inform peo­ple about these trans­ports and the dan­gers con­nect­ed with them. On the con­trary, peo­ple only get to hear about them when atom­ic pow­er oppo­nents man­age to expose the depar­ture of atom­ic trans­ports by days of pre­cise obser­va­tion. It was first thought [the most recent] con­sign­ment was going to Rus­sia.”

Lecomte writes that she means her action to be a sig­nal against atom­ic pol­i­cy in gen­er­al and expan­sion of the Gronau enrich­ment plant in par­tic­u­lar.

“Radioac­tiv­i­ty knows no bor­ders. What kind of an end to atom­ic pow­er is it if Gronau is expand­ed, there­by sup­port­ing the con­struc­tion of new nuclear plants — such as the EPR in Fla­manville, France – by sup­ply­ing the prod­uct to pow­er sta­tions all over the globe.

“The waste is cart­ed right across Europe in secret trans­ports. That is no solu­tion to the nuclear waste prob­lem. On the con­trary, the pop­u­la­tion is exposed to ever more dan­gers, the envi­ron­ment is pol­lut­ed ever more.

“Atom­ic instal­la­tions need to be switched off imme­di­ate­ly,” Lecomte writes.

Pic­tures of the abseil­ing at http://www.anti-atom-aktuell.de/fotos/2009–04-27_uranzugstopp-haeger/. More about Lecomte’s climb­ing protests at http://www.eichhoernchen.ouvaton.org/deutsch/anti-atom/Luftakrobatik-Atomtransporte.html .

Report from Indy­media Ger­many: http://de.indymedia.org/2009/04/248655.shtml

Whaling Ship Sunk Again by Agenda 21 in Norway & Marine Monkeywrenching Guide

On the evening of the 23rd of April, Agen­da 21 snuck onto a Nor­we­gian whal­ing ship mak­ing repairs, flood­ing the engine room and scut­tling the ship to delay the 2009 killing sea­son.

On the evening of the 23rd of April, Agen­da 21 snuck onto a Nor­we­gian whal­ing ship mak­ing repairs, flood­ing the engine room and scut­tling the ship to delay the 2009 killing sea­son.

anony­mous com­mu­nique:

“APRIL 24, 2009
HENNINGSVAER, NORWAY — WHALING SHIP SUNK

ON THE EVENING OF THE 23RD OF APRIL WE SNUCK ONTO A NORWEGIAN WHALING SHIP MAKING REPAIRS IN THE LOFOTEN ISLANDS IN
PREPARATION FOR THE 2009 WHALING SEASON. TO DELAY THE KILLING SEASON AND TO PROTEST THE CONTINUED ILLEGAL EXPORT OF WHALE MEAT TO JAPAN WE DISASSEMBLED A VALVE AND FLOODED THE ENGINE ROOM. UNFORTUNATELY LOCAL FIREFIGHTERS WERE ABLE TO RESPOND JUST MOMENTS BEFORE THE SHIP SETTLED ON THE BOTTOM BUT NOT BEFORE THE SHIP HAD ALREADY BEEN COMPLETELY FILLED WITH SEA WATER AND THE DAMAGE DONE. FOR BOTH FISHERIES INVESTORS IN TOKYO AND INSURANCE UNDERWRITERS IN OSLO INVESTING IN THE NORWEGIAN WHALING INDUSTRY CAN ONLY LEAD TO SUNKEN PROFITS. AS A DIRECT RESULT OF A GROWING INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES WE CAME TO HENNINGSVAER. WE SAW THE SKARBAKK.

WE SANK THE BASTARD. ‑AGENDA 21″

Source — http://www.directaction.info/news_apr25_09.htm

Pre­vi­ous action
Com­mu­nique — http://www.directaction.info/news_sep11_07.htm
Pic­tures — http://www.directaction.info/news_sep03_07.htm
Vic­to­ry — http://www.directaction.info/news_oct21_07.htm

More info — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_21

—-

Check out the Marine Mon­key­wrench­ing Guide

3 Lappersfort occupiers released, with deportation notices

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009.

Yes­ter­day (fri­day 24th april) the 3 Lap­pers­fort occu­piers arrest­ed on tues­day night were released (orig­i­nal arti­cle about arrest http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22493). Upon sign­ing out of the Brugge prison they were all issued with depor­ta­tion notices, order­ing them to leave the “King­dom of Bel­gium” by mid­night on the 29.04.2009. One of them signed the paper after being threat­ened with being sent back into the cell if refus­ing. The oth­er two refused to sign the paper and were still released, but as yet we’re not sure if the depor­ta­tion notice has any legal grounds or not. Obvi­ous­ly the pigs are using their socalled “posi­tion of author­i­ty” to intim­i­date the occu­piers and those sup­port­ing them, and this attempt­ed depor­ta­tion is sim­ply an extreme and over-the-top expres­sion of their desire to be rid of us before the issues of the lap­pers­fort, of “zonevreemde” forests and police repres­sion get too big for them to han­dle. The notice itself seems extrem­ly dodgy, it has only been signed by the prison direc­tor, refers from a law from 1980, and one is issued with­out the offi­cial name of the per­son to be deport­ed. But these days here in Brugge noth­ing is sur­pris­ing any­more, and the police may take this “chance” to raid the camp to find the “ille­gal” peo­ple there. The facist pig-pro­tec­tors of the “Bel­gian Reich” are again flex­ing their lit­tle mus­cles, and this one case is anoth­er exam­ple of the facism of “fortress Europe” and its pro­tec­tors, and the vio­lent repres­sion prac­tised against those who show any form of resis­tance. Resort­ing to such mea­sures only shows us that the police here feel threat­ened by our pres­ence in the for­est.
Mean­while the pigs still have the ID’s and belong­ings of many peo­ple, and we’re try­ing to find out whether the raid at a local friends house on wen­des­day after­noon was legal or not, and whether or not we have a legal case against the Brugge police. (For orig­i­nal arti­cle about raid http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/22512).
Fol­low­ing the release of the 3 we now know more about their arrest on tues­day. At least 6–10 pig­gies had been wait­ing in the bush­es, some dressed in cam­ou­flage and black, some in uni­form, some with bal­a­clavas and at least one dog. They came from behind the bush­es and trees from all direc­tions in a pathet­ic hol­ly­wood-style ambush, vio­lent­ly forc­ing 3 peo­ple to the ground, twist­ing their arms and using pres­sure-points. Fin­ger­prints and pho­tos were tak­en, and after the raid the pigs man­aged to pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy one of the 3. The cop­pers here are using their tac­tics of kid­nap­ping, ambush, vio­lence and lies to crush our camp, our cam­paign, and to make oth­ers afraid of com­ing to vis­it, show sup­port or move in. Spring is hap­pen­ing, and we are try­ing to get ready for a busy sum­mer of cam­paign­ing and actions, despite con­stant police harass­ment. Just last night, while we cel­e­brat­ed the release of our friends, 3 peo­ple were forced to run from police after return­ing to the camp from col­lect­ing bread from a local bak­ery sup­port­ing the occu­piers. The pig­gies, obvi­ous­ly with noth­ing bet­ter to do, wait­ed long in to the night, keep­ing a close eye on the bag of bread dumped in the bush­es by the 3 forced to flee. Upon return­ing to get it lat­er, the sil­ly bug­gers were still wait­ing, but the peo­ple man­aged to get away. Our crim­i­nal bread is now back on site and being enjoyed by all.…
The camp, in this time of police sur­veil­lance and harass­ment and all the rest of it, require a few things which could be very helpful.…Lappersfort wish­list: peo­ple with legal knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence, espe­cial­ly immi­gra­tion law
com­put­er freak to help updat­ing and renew­ing old and neglect­ed web­site
most of all we need more peo­ple in the for­est, to come by and stay as long as they want, to move in and to take part in the camp itself (all peo­ple com­ing over should be aware how­ev­er of strong police pres­ence around the for­est)
please phone for anything.……(++32 741/65.85.44)

Rossport Solidarity Camp Summer Gathering May 29th-June 1st

The RSC June bank hol­i­day gath­er­ing is back! From the 29th may till the 1st June we will be hold­ing a gath­er­ing com­bin­ing info shar­ing, direct action train­ing, music and fun…

Last year resis­tance in Mayo was incred­i­ble; the Soli­taire pipe lay­ing ship was forced to leave Irish waters with no pipeline laid! This year resis­tance con­tin­ues, and the ship will be forced to leave once again. Come to the gath­er­ing to find out more about the cam­paign, share skills and make plans for anoth­er sum­mer of action.…

Glengad bannerThe RSC June bank hol­i­day gath­er­ing is back! From the 29th may till the 1st June we will be hold­ing a gath­er­ing com­bin­ing info shar­ing, direct action train­ing, music and fun…

Last year resis­tance in Mayo was incred­i­ble; the Soli­taire pipe lay­ing ship was forced to leave Irish waters with no pipeline laid! This year resis­tance con­tin­ues, and the ship will be forced to leave once again. Come to the gath­er­ing to find out more about the cam­paign, share skills and make plans for anoth­er sum­mer of action.…

Work­shops con­firmed include: his­to­ry of the cam­paign, tour of the local area, draw­ing links with the Saro Wiwa vs. Shell tri­al in New York, direct action train­ing for land and water based action, know­ing your legal rights, facil­i­ta­tion train­ing, health, safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal impacts of the Cor­rib project, Cor­rib and cli­mate change: Shell to Sea or Shell to hell? and per­ma­cul­ture. If you are inter­est­ed in giv­ing a work­shop, want to play music, are inter­est­ed in run­ning a creche, want to help with the kitchen crew or think you can help in some oth­er way, please get in touch to dis­cuss your ideas.

The gath­er­ing will be a camp based on the coast in Glen­gad. You will need to bring camp­ing equip­ment for sleep­ing (althought there is the RSC house avail­able for any­one who is unable to camp). Meals will be pro­vid­ed.

For more infor­ma­tion con­tact the RSC on rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com or 0851141170.

Shell security attack Willie Corduff after illegal Glengad compound dismantled

23.04.2009
Shel­l’s ille­gal Glen­gad com­pound was dis­man­tled last night and Gold­man win­ner, Willie Cor­duff was assault­ed by masked Shell secu­ri­ty dur­ing truck protest.

Glengad compound fence torn down23.04.2009
Shel­l’s ille­gal Glen­gad com­pound was dis­man­tled last night and Gold­man win­ner, Willie Cor­duff was assault­ed by masked Shell secu­ri­ty dur­ing truck protest.
Yes­ter­day Shell’s attempts to restart their works on the Cor­rib Gas project were ground to a halt after only eight hours. At 6–30 a work­force of about 20, backed up by around 50 pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards erect­ed fences to re-estab­lish a com­pound. This com­pound is the would-be on-shore pipe instal­la­tion base. Works were seri­ous­ly ham­pered when local peo­ple and sol­i­dar­i­ty camp activists occu­pied machin­ery.

By 4 o clock Ross­port Five mem­ber Willie Cor­duff was still refus­ing to leave the from under the truck, which he had occu­pied in the com­pound and all work had ground to a halt. Shell were unable to con­tin­ue as Willie was pre­vent­ing nec­es­sary equip­ment being used.

As the evening drew to a close Willie was res­olute that he would stay and the com­mu­ni­ty ral­lied around in sup­port. Through­out the evening sup­port­ers gath­ered at the com­pound to show sup­port for the cam­paign and Willie Corduff’s stand bring­ing blan­kets and hot water bot­tles.

As the crowd gath­ered ten­sions rose as Erris peo­ple saw first hand Shell’s attempt to dev­as­tate their com­mu­ni­ty for a tenth year in a row. The fence beside the truck where Willie was posi­tioned was removed and the activists made their way to Willie to ensure he was ok. Soon the entire south­ern exte­ri­or perime­ter was dis­man­tled. Shell’s ini­tial works were almost undone.

At this point peo­ple returned to see Willie who was cold and still but all things con­sid­ered was in good spir­its. Erris activists had checked Shell’s attempts to restart work. Peo­ple sat around talk­ing and were in high spir­its.

Pro­test­ers Attacked

Around 3am the vig­il of sup­port­ers were gath­ered on the road and Willie was accom­pa­nied at the truck only by his broth­er- in-law. Willie had briefly got­ten out from under the truck to stretch his legs. The two men were stand­ing beside the truck when up to ten Shell secu­ri­ty per­son­nel in black and wear­ing bal­a­clavas “appeared out of nowhere”. The men pushed Willie to the ground and start­ed kick­ing him and hit­ting him with a heavy object that appeared to be a baton or torch. They knelt on his head and twist­ed his arms behind his back as they beat him. His broth­er-in-law attempt­ed to aid Willie but was pushed back repeat­ed­ly and forcibly removed by the masked Shell secu­ri­ty into an adja­cent field where he was then knocked to the ground, kicked and beat­en.

A Shell medic stayed with Willie for a peri­od. Local peo­ple, who arrived on the scene short­ly after the two men were assault­ed, were so fright­ened of the Shell secu­ri­ty per­son­nel that they called the Gar­daí who were patrolling the area. Willie was removed by an ambu­lance to Castle­bar Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he is being treat­ed for nau­sea and severe bruis­ing to the head and body. A Gar­da state­ment con­firmed the iden­ti­ty of Willie and his brother-in-law’s attack­ers stat­ing that “A pro­test­er [Willie] who was present on the site since yes­ter­day was this morn­ing removed from the com­pound by secu­ri­ty staff.”

Works as we write appears to be sus­pend­ed. Willie Cor­duff is in hos­pi­tal, the area is on a knife-edge as a mix­ture of fear and anger brews.

Peo­ple are urged to trav­el to Erris now to stand with Erris peo­ple to make a stand against Shell.

Lappersfort- Police out of control

Fol­low­ing the ambush & arrest of 3 lap­pers­fort occu­piers on the night of 21st April, the Brugge police yes­ter­day con­duct­ed a raid on the house of a local sym­pa­this­er.

Fol­low­ing the ambush & arrest of 3 lap­pers­fort occu­piers on the night of 21st April, the Brugge police yes­ter­day con­duct­ed a raid on the house of a local sym­pa­this­er. Atleast 6 pigs entered the home after show­ing a war­rant, and took with them many per­son­al items from the occu­piers, includ­ing pass­ports, oth­er forms of ID and even per­son­al let­ters and jour­nals. The police are tak­ing every oppor­tu­ni­ty to weak­en local sup­port through the media cir­cus and also to gath­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the occu­piers. The belief is that they are gath­er­ing the id’s in order to be able to charge peo­ple with the costs of the evic­tion (after evic­tion in 2002, 13 occu­pi­er who had giv­en their names were threat­ened with hav­ing to pay the evic­tion costs of 50,000euros if they are caught again in the for­est) . We aren’t sure if this means the evic­tion is com­ing any soon­er now, but the camp is under con­stant evic­tion threat. There is some spec­u­la­tion as to whether or not the police raid yes­ter­day was done legal­ly or not, and also whether or not they will take the next step of raid­ing the camp….

Mean­while 3 of our friends are still sit­ting in prison in brugge and will face the judge tomor­row. They are accused of scrap­ing some words in wet con­crete, which the pigs have decid­ed deserves the offi­cial charge of “destroy­ing the road”. We are obvi­ous­ly hop­ing they will all be released tomor­row, but the cour­t­house here in Brugge has a rep­u­ta­tion for lock­ing up lap­pers­forters for any­thing they pos­si­bly can. One local paper also report­ed that the secu­ri­ty and dogs who ambushed and arrest­ed the 3 on Tues­day night were request­ed by the may­or him­self.

Life in the for­est is get­ting some­times dif­fi­cult, and the pigs are obvi­ous­ly using their tac­tics of intim­i­da­tion, fear and repres­sion to demor­alise the camp and cause divi­sion between the occu­piers and the local com­mu­ni­ty. But the camp and the cam­paign goes on, spring is hap­pen­ing, and more humans are always wished for and welcome….we wont let the pig­gies stop us, or even slow us down…

Shell return to Glengad in force

Pro­tes­tors beat­en by Gar­dai

22nd April 2009 UPDATE UPDATE
Today’s fenc­ing (and gates?) in Glen­gad is right now being removed by the com­mu­ni­ty.

Shell returned in force today to Glen­gad, arriv­ing about 6.45, by about 7 pro­test­ers from the com­mu­ni­ty and camp had start­ed to gath­er.

Pro­tes­tors beat­en by Gar­dai

22nd April 2009 UPDATE UPDATE
Shell's fencingToday’s fenc­ing (and gates?) in Glen­gad is right now being removed by the com­mu­ni­ty.

Shell returned in force today to Glen­gad, arriv­ing about 6.45, by about 7 pro­test­ers from the com­mu­ni­ty and camp had start­ed to gath­er.

On and under the fencing lorryWillie Cor­duff, Gold­man Envi­ron­men­tal Award Win­ner and 2 oth­ers climbed under a truck car­ry­ing pal­isade fenc­ing on the SAC. A camper climbed onto a tele­scop­ic loader, lat­er chang­ing to a 20t excavator/digger used for lift­ing the fenc­ing pan­els.
9 hour digger sit
Mau­ra Har­ring­ton par­tial­ly blocked the front entrance of the com­pound with her car, and through­out the day many folk jumped the fence and tried to stop the destruc­tion of this pris­tine habi­tat.

Shell had dozens of secu­ri­ty and dozens of work­ers, but were severe­ly ham­pered in their activ­i­ties by stiff local resis­tance. The occu­pa­tion of truck and dig­ger meant that they had only lim­it­ed resources for their work, but in the late after­noon they had anoth­er dig­ger and anoth­er truck load of fenc­ing dropped to site.

The Gar­dai tried to talk the dig­ger jumper and Wille & co out but to no avail, they sim­ply kept stat­ing that they want­ed to see Shell’s per­mis­sions to be car­ry­ing out the work. When this failed they took a more direct approach with the men under the lor­ry. They man­aged to pull Willie’s boots off and stared twist­ing his toes, they threw stones at them and beat Willie on the ankle with a rock, while anoth­er lor­ry pro­tes­tor had his had repeat­ed­ly banged off the ground by a thug mas­querad­ing as a Inspec­tor. Willie was also scratched and stuck in the pri­vates by Gar­dai.
Gardai getting under lorry
As the hours ticked by the Gar­dai had Maura’s car towed by plant hire own­er Carey. After 9hrs on the dig­ger the camper was grabbed by secu­ri­ty and forcibly pulled off, severe­ly bruis­ing his legs and arm. The oth­er 2 peo­ple under the lor­ry spent approx 8hrs under it.

The weath­er turned nasty with gale force winds and dri­ving rain, which made life dif­fi­cult for pro­test­ers and work­ers alike.

This evening Willie remains under the lor­ry and the Gar­dai have left. Anoth­er man man­aged to get under the lor­ry with Willie this evening. There is a large secu­ri­ty force still in Glen­gad, with a crowd form­ing of solemn pro­test­ers stand­ing near Willie in the dark but the sit­u­a­tion still seems poten­tial­ly volatile. Rumour is that sev­er­al fire brigade units are on their way to lift the lor­ry and remove him.

The local radio sta­tion, Mid­west Radio, have been open­ly call­ing in their news for Shell to pro­duce doc­u­men­ta­tion to the effect that they have the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions to work in Glen­gad which they don’t seem to have.

Around noon or so the por­taloos that Shell had dropped on the SAC blew over and all their chem­i­cals poured out onto the SAC, no attempt was made to clean up the chem­i­cal spill and the por­taloos were only stood up again about 7pm.

Today Shell even­tu­al­ly man­aged to put up large front gates and cre­ate the top com­pound sec­tion with a 2nd set of gates lead­ing down into the SAC.

Despite telling 1 or 2 peo­ple they were arrest­ed no arrests were made.

Peo­ple are frus­trat­ed & angry but deter­mined, they need all the help they can get, so now is the time to get to Erris if you can, for what­ev­er sup­port you can give.