Rest of Europe – Page 9

Occupation of Minvest Deva Headquarters in Romania

3/2/14

Nine activists from Romania and Germany climbed the fire escape of Minvest Deva’s headquarters today and unfurled two thirty-foot-long banners calling for a ban on cyanide mining. They were fined 500 lei each, but declared they would not pay.

3/2/14

The banners read, “Respect Existance or Expect Resistance,” “Mining with Cyanide Causes Death!” and other slogans

The activists chose Minvest Deva due to conflict of interest. According to one activist named Mihnea Blidariu who was involved in the banner drops, ”The current Director of Deva Gold , Mr Nicolae Stanca, is the same person who in 1987 signed the Association Agreement between Gabriel Resources and the Romanian state.”

The full statement from the group is below (from Revolution Sociale)

“Today, the 3rd of February 2014, we, citizens of Romania and Germany have occupied Minvest Deva headquarters in order to draw attention at the illegal and illegitimate favoring of mining companies by the Romanian state authorities.

We denounce the cyanide based mining projects from Certej, Deva-Muncel, Băiţa Crăciunești, Brad, Rovina și Roșia Montană, projects that have destructive effects towards nature and humans and can only start with no regard of legal procedures.

Only at Certej, in 16 years of operation 26.448 tons of sodium cyanide and 15.280 tons of copper sulphate would be used. Large-scale cyanide use does not bring prosperity to a community, only death and the impossibility to develop other economic activities. We denounce deeds that reek of corruption, conflict of interests and abuses of Nicolae Stanca, current director at Deva Gold. He has signed, in the name of the Romanian state, the associating documents between Minvest Deva and Gabriel Resources in 1997, then being employed by the controverted businessman Frank Timis.

We condemn the government’s intention to bring forward to the parliament a new mining law, we condemn the irresponsible and undignified attitude of the Minister of Environment, Rovana Plumb, and ask for her resignation. We warn prime-minister Victor Ponta that a new attempt to pass the mining law with absurd stipulations that only serve the interests of the mining industry will not remain without consequences. In his urgency and pressure on the parliamentarians to make forced expropriation of citizens by private companies legal he is doing exactly the opposite of what the public opinion wants. As the events of last year have demonstrated, illegitimate support of mining companies is not backed up by parliament (two legislative attempts have failed last year), nor by the tens of thousands of people that have gone to the streets in 2013.

Last but not least, we wish to draw attention to the total abandon of morality by political people such as Dan Șova or Rovana Plumb. Dan Șova, from the government table proposes legal solutions for mining projects of his mother’s law clients. Cyanide-based projects are then passed to be evaluated to his colleague minister, Rovana Plumb, who will do anything to see them approved, including dropping charges in court.

We ask the citizens of Romania to inform themselves correctly about the many drawbacks of mining projects and remember the horrible ecological accidents at Certej in 1971 and Baia Mare in 2000. We do not want such tragedies to be repeated! We show our solidarity with movements around the world that struggle against such destructive mining projects: Kremnica (Slovakia), Halkidiki (Greece), Corcoesto (Spain), Salave Asturias (Spain), Bergama (Turkey), Kumtor (Kyrgyzstan), Talvivaara (Finland).

Respect existence or expect resistance!
Romania without cyanide!

Live update pe mobil: http://goo.gl/RnJUsl
Live update pe Vice: @MinvestDevaLIVE (this account has now been suspended by Twitter)

Via https://www.facebook.com/rosia.montana.in.unesco

Italy: Police Arrest Four on Terrorism Charges Against High Speed Rail

9th December Police on Monday arrested four alleged anarchists in the northwestern Piedmont and the northern Lombardy regions on terroris

9th December Police on Monday arrested four alleged anarchists in the northwestern Piedmont and the northern Lombardy regions on terrorism charges.

The four suspects were allegedly planning to carry out attacks using explosives against a high-speed train line currently being built between Italy and France, according to investigators.

Prosecutors in Piedmont’s regional capital, Turin ordered the arrests after an attempted attack on 13-14 May at a buiding site in Chiomonte in Piedmont’s Valle De Susa using molotov cocktails.

Work began this year on the main 58-kilometre tunnel, of which 12 km are in Italy, for the 15 billion euro train-link due to go into service around 2023.

The line will cut three hours off the current seven-hour train journey between Paris and Milan.

But it has sparked fierce opposition including from residents, environmental groups and local mayors. Protesters claim drilling to build the train link will damage the local ecosystem and could release potentially harmful substances into the environment.

Dozens have been arrested and hundreds of demonstrators and police injured in violent protests over the high-speed link and scores of environmental activists sent to trial. Far-left ‘black block’ extremists from Italy and other countries have infiltrated the protest movement, acccording to police.

In 2010, a bullet was mailed to Turin mayor Sergio Chiamparino for his support for the project, which Rome has vowed to complete.

Construction of the high-speed link in Italy was brought to a standstill by protests before and after the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006.

Romania Update: Protests Continue as Chevron Restarts Fracking Exploration

9th December Protests against Chevron’s activity in Silistea – Pungesti, northeastern Romanian, area escalated on Saturday, December 6, triggering the American oil and

9th December Protests against Chevron’s activity in Silistea – Pungesti, northeastern Romanian, area escalated on Saturday, December 6, triggering the American oil and gas company to suspend its activity on site.

Protesters destroyed the fence Chevron had built around the 20,000 – sqm land plot at the village outskirts. One day later, however, Chevron re-started their activity on site.

Protests were staged downtown in capital city Bucharest as well, with a peak registered on Sunday evening (December 7), when three protesters were taken into custody by the gendarmes.

Silistea – Pungesti has now been declared a special area for public security, with authorities implementing special measures against violence including placing gendarmes all around the village, according to Romanian media, which has been following the topic all throughout last weekend.

The gendarmes have been checking the documents of everyone visiting the village while villagers have complained of the intrusion, saying gendarmes were in front of every house asking people of their whereabouts.

The group of protesters in Pungesti, some 400 people, were a mix of locals and ecology activists from Iaşi, Bucureşti, Braşov and Sibiu. They initially protested peacefully, but the protest became violent as some of them began throwing stones into Chevron’s vehicles, and tearing down the fence surrounding the exploration site. Footage from the Pungesti protests, here.

Meanwhile, Chevron has again stated that all exploration activities will use conventional technologies based on the permits it received in the beginning of October. “We respect people’s right to express their opinion, but we believe this should be done within the limits of the law,” Chevron wrote in an official statement. The company had started its activity on site in Silistea – Pungesti on December 2, after a first delay earlier in October, also because of local protests.

The protests against exploration for shale case was triggered by concerns that exploration would be harmful to the environment, and coincided with protests against gold mining in Central Romania, at Rosia Montana, where the planned used of cyanide also caused concern.

Direct Action Gets the Goods: Chevron Suspends in Romania

8th December

Chevron has suspended exploration for shale gas in northeastern Romania after hundreds of anti-fracking protesters tore down fences.

8th December

Chevron has suspended exploration for shale gas in northeastern Romania after hundreds of anti-fracking protesters tore down fences.

Chevron won approval to drill exploratory wells in the town of Pungesti, but halted work for a second time Saturday after residents blocked access to the site.

Hundreds of riot police couldn’t prevent residents from demolishing fences and breaking into the site. Dozens were detained and 14 were charged with destruction of property and carrying knives.

Chevron said it had suspended work “as a result of unsafe conditions” and informed police of destruction to its property.

Thousands of people have rallied across Romania in recent months to protest against government support for shale gas exploration. Chevron had resumed work at the site on Dec. 2.

Support Spied Upon, a vital expose film telling the story of activists targeted by secret police

Dear Earth First!ers,

Due to its effective use of creative direct action tactics in recent decades, Earth First! has consistently been a target of state repression and excessive police tactics. Now we are making a film with other environmental activists who have been targeted by undercover police, with the goal of exposing these abusive repression tactics.

"Spied Upon" is an internationally made full-length documentary that uses the outing of former UK undercover cop Mark Kennedy as it's starting point. Kennedy had begun his international operation by targeting Earth First! in the UK in 2003, and had worked across Europe as well as for the FBI for seven-years before being outed by his unknowing activist girlfriend and her circle of Nottingham friends in 2010. Now this woman and a number of other women are suing police bosses in the UK for what has been exposed as a regular undercover police tactic of duping activist women into long-term relationships. Spied Upon is working with some of these women to support them and help them have their story told.

Mark Kennedy turned private in 2010 and started his own security firm as well as saying that he was working for Global Open, a private security firm known to target animal rights activists on behalf of pharmaceutical company clients. It appears as though that is exactly what Kennedy was doing when he went to Italy to spy on an animal liberation gathering in the summer of 2010. He even tried to strengthen his credibility by saying he was an important Earth First! activist, see the video clip here we shot with Italian activists who tell about when they were unknowing targets of Kennedy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx38iZ14nc

State repression has long featured the use of undercover police, but a lesser known use of undercover tactics has been those used by private security firms on behalf of private corporations. These practices construe an intense invasion of privacy that is not even allowed for state undercover police, and this scandal needs to be exposed! We have also uncovered illegal collusion between private and state security forces. This collusion is a key focus of the film Spied Upon, which we are also making as a tool that activists can use to highlight the current problems environmental groups face today.

We plan to release Spied Upon internationally in 2014. However, to do this, we need your support to make this film happen. Our film crew comes from grassroots activism, and we are turning to the grassroots, meaning you, to seek funding. Please take a look at our crowdfunding web-site and teaser video at Indiegogo, and take action to help us please by making a donation if you support our work: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/spied-upon

In solidarity,
The crew at Spied Upon

PS. Lots more info at: www.spiedupon.com

protests and ecotage at road building site in Iceland

28.10.13

[from a maintream newspaper:] Equipment at the Gálgahraun lava field – where construction of a controversial new road is planned – was sabotaged by vandalism last night.

As reported last week, protesters were arrested at the lava fields for refusing to move out of the way of road construction equipment. The proposed road, Álftanesvegur, is planned to pass through a protected lava field, which has prompted public resistance in the form of direct action.

Vísir now reports that construction workers arrived at the site this morning to find that someone (or some people) had poured gravel into the fuel tanks of the machines, rendering them useless.

Lava Friends – the organisation that has protested road construction at Gálgahraun most prominently – denied any involvement with the sabotage, saying, "Lava Friends do not use violence nor ruin the private property of others. Lava Friends speak on behalf of nature, and know that nature will win in the end."

Icelandic road protest – elves and lava fields, Gálgahraun

Lögreglumenn fjarlægja mótmælendur í Gálgahrauni

21.10.2013

A group of protesters, hoping to stop planned road construction through a protected lava field, were arrested by police today. A law professor believes that arrest was premature.

As reported last month, the controversy surrounds the lava fields of Gálgahraun, which is located on the Álftanes peninsula. Although the fields were officially protected in 2009, construction of a new road – Álftanesvegar – was green-lit earlier this month, and will in part go through Gálgahraun.

This has sparked protests that have taken the form of direct action, as protesters put themselves between the lava fields and construction equipment, stopping development before it could begin.

Today, Vísir reports, police officers moved in on the protesters, arresting them, carrying some of them physically away from the site of construction.

Among those arrested was noted journalist and environmentalist Ómar Ragnarsson, as can be seen in this video.

Law professor Sigurður Líndal told Vísir that he believes no arrests should have happened before a court of law has decided whether or not building a road through a protected lava field is even legal.

"It is completely natural that [authorities] wait for a court decision first," district court lawyer Katrín Oddsdóttir said. "I admire people who stand up for this. People should be able to submit such matters before a court of law to have confirmed whether operations that threaten nature are legal."

More photos

Project corruption background

Over to the elves

Romanian Villagers 3-day Occupation Forces Chevron to Stop Fracking

18th October

US energy giant Chevron said Thursday it has suspended shale gas test drilling in northeastern Romania after three days of protests by villagers opposed to fracking.

“Chevron can today confirm it has suspended activities in Silistea, Pungesti commune, Vaslui county,” a press release read.

The move comes a day after Romanian police clashed with villagers who have occupied since Monday a field to prevent Chevron from drilling its first exploration well.

The protesters are afraid of the environmental and health impact of the highly controversial drilling method used to unlock shale gas, called hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’.

The technique consists of pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into deep rock formations to free oil and gas, with environmentalists warning the process may contaminate ground water and even cause small earthquakes.

Chevron has permits to explore for shale gas in three villages in this impoverished part of northeastern Romania as well as on Romania’s Black Sea coast.

“Our priority is to conduct … activities in a safe and environmentally responsible manner consistent with the permits under which we operate,” the group said Wednesday.

RWE Fuck Off & Die! [Lignite/Brown Coal Protest] (Germany)

Yesterday (Wed, 09.Oct.2013) energy giant RWE (Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG) used the bailiffs of the system to break down the protective appliances in the squatted HAMBACH FOREST – we suspect an eviction to be imminent!
This is a call out to everyone interested: Join the resistance in the Rhineland – you anarchists, eco-activists, wrong-doers, revolutionaries and everyone else, join the struggle – NOW!

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This is the rough translation of a text published yesterday on www.linksunten.indymedia.org (Germany) by a group calling themselves "Black Block Forest Defenders" whom we are supporting herewith…
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"RWE Fuck off & Die!"

The Hambach Forest is bound to be clear-cut by RWE to further extend the biggest human-made hole in Europe (the Hambach open cast mine to excavate lignite/brown coal).
Since April 2012 there was a forest occupation (until November 2012 and again in March 2012, adding there is an ongoing and vital protest camp located on a meadow directly at the edge of the forest since November 2012.)
And recently, during the Climate-/ReclaimTheFields!-Camps, a new forest occupation did arise and is held since one month now.

But this occupation of the "doomed" forest is of course threatened by the authorities who already destroyed some platforms and also hassle the meadow-protest-camp on a constant basis by random arrests (which always led nowhere) and destruction of infrastructure (showers, toilets, barricades,…).

Yesterday police and RWE-forestry-workers have been here again, destroying barricades, filling trenches, cutting lanes and ripping access roads in the forest.

– we certainly do not call those who want to support the struggle but cannot/don't want to come here to create their own ideas on how to attack state, capital, energy providers, police, repressive administrations & Co. everywhere… 😉

– and those who rather would like to squat houses instead of trees we do not tell that there are hundreds of empty buildings in the area. Because this might only be hearsay… 😉

Everyday now could be the time of eviction. In our view this day would be DAY X.

DAY X could be exactly the day to meet SOMEWHERE – here at the Hambach Forest or/and in your town and area to protest and do action, to be present against the systematic crap which is happening here and everywhere!
Capitalism, the logic of growth, the destruction of our means of living, displacement, hunger and death are global – and so are our anger, our hate and our actions of protest!

The energy giant RWE is Europe's most prolific lover of lignite, is digging the biggest hole in Europe in a relentless manor (Tagebau Hambach), is expropriating people on a law-base which was installed during the Third Reich (Bergrecht) and destroys whole areas (right now: Morschenich and Manheim), is responsible for tenthousands of murders (climate refugees, coal excavation in e.g. Columbia,…), the extinction of species (Bechstein-bat), is a vital part of the German politics of austerity (EIB-credits) and has its headquarters in Essen (?!).

Hambacher Forst stays!
Undermine, occupy, forjudge and dismantle RWE – STOP THEM NOW!

www.hambachforest.blogsport.de (Blog in English)
www.hambacherforst.blogsport.de (Blog in German)
http://vimeo.com/74042113 (video of the new forest occupation)

Hambach Forest is occupied again, but under eviction threat

Since the climat- and reclaim the fields camp in germany, the Hambach Forest ist occupied again, by climat activist. There are activists living at plattformsin the trees since more than 2 weeks.

Since the climat- and reclaim the fields camp in germany, the Hambach Forest ist occupied again, by climat activist. There are activists living at plattformsin the trees since more than 2 weeks. The Hambach Forest is one of the oldest forest in middle europe, but already more than 4/5 of it is destroyed for open cast mining. The open cast mining in the Rheinland (between Colonge and Aachen) is the biggest climat killer in all Europe. The forest gets destroyed year by year, so that RWE the coal company (wich is the mother company of N-Power) can open cast the land. Also big villages getting destroyed for the open cast mining. Last year the forest was occupied by climat activist, the wohle spring and summer, and got evicted in automne. The eviction was the longest eviction that happened in germany, because of the tunnel system (the only god system is a tunnel system!). After the eviction activists squatted a meadow next to the Hambach Forest, wich is still occupied. In the end of august the climat- and RTF Camp took place close to the Hambach Forest. With over 500 Participants it was the biggest climat camp since 5 years in germany. More than 200 people blocked the Hambach coal-rail for half an day. In the end of the climat- andd RTF-Camp activists occupied the Hambach Forest again. Now it is occupied since more than 2 weeks. Police was there on monday to inspect the plattforms and blockading-tools, and was not realy happy. In looks like the eviction might come the next days. But maybe they want to wait after the big elections in germany this sunday. So there might still be time to come over! See you in the forest.

http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/

Here’s a video about the occupation:http://vimeo.com/74042113

and about the coal trail blockade: http://vimeo.com/73938171

and a video about the RTF-action: http://vimeo.com/73514620