Category: Scotland (Central & Southern)

Scot­land (cen­tral & south­ern)

Your mission, should you choose to accept it… (report from activist security gathering)

ID cards, injunc­tions, CCTV with voice acti­vat­ed alerts, nation­al license plate mon­i­tor­ing, face recog­ni­tion, direc­tion­al micro­phones, net­work pro­fil­ing, DNA data­bas­es, key­log­ging, phone tap­ing, bug­ging and track­ing, these are just some of the tools of repres­sion being used against those bat­tling to save the world from total dom­i­na­tion and destruc­tion.

ID cards, injunc­tions, CCTV with voice acti­vat­ed alerts, nation­al license plate mon­i­tor­ing, face recog­ni­tion, direc­tion­al micro­phones, net­work pro­fil­ing, DNA data­bas­es, key­log­ging, phone tap­ing, bug­ging and track­ing, these are just some of the tools of repres­sion being used against those bat­tling to save the world from total dom­i­na­tion and destruc­tion.

This mes­sage will self destruct in 10 sec­onds.… 9.. 8.. 6.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2..

One might think that this is some cloak and dag­ger spy thriller, or orwellian distopia — but todays world is one of overt and covert sur­veil­lance and repres­sion. The likes of you and me are the tar­get and this is no para­noid delus­sion — they real­ly are out to get us.

This was the stark real­i­ty pre­sent­ed at a top secret con­fer­ence on activist secu­ri­ty that took place this month. Meet­ing in a quite loca­tion some­where near the coast, dozens of cam­paign­ers from around the coun­try came togeth­er to learn about the tech­nol­o­gy and tech­niques being used by the author­i­ties and pri­vate agen­cies as they attempt to gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion and dis­rupt and destroy cam­paigns.

The aim of the gath­er­ing how­ev­er was not to make every­one para­noid and feel help­less in the face of the tech­no­log­i­cal assaults on our pri­va­cy, but rather to equipe peo­ple with the aware­ness and knowl­edge to enable them to take steps to reduce the risk to them­selves and those they asso­ciate with.

The two day con­fer­ence involved a wide vari­ety of work­shops, some dis­cus­sion-based, some prac­ti­cal or com­put­er-based. Lessons learned by those attend­ing includ­ed the impor­tance of ‘need to know’, the now proven fact that switch­ing off a mobile phone is not enough to pre­vent it being remote­ly acti­vat­ed as a bug or track­ing device. Also dis­cussed was how to spot and loss a tail, how to trap and expose infil­tra­tors, issues of secu­ri­ty for cam­paign groups and their offices such as main­tain­ing a secure con­tacts data­base. Com­put­er based skills cov­ered includ­ed encryp­tion of stored data and elec­tron­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and ways to use the inter­net for research etc with­out leav­ing a trace.

Mush of the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed dur­ing the work­shops came from the doc­u­ment ‘Prac­ti­cal Secu­ri­ty Advice for Cam­paigns and Activists’ and this, along with the expe­ri­ences and ideas con­tributed by the par­tic­i­pants of the gath­er­ing are appar­ent­ly going to be put togeth­er as a print­ed book­let for dis­tru­bu­tion next year. Addi­tion­al­ly there are plans for a ‘walls have ears’ style poster out­lin­ing basic pre­cau­tions which can be dis­place in meet­ing spaces and social cen­tres etc to remind peo­ple of the need to con­sid­er secu­ri­ty.

info@activistsecurity.org
http://www.activistsecurity.org/

21 Arrests as British Nuclear Weapon Sites Disrupted

11.12.2006

1st report: This morn­ing the Tri­dent sub­ma­rine base at Faslane and the atom­ic weapons fac­to­ry at Alder­mas­ton have both been the focus of dis­rup­tion as activists block­ad­ed entrance gates.

11.12.2006

1st report: This morn­ing the Tri­dent sub­ma­rine base at Faslane and the atom­ic weapons fac­to­ry at Alder­mas­ton have both been the focus of dis­rup­tion as activists block­ad­ed entrance gates.

At Faslane the North gate was block­ad­ed by activists from the Tri­dent Ploughshares cam­paign. The gate­way was blocked around 7 a.m. by a group of cyclists who formed a cor­don and then locked on to each oth­er using chains and pad­locks. Short­ly after­wards anoth­er group on foot block­ad­ed the gate­way by lying in the road, joined to each oth­er through tub­ing of plas­tic and oth­er mate­ri­als. Police, using spe­cialised cut­ting teams, removed these block­ages and made 14 arrests.

At the same time a group from Faslane Peace Camp blocked the road at the entrance to the South gate of the base, using lock-on tubes and bar­rels filled with con­crete. It took two hours to clear the road­way. There were 7 arrests.

The Faslane protests are part of the Faslane 365 cam­paign which so far has led to over 350 arrests.

2nd report: Faslane Nuclear base suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed for over 2 hours

Gar­ry | 13.12.2006 19:01 | Faslane | Anti-mil­i­tarism | Scot­land
Mon­day the 11th of Decem­ber saw one of the most suc­cess­ful block­ades of the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base since the start of the Faslane 365 cam­paign. The block­ade was a joint effort between a group of Tri­dent Ploughshares and the crew from Faslane Peace camp.

Mon­day the 11th of Decem­ber saw one of the most suc­cess­ful block­ades of the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base since the start of the Faslane 365 cam­paign. The block­ade was a joint effort between a group of Tri­dent Ploughshares and the crew from Faslane Peace camp. One of the roads to the base was com­plete­ly block­ad­ed for 2 hours and 10 min­utes. In a day that saw 20 peo­ple being arrest­ed and the run­ning total ris­ing above 365 peo­ple, 3 of the block­aders have actu­al­ly been sum­moned to court on charges of breach of the peace.

At approx­i­mate­ly 6:30 am a group of peo­ple from the peace camp assem­bled by the road lead­ing to the base just by the south gate. After wait­ing for one of the patrolling police vans to dri­ve past, they pulled part of the fence of the peace camp out into the mid­dle of the road cre­at­ing a tem­po­rary bound­ary between them­selves and the police who were not much more than 100 metres away. Behind this fence they had hid­den 2 large oil bar­rel lock-ons which were rolled out onto the road, 3 peo­ple locked onto them in a line then 3 oth­ers joined them with 2 tough steel lock-on tubes, and anoth­er “babyâ€? oil-drum lock on cre­at­ing a daisy chain of six peo­ple with 5 pret­ty hard­core lock-ons.

It took the police about 20 sec­onds to arrive on the scene by which point they had suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the main road between Helens­burgh and the base. The police called for back up and for the cut­ting teams and with­in min­utes there were between 30 and 40 police on the scene. They imme­di­ate­ly got to work cut­ting into the lock-ons and were as usu­al very con­cerned not to let any­body see what sort of cut­ting equip­ment they were using to the extent that they erect­ed large visu­al bar­ri­ers to con­ceal their work. Peace campers did how­ev­er man­age to get footage of their equip­ment from our birds eye observers in the trees. They had 3 sep­a­rate cut­ting units at work on us yet it still took them 130 min­utes to clear the road. 7 peo­ple were arrest­ed at this inci­dent 6 for blockad­ing and one for pos­sess­ing a rope and har­ness.

As this block­ade was hap­pen­ing a sec­ond group block­ad­ed the entrance to the base at the north gate. The group of Tri­dent Ploughshares block­ad­ed the round-about by chain­ing their bicy­cles togeth­er and lock­ing them­selves to them with D‑locks around their necks. Oth­ers were arrest­ed for sim­ply cycling around the round­about slow­ly. This block­ade was suc­cess­ful in shut­ting down the road for half an hour. Both block­ades togeth­er ensured that the work of the base was severe­ly dis­rupt­ed for the whole morn­ing.

Of the 20 peo­ple arrest­ed all have been released but 3 of the releas­es were under con­di­tion that they will appear in court on the 20th of Decem­ber. These are the first of the 360 odd peo­ple that have been arrest­ed to be for­mal­ly charged with breach of the peace and gives an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the first time since the launch of Faslane 365 to actu­al­ly bring the legal­i­ty of the Tri­dent sys­tem into ques­tion in court. Par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant since the announce­ment by Blair that Tri­dent is to be replaced despite being ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al law.

We are now wit­ness­ing an esca­la­tion of the cam­paign against the spec­tre of nuclear war. Expect to see much more civ­il soci­ety resis­tance through­out next year as the Faslane 365 cam­paign comes to a cli­max.

www.faslane365.org
www.tridentploughshares.org
www.cnduk.org
www.peacenews.info/
www.faslane.co.nr/

—————————————

Aldermaston arrestSev­en peo­ple have been arrest­ed dur­ing an action which blocked two gates at the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment at Alder­mas­ton this morn­ing.

The Alder­mas­ton bomb fac­to­ry, where prepa­ra­tions are being made for a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear weapons for the UK, has also been block­ad­ed this morn­ing by the Block the Builders cam­paign. The “Home Office” gate of the site was closed, caus­ing a tail­back of work­er traf­fic as far as the A4.

The protest at Alder­mas­ton was part of an ongo­ing cam­paign against the £5.3 bil­lion devel­op­ment at Alder­mas­ton which will not only pro­vide infor­ma­tion for the British nuclear pro­gramme but also for the US pro­gramme under the shar­ing of infor­ma­tion under the Mutu­al Defence Agree­ment. The facil­i­ties include a new laser sys­tem which will help sci­en­tists cre­ate con­di­tions sim­i­lar to that inside a nuclear bomb to allow more accu­rate mod­el­ling. This allows Britain and the US to cir­cum­vent the Com­pre­hen­sive Test Ban Treaty which bans the actu­al test­ing of nuclear weapons.

http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk/
http://www.cnduk.org/pages/altwhitepaper.pdf

A Tri­dent Ploughshares spokesper­son said: “Our gov­ern­ment, far from hon­est­ly mov­ing towards dis­ar­ma­ment, is plan­ning to tie us to weapons of mass destruc­tion for the next 50 years. We must do what we can to put a spoke in the wheel of this ongo­ing crime. Tri­dent, present or future, is an instru­ment for bul­ly­ing and mind­less, unre­strained vio­lence. It belongs to a mind­set of threat, hatred and fear and is the very oppo­site of what we need at this crit­i­cal stage in the his­to­ry of the human race.”

—————————————

Invitation:building support for action against climate change: 14th December, Manchester

What can we do to sup­port and encour­age rad­i­cal action against cli­mate chaos?

One of the fol­low-up meet­ings after the cli­mate camp focused on what we can best do to sup­port action tak­ing place on cli­mate change. There will be anoth­er in Man­ches­ter on Dec 14th.

What can we do to sup­port and encour­age rad­i­cal action against cli­mate chaos?

One of the fol­low-up meet­ings after the cli­mate camp focused on what we can best do to sup­port action tak­ing place on cli­mate change. There will be anoth­er in Man­ches­ter on Dec 14th.

We met at the North­ern Eco-Action gath­er­ing in Brad­ford on Novem­ber 11. At a pro­duc­tive and ener­gis­ing meet­ing, we came up with a list of con­crete sug­ges­tions, and a whole load more ques­tions to be answered. A report of
the meet­ing is attached.

We’ll be tak­ing these ques­tions for­ward at a fur­ther meet­ing, which will look at what we can best do to sup­port local actions and groups tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change, con­sid­er how best to stay in touch and share skills and resources. Pro­pos­als from this meet­ing will be brought to the next gath­er­ing in Leeds in Jan­u­ary.

We’ll be meet­ing in Man­ches­ter on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 14, 11am-5pm. Bring food to share for lunch.
The venue is at Bridge‑5 Mill (oth­er­wise known as MER­Ci) — ful­ly acces­si­ble & close to Man­ches­ter Pic­cadil­ly train sta­tion, details at http://www.merci.org.uk/visiting-b5m.php

We will be putting peo­ple’s thoughts and respons­es online in the lead-up to the meet­ing. Two of these are below: one a report from a work­shop at the Earth­First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, one the reflec­tions of one of the par­tic­i­pants at the meet­ing in Brad­ford. If you have some­thing to con­tribute to the debate that you would like peo­ple to read before we
meet, please email it to actionsupport@climatecamp.org.uk and we’ll cir­cu­late it to those who are com­ing.

If you want to read any oth­er thoughts sent out before the meet­ing, or if you’re like­ly to arrive late or need some­where to stay, please email actionsupport@climatecamp.org.uk to let us know you’re com­ing.

“Sup­port­ing rad­i­cal action against cli­mate change across the coun­try

Report from meet­ing Sat­ur­day 11 Novem­ber, Brad­ford Resource Cen­tre
(Meet­ing to devel­op ways of sup­port­ing local cli­mate action groups and actions, how to stay in touch and how to share skills and resources. Plus co-ordi­nat­ed days of actions.)

We start­ed by look­ing at what we need in order for lots of actions to be tak­ing place.

Broad­ly speak­ing, they fell into two cat­e­gories. The more abstract:

- inspi­ra­tion
— buzz
— ener­gy
— (feel­ing of) a crit­i­cal mass tak­ing part in actions
— sense of urgency
— hope

and the more con­crete:

- peo­ple find­ing out about actions so they can get involved
— feel­ing of suc­cess (and pub­li­cis­ing our suc­cess­es)
— skills
— mon­ey
— infor­ma­tion resources
— feel­ing of dif­fer­ence from approach­es and tac­tics that haven’t worked in the past
— lessening/avoiding/ability to resist state oppres­sion
— strate­gic reflec­tion

We felt that the more con­crete needs would fol­low rel­a­tive­ly eas­i­ly if the first were met: peo­ple’s ener­gy and inspi­ra­tion would mean that mon­ey is raised, infor­ma­tion resources get researched and dis­trib­uted, etc..

We iden­ti­fied as the main cat­a­lyst to inspi­ra­tion and ener­gy was pos­i­tive reports of suc­cess from lots of actions tak­ing place. So, the ques­tion became: where is the best place to con­cen­trate our ener­gy and resources to influ­ence and estab­lish the pos­i­tive feed­back loop that would lead to an esca­la­tion of direct action tak­ing place?

As a pre­cur­sor to eval­u­at­ing this, we tried to list some of the more and less con­crete things that would be like­ly to have this input, some steps that could be tak­en. This list is not com­pre­hen­sive, but reflects the direc­tions our think­ing and dis­cus­sion took on the day.

Resource packs
— brief­in­gs
— tem­plate actions
— press releas­es
— poten­tial tar­gets
— legal brief­in­gs
— reports of suc­cess sto­ries
— leaflets
— stick­ers
— oth­er mer­chan­dise: beer mats, brand­ed con­doms, lol­lipops etc.
— dif­fer­ent modes of how local groups might organ­ise
— poten­tial­ly use­ful action tat (e.g. dinghies)

Skill­shar­ing

Secure means of com­mu­ni­cat­ing and net­work­ing

Con­ver­gence
— face-to-face meet­ings
— par­ties
— big actions
— treeplant­i­ng

Pub­li­cis­ing actions
— print media: ours
— EF! update
— schnews
— local newssheets
— print media: oth­ers’ (we pro­vide the sto­ries, they pub­lish)
— lib­er­al press (often keen for sto­ries, some­times sym­pa­thet­ic)
— more main­stream press
— cas­cad­ing, decen­tralised meth­ods, e.g.:
— word-of-mouth
— stick­ers
— graf­fi­ti
— email
— film show­ings
— web-based
— EF! action reports
— indy­media
— indy­media cli­mate
— ris­ing tide
— cli­mate camp
(also use of email and web for dis­tri­b­u­tion of paper-based media)

Ways in
— dis­tri­b­u­tion of newssheets
— dis­tri­b­u­tion lists
— peo­ple to help!
— friend­ship net­works
— local groups con­tacts — pub­li­cised (not nec­es­sar­i­ly a group: can be person(s) up for stiff if more want to get involved)
— pub­lic meet­ings and gath­er­ings
— pres­ence on demos, at con­fer­ences, fes­ti­vals
— big, adver­tised pub­lic actions
— stalls
— gate­way actions/groups
— road­show

Kick­start actions
— local
— big­ger

Iden­ti­ty
— net­work iden­ti­ty rather than move­ment iden­ti­ty
— het­ero­ge­neous mem­ber­ship
— exist­ing net­works
— indi­vid­u­als
— groups
— friend­ship groups

Note on local organ­is­ing (par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant for con­tacts and for resource packs)
All local groups are dif­fer­ent, and what works some­where might not be the best way of organ­is­ing in a dif­fer­ent area. There are lots of suc­cess­ful ways of organ­is­ing, includ­ing
— one ‘action group’ with a broad­ly con­sis­tent mem­ber­ship but chang­ing focus, per­haps doing actions under dif­fer­ent ban­ners
— dif­fer­ent groups with peo­ple who attend more than one as infor­mal links
— dif­fer­ent groups with a forum in which they come togeth­er
— there is no local group, but peo­ple occa­sion­al­ly come togeth­er to do stuff
We should­n’t be pre­scrip­tive: there are as many sorts of local organ­is­ing as there are local groups.

The way for­ward from here:
The main task ahead is to work out how we can best use our resources for the great­est effect. This goes both for which areas we pri­ori­tise, and how we can best tack­le each area. In look­ing at, say, web-based pub­lic­i­ty, we need to look at what it is we need to ful­fill our aims, eval­u­ate whether any of the exist­ing fora meet these aims, and if not, if it would be pos­si­ble to trans­form them into some­thing more use­ful for our pur­pos­es, and the like­ly effort involved in this (worth com­par­ing with, say, resources to set some­thing up from scratch.)”

“NOTES FROM EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing Work­shop:
Build­ing a move­ment for cli­mate jus­tice beyond the Camp for Cli­mate Action

Most inter­est­ing is sec­tion 3 — HOW WOULD THE NETWORK BE ORGANISED?

1 WHAT SHOULD IT ACHIEVE?
* Dis­man­tle the fos­sil fuel indus­try (and there­fore Cap­i­tal­ism)
* Place CC at the cen­ter of social thinking/culture in wider soci­ety, not just us
* Pro­vide sup­port for each oth­er – know­ing that oth­ers are work­ing on the same issues
* Devel­op renew­able ener­gy, decen­tralised around the coun­try, local­ly run
* Devel­op and set up work­able alter­na­tives
* Aware­ness rais­ing and edu­ca­tion
* Work to reduce consumption/demand – also means reshap­ing how we think about eco­nom­ic growth/progress
* Focus on aviation/aviation as a new anti-roads move­ment?
* Focus on Nuclear be ready for nuclear new build with strong argu­ments and analy­sis

2 WHAT WOULD THE NETWORK DO/ HOW WOULD IT BE DIFFERENT?
* Direct action!
* Build­ing hous­ing co-op move­ment, urban/rural links to re-local­i­sa­tion
* Rad­i­cal analy­sis not piss­ing about
* Think long term re-local­i­sa­tiom (with­in the mov­ment also)
* Work­ing in com­mu­ni­ties allot­ments, res­i­dents groups.
* Works with NIMBY groups re aviation/nuclear.
* Links with major­i­ty world.
* Find weak points in sys­tem now increas­ing­ly info/communications rather than phys­i­cal spaces.

3 HOW WOULD THE NETWORK BE ORGANISED?
* Need a group/named net­work to feel part of, to feel belong­ing and sense of sup­port
* Set­ting up new net­work seems inef­fi­cient why not use whats already there Ris­ing Tide Net­work? has basic struc­ture in place, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and deci­sion mak­ing struc­tures, news-sheet, web-host­ing, etc., inter­na­tion­al ele­ment RT North Amer­i­ca, Aus­tralia, etc
* No time for lob­by­ing gov­ern­ment
* Use social cen­tres
* Gath­er­ings for deci­sions mak­ing
* Region­al­ly based sup­port for local indi­vid­u­als

4 WHAT NEXT?
* Recog­nise that peo­ple are moti­vat­ed to come togeth­er to work on a spe­cif­ic action or project, rather than form a group for the sake of a group
* So har­ness the ener­gy com­ing out of the camp by call­ing for every­one to take part in spe­cif­ic upcom­ing actions it is this that will kick-start local groups
* Oct 3–4 Day of Action coin­cid­ing with G8 Ener­gy and Envi­ro min­is­ters meet­ing in Mex­i­co (called by Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca) soon but maybe good because there will still be a buzz on after the camp
* Oct 21st Shell spon­sored Wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er of the year award RT is doing a tour of the coun­try with peo­ple from Shell affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties (eg. Ross­port, Nige­ria), along with an alter­na­tive exhi­bi­tion, in the run up to the award win­ner being announced on Oct 21st. RT will only be able to get to a few cities peo­ple who come to the the camp could be part of/expand this?
* Feb­ru­ary 2007 pos­si­ble Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action against Shell (called by Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty)

* Anoth­er camp? Maybe local camps are more sus­tain­able, so no big camp next year but lots of small region­al camps.

* Also recog­nised that some new local groups will need sup­port Ris­ing Tide might be able to help, or at least help link up peo­ple who need skills/training with peo­ple who could pro­vide this”

Nativity donkey arrested at Faslane North Gate

2.12.2006

A small group of pro­test­ers at Faslane Naval base were arrest­ed at around 18:30 for hold­ing a nativ­i­ty-themed block­ade at the North Gate to the base. The group of rad­i­cal Chris­tians are cur­rent­ly being tak­en to Clyde­bank Police Office to be held, pre­sum­ably until Sun­day after­noon or Mon­day morn­ing.

Faslane 365 Nativity scene (donkey, mary & joseph)2.12.2006

A small group of pro­test­ers at Faslane Naval base were arrest­ed at around 18:30 for hold­ing a nativ­i­ty-themed block­ade at the North Gate to the base. The group of rad­i­cal Chris­tians are cur­rent­ly being tak­en to Clyde­bank Police Office to be held, pre­sum­ably until Sun­day after­noon or Mon­day morn­ing.

Yet anoth­er day of the Faslane 365 block­ade end­ed as the police broke anoth­er weird and won­der­ful lock-on device. And tomor­row being advent Sun­day, and thus, the begin­ning of advent, it seemed only appro­pri­ate that Mary, Joseph and the (lock-on-device-aka-) Don­key should arrive at the gate, only to be sent away again. Bet­ter put, it would be appro­pri­ate if you’re part of Prayer-i58, the rad­i­cal Chris­t­ian-based anti-author­i­tar­i­an net­work.

Not get­ting what they want­ed, they sat down and police moved in to arrest them, dis­cov­er­ing over £50 worth of locks and chains hold­ing the pair in place. After some time spent cut­ting them out, the police took them to the hold­ing area just beyond the base, before begin­ning their jour­ney to cells for the night.

Hav­ing phoned around, legal sup­port can con­firm that the pair are en route to Clyde­bank Police Office, where many oth­er 365’ers have been held over the recent weeks. The total arrests num­ber cur­rent­ly stands at 327 arrests (as shown on the F365 web­site). As today is a Sat­ur­day, it is pos­si­ble those arrest­ed might be inside until as late as Mon­day after­noon.

EF! gathering advance notice: date & contact to get involved

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

Thanx
The Col­lec­tive.

The Camp for Climate Action was just the beginning! — next meeting January 13/14th, Leeds

Come and take the next steps for­ward and be part of a new­ly ener­gised move­ment in the fight to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

Drax at sunsetCome and take the next steps for­ward and be part of a new­ly ener­gised move­ment in the fight to avoid cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change.

In August of this year hun­dreds gath­ered near Sel­by to con­front the UK’s biggest CO2 emit­ter: Drax Coal Pow­er Sta­tion. The Camp for Cli­mate Action was an inspir­ing 10 days of learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and direct action to chal­lenge the caus­es of cli­mate chaos.

There is already much enthu­si­asm for organ­is­ing anoth­er Camp, come and get involved on 13th/14th Jan­u­ary at ‘The Com­mon Place’ in Leeds (see www.thecommonplace.org.uk for direc­tions). Meet­ings will run Sat­ur­day 11am-5pm and Sun­day 10am-6pm.

This project is still at its ear­ly stages and details such as when, where and how to organ­ise the next Camp are to be decid­ed at this meet­ing. Food and crash pad accom­mo­da­tion will be pro­vid­ed. Every­one will be asked for a dona­tion of around £10 to cov­er costs. If you have par­tic­u­lar access or child­care needs, or if would like more infor­ma­tion con­tact leeds@climatecamp.org.uk.

Please spread the news far and wide. You can down­load a rather nice poster here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/resources.htm

Some of the neigh­bour­hoods from last year’s camp are meet­ing in the mean­time to gen­er­ate ideas for the next camp and organ­ise local­ly.

Lon­don Neigh­bour­hood Meet­ing
Lon­don Action Resource Cen­tre
Dec 2nd 1.00pm

York­shire Neigh­bour­hood Meet­ing
The Com­mon Place
Dec 6th 7.00–9.00pm

Man­ches­ter Neigh­bour­hood Meeting/Social
The Base­ment 24 Lever St, Man­ches­ter
4th Decem­ber 7:30 ( http://thebasement.clearerchannel.org/ for
direc­tions). Please email: mcragainstclimatechange@lists.riseup.net to con­firm

Local groups

Some of these are specif­i­cal­ly Cli­mate Camp, Ris­ing Tide or Plane Stu­pid groups, some are local groups involved in tak­ing direct action against cli­mate change that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly see them­selves as belong­ing to a nation­al group.

Not­ting­ham: nottingham[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Oxford: oxford[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Man­ches­ter: manchester[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Lon­don Ris­ing Tide: london[at]risingtide.org.uk
South Penines: potzo8[at] yahoo.com
South West: caromac20032000[at]yahoo.com
Leeds/Bradford: katieplum75[at]yahoo.co.uk
Scot­land and Ire­land: scotland[at]climatecamp.org.uk
Cam­bridge Action Net­work: cambridge[at]lists.riseup.net
Birm­ing­ham: flatline[at]aktivix.org
Read­ing: climatejustice[at]postmaster.co.uk
York Ris­ing Tide: yorks[at]risingtide.org.uk
Scot­land Ris­ing Tide: scotland[at]risingtide.org.uk
Lon­don Plane Stu­pid: london[at]planestupid.com
Man­ches­ter Plane Stu­pid: manchester[at]planestupid.com
Cam­bridge Plane Stu­pid: cambridge[at]planestupid.com
Oxford Plane Stu­pid: oxford[at]planestupid.com
Sheffield Plane Stu­pid: sheffield[at]planestupid.com
Sus­sex Plane Stu­pid: sussex[at]planestupid.com
Read­ing Plane Stu­pid: reading[at]planestupid.com

leeds@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Trees Felled on Middle Meadow Walk, Edinburgh

28 Nov 2006 Ful­ly grown trees are being felled on Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk right now for Quar­ter Mile devel­op­ments — urgent action need­ed As if the injus­tice in clos­ing down a city-cen­tre hos­pi­tal to rede­vel­op into offices, shops and lux­u­ry flats was­n’t bad enough, now trees are being felled in the name of pri­vate pros­per­i­ty. … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Trees Felled on Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk, Edin­burgh”

Edinburgh tree protest 1
Edinburgh tree protest 2
28 Nov 2006

Ful­ly grown trees are being felled on Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk right now for Quar­ter Mile devel­op­ments — urgent action need­ed

As if the injus­tice in clos­ing down a city-cen­tre hos­pi­tal to rede­vel­op into offices, shops and lux­u­ry flats was­n’t bad enough, now trees are being felled in the name of pri­vate pros­per­i­ty. Edin­burgh City Coun­cil have giv­en per­mis­sion for the Quar­ter Mile devel­op­ers to fell 10 trees (7 ful­ly mature — one lime, and the rest Scotch Elm & Sycamore and 3 sap­plings which will be replant­ed) along the Quar­ter Mile side of North Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk. The felled trees, 6 so far and count­ing, will make way for pipelines to the devel­op­ment, shop fronts and a plaza.

Alarm bells were raised yes­ter­day when it was noticed that Mid­dle Mead­ow Walk had been closed for tree felling — 4 mature trees were cut down with one stump being at least a metre in diam­e­ter. This morn­ing action was tak­en by a group of around 13 con­cerned res­i­dents who dis­rupt­ed the felling by refus­ing to leave the area and link­ing arms around the trees to be felled. The felling was held up for an hour before the pro­tes­tors were moved on by police. The last-minute nature of the protest and low turn-out meant that firmer action could not be tak­en.

Remov­ing ful­ly mature, healthy trees on pub­lic land to fur­ther cor­po­rate inter­ests is wrong and adds insult to injury regard­ing the Quar­ter Mile dis­grace. It was appar­ent how­ev­er, that nei­ther the tree fellers, build­ing con­trac­tors nor police were hap­py about the trees being felled — but with their jobs and income at stake they felt oblig­ed to con­tin­ue.

It was unclear if all of the remain­ing trees would be felled today — if felling is con­tin­u­ing tomor­row take action, before all of our remain­ing green spaces are replaced by shop fronts and non-aford­able hous­ing.

eco-prisoners — Spirit of Freedom November 2006

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Novem­ber 2006)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing”

Prisoner Solidarity 12Spir­it of Free­dom
(Novem­ber 2006)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing”
(Jon Able­white, Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Novem­ber 2006 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. First off I’d like to appol­o­gise for this edi­tion of the newslet­ter being late. As peo­ple may be aware the USA-SHAC 7 where all due to start their prison sen­tences this month and we were await­ing to hear where they were before we went to print. Sad­ly all of the USA-SHAC 7 defen­dants are now in jail so we urge every­one to please write to them. They have been jailed for mere­ly report­ing the news, so please do sup­port them. How­ev­er, whilst sup­port­ing the USA-SHAC 7, please don’t for­get the oth­er pris­on­ers. They also need our sup­port. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, please sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

COURT REPORTS & LEGAL UPDATES

OREGON UPDATE
In ear­ly Novem­ber 2006, it was announced that four Amer­i­cans, Jonathan Paul, Daniel McGowan, Nathan Fraz­er Block and Joy­an­na Zach­er, who are all defen­dants in the Ore­gon Case, had entered Guilty pleas to var­i­ous charges against them.

When enter­ing their Guilty Pleas these four remained true to their prin­ci­ples and although admit­ting their own guilt refused to name any
oth­ers. It is unclear what length of sen­tences the four will receive but it is clear they no longer face the pos­si­ble ‘Life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole’, which they were fac­ing if they’d gone to tri­al. All four are due to be sen­tenced in mid-Decem­ber 06.

Also in ear­ly Novem­ber, Grand Jury pris­on­er, Jeff Hogg, was released from prison. Jeff had always refused to tes­ti­fy against any­one in the Ore­gon case and was serv­ing an indef­i­nite prison sen­tence as a result. ELP cel­e­brates Jef­f’s release and praise him for his moral stance.

With oth­er news in this inves­ti­ga­tion, in ear­ly Octo­ber 2006, two of the police infor­mants in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton arson case, Lacey Phill­abaum and Jen­nifer Lynn Kolar (also known as Jen), plead­ed guilty to their roles in the arson which occured in 2001. Kolar also admit­ted to an arson against a gun club. Fol­low­ing their guilty pleas Kolar is expect­ed to receive a sen­tence of between 5–7years impris­on­ment, whilst Phul­labaum is expect­ed to received 3–5 years impris­on­ment.

As soon as any of the sen­tences, of any of the defen­dants in this case, are known ELP will bring you the news. How­ev­er we would like to remind every­one that we do not sup­port police infor­mants and there­fore, although report­ing their sen­tences, we will not be list­ing the prison details of any of the police infor­mants in this case. We do offer our total sup­port to those who have plead­ed guilty to their per­son­al charges but not coop­er­at­ed with the author­i­ties whilst doing so.

Also, despite the var­i­ous guilty pleas ELP would like to remind every­one that this case is not over. There are still at least three defen­dants in this case who loca­tions are unknown to the FBI. And also, Bri­ana Waters has for­mal­ly plead­ed not guilty to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton fire and is sched­uled for tri­al in May 2007. ELP will keep you informed as to all the devel­op­ments in Bri­ana’s tri­al.

NADIA WINSTEAD
In mid-Octo­ber 2006, Amer­i­can ani­mal rights activist, Nadia Win­stead, was found Guilty of con­tempt of court after she refused to tes­ti­fy before a Grand Jury which is inves­ti­gat­ing a series of Ani­mal and Earth Lib­er­a­tion actions. Nadia was grant­ed leave to appeal her con­vic­tion and that appeal hear­ing is due lat­er on this month. ELP will bring you more news just as soon as we have it.

IL SILVESTRE UPDATE
In ear­ly Novem­ber 2006, Giuseppe Bonam­i­ci, was released from prison under house arrest. Giuseppe is one of ten Il Sil­vestre mem­bers, arrest­ed in May 2006, who has been charged with using explo­sives to destroy an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest against nuclear pow­er. Fol­low­ing Giuseppe’s release this means that six of the ten defen­dants are now under house arrest, but four remain impris­oned.

The remain­ing four are all said to be doing well and remain­ing strong. One of the four Benedet­ta Galante, ini­tial­ly after her impris­on­ment found her­self sub­ject to strict mail cen­sor­ship and only received a few let­ters with­in the first four months of her impris­on­ment. How­ev­er, her mail now does appear to be reach­ing her and is described as “flood­ing in”, so much so that the prison does­n’t have enough mail cen­sors to keep up with her post!!!

Besides the four Il Sil­vestre pris­on­ers await­ing tri­al fol­low­ing the May 06 arrests, ELP would like to remind every­one that a fifth Il Sil­vestre activist is also cur­rent­ly impris­oned. Francesco Gioia is serv­ing 5 years and 2 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. He is also await­ing tri­al for escap­ing from house arrest.

JOE HARRIS
On 20/09/06 British Ani­mal Rights activist, Joe Har­ris, was sen­tenced to 3 years impris­on­ment for tak­ing direct action against Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences tar­gets. His tac­tics includ­ed glu­ing locks and slash­ing car tyres.

MADELINE BUCKLER
On 22/09/06 British Ani­mal Rights activist, Made­line Buck­ler, was sen­tenced to 2 years impris­on­ment for send­ing hate mail to the Hall fam­i­ly, who use to sup­ply guinea pigs to the vivi­sec­tion indus­try.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Fadal­la Idris Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam. The sen­tence for this crime is Death.

Mohamed Ahmed Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam. The sen­tence for this crime is Death.

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Nathan Block, #1663667, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also charged with involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

Fed­eri­co Bonam­i­ci, Casa di Reclu­sione, ia Nuo­va Pog­gio­re­ale 177, 80143 Napo­lo Pog­gio­re­ale (NA), Italy. Il Sil­vestre mem­ber on remand accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon. Also accused of plan­ning to over­throw the State.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 27 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Sev­en­teen years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez — Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI Tuc­son, 8901 South Wilmot Rd, Tuc­son, AZ 85705, USA. Serv­ing 8 months for his role in an Earth First! hunt sab­o­tage against a moun­tain lion hunt. Rod is also fac­ing addi­tion­al charges relat­ing to a speech he made at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing in 2003.

William Fre­di­ani (cur­rent­ly under house arrest). Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 6 years impris­on­ment for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action.

Benedet­ta Galante, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Con­tra­da Capo di Monte, 82100 — Ben­even­to (BN), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 6 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Francesco Gioia, Via Maiano, 10, 06049 Spo­le­to, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 5 years 2 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al for escap­ing from house arrest.

Sil­via Gueri­ni, Carcere “La Doz­za”, Via Del Gomi­to 2, 40127 Bologna, Italy.
Il Sil­vestre mem­ber on remand accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon.

Leonar­do Lan­di (cur­rent­ly under house arrest). Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 6 months impris­on­ment for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action.

Jef­frey Luers, #13797671, OSP, 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310, USA. Serv­ing 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Ali Mohamed Alhas­sen Mas­sad (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam. The sen­tence for this crime is Death.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. On Remand accused of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh 30512–013, USP Hazel­ton, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 2000, Bruce­ton Mills, WV 26525, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for a joint ELF/ALF arson attack on a McDon­alds restau­rant.

Alessio Per­on­di (cur­rent­ly under house arrest). Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 8 months impris­on­ment for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 5 years for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

John Wade #38548–083, FCI Peters­burg Low, Satel­lite Camp, PO Box 90027, Peters­burg, VA 23804, USA. Serv­ing 37 months for a series of ELF actions against a num­ber of tar­gets includ­ing McDon­alds & Burg­er King; urban sprawl; the con­struc­tion indus­try; and an SUV deal­er­ship.

Joy­an­na Zach­er #1662550, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an SUV deal­er­ship. Also charged with involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

Jon Able­white TB4885, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dle­sex, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 16 months for a pub­lic order offence after telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der what she thought of them.

Dave Blenk­in­sop EM7899, HMP Rye Hill, Onley, War­wick­shire, CV23 8AN, Eng­land. Serv­ing 10 years. 1) Three years for a stave attack on the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of HLS. 2) 18 months for res­cu­ing 600 guinea pigs from a lab sup­pli­er. 3) 51â?„2 years for plant­i­ng incen­di­ary devices under an abat­toirs vehi­cles.

Made­line Buck­ler PR7492, HMP Mor­ton Hall, Swinder­by, Lin­coln, LN6 9PT, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for send­ing hate mail to a fam­i­ly who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do. Serv­ing 8 months for his role in an Earth First! hunt sab­o­tage against a moun­tain lion hunt. See his details in the Eco-Defence Pris­on­ers list.

Don­ald Cur­rie TN 4593, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of arson against a couri­er com­pa­ny with links to the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Josh Dem­mitt 12314–081, FCI Saf­ford, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 9000, Saf­ford, AZ 85548, USA. Serv­ing 30 months for an ALF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty ani­mal test­ing facil­i­ty.

Dar­ius Fullmer #26397–050, FCI Fort Dix Satel­lite Camp, P.O. Box 1000, Fort Dix, NJ 08640 USA. Serv­ing 12 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Garfield Mar­cus Gab­bard TB 4271, HMP Moor­land (Closed), Bawtry Road, Hat­field Wood­house, Don­cast­er, South York­shire, DN7 6BW, Eng­land. Serv­ing 36 months for Affray dur­ing an ani­mal rights demo where he jumped onto a car and kicked a secu­ri­ty guard who pulled him off the car.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury Route #37, 33 1/2 Pem­broke Road, Dan­bury, CT 06811 USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land.
Serv­ing 51â?„2 years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

Joshua Harp­er #29429–086, FCI Sheri­dan Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5000, Sheri­dan, OR 97378 USA. Serv­ing 36 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Joseph Har­ris, TN5728, HMP Lewes, Brighton Road, East Sus­sex, BN7 1EA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 3 years for dam­ag­ing the prop­er­ty of peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences.

Kevin Kjon­aas #93502–011, FCI Sand­stone, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072 USA. Serv­ing 72 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Chris McIn­tosh. Serv­ing 8 years for a joint ALF/ELF arson on a McDon­alds.
See his details in the Eco-Defence Pris­on­ers list.

Josephine Mayo PR6508, HMP Drake Hall, Eccle­shall, Stafford­shire, ST21 6LQ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Daniel Wad­ham TF5524, HMP Rochester, Kent. ME1 3QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 months for a pub­lic order offence after telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der what he thought of them.

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

Peter Daniel Young, #10269–111, FCI Vitorvill Medi­um II, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing two years for releas­ing mink and fox­es from six dif­fer­ent fur farms. Also await­ing tri­al for his alleged involve­ment in a raid on a fur farm in South Dako­ta.

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 201â?„2 years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials.

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Bren­dan Walsh, 12473–052, FCI Allen­wood Low, PO Box 1000, White Deer, PA 17887, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for an arson on an army recruit­ment office in protest at the War on Iraq.

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly under house arrest.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an
anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion which turned into a riot.

Igor Kisielewicz, syn Alek­san­dra, A.S. Bia­lystok, Koperni­ka 21, 15–377 Bia­lystok, Poland. Serv­ing 3 months for fail­ing to do his com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice imposed for antifa activ­i­ty.

Tomasz Wiloszews­ki, Zak­lad Karny, Orze­chowa 5, 98–200 Sier­adz, Poland.
Serv­ing 15 years for acci­den­tal­ly killing a neo-nazi whilst defend­ing him­self.

PARTY & PROTEST
Around the world there have been sev­er­al mas­sive protests against glob­al cap­i­tal­ism and its envi­ron­men­tal impact. The fol­low­ing have all been jailed in con­nec­tion with the protests.

Jonathan Philip Robert, Crisp Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 197 Ga. Hwy. 300 South, Cordele, GA 31015, USA (12 months)

OTHER PRISONERS

Ted Kaczyn­s­ki (04475–046), US Pen — admin Max Facil­i­ty, PO Box 8500, Flo­rence Col­orado 81226, USA. Serv­ing mul­ti­ple life sen­tences for the infa­mous ‘Unabomber’ anti-tech­nol­o­gy bomb­ing & mur­der cam­paign.

Olga Alek­san­drov­na Nevskaya, UU163/5, 7 Otryad, pos. Dzerzhin­skiy, Mozhaysk 140090 Moskovskaya oblast, Rus­sia. Eco-activist serv­ing 6 years for arson, crim­i­nal dam­age and caus­ing explo­sions in protest at the war in Chech­nya. Due for release in 2009.

Fran Thomp­son, #1090915 HU 1C, WERDCC, PO Box 300, Van­dalia, MO 63382, USA.
Serv­ing Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalk­er who had bro­ken into her home. Before her impris­on­ment Fran was an eco, ani­mal & anti-nuke cam­paign­er.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. There are cur­rent­ly eight MOVE activists in prison each serv­ing 100 years after been framed for the mur­der of a cop in 1979. 9th defen­dant, Mer­le Africa, died in prison in 1998.

Deb­bie Simms Africa (006307), Janet Hol­loway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cam­bridge Springs, 451 Fuller­ton Ave, Cam­bridge Springs, PA 16403–1238, USA.

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grate­ford, PO Box 244, Grate­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

MAPUCHE PRISONERS & OTHER LAND RIGHTS PRISONERS
Due to space lim­i­ta­tion we can­not pub­lish the names & address­es of the Mapuche & Land Rights pris­on­ers in this edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom, how­ev­er if you would like a list please con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions.
‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al bimonth­ly pub­li­ca­tion (avail­able via e‑mail or in a paper ver­sion). If you would like to receive a copy con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom, BM Box 2407, Lon­don, WC1N 3XX, Eng­land. Or e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

Turk­ish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.geocities.com/yesilanarsi/elp.htm

ELP Extra is an e‑mail group that cir­cu­lates the details of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, ELP learns about, who do not fall with­in the remit for sup­port by ELP. To sub­scribe to the list e‑mail ELP4321@Hotmail.com

Bel­gium ELP.SN is our Bel­gium con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp_bel@hotmail.com

Ger­man ELP.SN is a pris­on­er led ini­tia­tive run by eco-pris­on­er Mar­co Camenisch. For more info con­tact Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land.

North Amer­i­can ELP is our North Amer­i­can con­tact. For more infor­ma­tion e‑mail naelpsn@mutualaid.org

Turkey ELP.SN is our Turk­ish con­tact. For more info e‑mail yesilanarsi@yahoo.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Pris­on­er Fund. The North Amer­i­can ELP group has set up a fund where peo­ple can pay mon­ey, for North Amer­i­can Eco-Defence and Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers, which will then be dis­trib­uted to the North Amer­i­can pris­on­ers. For infor­ma­tion about the Fund and how to make a dona­tion please con­tact naelpsn@mutualaid.org

DEDICATION
ELP feels it its impor­tant to remem­ber those who have died defend­ing Moth­er Earth. We use Samhain (a tra­di­tion­al time to remem­ber the dead) as our oppor­tu­ni­ty to hon­our all our fall­en friends who have died over the years.

Due to space lim­i­ta­tion we can only list EF! & ELF style fall­en friends.
But for a full list of all Ani­mal & Earth Lib­er­a­tion activists who’ve died in defence of the plan­et check out our full memo­r­i­al list on our web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

This edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom is joint­ly ded­i­cat­ed to Amer­i­can David “Gyp­sy” Chain, who was crushed to death in Sep­tem­ber 1998 when a tree was felled on top of him whilst he defend­ed the forests; Ital­ian activists Maria Rosas & Edoar­do Mas­sari who died in cus­tody, in 1999, whilst await­ing tri­al for their alleged involve­ment in the sab­o­tag­ing of a high speed rail line con­struc­tion site in the North­ern Ital­ian Alps; Brazil­ian Jose Mar­lu­cio da Sil­va who was shot dead by police in July 2000 whilst attempt­ing to storm & occu­py a bank dur­ing an anti-GM protest; British activist ‘Jo’ whose body was found in her burnt out hut at the Nine Ladies anti-quar­ry protest camp
in March 2002; Amer­i­can Beth O’Brien, who died in April 2002 after falling from a tree she was sit­ting in whilst try­ing to defend the forests; Brazil­ian Bar­tolomeu Morais da Sil­va (aka “Brasil­ia”) who led the strug­gle against ille­gal log­ging, land fraud and destruc­tive large-scale infra­struc­ture projects was found mur­dered in July 2002 from shot gun wounds and his legs bro­ken; Amer­i­can Robert “Naya” Bryan, died Octo­ber 2002 after falling from a tree he was sit­ting in whilst try­ing to defend the forests; French activist Sébastian B., who, in Novem­ber 2004, was run by a train car­ry­ing nuclear waste after Sébastian had tied him­self to the tracks; Amer­i­can William “Bill” Rodgers who end­ed his own life in Decem­ber 2005 fol­low­ing his arrest for a series of ELF & ALF actions.

If you know of some­one who should be on this list, but isn’t, please let ELP know.
“ELP Sup­port Net­work”

Steal Something Day, a shameless 24-hour stealing spree!

The 24 hour mora­to­ri­um on spend­ing, ‘Buy Noth­ing Day’ is this Sat­ur­day 26th Novem­ber in the UK. 6 years ago some Cana­di­an anar­chists came up with a cri­tique of ‘Buy Noth­ing Day’ and called for a new ini­tia­tive, ‘Steal Some­thing Day’.

Steal Something DayThe 24 hour mora­to­ri­um on spend­ing, ‘Buy Noth­ing Day’ is this Sat­ur­day 26th Novem­ber in the UK. 6 years ago some Cana­di­an anar­chists came up with a cri­tique of ‘Buy Noth­ing Day’ and called for a new ini­tia­tive, ‘Steal Some­thing Day’.

As their orig­i­nal arti­cle seems to have vir­tu­al­ly dis­ap­peared into the unre­cov­er­able bow­els of the dig­i­tal archive of the inter­net, I thought I’d repro­duce their cri­tique along with it’s graph­ic and help doc­u­ment it. Hope­ful­ly it’ll help main­tain their ini­tia­tive for this ‘Buy Noth­ing Day’ and help peo­ple reflect on some of Adbuster’s prob­lem­at­ic claims.

Novem­ber 26, 1999 — Par­tic­i­pate by par­tic­i­pat­ing!
(Press release from http://tao.ca/~lombrenoire)

For the past eight years, a few self-described “cul­ture jam­mers” from Adbusters Mag­a­zine have dubbed the last Fri­day in Novem­ber “Buy Noth­ing Day.”

From their styl­ish home base in Van­cou­ver’s upscale sub­urb of Kit­si­lano, the Adbusters’ brain trust has encour­aged con­sci­en­tious cit­i­zens world­wide to “rel­ish [their] pow­er as a con­sumer to change the eco­nom­ic envi­ron­ment.” In their words, Buy Noth­ing Day “proves how empow­er­ing it is to step out of the con­sump­tion stream for even a day.”

The genius­es at Adbusters have man­aged to cre­ate the per­fect feel-good, lib­er­al, mid­dle-class activist non-hap­pen­ing. A day when the more mon­ey you make, the more influ­ence you have (like every oth­er day). A day which, by def­i­n­i­tion, is insult­ing to the mil­lions of peo­ple world­wide who are too poor or mar­gin­al­ized to be con­sid­ered “con­sumers.”

It’s sup­posed to be a 24-hour mora­to­ri­um on spend­ing, but ends up being a moral­is­tic false-debate about whether or not you should real­ly buy that loaf of bread today or … wait for it … tomor­row!

Well, this year, while the Adbusters cult enjoys yet anoth­er Buy Noth­ing Day, accom­pa­nied by their fan­cy posters, stick­ers, TV and radio adver­tise­ments and slick web­pages, a few self-described anar­cho-sit­u­a­tion­ists from Mon­tre­al’s East End are inau­gu­rat­ing Steal Some­thing Day.

Unlike Buy Noth­ing Day, when peo­ple are asked to “par­tic­i­pate by not par­tic­i­pat­ing,” Steal Some­thing Day demands that we “par­tic­i­pate by par­tic­i­pat­ing.” Instead of down­play­ing or ignor­ing the cap­i­tal­ists, CEOs, land­lords, small busi­ness tyrants, boss­es, PR hacks, yup­pies, media lap­dogs, cor­po­rate bureau­crats, politi­cians and cops who are pri­mar­i­ly respon­si­ble for mis­ery and exploita­tion in this world, Steal Some­thing Day demands that we steal from them, with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The Adbusters’ intel­le­gentsia tell us that they’re nei­ther “left nor right,” and have pro­claimed a non-ide­o­log­i­cal cru­sade against over­con­sump­tion. Steal Some­thing Day, on the oth­er hand, iden­ti­fies with the his­toric and con­tem­po­rary resis­tance against the caus­es of cap­i­tal­ist exploita­tion, not its symp­toms. If you think over­con­sump­tion is scary, wait until you hear about cap­i­tal­ism and impe­ri­al­ism.

Unlike the mis­placed Buy Noth­ing Day notion of con­sumer empow­er­ment, Steal Some­thing Day pro­motes empow­er­ment by urg­ing us to col­lec­tive­ly iden­ti­fy the greedy bas­tards who are actu­al­ly respon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing mis­ery and bore­dom in this world. Instead of ignor­ing them, Steal Some­thing Day encour­ages us to make their lives as uncom­fort­able as pos­si­ble.

As we like to say in Mon­tre­al: diranger les rich­es dans leurs nich­es!

And remem­ber, we’re talk­ing about steal­ing, not theft. Steal­ing is just. Theft is exploita­tive. Steal­ing is when you take a yup­pie’s BMW for a joyride, and crash into a parked Mer­cedes just for the hell of it. Theft is when you take can­dy from a baby’s mouth.

Steal­ing is the re-dis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth from rich to poor Theft is mak­ing prof­its at the expense of the dis­ad­van­taged and the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. Steal­ing is an unwrit­ten a tax on the rich. Theft is tax­ing the poor to sub­si­dize the rich. Steal­ing is noth­ing more than a tax on the rich. There is sol­i­dar­i­ty in steal­ing, but prop­er­ty is noth­ing but theft.

So, don’t pay for that cor­po­rate news­pa­per, but steal all of them from the box. Get some friends togeth­er and go on a “shoplift­ing “spree at the local chain super­mar­ket or upscale mall. With an even larg­er mob, get togeth­er and steal from the local chain book or record store. Pil­fer purs­es and wal­lets from eas­i­ly iden­ti­fied yup­pies and busi­ness per­sons. Skip out on rent. Get a cred­it card under a fake name and don’t pay. Keep what you can use, and give away every­thing else in the spir­it of mutu­al aid that is the hall­mark of Steal Some­thing Day.

Down­load our detourned poster http://tao.ca/~lombrenoire, make copies and stick it up wher­ev­er you can. And don’t for­get, send your scam­ming and steal­ing tips to us at lombrenoire@tao.ca.

See you next Steal Some­thing Day which, unlike Buy Noth­ing, hap­pens every day of the year.

Edinburgh Buy Nothing Day

World Buy Noth­ing Day is on sat­ur­day the 25th of Novem­ber, we will be cel­e­brat­ing it on the east end of Princes street in Edin­burgh.
To chal­lenge the ram­pant con­sumerism that over­shad­ows the fes­tive sea­son we will be cel­e­brat­ing WORLD BUY NOTHING DAY in Edin­burgh. On sat­ur­day the 25th of Novem­ber at the east end of Prince’s street we will be hav­ing a FOOD NOT BOMBS stall, along with fes­tive musi­cians, and car­ni­val. We will also have a Green San­ta’s grot­to with face paint­ing and a space for kids to make their own presents and crist­mas cards.

World Buy Noth­ing Day is on sat­ur­day the 25th of Novem­ber, we will be cel­e­brat­ing it on the east end of Princes street in Edin­burgh.
To chal­lenge the ram­pant con­sumerism that over­shad­ows the fes­tive sea­son we will be cel­e­brat­ing WORLD BUY NOTHING DAY in Edin­burgh. On sat­ur­day the 25th of Novem­ber at the east end of Prince’s street we will be hav­ing a FOOD NOT BOMBS stall, along with fes­tive musi­cians, and car­ni­val. We will also have a Green San­ta’s grot­to with face paint­ing and a space for kids to make their own presents and crist­mas cards.

This event hopes to pro­mote a reduc­tion in the amount of things we buy and more eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tion about the impacts upon our plan­et and its peo­ple of our con­sump­tion. We also want to help peo­ple dis­cov­er a more fun way to cel­e­brate the fes­tive sea­son than sim­ply buy­ing stuff. So bring along your kids for a fun day out from 11 until 4.

http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/
http://www.consumermonster.com/