Category: South West England

South West Eng­land

Exeter’s first Critical Mass! Nov 1st 12.00

Come and join Exeter Crit­i­cal Mass, Novem­ber 1st. First Sat­ur­day of every month, meet out­side Exeter Cathe­dral

Exeter’s first Crit­i­cal Mass is tak­ing place on Novem­ber 1st and the first Sat­ur­day of every month- meet mid­day on Cathe­dral Green. Come and join in!

Critical Mass Ride Daily Celebrate MonthlyCome and join Exeter Crit­i­cal Mass, Novem­ber 1st. First Sat­ur­day of every month, meet out­side Exeter Cathe­dral

Exeter’s first Crit­i­cal Mass is tak­ing place on Novem­ber 1st and the first Sat­ur­day of every month- meet mid­day on Cathe­dral Green. Come and join in!

WHAT’S IS ALL ABOUT?
Crit­i­cal Mass is a cel­e­bra­tion of cycling, often described as an ‘unor­gan­ised coin­ci­dence’. It hap­pens when a lot of cyclists hap­pen to be in the same place at the same time and decide to cycle the same way togeth­er for a while

WHAT’S THE PURPOSE?
“Every­day, all over the world, peo­ple are resist­ing the prob­lem cul­ture of the car by get­ting on their bikes and rid­ing, instead of dri­ving.

Crit­i­cal Mass is a cel­e­bra­tion of the alter­na­tives to cars, pol­lu­tion, acci­dents and the loss of pub­lic spaces and free­doms.

Not an organ­i­sa­tion or group, but an idea or tac­tic, Crit­i­cal Mass allows peo­ple to reclaim cities with their bikes, just by get­ting togeth­er and out-num­ber­ing the cars on the road”

WHAT HAPPENS ON A CRITICAL MASS?
Each one is dif­fer­ent and they fol­low no set route, with the direc­tion being spon­ta­neous­ly cho­sen as peo­ple cycle along. Any­one is free to join or leave the ride as it ped­als along.

The ride lasts no more than a cou­ple of hours (depend­ing on the weath­er!) and usu­al­ly ends in a con­ve­nient­ly placed pub for more drinks.

Most all, they are peace­ful, safe and fun!

DO I NEED A BIKE?
Nope! Crit­i­cal Mass is not just for bikes — skate­boards, roller blades, wheel­chairs, pogo sticks — in fact any form of non-motorised, non-pol­lut­ing are all very wel­come!

The latest EF! Action Update is out, bringing you reports of eco-resistance for the darkening days…

Bring­ing light & inspi­ra­tion to the dark­er evenings are the action sto­ries in the lat­est Earth First! Action Update.

Block­ades of nuclear pow­er, roads & rivers around the world were joined “with this Shell-blockad­ing D‑lock I thee wed”.

Adjustable spanner photoBring­ing light & inspi­ra­tion to the dark­er evenings are the action sto­ries in the lat­est Earth First! Action Update.

Block­ades of nuclear pow­er, roads & rivers around the world were joined “with this Shell-blockad­ing D‑lock I thee wed”.

And if anti-fas­cist action, quar­ry sab­o­tage, squats, tree plat­forms, wrekin’ open­casts, scal­ing lux­u­ry hotels & the lat­est protest camp news was­n’t enough for you, chuck in some glue, arm tubes, a pool of oil, stink bombs, air­borne rape alarms and a Lego-sized occu­pa­tion, then there’s full reports from this sum­mer’s antics at the Camp for Cli­mate Action, Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp, EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing and Sav­ing Ice­land camp, plus a crop of glob­al cli­mate camps & news of protest & resis­tance from all 5 con­ti­nents.

“No nukes, no coal, no kid­ding” — with peo­ple dying (both lit­er­al­ly & sym­bol­i­cal­ly) from the activ­i­ties of the Earth-destroy­ers, peo­ple have been shout­ing to just “Leave it in the Ground”, drag­on boats have clashed with navy gun­boats in Ire­land, an oil war was declared in Nige­ria, and ‘moles’ spent a week under­ground dig­ging fur­ther and fur­ther away from the forces of dark­ness at an open-cast coal site.

Details of the new Coal Action Net­work, upcom­ing dates & a full con­tact list should help launch (or boost) you into the orbit of eco-resis­tance.

Sub­scribe and get it sent direct to a let­ter­box near you — you’d also be sup­port­ing the EF!AU to get print­ed and sent out to pris­on­ers & protest camps. If you want some to dis­trib­ute, con­tact us at: actionup­date (AT) earthfirst.org.uk

Down­load the lat­est issue or past issues here.

The EF!AU is there to inspire peo­ple to take eco­log­i­cal direct action, to pro­vide info to help you just get out and do it. Don’t feel shy, put your best foot for­ward.

The EF!AU is the quar­ter­ly newslet­ter of peo­ple tak­ing eco­log­i­cal direct action — send us news of your action or cam­paigns, and come along to the Win­ter Moot if you want to get involved in any of the cam­paigns you’ve read about.

What is Earth First!?

Bath Bomb #15 out now

The Bath Bomb
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #15
free/donation
Oct 08

Knowl­edge is Pow­er, So Arm Your­self

The Bath Bomb
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #15
free/donation
Oct 08

Knowl­edge is Pow­er, So Arm Your­self

Of late, you’d be mis­tak­en for think­ing the end is indeed nigh. With the implo­sion of large chunks of the glob­al econ­o­my, and the fall of banks like Brad­ford and Bin­g­ley and North­ern Rock over here, Lehman Broth­ers, Fan­ny Mae and Fred­die Mac in the States, cap­i­tal­is­m’s days are look­ing num­bered. Far from being an inevitable and effi­cient sys­tem, it seems like the con­stant finan­cial fid­dling and cre­ative math required to meet tar­gets and pro­vide the illu­sion of con­tin­u­al growth, are caus­ing a glob­al cred­it crunch whose sting we’re all feel­ing. But whilst Brown & co donat­ed £25 bil­lion worth of cor­po­rate wel­fare to bail out blun­der­ing North­ern Rock in one day, mon­ey sore­ly need­ed for our pub­lic ser­vices is nowhere to be seen. But are there any oth­er answers? Well, last month saw the Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair at St Wer­burghs Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Sat­ur­day the 13th Sep­tem­ber pulling in over 400 pun­ters, and on Sat­ur­day the 18th of this month will be the Anar­chist Book­fair in Lon­don. Expect reams of info on social­ly-just eco­nom­ics, alter­na­tive ener­gy and lifestyles, child­care, music, food, talks and work­shops, rad­i­cal the­o­ry and lessons learnt from the past. Cap­i­tal­ism has been fail­ing us now for decades with poor health, over-exploita­tion, over-work, increas­ing author­i­tar­i­an­ism, and a widen­ing pover­ty gap, and it’s high time we tried some­thing new. And if you can’t make it to Lon­don, we now have a new online rad­i­cal lend­ing library in Bath — so, if you fan­cy an inter­est­ing read on the real­ly cheap, check out the blog sec­tion of http://www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork.

http://www.anarchistbookfair.org/
www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org/

Labour of Hate

For the first time in decades, the annu­al Labour par­ty con­fer­ence was held out­side of Brighton, the politi­cians instead opt­ing for Man­ches­ter. The change in loca­tion did not bring a change in atti­tude though, and the con­fer­ence saw more of the now famil­iar cosy­ing up to big busi­ness, tired taglines and pro-war, pro-pri­vati­sa­tion rhetoric. Out­side the con­fer­ence how­ev­er, 4,000 cit­i­zens gath­ered to rip the agen­da away from Neo-Labour and their cor­po­rate bud­dies and high­light the grow­ing dis­gust the pop­u­la­tion feels at the con­tempt politi­cians show for the needs and desires of the aver­age per­son. A large part of the demo con­sist­ed of the anar­chist ‘free­dom of move­ment bloc’.

Made up of up to 500 peo­ple, the bloc gath­ered to demand free­dom of move­ment for migrants and an end to nation­al bor­ders, states and war. Before long, our flu­o­ro-jack­et­ed bud­dies from the deeply unpop­u­lar (and taser-hap­py) Man­ches­ter Met­ro­pol­i­tan showed an inter­est in the bloc, div­ing in to arrest activists trea­so­nous enough to don Gor­don Brown masks. After a short, sharp fight how­ev­er, the cops were sent pack­ing with no arrests made. From then on, police tried to make fre­quent incur­sions into the bloc, all of which were repelled, and the least suc­cess­ful end­ing with 15 cops get­ting tak­en pris­on­er and cut off from their bud­dies for a peri­od of 10 min­utes! The most notice­able aspect of the demo was the increased size and promi­nence of anar­chist pol­i­tics on the march, a phe­nom­e­non that has been grow­ing in recent years. While the demo was a most­ly non con­fronta­tion­al affair, it was suc­cess­ful in remind­ing Neo-Labour that while they pri­va­tise our resources, imprison and tor­ture our asy­lum seek­ing broth­ers and sis­ters, enclose us with CCTV and kill us with fuel prices — we are still watch­ing, and we will not be silent.

Lib­er­ate Your Mind at Bub­bling Under

Sun­day 28th Sep­tem­ber saw a return to the month­ly rad­i­cal film show­ings at the Porter Cel­lar Bar in Bath. This month, the line up includ­ed ‘Bombs and Batons’, a short film cov­er­ing Brighton’s Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade on June 4th. The film gen­er­al­ly showed police offi­cers look­ing total­ly fazed and out of their depth amongst hun­dreds of demon­stra­tors tak­ing a stand against the lucra­tive arms trade (see below for more info). The sec­ond film, ‘Can’t Com­plain’, was made up of footage from a demon­stra­tion in Jan­u­ary out­side Brighton police sta­tion against the oppres­sion faced by those active in oppos­ing EDO/ITT. The third film took view­ers back in time to the tree camps of the 1990s. The film includ­ed dar­ing stunts by activists to halt the build­ing of the infa­mous New­bury Bypass. Whilst view­ers enjoyed the films, they tucked into the Porter’s famous veg­gie roast. Aside from the fab­u­lous food, pre­vi­ous show­ings have been accom­pa­nied by talks from polit­i­cal activists, live debates and work­shops on events such as this year’s Cli­mate Camp. Forth­com­ing events at Bub­bling Under will include films about Cli­mate Camp and cov­er­age of the 1990 poll tax demon­stra­tions. Organ­is­ers always wel­come sug­ges­tions to bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk for films, work­shops and debates.

Pigs Might Fly: Or Was He Pushed?

Matisse once said ‘flow­ers are every­where for those who are will­ing to look’. Well, this month, our flow­ers come in the form of the forced res­ig­na­tion of Sir Ian Blair — ex-head hon­cho of the Lon­don Met­ro­pol­i­tan police. Acts dur­ing his time at the top include the cold-blood­ed mur­der of Brazil­ian plumber Jean Charles ‘it’s one of them dark­’uns, sarge’ de Menezes, the res­ig­na­tion of almost every black and asian high rank­ing offi­cer he worked with amid claims of racism and the glee­ful pass­ing of laws to crim­i­nal­ize, beat and arrest legit­i­mate pro­tes­tors. The final turd on the moun­tain­ous steam­er that was Blair’s career came when it emerged that he chan­nelled tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey away from the police and into his mates’ pock­ets. So, good­bye to true scum in its purest form (and hop­ing that more of his bas­tard bud­dies go the same way), and a fond hope that his forced retire­ment ends soon and blood­i­ly with jour­nal­ists report­ing that the shoot­ing was noth­ing more than a trag­ic case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty.

Shut ITT, You Slag

Fol­low­ing on from June’s smash­ing Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade, on Wednes­day the 15th of Octo­ber, activists will con­verge from all round the nation on the EDO/ITT arms fac­to­ry in Brighton, for around 2. Rather than tooth­less­ly appeal­ing to the state’s fic­ti­tious benev­o­lent side to NOT spon­sor cor­po­rate mas­sacres half way across the world and at home, in the case of the ‘Smash EDO’ cam­paign, ordi­nary peo­ple are con­fronting the roots of war — the very man­u­fac­tur­ers of instru­ments of death (Nazi Ger­many-affil­i­at­ed ITT make the Pave­way mis­sile guid­ance sys­tem, used in Iraq and Pales­tine). Not peti­tion­ing them, but forc­ing them to stop, share by share, day by day, with the cam­paign bit­ing down and hold­ing tena­cious­ly on, until these prof­it-obsessed bas­tards are brought down. It’s his­to­ry in the mak­ing, an exam­ple of a focused cam­paign suc­ceed­ing at its aims, even in the face of state, police and media cen­sor­ship and harass­ment. And once ITT has been bank­rupt­ed, which com­pa­ny is next? Fol­low­ing this course, we will even­tu­al­ly have human­i­ty, mutu­al aid, and dare we say it, world peace… even if we have to smash, d‑lock, shout our­selves hoarse, and super­glue our way through every dodgy indus­try and evil mega­lo­ma­ni­ac to get it: be there on the day! The demo starts at 12 noon, meet­ing oppo­site Falmer train sta­tion. For trans­port down, drop us an email at bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk.

http://www.smashedo.org.uk/shut-itt.htm

Pos­i­tive’s Not News

It’s come to our atten­tion here at the Bath Bomb of a wor­ry­ing ten­den­cy in the local press. Whilst the same is true of nation­al and region­al papers the UK over, the Bath Chron­ic has tak­en upon itself to ignore pos­i­tive local events and ini­tia­tives which show com­mu­ni­ties organ­is­ing their own needs and doing good for them­selves and their neigh­bours; take for exam­ple, the case of the River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Youth Cen­tre’s open evening on the 26th Sep­tem­ber, where local youth showed off their music tal­ents and staff put on food and high­light­ed to res­i­dents the impor­tant work the cen­tre is doing. Staff were told by the Chron that such pos­i­tive sto­ries, which you might mis­tak­en­ly believe are the fare of local rags all over the land, were not high enough pri­or­i­ty to war­rant a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, nor any more than reluc­tant cov­er­age; per­haps the kids should have been out mug­ging peo­ple like a prop­er hood­ie? Like­wise, worth­while activist events through­out the last six months have been equal­ly cen­sored: ‘Roots of Change’, ‘There is such thing as a free lunch!’, the Bath FreeShop… the list goes on. If these pro­test­ers had lived up to the stereo­type and been busy break­ing stuff, then per­haps that would have shift­ed a cou­ple more papers? So whilst the Chron puts a cyn­i­cal spot­light on the neg­a­tive, the triv­ial, the celeb-obsessed, or fear-mon­ger­ing, is it real­ly the job of the media to decide what its read­ers are per­mit­ted to know or think?

Bath — 2, BNP — 0

Remem­ber last year when Nick Grif­fin, head Nazi of the BNP, tried to come to speak at Bath Uni? Local anti-fas­cists mobilised to first kick him off cam­pus, then out of sev­er­al pubs, then into a field where the cops made him and his bone­head mates go home after a 5‑minute speech on pub­lic safe­ty grounds! Well, it looks like the Nazis may be back. Reports sug­gest that sev­er­al BNP activists were hand­ing out fly­ers at Bath Uni ear­li­er this month. This month also saw a few hun­dred Nazis from across Europe con­verge at the Bun­ga­low Inn in Som­er­set (against the scared own­er’s wish­es) to drunk­en­ly sieg heil their depart­ed fuhrer Ian Stew­art Don­ald­son, singer of fas­cist band Skrew­driv­er, who brave­ly mar­tyred him­self over a decade ago after drunk­en­ly falling in front of a car! While this was a one-off event, the BNP at Bath Uni may not be so, and Bath anti-fas­cists would appre­ci­ate any infor­ma­tion on the sit­u­a­tion there. The BNP are vicious racists who oppose immi­gra­tion and trade unions and have a long his­to­ry of racial vio­lence, Hitler-wor­ship and Holo­caust denial (their leader still denies the Holo­caust, call­ing it the ‘Holo­hoax’, and recent­ly claimed in a speech to Amer­i­can Nazis that he would be hap­py to kill for the white race). We have kicked them out of Bath once, and we can do it again. Any infor­ma­tion will be treat­ed as con­fi­den­tial and can be sent to bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk.

Com­put­er Says ‘No… 2ID’

Despite long resis­tance, the racist state will be push­ing in ID cards, this year, start­ing on the 25th Novem­ber with easy tar­gets the immi­grants. Incensed at this, 35 activists from No Bor­ders across South Wales, Bath, Bris­tol and beyond con­verged on the Home Office Iden­ti­ty and Pass­port Office in New­port, on Sat­ur­day the 5th Octo­ber. Despite the driz­zle and minor police intim­i­da­tion, they stayed on for two hours, leaflet­ing the pass­ing pub­lic about this insid­i­ous new (old) scheme. Whilst the cards will reach immi­grants next month, if the scheme does­n’t meet too much oppo­si­tion, it will then be rolled out to work­ers in ‘sen­si­tive’ loca­tions in 2009, and then stu­dents in 2010. Act­ing on flawed ‘intel­li­gence’, bungling cop­pers turned up an hour before­hand to police the demo, and the office itself shut its bar­ri­er after one hour. But what’s all the big deal? Sure­ly if you have noth­ing to hide, you have noth­ing to fear? Man­age­ment of this data­base (the most com­plex in Europe) will be doled out to pri­vate com­pa­nies like PA Con­sult­ing, who already lost 30,000 peo­ple’s records back in August. Will their strug­gling soft­ware be able to han­dle this larg­er strain? We hope so, because with an increas­ing reliance on tech­nol­o­gy, and numer­ous such com­put­er cock-ups, what’s to say that sim­i­lar inci­dents won’t result in oth­er hor­ror sto­ries, with data-loss vic­tims unable to work, unable to pay bills, unable to shop, and unable to access basic ser­vices. But what about ID cards stop­ping crime? Unless the cards or RFID chips (radio fre­quen­cy iden­ti­fi­ca­tion implants) mirac­u­lous­ly address mal­nour­ish­ment, domes­tic abuse or pover­ty cycles, then these cards won’t pre­vent crime. So giv­en that, why is Big Broth­er so intent on build­ing up all this info? As the proverb goes, “First they came for the com­mu­nists, and I did noth­ing because I was not a com­mu­nist. Then they came for the trade union­ists, and I did noth­ing because I was not a trade union­ist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did noth­ing because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to help me.”

http://current.com/topics/88831947_data_loss
http://www.no2id.net/
http://noborderswales.wordpress.com

Your Gov­ern­ment Wants You Dead!

A dra­mat­ic head­line? We at Bath Bomb are known for our occa­sion­al sen­sa­tion­al­ism, but on this occa­sion, we are being ‘dead­ly’ seri­ous. Recent fig­ures sug­gest that 1/3 of the pop­u­la­tion is going to be forced into a choice between suf­fi­cient fuel or suf­fi­cient food this win­ter. By encour­ag­ing price hikes in the pri­vate fuel sec­tor and choos­ing to sup­port fail­ing busi­ness rather than aver­age peo­ple, the gov­ern­ment of this coun­try will lit­er­al­ly be respon­si­ble for thou­sands of deaths this win­ter. Let’s put this in per­spec­tive — the gov­ern­ment is per­fect­ly will­ing to shell out hun­dreds of mil­lions of OUR mon­ey to slow the inevitable col­lapse of cap­i­tal­ism, while just down the road in Swin­don, 69% of coun­cil house res­i­dents were recent­ly dis­cov­ered to be liv­ing well below the pover­ty line. There is plen­ty to be angry at the gov­ern­ment over that we spend much time focus­ing on — the war on the Iraqi peo­ple and sur­veil­lance soci­ety being a cou­ple of exam­ples, but it is about time we start to resist the bru­tal­i­ty that the state dish­es out to us all on a dai­ly basis; the fuel pover­ty, the cuts to NHS, edu­ca­tion and job­seek­ers, the mea­gre sup­port for low income fam­i­lies. The gov­ern­ment has shown that it stands on the side of busi­ness above the needs of the peo­ple. The class war, this epic social bat­tle between the haves and the have-nots was not start­ed by us, it was start­ed by a rul­ing class who care more for prof­it and preser­va­tion of the sta­tus quo than the lives of its cit­i­zens. We have had war declared on us by the polit­i­cal class and we need to begin ask­ing ‘how will we respond to the assault of busi­ness and gov­ern­ment on our lives’ and how can we organ­ise to take back what is ours, our basic rights to warmth, food, afford­able hous­ing, enjoy­ment and an end to wage slav­ery? How will we organ­ise to win the class war?

Mini Bar-stards

Just a quick­ie: on Fri­day 26th Sep­tem­ber, activists from Bath Ani­mal Action and BAN did a short, sharp demo against foie gras sell­er Mini Bar on John Street, who have tak­en it upon them­selves to sell the stuff. See every oth­er issue of Bath Bomb for more on foie gras and the cam­paign. As per usu­al, BAA will be back again and again, until Mini Bar sees sense.

EVENTS

Mon­days — Bath Hunt Sabs Meet­ing, 8pm, Bell
Wednes­days — Lon­don Rd Food Co-op, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, 4–7pm
Sat­ur­days — Bath Stop The War Vig­il, Abbey Court­yard, 11.30–12.30
Weds 15th Oct — Smash ITT, Falmer Sta­tion, Brighton, 12noon
Fri 17th Oct — Chris Baines’ green spaces in cities talk, Guild­hall, 7pm £6
Sat 18th Oct — Lon­don Anar­chist Book­fair www.anarchistbookfair.org
Fri 24th Oct — Bath Mad­hat­ters Birth­day Par­ty, Man­vers St Bap­tist Church, 3–6pm
Fri 24th Oct — anti-foie gras demo, against Mini­bar, John St, 7–9
Sat 25th Oct — ben­e­fit gig, the White Hart, Eas­t­on, 6pm, £7 entry
Sun 26th Oct — Bub­bling Under, Porter Cel­lar Bar, 1–4pm
Mon 27th Oct — Block the Builders, Alder­mas­ton AWE block­ade
Weds 29th Oct — Bath Bomb ben­e­fit gig, the Junc­tion, Stokes Croft, Bris­tol, 8‑late
Sat 1st Nov — Bath FreeShop, Stall Street, 12–3pm
Weds 5th Nov — Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, back­room of Bell, 7.30–8.30
Thurs 6th Nov — BAN meet­ing, down­stairs Hob­gob­lin, 7.30–9
Sat 22 Nov — Bath Veg­an Fayre, Per­cy Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre 12–4pm

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.myspace.com/bathbomb

Q: Who Are Bath Activist Net­work? A: A local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

GOT A STORY? WANT TO RECEIVE THE BATH BOMB BY EMAIL? HOPING TO SUE? Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.

Spirit of Freedom (October 2008) — support the eco-prisoners

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!” (For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Octo­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. The last month has been a month of mixed emo­tions for ELP. On the one hand we heard the bril­liant news that the Dutch ani­mal rights activist, Ger­ben Jan, was found not guilty of assault­ing a police offi­cer, caus­ing the offi­cer to break his leg, dur­ing an ani­mal rights demo in Swe­den. Instead Ger­ban was found guilty of resist­ing arrest for which he was fined and deport­ed. Also in an unex­pect­ed move, all the Aus­tri­an Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers were released from prison pend­ing their tri­al! Plus, the Amer­i­can veg­an, Nathan Kno­erl, was grant­ed bail in his case where he is accused of involve­ment in an anti-vivi­sec­tion protest. Fol­low­ing Nathans release a sup­port cam­paign has been set up to try and help raise mon­ey for Nathan’s forth­com­ing legal case. For more info please e‑mail supportnathan@gmail.com. How­ev­er, just as ELP start­ed to think our pris­on­er lists might start to go down, we received news of fur­ther police raids in Aus­tria. ELP also learnt that, due to Frank Ambrose, grass­ing every­one up, the Amer­i­can’s Marie Mason, Stephanie Lynne Fultz, and Aren Burth­wick, have all had to enter Plea Bar­gains and admit some of the charges set against them. In Marie’s case she has admit­ted her direct role in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing involved with GM crop tests, whilst Stephanie and Aren have admit­ted not report­ing a fire (Stephanie has admit­ted cut­ting Marie’s hair which was burnt fol­low­ing the arson). We don’t know what sen­tences Stephanie and Aren are like­ly to receive, but Marie is look­ing at 15 to 20 years and has been remand­ed into cus­tody. This is real­ly bad news, espe­cial­ly as it was hoped Marie might remain free until her sen­tenc­ing ear­ly next year. Around the world, peo­ple are being impris­oned for stand­ing up for what they believe in and try­ing to
help the ani­mals and the earth. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, #70936–065, (in tran­sit), USA. Serv­ing 78 months for his involve­ment in two ELF arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Bor­der Guard whilst on the run. In ’02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Meat eater).

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Marie Jeanette Mason, Neway­go Coun­ty Jail, PO Box 845, White Cloud, MI 49349, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing plead­ed guilty to involve­ment in ELF arson against a Uni­ver­si­ty build­ing car­ry­ing out Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied crop tests. Marie also plead­ed guilty to con­spir­ing to car­ry out ELF actions and also admit­ted involve­ment in 12 oth­er ELF actions. Marie is expect­ed to receive a sen­tence of between 15–20 years. (Marie is a veg­an).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, USP Mar­i­on, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 1000, Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters 36432–086, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route 37, Dan­bury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

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. (Jon is a veg­an).

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter SO22 5DF, Eng­land.
On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment.
(Mel is a veg­an).

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. (Jake is a veg­an).

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS. (Don is a veg­an).

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

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. (Josh is a veg­an).

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HMP Stafford, 54 Gaol Road, Stafford, ST16 3AW, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

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

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Heather is a veg­an).

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

John Smith, TB4887, HMP Lind­holme, Bawtry Road, Hat­field Wood­house, Don­cast­er, DN7 6EE, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (John is a veg­an).

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

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. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

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 20½ 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. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE DEFENDANTS
The Lec­ce Defen­dants 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 either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack. (Diet unknown).

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557
Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

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

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

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. (Diet unknown).

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they didn’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 696693, 3855 Coop­er St, Jack­son, MI 49201, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

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. (Fran is a veg­an).

MOVE

MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. All move pris­on­ers describe them­selves as veg­e­tar­i­ans. 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 Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 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.

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 month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

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

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

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

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info 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.

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

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

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
elp4321@hotmail.com
http://spiritoffreedom.org.uk

UK No Borders Gathering 8–9 November

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

Just over a month till the next net­work-wide No Bor­ders Gath­er­ing, to be held in New­cas­tle on 8 & 9 Novem­ber.

The Gath­er­ing will be a chance to dis­cuss, net­work and plan, and to build on the dis­cus­sions held at the last net­work-wide Gath­er­ing ear­li­er this year.

The Gath­er­ing is a col­lec­tive­ly organ­ised event with shared respon­si­bil­i­ty for con­tent and organ­i­sa­tion, being co-ordi­nat­ed this time by peo­ple in New­cas­tle. It will take place on Sat­ur­day 8th and Sun­day 9th Novem­ber, start­ing 9am for break­fast for a 10am start each day, end­ing at 6pm on the Sat­ur­day and 2pm on the Sun­day. Venue details and direc­tions will be post­ed near­er the time. Accom­mo­da­tion will be avail­able on request.

You can con­tact us at whydontyou@post.com if you’d like more info, would like to sug­gest items for dis­cus­sion at the Gath­er­ing or would like to get involved.

No Bor­ders is a net­work of groups strug­gling for the free­dom of move­ment for all and an end to all migra­tion con­trols. We call for a rad­i­cal move­ment against the sys­tem of con­trol, divid­ing us into cit­i­zens and non-cit­i­zens.
We demand the end of the bor­der regime for every­one, includ­ing our­selves, to enable us to live anoth­er way, with­out fear, racism and nation­al­ism.
Vis­it the web­site www.noborders.org.uk

new­cas­tle plan­ning group
whydontyou@post.com

CRUSH the Cabot CREDIT Circus

This Thurs­day the 25th of Sept, a call to action came to dis­rupt the far­ci­cal open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of Bristol’s brand new abom­i­na­tion.

CRUNCH the CABOT CREDIT CIRCUSThis Thurs­day the 25th of Sept, a call to action came to dis­rupt the far­ci­cal open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of Bristol’s brand new abom­i­na­tion.

CRUNCH CABOT CREDIT CIRCUS was embla­zoned across the vile new shop­ping complex’s adver­tis­ing hoard in plain view of motorists arriv­ing through the new­ly rout­ed, soon to be con­gest­ed, road sys­tem that snakes around the £500 mil­lion project that offers yet more ster­ile, soul­less, cap­i­tal­ist con­sumerism.

The ridicu­lous tim­ing of the advent of this unnec­es­sary mon­stros­i­ty, dur­ing the so-called ‘cred­it crunch’, offers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to think about just how lit­tle com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tion took place; about the mass dis­place­ment of the poor­er sec­tions of our com­mu­ni­ty to make way for its con­struc­tion; and about the sheer slap in the face to peo­ple on low-incomes whose lives hang in the bal­ance as banks crum­ble and cred­it becomes scarce. All the while the Bris­tol (Impe­r­i­al) Alliance siphon off what prof­its they might make, out of our city, to Birm­ing­ham, Lon­don and the hands of a few cor­po­rate prof­i­teers.

This rup­ture with the Alliance’s image and ethos – where ‘retail ther­a­py’ has replaced com­mu­ni­ty con­tact and our social inter­ac­tions are increas­ing­ly chan­nelled through mon­e­tary trans­ac­tions and mate­ri­al­ist con­sump­tion – serves as an excla­ma­tion. This is a call for fur­ther and sus­tained action against this odi­ous sym­bol of aggres­sive glob­al cap­i­tal­ism and the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion that is seep­ing into our city.

Already full of emp­ty shops, at such a finan­cial­ly unsta­ble time, if it doesn’t crum­ble of its own accord, this dis­ease must be purged from the city,

BUY LESS, LIVE MORE!

Take your own actions.

Whis­tle crews, musi­cal chair shop inva­sions, dress like the drones that make this sham­bol­ic cir­cus pos­si­ble and cause some mis­chief!

Join the Zom­bie march this Sat­ur­day the 27th of Sept, assem­ble 11am at the Band­stand in Cas­tle Park, sham­ble & lurch from noon.

Buy Noth­ing: Steal Some­thing Day: http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/

CABOT CIRCUS on Indy­media: http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/688930

Bath Bomb 14 hits the streets

Anoth­er issue of Bath’s should-be award win­ning grass­roots pub­li­ca­tion…

anti-cop, right? copy and dis­trib­ute
The Bath Bomb
Issue #14
“All the news the Chron did­n’t Use!”

free/donation

Sept ‘08

Reds, Shite And Booze

Bath Bomb logoAnoth­er issue of Bath’s should-be award win­ning grass­roots pub­li­ca­tion…

anti-cop, right? copy and dis­trib­ute
The Bath Bomb
Issue #14
“All the news the Chron did­n’t Use!”

free/donation

Sept ‘08

Reds, Shite And Booze

Sat­ur­day the 16th of August was to be the sec­ond annu­al Red, White and Blue Fes­ti­val of the BNP, a so-called fam­i­ly event, held on the farm of for­mer Tory coun­cil­lor Alan Warn­er, in Den­by, Der­byshire. Though pitch­ing them­selves as the media-friend­ly ‘Nazi-Lite’ face of mod­ern nation­al­ism, Nick Griffin’s par­ty still can’t quite drag itself away from its hard­line right-wing roots, as betrayed in the pro­gram’s high­lights: talks on ‘her­itage and cul­ture’, night-time nav­i­ga­tion and sur­vival skills, kooky Mor­ris-style danc­ing around a horse skull, stalls sell­ing Union Jack attired gol­li­wogs, and let’s not for­get the Hitler Youth-esque kids’ camp, teach­ing 12-year-olds live ammo marks­man­ship, knife-fight­ing, tech­niques for deal­ing with ‘Marx­ist teach­ers,’ and how to make ‘Dutch arrow’ throw­ing spears (erm.. that does­n’t sound very British). How­ev­er, this insan­i­ty isn’t the sort of shit that ordi­nary peo­ple stand for and, whilst res­i­dents and local activists have been mak­ing plans to shut it down, nation­al­ly, Antifa and the organ­ised Left con­verged.

Though the pow­ers-that-be have no issue with the fas­cist nature of the event, as soon as they realised the storm of resis­tance that was build­ing, police banned the fes­ti­val’s music and liquor licens­es — but did­n’t sub­ject the fes­ti­val to even a mod­icum of the has­sle they did with Cli­mate Camp. Their true colours shined even more so on the day, releas­ing hood­ied-up agents provo­ca­teurs into the 400-strong SWP, UAF, TUC-dom­i­nat­ed march and ral­ly, and Mersey­side cops out­did them­selves by phon­ing and attempt­ing to fit up known anti-fas­cist activists by offer­ing sup­posed lifts to the demo. Whilst the marchers were engag­ing in token pushy-shovey and chant­i­ng with the police line (a lip ser­vice ges­ture to demo­c­ra­t­ic free­dom was made in the form of 30 pro­test­ers escort­ed to the entrance to the fes­ti­val for an insult­ing 15 min­utes, against a hail of BNP abuse), Antifa made their own plans. That morn­ing, 80 masked up and made their way through the under­growth to con­front the fash direct­ly, intend­ing to set up a sys­tem of road­blocks and sab­o­tage. How­ev­er, fol­low­ing the first bar­ri­cade, police vio­lence forced them back and into a string of run­ning bat­tles — cul­mi­nat­ing in more than 30 arrests and one injured cop.

So unfor­tu­nate­ly, RWB was­n’t crashed, but was sur­round­ed by chaos (as well as drunk­en sieg-heils) and vil­lagers are now plead­ing with the BNP not to come back; to add your voice to this request, con­tact Alan Warn­er (The Bun­ga­low, Cod­nor Den­by Lane, Den­by Vil­lage, Der­byshire, DE5 8PT, 01773 748129/ 07810 383595, or alan.warner@w3z.co.uk) or organ­is­er David Shap­cott (6 The Spin­ney, Burn­ley, Lan­cashire, BB12 0PB, 07871 029681). But Antifa’s antics do bring up seri­ous ques­tions — con­sid­er­ing the strate­gic impor­tance of the BNP’s RWB, why did so few oppo­nents put in an appear­ance? And how did small, yet admit­ted­ly rabid, clus­ters of cops put supe­ri­or num­bers of deter­mined mil­i­tants to rout and infight­ing, with thrown bricks occa­sion­al­ly hit­ting their own? Beyond talk of machis­mo, organ­i­sa­tion and vio­lence, per­haps more activists need to focus on their own per­son­al lim­its and be hon­est with them­selves over what threats they are pre­pared to face… Not only for the suc­cess of indi­vid­ual actions and the move­ments’ cred­i­bil­i­ty, but also in terms of both our own safe­ty and that of our com­rades And next year, let’s real­ly stop them!

http://www.antifa.org.uk/
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/688740
http://netcu.wordpress.com
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/09/03/bnp…22309

Sainsbury’s And Tesco — Destroy­ing Com­mu­ni­ties All Over The World

While Tesco threat­ens to infest Bath with crap­py ‘food’ and depress­ing, repet­i­tive jobs under patron­iz­ing boss­es who don’t care about you, Sainsbury’s look set to crawl their way into Odd Down. The site pro­posed by Store­gap Com­mer­cial and Odd Down Devel­op­ments would be the same size as Bath’s Mor­risons. If you’re in favour of good qual­i­ty food prod­ucts made with a regard to ani­mal wel­fare and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, work­er’s rights and the fair dis­tri­b­u­tions of wealth — or if you sim­ply hate being rushed around as if you were in a chaot­ic cat­tle mar­ket every time you go out to buy gro­ceries, while being blind­ed by arti­fi­cial light­ing — we’d love to have you on board our cam­paign, aimed at resist­ing super­mar­ket expan­sion and cre­at­ing viable alter­na­tives. Email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk for more details.

A brief update on the Tesco Express on Bath­wick Hill — orig­i­nal­ly due to open ear­ly this year, now, due to the actions of local com­mu­ni­ty and activists, it’s still yet to open its doors due to the enforce­ment of the con­di­tions they tried to weasel out of com­plet­ing.

Watching/Smashing Up The Watch­ers

Your faith­ful, yet para­noid jour­nal­ists here at Bath Bomb tow­ers have giv­en many col­umn inch­es over the past few months to the increas­ing sur­veil­lance we are sub­ject­ed to nowa­days. Britain is now the most sur­veil­lance-heavy coun­try in the world, nar­row­ly best­ing notable com­peti­tors such as Chi­na and the good ol’ US of A. Indus­try insid­ers have agreed that CCTV is almost use­less in deal­ing with real crimes, such as rape and mur­der, and only real­ly comes in use­ful when deal­ing with those things that only politi­cians and the rich count as crimes, such as shoplift­ing. Tak­ing into account their inef­fi­cien­cy at solv­ing seri­ous crime, it can be sen­si­bly assumed that the prime func­tion of CCTV (on which our per­vy gov­ern­ment spends mil­lions each year) is social con­trol; of spread­ing the idea that you can­not step out of line because you are always being watched. Well, now, final­ly, we have a chance to strike back! Octo­ber the 11th is an inter­na­tion­al day of protest and decen­tralised action against CCTV and sur­veil­lance. Want to be part of the fun? A plas­tic bag or well aimed spray can blast can tem­porar­i­ly dis­able a CCTV cam­era, while ham­mers and screw­drivers can do a much less sub­tle, yet longer last­ing job! Won­der­ing how to access those cam­eras in hard to reach places? A paint­brush tied to a bam­boo stick does the trick! There are lit­er­al­ly hun­dreds of legal and ille­gal ways we can strike back against big broth­er, so let’s use the 11th as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to show the state we can live out­side of their con­trol, laws, author­i­ty and oppres­sion. If noth­ing else, use the day as a chance to look a CCTV cam­era (or com­mu­ni­ty sup­port offi­cer) dead in the eye, flip a fin­ger and defi­ant­ly shout (safe in the knowl­edge that thou­sands across the globe are doing the same thing) ‘stop look­ing at me fun­ni­ly you weirdos!’.

CCTV News Part Deux

The Bath Bomb can exclu­sive­ly reveal that Big Broth­er (as in 1984, not that real­i­ty TV farce of squawk­ing, ego­ma­ni­a­cal lobot­o­my-cas­es) is chang­ing the way it inter­feres with The Peo­ple and scape­goats the young. Pre­vi­ous­ly obvi­ous CCTV instal­la­tions are now being gut­ted into redun­dant bluff cam­eras, with the real cam­era place­ments being hid­den near­by in tiny black case­ments, though their lens will still need to be exposed to the light of day. And, it’s also recent­ly emerged that sin­is­ter sci­en­tists at Bath Uni have been spy­ing on Blue­tooth users in the city for the last three years, with­out con­sent, with ‘City­ware’ scan­ners fol­low­ing around 3,000 devices every week­end, fol­low­ing cit­i­zens’ move­ments and shop­ping pat­terns. Tar­get­ed mar­ket­ing, or mark­ing tar­gets? We’ve heard it all. Stay out of trou­ble kids!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/21/civilliberties…yfull

The­o­ry Cor­ner Part A: Are All Cops Real­ly Bas­tards?

After read­ing the The­o­ry Cor­ner: ‘Are All Cops Bas­tards?’ arti­cle in July’s issue 12, I got the per­mis­sion of said arti­cle’s author to have my say on this com­plex issue. Yes, the police have devolved from your friend­ly neigh­bour­hood bob­by; the one who made you feel a bit safer, who gave you direc­tions and popped round for a cup of tea (how wrong can you go with old TV pro­grammes as your barom­e­ter for real­i­ty?) They’ve gone from this to a mind­less mass automa­ton who go on pow­er trips and think that any­one who finds them­selves at a demon­stra­tion of any sort, be they strong or not so strong, young or not so young, deserves to at best be spo­ken to in a patron­iz­ing man­ner and at worst be man­han­dled away and arrest­ed for no good rea­son.

BUT, and this is a big but. Tak­ing it as read that the ulti­mate goal of ‘chang­ing the world’ is, in fact, to make that world a bet­ter place for every­one, then we have to realise that cops are in fact human, despite the lengths they can go to try to hide this fact. Take away the uni­form, the weapons, the smug above-you atti­tude and you will find some­one with the same basic needs and desires as every­one else. I’m sure the answer is not to engage in this cat-and-mouse rela­tion­ship with them, slag­ging them off (though they often have no qualms about doing the same to us — for exam­ple the sick­en­ing com­ments on the ‘Police Inspec­tor’s Blog’), just as that is not the way to go with the Rich, though that is anoth­er arti­cle. This, to me, seems a lazy way of going about things that will just enable the sta­tus quo to be kept; we get to make our jokes about PC Plod and nev­er have to come to terms with the fact that they will be part of this new soci­ety.

I don’t know what the way for­ward is, I think it is a slow path, where we get out of our cosy activist cor­ners and mix with peo­ple of all walks of life, even those who make us feel ill with what they’re doing to the world. We wel­come peo­ple and talk to them about our way of life, with­out judg­ing or forc­ing any­one to see it our way. Some will come over to our side. Some will resist, but we nev­er know what effect our view­point is hav­ing on them. It is hard to change, and won’t hap­pen over night. But only with these small vic­to­ries and grad­ual changes will any real and last­ing change ever come about. To describe a group of peo­ple as large­ly irre­deemable, will cause defen­sive­ness — we have to believe in the pos­si­bil­i­ty in peo­ple to change, whether they show us any proof of this or not. You can do so much more with peace and wel­come than you can with vio­lence, judge­ment and iso­la­tion — isn’t that what ‘our side’ is all about? After all, this oth­er way’s been tried so many times before, in fact it’s all we as a human race has ever done, and has it ever worked? With this dis­mis­sive atti­tude we con­demn our­selves to a lim­it­ed suc­cess, when with all our skills, ener­gy, ideas and com­pas­sion, we can achieve so much more.

http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/young‑m…n‑go/ (police inspec­tor’s blog)
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&…34851 (newslet­ter issue 12)

Stop The Wars, Stop The Walls & Stop Wall Street

Despite what the Dai­ly Mail would have us believe, we are all now a wit­ness to an unprece­dent­ed rise in bor­der man­age­ment and social con­trol. Neo-Labour is at the fore­front of this squeeze, and are hold­ing their annu­al par­ty con­fer­ence in Man­ches­ter this month. Coin­cid­ing with this, with vio­lence peak­ing in Afghanistan, drag­ging on in Iraq, and break­ing in Geor­gia, Stop The War have called for a ‘Troops Out’ march on Sat­ur­day the 20th at 12 mid­day, and the UK No Bor­ders net­work have also jumped in — anti-author­i­tar­i­ans and all oth­ers against bor­ders, states and war can con­sid­er them­selves humbly invit­ed to join the ‘Free­dom of Move­ment’ bloc, assem­bling at the north end of Albert Square — fol­low the red and black flags!

http://www.manchesternoborders.org.uk
http://www.stopwar.org.uk
http://www.acbar.org
http://www.bathstopwar.org.uk/

Racist BIAs­tards Feel The Heat In Bris­tol

In oth­er immi­gra­tion-relat­ed news, No Bor­ders activists recent­ly paid a vis­it to the British Immi­gra­tion Author­i­ty offices in Por­tishead. BIA round up failed immi­gra­tion appli­cants for forced depor­ta­tion. Favourite tac­tics include ‘dawn raids’, intend­ed to round up the whole fam­i­ly before the kids can get to school. Recent brave deeds by our jack­boot­ed friends have includ­ed the forced removal of a Columbian sin­gle moth­er from the Bris­tol area, her 7‑year-old son send­ing a let­ter to his class mates from a deten­tion cen­tre read­ing ‘I don’t know why I am here, they have put me in prison, but I promise I haven’t done any­thing wrong’. When activists arrived at the Por­tishead BIA cen­tre, from which Bath and Bris­tol dawn raids are launched, the build­ings’ locks were glued, the entire fleet of vehi­cles used for dawn raids were destroyed with span­ners, etch­ing flu­id and paint strip­per and the slo­gan ‘racist thugs work here’ was daubed over walls for all to see. BIA rep­re­sent the sharp end of the state’s racist war on asy­lum seek­ers, who, hav­ing fled per­se­cu­tion, ter­ror and tor­ture, ask only for a safe place to live, and not to be deport­ed to cer­tain death and impris­on­ment. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the major­i­ty find out the hard way that gov­ern­ment the world over is a bru­tal mech­a­nism for the repres­sion and incar­cer­a­tion of ordi­nary peo­ple. We must stand side by side with oth­er oppressed peo­ples strug­gling for a decent stan­dard of life, and like the BIA sabo­teurs, fight for a world with­out bor­ders or gov­ern­ments, and respond by any means nec­es­sary to the vio­lent and destruc­tive forces of state and cap­i­tal.

Frothy Cin­e­mat­ic Under­cur­rents

After the sum­mer break, the Bub­bling Under series of rad­i­cal film lunch­es will return to the big[ish]screen at the Porter Cel­lar, start­ing again on Sun­day the 28th Sep­tem­ber, from 1 til 4pm, free entry. This month, we will be show­ing a cou­ple of film­lets — one about the recent Camp for Cli­mate Action in Kent, and the oth­er about the upcom­ing Shut I.T.T./Smash EDO day of action in Brighton, fol­low­ing up on June’s suc­cess­ful Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade. Come along for great grub, food for thought, and mediocre com­pa­ny! Drop us a line if you have any ideas for upcom­ing films, to show on the third Sun­day of the month.

http://www.smashedo.org.uk/shut-itt.htm
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

The­o­ry Cor­ner Part B: Meta­mor­pho­sis and Lib­er­a­tion

It’s all too easy to feel help­less in the face of the state, like a tiny cog in a tow­er­ing machine. Reli­gion and tele­vi­sion preach the impor­tance of “find­ing your­self” and “stay­ing true” to that self once you’ve found it. But we should­n’t feel trapped and lim­it­ed by our genes and the expe­ri­ences and con­di­tion­ing soci­ety has giv­en us — we have no true self and life should be about cre­at­ing it, not find­ing it! As human beings we have a vast poten­tial for self-change. The aware­ness of the abil­i­ty you pos­sess to change your­self can be extreme­ly lib­er­at­ing. It’s impor­tant to start small — choose a habit at ran­dom you wish to adopt or elim­i­nate. At first, this should be some­thing so sim­ple you can’t fail at it, like hav­ing an extra sug­ar in your tea each morn­ing. Keep the same goal for two or three weeks, and scrib­ble it on a post-it note and stick it to the fridge, if this helps you remem­ber. There are all sorts of self-hyp­no­sis tech­niques that can help. Focus­ing intent­ly on your goal while in an altered state of con­scious­ness accessed by med­i­ta­tion, danc­ing, drum­ming, chant­i­ng, orgasm, art… (try star­ing intent­ly at your­self in a mir­ror while try­ing not to let your eyes dis­tort the image) are all ways to do this. Remem­ber to ground after­wards! Laugh­ter helps.

It’s impor­tant to set a new tar­get once you’re done with the old one. Start small and your con­fi­dence and self-dis­ci­pline will grow so long as you make willed self-change a habit. Work up to big­ger goals and you’ll realise that things you thought you could­n’t do are total­ly pos­si­ble — con­fronting a pho­bia, going veg­an, tak­ing direct action. Elim­i­nat­ing fears and smash­ing taboos (eat­ing food from skips, act­ing odd­ly in pub­lic) can be so empow­er­ing and widen your range of pos­si­ble expe­ri­ences.

http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/rites/beyondwa.…html

EVENTS

Mon­days
Bath Hunt Sabs Meet­ing, 8pm, Bell
Wednes­days
Lon­don Rd Food Co-op, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, 4–7pm
Sat­ur­days
Bath Stop The War Vig­il, Abbey Court­yard, 11.30–12.30
Sat­ur­day 20th Sept
No Wars No Bor­ders, All Saints Park, Man­ches­ter, 12.30
Fri­day 26th Sept
Anti-foie gras demo, out­side Mini­bar, John St, 7–9pm
Sun­day 28th Sept
Bub­bling Under, the Porter Cel­lar Bar 1–4pm
Wednes­day 1st Oct
Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, back room of the Bell, 7.30–8.30pm
Thurs­day 2nd Oct
Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Hob­gob­lin, down­stairs 7.30–9pm
Fri­day & Sat­ur­day 3–4th Oct
No Bor­ders Fest, TJs, New­port
Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber
Day of action against sur­veil­lance
Sat­ur­day 11th Oct
West­side Cli­mate Camp Gath­er­ing, Wind­mill Hill City Farm, Bris­tol, 10–5
Sat­ur­day 11th Oct
Bath Freeshop, Stall St, 12–3pm
Wednes­day 15th Oct
Smash I.T.T, opp Falmer Sta­tion, Brighton, meet 12noon

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.myspace.com/bathbomb

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…

Q: Who Are Bath Activist Net­work? A: A local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

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11th October day of action against surveillance — Freedom not Fear + ANPR news for car drivers

Call to mass action Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber against the sur­veil­lance state in sol­i­dar­i­ty with activists around the world http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/242/144/

Freedom not Fear banner logoCall to mass action Sat­ur­day 11th Octo­ber against the sur­veil­lance state in sol­i­dar­i­ty with activists around the world http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/242/144/

A broad move­ment of cam­paign­ers and orga­ni­za­tions is call­ing on every­body to join action against exces­sive sur­veil­lance by gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es. On 11 Octo­ber 2008, con­cerned peo­ple in many coun­tries will take to the streets, the mot­to being “Free­dom not fear 2008”. Peace­ful and cre­ative action, from protest march­es to par­ties, will take place in many cap­i­tal cities.

—————

Sur­veil­lance mania is spread­ing. Gov­ern­ments and busi­ness­es reg­is­ter, mon­i­tor and con­trol our behav­iour ever more thor­ough­ly. No mat­ter what we do, who we phone and talk to, where we go, whom we are friends with, what our inter­ests are, which groups we par­tic­i­pate in — “big broth­er” gov­ern­ment and “lit­tle broth­ers” in busi­ness know it more and more thor­ough­ly. The result­ing lack of pri­va­cy and con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is putting at risk the free­dom of con­fes­sion, the free­dom of speech as well as the work of doc­tors, helplines, lawyers and jour­nal­ists.

The man­i­fold agen­da of secu­ri­ty sec­tor reform encom­pass­es the con­ver­gence of police, intel­li­gence agen­cies and the mil­i­tary, threat­en­ing to melt down the divi­sion and bal­ance of pow­ers. Using meth­ods of mass sur­veil­lance, the bor­der­less coop­er­a­tion of the mil­i­tary, intel­li­gence ser­vices and police author­i­ties is lead­ing towards the con­struc­tion of “Fortress­es” in Europe and on oth­er con­ti­nents, direct­ed against refugees and dif­fer­ent-look­ing peo­ple but also affect­ing, for exam­ple, polit­i­cal activists, the poor and under-priv­iledged, and sports fans.

Peo­ple who con­stant­ly feel watched and under sur­veil­lance can­not freely and coura­geous­ly stand up for their rights and for a just soci­ety. Mass sur­veil­lance is there­by threat­en­ing the fab­ric of a demo­c­ra­t­ic and open soci­ety. Mass sur­veil­lance is also endan­ger­ing the work and com­mit­ment of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions.

Sur­veil­lance, dis­trust and fear are grad­u­al­ly trans­form­ing our soci­ety into one of uncrit­i­cal con­sumers who have “noth­ing to hide” and — in a vain attempt to achieve total secu­ri­ty — are pre­pared to give up their free­doms. We do not want to live in such a soci­ety!

We believe the respect for our pri­va­cy to be an impor­tant part of our human dig­ni­ty. A free and open soci­ety can­not exist with­out uncon­di­tion­al­ly pri­vate spaces and com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

The increas­ing elec­tron­ic reg­is­tra­tion and sur­veil­lance of the entire pop­u­la­tion does not make us any safer from crime, costs mil­lions of Euros and puts the pri­va­cy of inno­cent cit­i­zens at risk. Under the reign of fear and blind action­ism, tar­get­ed and sus­tained secu­ri­ty mea­sures fall by the way­side, as well as tack­ling peo­ples’ actu­al dai­ly prob­lems such as unem­ploy­ment and pover­ty.

In order to protest against secu­ri­ty mania and exces­sive sur­veil­lance we will take to the streets in cap­i­tal cities in many coun­tries on 11 Octo­ber 2008. We call on every­body to join our peace­ful protest. Politi­cians are to see that we are will­ing to take to the streets for the pro­tec­tion of our lib­er­ties!

There are plans for a demo with music and noise at New Scot­land Yard. Are oth­ers else­where up for doing demos else­where in the UK at oth­er police sta­tions?

Wiki for info and dis­cus­sion re Lon­don / UK actions
at http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2008/London
and http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Diskussion:Freedom_Not_Fear_2008/London

It would be good to have a con­ver­sa­tion about this as we need to get some­thing good start­ed. Octo­ber 11th Vid-Fly­er http://www.ecln.org

———–

Vehi­cle spy-cam data to be held for five years

Author­i­ties will store details of car jour­neys sur­veilled by the new nation­al Auto­mat­ic Num­ber Plate Recog­ni­tion (ANPR) sys­tem for five years, the Home Office has revealed.

Senior police offi­cer had said the data on mil­lions of vehi­cles would only be kept for two years, the Guardian reports. The Infor­ma­tion Com­mis­sion­er’s Office (ICO) is exam­in­ing a com­plaint by Pri­va­cy Inter­na­tion­al over the extend­ed reten­tion peri­od. The pri­va­cy advo­ca­cy group described it as “unnec­es­sary and dis­pro­por­tion­ate”.

The ICO said: “Pro­longed reten­tion would need to be clear­ly jus­ti­fied based on con­tin­u­ing val­ue not on the mere chance it may come in use­ful.”

The ANPR sys­tem, head­quar­tered in Hen­don, north Lon­don, will be ful­ly oper­a­tional in the new year. Half of Eng­lish and Welsh police are already sup­ply­ing it with data from their upgrad­ed CCTV net­works.

Forces are being encour­aged to “ful­ly and strate­gi­cal­ly exploit” its poten­tial for track­ing sus­pects and vehi­cles by the Asso­ci­a­tion of Chief Police Offi­cers. It’s envis­aged that ANPR will be used as part of “main­stream polic­ing”, rang­ing from clamp­ing down on unin­sured dri­vers to counter-ter­ror oper­a­tions.

Cam­paign­ers have called for the gov­ern­ment to more clear­ly define which oth­er agen­cies will be allowed to inter­ro­gate the data­base and for what rea­sons.

‘Leave it in the ground’ national meeting on 11 and 12 October in Manchester

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

Announce­ment – ‘Leave it in the ground’ nation­al meet­ing

Cli­mate change is the biggest threat fac­ing us, and burn­ing coal is the biggest his­tor­i­cal cause of cli­mate change. Every day more coal is burned, yet indus­try and gov­ern­ment seem intent on burn­ing even more.

‘Leave it in the ground’ is the slo­gan of a new net­work for groups tak­ing action oppos­ing new coal devel­op­ments in the UK, includ­ing the 30+ planned open­cast sites and sev­en new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions. Added to those already oper­at­ing, and the coal import and trans­port facil­i­ties, these projects rep­re­sent a mas­sive threat to our abil­i­ty to cut green­house gas emis­sions to safe lev­els, and would be a dis­as­ter for the cli­mate as well as for local areas.

The first ‘Leave it in the ground’ meet­ing will be held at the Yard The­atre, 41 Old Bir­ley
Street, Hulme, Man­ches­ter M15 5RF, on 11 and 12 Octo­ber.

The net­work plans to be a way for groups to share skills and expe­ri­ence in dif­fer­ent areas and to encour­age col­lab­o­ra­tion on com­mon goals. It is a loose net­work of equals, and is not affil­i­at­ed to any polit­i­cal par­ty or NGO.

The pro­posed agen­da for this meet­ing includes:

Sat­ur­day 11th

§ Intro­duc­tion to the UK coal indus­try
§ Updates on oppo­si­tion to coal devel­op­ments in the UK, includ­ing the cam­paigns against the Ffos-y-Fran (near Merthyr Tyd­fil) and Lodge House (Der­byshire) open­cast sites, the 2008 Cli­mate Camp and the pro­posed Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion block­ade.
§ Dis­cussing cli­mate change solu­tions, includ­ing the impor­tance of a social­ly just tran­si­tion to a low-car­bon econ­o­my.
§ Think­ing about how our net­work will func­tion, its deci­sion-mak­ing struc­ture, name and com­mu­ni­ca­tions
§ Plan­ning ini­tial events and strat­e­gy for the net­work
§ Region­al net­work­ing between groups

Sun­day 12th

§ Media train­ing
§ Intro­duc­tion to direct action plan­ning
§ Fur­ther dis­cus­sions on cli­mate change, cli­mate jus­tice and inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing

If you can only make one day of the meet­ing, please try to come on Sat­ur­day. We will aim to start at 10:00 and to fin­ish by 18:00 to allow for trav­el. The meet­ing will free, lunch and evening meal on Sat­ur­day and lunch on Sun­day will be avail­able for dona­tions.

If you would like to attend, please reg­is­ter by email­ing info@leaveitintheground.org.uk, with ‘meet­ing’ in the sub­ject line, stat­ing how many of your group wish to attend, any spe­cial dietary or access require­ments and whether you want accom­mo­da­tion for Sat­ur­day night. Free accom­mo­da­tion will prob­a­bly be ‘crash­pad’ only, but we can pro­vide details of near­by hotels etc.

For those trav­el­ling from far off, we will oper­ate a ‘pool fare’ sys­tem to even out the costs of trav­el. The venue is about ten min­utes walk from Man­ches­ter Oxford Road sta­tion, and is served by num­ber 54 and 86 bus­es, with many oth­ers serv­ing the near­by Stret­ford road. More details on the GMPTE web­site.

BIA vans trashed

On the night of Fri­day 29th August the region­al head­quar­ters of the Bor­ders and Immi­gra­tion Agency in Por­tishead were the tar­get for a response to the rou­tine vio­lence of forced removal, deten­tion and deportation.We made life more dif­fi­cult for the thugs in uni­form by putting their vehi­cles out of oper­a­tion with a volatile mix of paint strip­per on body­work, glass etch­ing flu­id on win­dows, locks gl

On the night of Fri­day 29th August the region­al head­quar­ters of the Bor­ders and Immi­gra­tion Agency in Por­tishead were the tar­get for a response to the rou­tine vio­lence of forced removal, deten­tion and deportation.We made life more dif­fi­cult for the thugs in uni­form by putting their vehi­cles out of oper­a­tion with a volatile mix of paint strip­per on body­work, glass etch­ing flu­id on win­dows, locks glued, tires burst, lights spray­paint­ed, mir­rors and wipers removed, as well as some good old fash­ioned mechan­i­cal sab­o­tage on all 7 vehi­cles in the car park. If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well. “Racist thugs work here” was the mes­sage paint­ed on the build­ing.
We stand against the state’s steadi­ly creep­ing fas­cism of racist immi­gra­tion poli­cies designed to tight­en the grip of cap­i­tal over all of our lives, of tri­alling sur­veil­lance and con­trol tech­nolo­gies such as ID cards and bio­met­ric pass­ports first on for­eign­ers before impos­ing them on every­one, of the cre­ation of a sub class whose repres­sion jus­ti­fied by media hys­te­ria and the pow­ers that be. In sol­i­dar­i­ty, for a response to every abuse and for fight­ing back in the social war.