Devonport submarine base blockaded by Trident Ploughshares, one arrest

Around thir­teen activists from anti-nuclear direct action group Tri­dent Ploughshares took the police by sur­prise when they block­ad­ed Devon­port naval dock­yard, near the cen­tre of Ply­mouth, in the ear­ly hours of Fri­day, 22 August, 2008. One man was arrest­ed. The Roy­al Navy base is used to refit nuclear sub­marines, includ­ing the Tri­dent nuclear mis­sile-car­ry­ing Van­guard fleet based at Faslane, Scot­land.

Devonport anti-nuke lock-onDevonport anti-nuke ladder blockadeAround thir­teen activists from anti-nuclear direct action group Tri­dent Ploughshares took the police by sur­prise when they block­ad­ed Devon­port naval dock­yard, near the cen­tre of Ply­mouth, in the ear­ly hours of Fri­day, 22 August, 2008. One man was arrest­ed. The Roy­al Navy base is used to refit nuclear sub­marines, includ­ing the Tri­dent nuclear mis­sile-car­ry­ing Van­guard fleet based at Faslane, Scot­land.

The block­aders, main­ly from the local Tamar­i­an affin­i­ty group and the Lon­don-based Muriel Lesters, obstruct­ed the main access road into the site at Camel’s Head. Dock­yard work­ers arriv­ing in vehi­cles were pre­vent­ed from enter­ing for half an hour, from around 7.30am on the last work­ing day before the Bank Hol­i­day week­end. The activists used two long met­al lad­ders, a lock-on tube with a chain attached, bicy­cle chains, a wheel­chair and their bod­ies to com­plete­ly block the incom­ing car­riage­way.

Police even­tu­al­ly arrived and had to divert traf­fic for a fur­ther hour, until the police cut­ting team final­ly arrived. At this point, the block­aders and their sup­port­ers agreed to leave, giv­en that most work­ers had already entered the base. They were able to keep all their ban­ners, lad­ders and oth­er blockad­ing equip­ment.

After releas­ing him­self from an arm lock-on tube (which had been passed through one lad­der and also chained to the cen­tral crash bar­ri­er), Daniel Vies­nik, 33, from Lon­don got up and then lay down again on the red line mark­ing the lim­it of the Min­istry of Defence prop­er­ty. He was sub­se­quent­ly joined by Irene Willis. After ignor­ing police requests to move, Mr Vies­nik was arrest­ed and car­ried away to a van. He was tak­en to Charles Cross police sta­tion and held for around three hours before being charged with obstruc­tion of the high­way and released. He was bailed to appear before Ply­mouth Mag­is­trates’ on 5th Sep­tem­ber.

Devonport anti-nuke die-inOn Sat­ur­day morn­ing, the group tied anti-Tri­dent ban­ners to promi­nent bridges and round­abouts on roads going into Ply­mouth. Lat­er, in the city cen­tre, they dressed them­selves in white ‘radi­a­tion suits’ and some of them attract­ed the atten­tion of passers-by with a ‘die-in’, their ‘corpses’ sprin­kled with ‘nuclear fall­out’ ash. Oth­ers leaflet­ed shop­pers and engaged inter­est­ed locals and sol­diers from the near­by Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Army cen­tre in dia­logue about the nuclear men­ace on their doorstep and pro­pos­als to turn the site into a nuclear sub­ma­rine grave­yard.

One of the block­aders said, “Plans to replace or upgrade the Tri­dent sys­tem con­tra­vene our inter­na­tion­al treaty oblig­a­tions, which is hyp­o­crit­i­cal and ille­gal. We would like to see the British gov­ern­ment lead by exam­ple in push­ing for glob­al abo­li­tion of nuclear weapons and stop wast­ing bil­lions of pounds of pub­lic mon­ey on these instru­ments of mass mur­der. Local work­ers should be retrained to use their skills for more peace­ful pur­pos­es.”

Fri­day’s block­ade was the top sto­ry report­ed on local BBC TV news and was also cov­ered by local ITV news, local radio and the Ply­mouth Her­ald news­pa­per.

Tri­dent Ploughshares is com­mit­ted to dis­arm­ing the UK Tri­dent nuclear weapons sys­tem in a non-vio­lent, open, peace­ful and ful­ly account­able man­ner.
The group is organ­is­ing a Big Block­ade at Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire – Britain’s nuclear bomb fac­to­ry – sup­port­ed by the Cam­paign for Nuclear Dis­ar­ma­ment (CND), on Mon­day, 27 Octo­ber, meet­ing on 26 Octo­ber. Check the Tri­dent Ploughshares web­site for fur­ther details and to request a brief­ing pack. Arrestable block­aders and non-arrestable sup­port­ers are need­ed. There will be a week­end of non-vio­lent direct action train­ing in prepa­ra­tion for this action on 20–21 Sep­tem­ber in Lon­don. New­com­ers are warm­ly invit­ed to attend (it is also pos­si­ble to attend the train­ing just for one day).

Main­stream media cov­er­age of Devon­port block­ade:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7576964.stm (video)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/7576219.stm
http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Nuclear-protest-dockyard/article-283835-detail/article.html

—-

Non-vio­lence train­ing work­shop 20–21 Sep­tem­ber

There will be a week­end work­shop of Tri­dent Ploughshares non­vi­o­lence
train­ing, focussing on prepa­ra­tion for the Octo­ber 27 Alder­mas­ton Big Block­ade at Waltham­stow Friend’s Meet­ing House, 1a Jew­el Road, off Hoe Street, Waltham­stow, Lon­don E17 4QU on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day 20th and 21st Sep­tem­ber.

The full week­end is pri­mar­i­ly for peo­ple think­ing of becom­ing mem­bers of Tri­dent Ploughshares and mak­ing an ongo­ing com­mit­ment. Peo­ple just wish­ing to pre­pare for the block­ade are wel­come to attend for the full week­end, but may also choose to attend on the Sat­ur­day only.

There is no charge for the work­shop, but par­tic­i­pants are asked to con­tribute towards expens­es if they are able to.

Con­tact Ali­son to reg­is­ter and for more details:
E‑mail: alison.crane [at] ntlworld.com
Tel: 01785 611 768 or 0845 4588 362 or 07886 972 319

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 82, AUGUST 2008

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK, 13–14.09.08
6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER, 26–28.09.08
7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.09

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL

————————-
UPCOMING EVENTS AND ACTIONS:
————————-
1) CLIMATE ACTION CAMP & NO BORDER CAMP, HAMBURG, GERMANY, 15–24.8.08
‘These camps are going to take place in or near Ham­burg. It’s two dif­fer­ent camps, but prob­a­bly on the same camp site and doing togeth­er at least two mass actions like block­ades: on 22nd August at the depor­ta­tion air­port of Ham­burg and on 23rd at the har­bour or at the new coal pow­er plant. http://klimacamp08.org

2) SHELL TO SEA WEEK OF ACTION, 17–23.08.08
The Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly. Mem­bers of the ‘Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’ recent­ly deployed at the E.ON coal fired pow­er sta­tion at Kingsnorth in
Kent, Eng­land, have made their way from Cli­mate Camp UK to Erris, in order to assist Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers in their oppo­si­tion to this pipeline con­struc­tion at Glen­gad.

3) EARTH FIRST! SUMMER GATHERING, NORFOLK, 27.8–1.9.08
5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions in a beau­ti­ful field in Nor­folk. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing. www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk

4) BRISTOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR, BRISTOL, 13.09.08
St Wer­burghs Cen­tre, 10am to 5pm, free entry. With a work­shop by Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide: Why direct action? Social change not cli­mate change? www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

5) TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION IN COPENHANGEN 2009, DENMARK 13–14.09.08
Join the first inter­na­tion­al plan­ning meet­ing in Copen­hagen from the 13–14th of Sep­tem­ber 2008. The meet­ing aims at prepar­ing a large mobil­i­sa­tion for direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change in Copen­hagen and through­out the world dur­ing the UN Cli­mate Con­fer­ence (30 Nov-11 Dec 2009). More info:
http://klimax2009.org/?p=33&langswitch_lang=en Tell them you’re com­ing:
sept08@klimax2009.org

6) CLIMATE CAMP WHAT NEXT MEETING, MANCHESTER 26–28.09.08
All are invit­ed to the first Post-Cli­mate Camp Nation­al Gath­er­ing. The gath­er­ing will offer a chance to reflect on where we are at, decide where we go from here, and pro­vide info as to how to get involved in the ongo­ing direct action cam­paign to stop Kingsnorth.
Ques­tions? Email process@climatecamp.org.uk

7) NATIONAL MEETING TO RESIST NEW COAL, MANCHESTER, 11–12.10.08
A meet­ing to bring togeth­er groups and com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing coal in the UK – from open cast and deep coal mines, to pow­er sta­tions and coal imports. Share infor­ma­tion, plan for action, and build a strong net­work of resis­tance. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

8) FOSSIL FOOLS DAY 2009, 01.04.2009
Four con­ti­nents, 150 actions, and an April Fool’s Day with a fan­tas­ti­cal­ly sub­ver­sive (and rad­i­cal­ly nec­es­sary) twist – we’re def­i­nite­ly doing that again! So Fos­sil Fools Day 2009 is a go – start pick­ing your fos­sil fuel tar­get now! Info and resources will be post­ed on the web­site soon, and look out for leaflets to dis­trib­ute in Decem­ber.

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

1) CAMP FOR CLIMATE ACTION, KINGSNORTH, KENT, 3–11.08.08
From the Heathrow Con­fer­ence to the Car­a­van, from the work­shops to beau­ti­ful camp life, from the GRRR pirates to the fence breach­ers to the bail break­ers, and the flur­ry of affin­i­ty group actions before, dur­ing and after the camp, the 2008 Camp for Cli­mate Action was a roar­ing suc­cess. We out­smart­ed 26 police forces to run the biggest cli­mate camp ever. We cov­ered the riv­er in boats, filled the streets with peo­ple, cov­ered the pow­er sta­tion gates with ban­ners and hit at least eight oth­er tar­gets with autonomous actions. We flood­ed the nation­al, local and inde­pen­dent media with our sto­ries and mes­sages. E.ON and the Gov­ern­ment threw every­thing they could at us, and they still couldn’t hold us back. Actions, in no par­tic­u­lar order, includ­ed: an office inva­sion of min­ing com­pa­ny BHP Bil­ton, tak­ing over an incin­er­a­tor site in Newhaven, a block­ade of Cargill over its rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing, a pro-veg­an roof occu­pa­tion and ban­ner drop at Smith­field Meat Mar­ket, a protest at US air base Milden­hall to high­light mil­i­tary CO2 emis­sions, a ban­ner drop from an elec­tric­i­ty pylon, a naked protest at DBERR, the world’s small­est pro­test­ers climb­ing E.ON’s smoke­stack (at Legoland), actions at Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (not once but twice – stu­dents do a die-in and Ris­ing Tiders bust out the super­glue), a demo at Lon­gan­net pow­er sta­tion in Fife, a mul­ti-pronged attack on Gatwick by Plane Stu­pid, the shut­ting down of the South’s biggest bio­fu­el stor­age facil­i­ty, and in
a sin­gle day of may­hem in the City, the Cli­mate Car­a­van tar­get­ed RBS and the PR firms for Shell, BAA & E.ON.
www.climatecamp.org.uk
Pho­to slide show: http://blip.tv/file/1167973
Video: http://www.undercurrents.org/visionon/

2) DERBYSHIRE COAL MINE EVICTED, 14.08.08
The squat in Der­byshire, a protest on the site of a pro­posed new open-cast coal mine, came to end with the evic­tion of the remain­ing two pro­test­ers, who had res­olute­ly resist­ed attempts to clear the site by furi­ous­ly dig­ging for vic­to­ry. Come to the nation­al Leave it in the Ground meet­ing in Octo­ber to help with the next steps. www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

3) US CLIMATE CAMPS, JULY/AUGUST
All three US Cli­mate Camps have now wound down, with action high­lights includ­ing the South­east Cli­mate Con­ver­gence occu­py­ing a nuclear facil­i­ty in Vir­ginia, the Bil­lion­aires for Coal strik­ing Bank of Amer­i­ca 4 times in 3 days and a protest at NW Nat­ur­al Gas fol­low­ing the West Coast Con­ver­gence. And check out http://www.uncampement.net/?q=en/node/775 for
the ongo­ing (8–24 August) camp in Que­bec, Cana­da.

4) SAVING ICELAND CAMP, JULY/AUGUST
Sav­ing Iceland’s fourth action camp is now over but the fight goes on. The three-week camp was at Hell­isheiði, where Reyk­javík Ener­gy is expand­ing their geot­her­mal pow­er plant, first of all to sup­ply ener­gy to alu­mini­um smelters. Actions includ­ed: work on the Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s exist­ing smelter as well as a steel fac­to­ry were block­ad­ed, hold­ing up a shift
change for sev­er­al hours. A Reyk­javik Ener­gy geot­her­mal drill site at Hell­ishei­di, being built for Cen­tu­ry, was com­plete­ly shut down for a day as activists locked to machines, climbed the drill and occu­pied the pow­er con­trol room. The nation­al pow­er com­pa­ny Landsvirkjun had it’s office invad­ed, and it’s CEO Fridrik Sophus­son had his home vis­it­ed. Sav­ing Ice­land nailed an evic­tion notice to his door. www.savingiceland.org

5) AIRPORT OCCUPATION, GERMANY, ONGOING
In Ger­many cli­mate activists have been squat­ting a wood­land since the begin­ning of June to stop the con­struc­tion of yet anoth­er new run­way for the already mas­sive Frank­furt air­port. The camp con­tin­ues to grow with over 30 peo­ple liv­ing on site and has the sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty. Demos and actions are being organ­ised togeth­er with local res­i­dents’ groups
against air­port expan­sion. Amaz­ing tree­hous­es, walk­ways and funky ground shel­ters have been con­struct­ed to make life pleas­ant in the woods and to resist evic­tion as long as pos­si­ble. Peo­ple are wel­come to join in. www.waldbesetzung.blogsport.de

6) STICKING IT TO THE PM, LONDON, 22.07.08
On 22nd July a Plane Stu­pid cam­paign­er super­glued him­self to Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown in 10 Down­ing Street. He’d been invit­ed to receive an award for protest­ing, so prompt­ly decid­ed to car­ry on in that vain! Whilst ask­ing Gor­don about refus­ing to meet West Lon­don
res­i­dents opposed to the con­struc­tion of a third run­way at Heathrow, the intre­pid pro­test­er put his super­glue cov­ered hand onto Brown’s poly­ester suit. When Brown went to turn away he found he was stuck and for once had no option but to lis­ten. www.planestupid.com

7) 32 4x4s DISARMED, OXFORD, 18.07.08
32 SUV own­ers woke up in Oxford on 18th July to dis­cov­er that their envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive vehi­cles had been dis­abled using the ‘mung bean trick’ to let down their tires.

8) NEW RISING TIDE LEAFLET
At long last, Ris­ing Tide has a new leaflet – who we are, what we do and why we do it, wrapped up in an inspir­ing pho­to col­lage pack­age. Sneak a peak at , or email info@risingtide.org.uk to get a bunch post­ed to you for dis­tri­b­u­tion in your local area.

9) NEW REPORT: CASHING IN ON COAL
High street banks are mak­ing mil­lions by pro­vid­ing the finan­cial fuel that dri­ves the expan­sion of coal extrac­tion and com­bus­tion. This report exam­ines the role in the last two years of the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land (RBS), HSBC and Bar­clays in pro­vid­ing and arrang­ing the finan­cial means to the coal indus­try to extract and burn vast quan­ti­ties of coal. The report reveals that RBS has helped lend more mon­ey to the coal indus­try, in more deals, than any oth­er major UK bank. www.carbonweb.org

—————–
Ris­ing Tide UK,
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street,
Lon­don E1 1ES
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk
www.fossilfoolsday.org
Tel: 07708 794665

See also the Camp for Cli­mate Action (www.climatecamp.org.uk), Net­work for Cli­mate Action (www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk) and Cli­mate Indy­media (www.climateimc.org)

———-

Please send any­thing you’d like includ­ed in this news sheet to:
newssheet@risingtide.org.uk

To view pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the Ris­ing Tide News Sheet, vis­it the News Sheet Archive at http://risingtide.org.uk/newssheet

This News Sheet was brought to you by Ris­ing Tide, a grass­roots net­work of groups and indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to tak­ing action and build­ing a move­ment against cli­mate change.

For more infor­ma­tion…
email: info@risingtide.org.uk
Phone: +44 (0)845 458 8923 / +44 (0)7708 794665
Address: 62 Fieldgate St, Lon­don, E1 1ES
Web site: http://risingtide.org.uk

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND AND INVITE THEM TO JOIN THE LIST

To sub­scribe or unsub­scribe vis­it:
http://risingtide.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/rt-news

Bath Bomb #13 Out Now

Live from the fields…

The Bath Bomb

It’s Our Birth­day – Make Us (Veg­an) Cake!

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #13
free/donation
Aug 08

Birth­day Bumps

Live from the fields…

The Bath Bomb

It’s Our Birth­day – Make Us (Veg­an) Cake!

@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #13
free/donation
Aug 08

Birth­day Bumps

To cel­e­brate our first anniver­sary, the Bath Bomb has teamed up for an exclu­sive part­ner­ship with the Bris­tol Evening Post, who are now offer­ing a free Bath Bomb with every issue! Mon­ey-grub­bing egghead MD Kevin Beat­ty, of media monop­oly Asso­ci­at­ed News­pa­pers (proud pro-fas­cist own­ers of the Dai­ly Mail, as well as North­cliffe Media — who have been busi­ly buy­ing out every local media out­let they can over the last 5 years and reduc­ing them to the same gener­ic mould) had this to say about the hap­py union: “…ven­ture cap­i­tal­ism… caviar…tax loopholes…fourth hol­i­day home in the Bahamas…co-opting any­thing rad­i­cal and real….” Hap­py first birth­day us! Now, we look eager­ly for­ward to the next year of bland­ly cen­sor­ing all opin­ion, cost cut­ting, and sack­ing sur­plus journos!

http://www.dmgt.co.uk/corporatestructure/associatednewspapers/

Life At Cli­mate Camp

Twelve activists from Bath Activist Net­work attend­ed this sum­mer’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, held from the 3rd-11th August, near Kingsnorth Pow­er Sta­tion, in the Hoo Penin­su­la of Kent. The Camp was not only held in defi­ance of E‑On’s plans to build the UK’s first coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 33 years, but also to sug­gest alter­na­tives to the lifestyle options pro­vid­ed by state cap­i­tal­ism that dam­age the earth and its poor­est peo­ple. The Camp had no lead­ers; deci­sions were made col­lec­tive­ly and every­one vol­un­teered for jobs that need­ed doing. Veg­an food was pre­pared using local organ­ic ingre­di­ents and eat­en com­mu­nal­ly. It pro­vid­ed its own phys­i­cal and men­tal health care, secu­ri­ty, inde­pen­dent media (with inter­net access) and con­flict medi­a­tion. Grey water fil­tra­tion sys­tems were used to irri­gate the fields, rub­bish was recy­cled and com­post­ed and the waste from com­post loos will be used by local farm­ers. The site was pow­ered by wind and solar ener­gy. The tech­ni­cal poten­tial for glob­al wind and solar pow­er exceeds cur­rent ener­gy use. Plus, in gen­er­al, weath­er that is unfavourable for wind pow­er pro­duc­tion is favourable for solar ener­gy and vice ver­sa.

Enter­tain­ment was pro­vid­ed in the form of live music, ped­al pow­ered sound sys­tems, a cin­e­ma, barn dance, veg­an cake bak­ing ses­sions, pirate radio, karaoke and beer! Work­shops ranged from edu­ca­tion on envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence to recy­cled bike part jew­ellery mak­ing and prac­ti­cal fem­i­nist self-defence. All in all, a great nine days and well worth get­ting mud­dy for.

www.climatecamp.org.uk

Hoo Grrrs Wins

B. da Fucha con­tin­ues our exclu­sive report: “Not only was the Camp a near-per­fect exper­i­ment in sus­tain­able liv­ing, but was also a launch pad for uncom­pro­mis­ing action against the cli­mate crim­i­nals. What with the agro­fu­els indus­try being respon­si­ble for 75% of recent glob­al food price hikes, on Thurs­day the 7th August, activists block­ad­ed the Vopak bio­fu­els depot in near­by Thur­rock, which sup­plies so-called ‘green’ com­pa­nies like Green­er­gy and Tesco. Else­where, dur­ing the Camp, there were more ban­ner drops and lock-ons than you can shake an extend­able baton at, but here fol­low just a few:

Actions took place the same day at Gatwick Air­port against short-haul flights (139 flights from Lon­don to Edin­burgh, but only 22 trains); an oil-spat­tered ‘die-in’ at RBS’ HQ (‘The Oil and Gas Bank’, who pro­vides $20 mil­lion to pol­lut­ing coal projects such as Arch Coal’s Bond vil­lain-esque ‘Moun­tain Top Removal’ schemes); and — prov­ing that size isn’t every­thing — in Legoland in Wind­sor, Lego cam­paign­ers scaled and hung a ban­ner from E‑On’s mini repli­ca pow­er sta­tion!

Mean­while, on Sat­ur­day the 9th, to the tune of 60 or so arrests, activists laid siege to Kingsnorth with a three-pronged attack: over water, land, and, appar­ent­ly, air. 1,000 made their way over roads in a peace­ful and fam­i­ly-friend­ly parade, though restrict­ing crowd con­trol bar­ri­ers van­ished one by one (to onlook­ing plod’s dis­may), and there were some minor scuf­fles due to police bru­tal­i­ty. Mean­while, over the fields, a 200-strong brigade of Green Guer­ril­las clam­bered, crawled, wad­ed and leapt their way to Kingsnorth, even­tu­al­ly breach­ing three rings of fenc­ing (luck­i­ly, wily sabo­teurs had secret­ly shut the elec­tric­i­ty before­hand), fac­ing riot cops, Alsa­tians and hors­es. And along the Med­way, with ‘The Great Rebel Raft Regat­ta’, a mot­ley flotil­la of 28 home­made pirate ves­sels braved the cur­rents, with one craft get­ting through.

Else­where, pro­test­ers clam­bered atop pylons, and occu­pied Sel­f­ridges in Lon­don, chained to a ban­ner read­ing ‘Our con­sump­tion will fuck us all.’ And the next day, shenani­gans con­tin­ued, with the Smith­field­’s meat mar­ket wak­ing to the sight of rooftop mes­sages: ‘Fight Cli­mate Change — Go Veg­an,’ and a squadron of imi­ta­tion planes edu­cat­ing USAF Milden­hall about the links between cli­mate dis­as­ter and mil­i­tary ven­tures.

At the end of the day, 4 peo­ple got into Kingsnorth and dis­rupt­ed oper­a­tions, despite the £17 mil­lion security/policing bud­get, and the day was won — and, if they do make the mis­take of com­menc­ing build­ing work, we will be back, and we will shut them down!”

http://www.indymedia.org.uk
www.thegrrr.net/

FACT BOX

If E‑On is giv­en the go-ahead:

- It will under­mine the Government’s com­mit­ment to meet Euro­pean tar­gets for pro­duc­ing 20% of ener­gy from renew­ables by 2020
— The UK’s chances of meet­ing the nec­es­sary 80% emis­sions reduc­tions by 2050 will be blown
— The inef­fi­cient, cen­tralised ener­gy gen­er­a­tion sys­tem that’s respon­si­ble for 2/3s of all the ener­gy with­in fos­sil fuels being wast­ed will be propped up, poten­tial­ly for anoth­er 50 years
— It will emit as much car­bon diox­ide as the world’s 24 low­est emit­ting coun­tries com­bined

FFI, check out these two new pub­li­ca­tions:

Smith, Kevin — Cash­ing In On Coal; RBS, UK Banks and the Glob­al Coal Indus­try; avail­able from http://www.carbonweb.org
Fauset, Claire – Tech­no-Fix­es: a crit­i­cal guide to cli­mate change tech­nolo­gies; avail­able from http://www.corporatewatch.org

QUOTE OF THE MONTH: “I’m not here to fuck about – I’m not here to feed the police hob­nobs!”

Polic­ing The Cli­mate Camp

While up to 3,000 peo­ple at Cli­mate Camp worked hard to cre­ate a peace­ful, eco-friend­ly, edu­ca­tion­al space, anoth­er group in the area were work­ing equal­ly hard to make sure that none of this came to fruition. Nor­mal­ly, it is advis­able to ignore the police, view them as a pet­ty dis­trac­tion and move on, but the (mis)behaviour of the boys in blue at this year’s Camp war­rants a clos­er look.

At pre­vi­ous events, the vast major­i­ty of police harass­ment has been focused (entire­ly unsuc­cess­ful­ly) around pre­vent­ing direct action and effec­tive protest. This year how­ev­er, the aim of the police seemed to be to stop the Camp from hap­pen­ing at all. On the first day of set­ting up, with only 70 pro­tes­tors present, hun­dreds of police descend­ed on the site, caus­ing crim­i­nal dam­age, mak­ing arbi­trary arrests and beat­ings. They then pro­ceed­ed to con­fis­cate hun­dreds of items includ­ing water drainage sys­tems, dis­abled toi­lets, chil­drens’ crayons, guy ropes, cook­ing equip­ment, solar pan­els and wind tur­bines. Activists put up a brave and pro­tract­ed fight that pre­vent­ed the police from steal­ing much more. This set the tone for the polic­ing, with tac­tics rang­ing from repet­i­tive ille­gal and intru­sive stop and search­es, the arrest­ing of inno­cents (and release straight after Camp with­out charge; just to clear away pro­tes­tors), the con­fis­ca­tion of arti­cles rang­ing from bikes to tents; also, hun­dreds of riot police rou­tine­ly attempt­ed to storm the site, using batons, shields and the threat of police dogs, caus­ing numer­ous injuries (includ­ing head injuries to a grand­moth­er and teenage girl, sat at the gate dur­ing an attack) almost every morn­ing between 2 and 6am, as well as con­stant low-lev­el fly­ing over the Camp dur­ing the small hours (in vio­la­tion of Arti­cle 5 of the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights relat­ing to sleep depri­va­tion and men­tal tor­ture). Dur­ing one attack, the local MP who was present wit­nessed such a bru­tal attack that he lodged sev­er­al com­plaints with police high-ups and lat­er declared sup­port for the Camp — he even received a dose of pep­per spray to the face from one overzeal­ous cop­per! It is worth not­ing that due to deter­mined resis­tance from campers, the police were suc­cess­ful­ly kept off site all week, except for that first raid. While refus­ing to be vic­tims of police bru­tal­i­ty, many hard­ened activists were shocked by the inten­si­ty, fre­quen­cy and sheer unpro­voked bru­tal­i­ty of police aggres­sion towards the Camp and its inhab­i­tants.

So why were the police so des­per­ate to pre­vent the cam­paign­ers’ mes­sage being spread, and why was the empha­sis of their oper­a­tion on dis­rup­tion of work­shops and the gen­er­al smooth run­ning of the Camp? Two rea­sons spring to mind. First­ly, the envi­ron­men­tal direct action move­ment, with Cli­mate Camp at its core, has swollen in size and effec­tive­ness over the past few years, and threat­ens to become a move­ment capa­ble of mak­ing real, rad­i­cal and last­ing change — some­thing the state will nev­er be will­ing to let hap­pen with­out a fight. Sec­ond­ly, cli­mate change is becom­ing very real to the peo­ple of this coun­try. Floods, dras­tic hikes in the price of fuel and food are all prod­ucts of gov­ern­ment-dri­ven cli­mate change. As such, Cli­mate Camp is gain­ing a strong social rel­e­vance — its crit­i­cisms of cap­i­tal­ism increas­ing­ly valid and its solu­tions increas­ing­ly tan­gi­ble. As water lev­els and reces­sion rise, and dis­con­tent and anger start to grow in more and more peo­ple, the gov­ern­ment (as in New Orleans) respond with greater author­i­tar­i­an­ism and social con­trol. They will also defend their crum­bling ide­ol­o­gy and attempt to vio­lent­ly repress those who show anoth­er way.

Despite the police oper­a­tion being a bun­gled yet bru­tal fail­ure, it does set a wor­ry­ing prece­dent for polit­i­cal polic­ing, the first signs of a gov­ern­ment who, lack­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty, respect, or answers, turns to vio­lence to pro­tect its increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed and unpop­u­lar agen­da.

As well as rad­i­cal­is­ing the less mil­i­tant activists present, the police activ­i­ty also rad­i­calised near­by res­i­dents, with one local poll show­ing 50% of vil­lagers now sup­port­ing the Camp.

For a copy of the Nation­al Extrem­ism Tac­ti­cal Co-ordi­na­tion Unit (NETCU)’s advice for police on how to deal with pro­test­ers, see here:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/405393.html
and here:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/405409.html
Police assaults dur­ing a search: http://www.medwaymessenger.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=46009
police steal­ing bikes: http://blip.tv/file/1149491/
Law­suits against the police made easy!: http://217.12.8.115/uk.f271.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_59089_ACW2ktkAAGe7SKP16g3MGjdp7HQ&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=suingthepolice.htm&cred=Liy1IXXCscVFc0JQh0o9r3FJcEo3Cltuasu_YRgi8gS1sxTCSf89fxmLQ5lXFFBax1bXeuLBv7NytQfoli4g9qGZzKgDw8pKj9hIjxGArb36Jkkhbg–&ts=1218709236&partner=ymail&sig=JSHCW3uQSwpEnGdyw35J5A–

Unnat­ur­al Dis­as­ters

Much dis­cus­sion and debate in Kent focused on the very real issue of how the lives of peo­ple in the third world are being affect­ed by cli­mate change and how this will be esca­lat­ed in the future. Whilst for some of us, cli­mate change seems a rel­a­tive­ly abstract notion, for much of the major­i­ty world it is a dai­ly real­i­ty. For many women and girls, their role is pri­mar­i­ly that of car­er. A speak­er dur­ing one action at this year’s Camp drew lis­ten­ers’ atten­tion to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in India, where progress, which has offered girls oppor­tu­ni­ties in edu­ca­tion, is being coun­ter­act­ed by errat­ic rain­fall, draw­ing girls away from edu­ca­tion and back to domes­tic roles. As well as this, Indi­a’s poor­est women and girls are often involved in what the UN brands ‘cli­mate sen­si­tive’ activ­i­ties, such as pad­dy cul­ti­va­tion and fish­ing, mean­ing that flood­ing and oth­er cat­a­stro­phes will put their lives and liveli­hood on the line.

Despite these set­backs, women are on the front lines in the fight against cli­mate change. For instance, in parts of Bangladesh where farm­ers face cat­a­stroph­ic flood­ing which has been increased by cli­mate change, women have adapt­ed their farm­ing meth­ods to cope, includ­ing cre­at­ing float­ing hyacinth beds and rear­ing ducks.

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2804

GREEN CAMPAIGNERS SAID:

- “If it is seri­ous about tack­ling cli­mate change, the gov­ern­ment must throw out this pro­pos­al and pro­mote invest­ment in clean and green alter­na­tives” — Robin Web­ster, Friends of the Earth.
— Car­o­line Lucas of the Green Par­ty said the move was a “mas­sive step back­wards.” She said “ulti­mate­ly it’s utter­ly unnec­es­sary, there are oth­er ways of gen­er­at­ing energy…it’s not dif­fi­cult to be slight­ly more effi­cient than the old pow­er sta­tions…”
— “In the same amount of time and for less mon­ey, we could imple­ment an ener­gy sys­tem that will do far more to stop cli­mate change and ensure ener­gy secu­ri­ty than nuclear or coal-fired pow­er: a com­bi­na­tion of renew­ables, effi­cien­cy, and com­bined heat and pow­er” — Green­peace

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/the-convenient-solution-20070718
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/climate/the-case-against-coal-frequently-asked-questions
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/greenpeace-shuts-down-coal-fired-power-station-20071008

…but that’s enough about so-called ‘experts’ – what do YOU say?

Oth­er Routes Of Change

Cli­mate Cam­p’s all over now, but the ‘Roots of Change’ day Bath Activist Net­work put on back in July to pro­mote it, yield­ed more than just that. We set up, er, camp in the Green Park Mar­ket, with stalls to let peo­ple know what BAN do and what Camp was all about. We were also joined by Tran­si­tion Town Bath, Viva! and Lon­don Road Food Co-op. There was a beau­ti­ful pho­to-dis­play from last year’s Cli­mate Camp and Bath’s FreeShop, with loads of peo­ple stop­ping to look and browse. The day real­ly put the mes­sage across that there was some­thing for every­one and encour­aged peo­ple to go at their own pace, chang­ing as much or as lit­tle as they liked. Whether plung­ing in at the deep end with ten days of com­mu­nal liv­ing and non vio­lent direct action at Cli­mate Camp, or pad­dling in the shal­low, but no less impor­tant end, by mak­ing small­er tweaks to every­day life, embrac­ing ideas such as shop­ping at a food co op or try­ing a veg­e­tar­i­an or veg­an diet. These changes often lead to more, after all, and too often peo­ple get put off mak­ing any changes due to a feel­ing of pres­sure and lack of sup­port. The oth­er main point is that these changes don’t have to be all doom and gloom — chang­ing some­thing and putting some­thing enjoy­able in its place is much bet­ter than giv­ing some­thing up — enrich­ing our lives rather than dimin­ish­ing them. I’ve recent­ly been find­ing it a very com­fort­ing thought that there is an active com­mu­ni­ty of peo­ple, often behind the scenes, who are work­ing on green ener­gy alter­na­tives for an uncer­tain future. There are still improve­ments to make, but I am con­stant­ly impressed by the amaz­ing­ly ded­i­cat­ed, ambi­tious and cre­ative peo­ple involved in these projects and the improve­ments they are able to make to any­thing they lay their hands on, from veg­an food to prac­ti­cal­i­ties such as com­post toi­lets. When the shit comes down, we’ll be using it as fer­til­iz­er.

http://www.transitionbath.org.uk/
http://www.envolve.co.uk/projects/food_coop.html
http://www.viva.org.uk/

If I Can’t Dance…

On the 5th Sep­tem­ber at the Porter Butt in Bath, all are cor­dial­ly invit­ed to a gig fundrais­er, ben­e­fit­ing the upcom­ing Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair — more info to fol­low! Speak­ing of which, the book­fair takes place on Sat­ur­day the 13th Sep­tem­ber, from 10am til 5pm, at St Wer­burghs Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, on Hor­ley Road in Bris­tol. Entry is free, and all are wel­come. Oh, and there’ll be a veg­an caff, too! If any­one wants to help dis­trib­ute fly­ers and posters, get in touch: bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk.

www.bristolanarchistbookfair.org

EVENTS

Mon­day nights — Bath Hunt Sabs Meet­ing, 8pm, Bell, Wal­cot Street
Wednes­days — Lon­don Road Food Co-op, 4–7pm, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Lon­don Road
Sat­ur­days — Bath Stop The War Vig­il, 11.30am-12.30, Abbey Court­yard
Weds 27th Aug-1st Sept — Earth­First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Nor­folk, see www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk
Weds 3rd Sept — Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, 7.30–8.30pm, back room of Bell, Wal­cot Street
Thurs­day 4th Sept — Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, 7.30–9pm, down­stairs of Hob­gob­lin, St James Parade
Fri 5th Sept — punk ben­e­fit gig for Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, 8–11pm, Porter Butt, Lon­don Road
Sat 6th Sept — Car­ni­val Against Vivi­sec­tion march, 12pm, meet oppo­site Led­bury train sta­tion
Tues 9th Sept — Tran­si­tion Town Bath Open Forum, 7–8pm , Wid­combe Social Club, Wid­combe Hill
Sat 13th Sept — Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair, 10–5, St Wer­burghs Cen­tre
Sat 13th Sept — Bath FreeShop, 12–3, out­side Pump Rooms, Stall Street
Tues 15th Sept — screen­ing of ‘11th Hour’ film, 7.30pm, upstairs The Rum­mer
Sat­ur­day 27th Sept — Nation­al Anti Fur march and ral­ly, 12pm, Bel­grave square, Lon­don, see http://www.caft.org.uk/furmarch/2008.htm

How Many Cops Does It Take To Change A Light­bulb?

In answer to this age-old ques­tion, let’s con­sid­er the cop-installed gen­er­a­tor, turned off in mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances the night fol­low­ing the police inva­sion of the Camp for Cli­mate Action. Our benev­o­lent state secu­ri­ty guards seemed to have a lit­tle trou­ble switch­ing the light back on. It took half an hour and six cops to find the light switch, but hey, I’m sure the coun­try is safe in their hands.

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.

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…

B B Jenk­ins

Earth First! gathering — programme and travel directions

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:

Earth First! Gathering 2008 - print sizeEarth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:
The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop. The Grid Ref­er­ence of the site is TM130819. The post code is IP22 5SY.

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich or vice ver­sa — this route goes right past the site and we’ll be ask­ing the local bus com­pa­ny if they will stop right out­side the site on request. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .
We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). Ring the Gath­er­ing mobile on 07789 331857

For a map and fur­ther details on trav­el includ­ing bus times and direc­tions for dri­vers check out http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html

Pro­gramme
This year’s pro­gramme focuss­es on info and plan­ning for actions, direct action skills as well as spaces to dis­cuss how we can respond to and deal with the widen­ing eco­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and soci­etal crises. We hope there’s some­thing for every­one.
We rec­om­mend that you arrive Tue evening, as work­shops will start on Wednes­day morn­ing and run until Sun­day evening

For more info about the gath­er­ing check out our web­site or email us (though we won’t be able to answer email after 21 Aug, as we’ll be on site set­ting up)

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

The work­shops

Wednes­day

12:00
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the gath­er­ing
Deal­ing with the main­stream media — how to get your mes­sage across
Basic electrics — for squats and homes.
Cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change — how to make the links vis­i­ble in actions
Queer net­work­ing ses­sion

2:30
Self-defence — mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting FAQ — shar­ing tips and tricks
Action Recon­nais­sance for begin­ners
Intro­duc­tion to the root caus­es of eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and an explo­ration of alter­na­tives
Advanced Nav­i­ga­tion

4:30
Sav­ing Ice­land — Intro­duc­tion to the cam­paign
Nuclear waste and nuclear weapons
Con­sen­sus Deci­sion-mak­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy
Con­fronting Abu­sive Behav­iours with­in our Com­mu­ni­ties — with­out the police/prison.

6:00
Library Space: Nego­ti­at­ing Safer Sex: tips on putting the the­o­ry into prac­tice, and mak­ing your sex life more fun as well as safer!

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Talk with video on resist­ing rain­for­est destruc­tion in Tas­ma­nia

Thurs­day

10:30
Deal­ing with Pub­lic Order sit­u­a­tions — under­stand­ing police tac­tics and how we can deal with to them/turn them to our advan­tage (runs until lunch)
State and cor­po­rate oppres­sion of the Aus­tralian Abo­rig­ines
Action recon­nais­sance — advanced skill­share, share your most clever tips and tricks for get­ting info for actions
Prac­ti­cal plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (begin­ners)
Activist trau­ma and recov­ery

12:00
Sav­ing Ice­land — an eval­u­a­tion of the camp this sum­mer
Secu­ri­ty for Activists Part I: Do’s and don’ts of organ­is­ing action, from arrang­ing to meet, plan­ning and what hap­pens after
Arrest sup­port for actions — how to pro­vide sup­port for your affin­i­ty group, medi­um sized actions or mega camps and gath­er­ings.
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing

2:30
Wom­en’s self-defence — intro­duc­to­ry ses­sion
Food and Cli­mate Action: info for action
How to plan an action
Police liai­son for actions — what it is, its uses and lim­i­ta­tions and how to make it work.
Chang­ing light bulbs or smash­ing the sys­tem. Shar­ing +/- expe­ri­ences of work­ing within/outside the sys­tem

4:30
Oppos­ing nuclear expan­sion: plan­ning for action
How to plan and run a suc­cess­ful medi­um to long-term cam­paign
Night time skills Part I: intro­duc­tion (fol­lowed by prac­tise ses­sion at 8.30pm)
Legal and arrest work­shop
Intro­duc­tion to anar­chist history/potted anar­chist his­to­ries

6:00
Library space: open dis­cus­sion ?Direct action or pub­lic­i­ty stunt??
8:00

Cin­e­ma: Seashep­herd film and talk
8:30

Night time skills Part II — prac­tice your skills in the field.

Fri­day

10:30
Blockad­ing tac­tics
Cli­mate Camp debrief: a crit­i­cal look at the cli­mate camp, its achieve­ments and pol­i­tics
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Com­put­er Secu­ri­ty for the non-tech­ni­cal
Prison Abo­li­tion: what’s wrong with prison? what do we mean by abo­li­tion and how can we make it hap­pen?

12:00
Food and cli­mate change: action and cam­paign plan­ning
Self-defence mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting to resist — occu­pa­tions to resist the pow­ers of dark­ness
His­to­ry of Earth First!

2:30
The Earth First! Action Update and web­site: feed­back and get­ting involved
Resist­ing agro­fu­els — update on the sit­u­a­tion and action plan­ning
Sea Shep­herd — an intro to its cam­paigns and how to support/get involved.
Grow your own food — share you skills and expe­ri­ence
Queer Activist Forum: Rad­i­cal queers organ­ise for the future!

4:30
Queer Self-Defence: an intro to basic self-defence skills (ver­bal and phys­i­cal)
Set­ting up new direct action groups
Sav­ing Ice­land ? plan­ning actions for the com­ing year
Tech­no-fix­es and cli­mate change ? report by Cor­po­rate Watch
Urban self-reliance and self-suf­fi­cien­cy

7:30
Library: Pris­on­er Sup­port — An infor­mal get togeth­er to dis­cuss the state of pris­on­er sup­port in our move­ments, find out news and get advice on writ­ing to pris­on­ers, as well as mak­ing and writ­ing cards to send to pris­on­ers.

8:00
Cin­e­ma: A talk and film by a trib­al activist from Oris­sa oppos­ing min­ing

Sat­ur­day

10:30
Cam­paigns and Actions Round-up: UK and inter­na­tion­al news (no oth­er work­shops)

12:00
Wom­en’s self-defence prac­tise ses­sion plus run­ning along­side — intro­duc­tion to wom­en’s self-defence
Stop­ping GM test fields — dis­cus­sion on future campaign/actions
Research and destroy — how to research cor­po­ra­tions
Future mod­els of soci­ety — find­ing a path to sus­tain­able liv­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Using tripods for blockad­ing

2:30
Leave it in the ground — build­ing resis­tance to new coal min­ing and pow­er sta­tions
Facil­i­ta­tion of meet­ings
Activist Secu­ri­ty Part III: doing actions with­out leav­ing traces
Restora­tion Ecol­o­gy
Cre­at­ing safer spaces
Vis­it to Burston Strike School

4:30
Region­al meet­ings and action plan­ning (no oth­er work­shops)

6:00
Library Space: Work­ing with­out lead­ers — dis­cus­sion about core val­ues of anar­chism

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Smash Edo film and talk

Sun­day
11:00
Self defence mixed prac­tice ses­sion
Sort­ing out ways of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in EF!
Using radios on actions
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Fences: get­ting over them/taking them down

12:15
The sum­mer gath­er­ing: feed­back on this year’s and get­ting involved in organ­is­ing the next one

2:30
Con­doms, cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change
Smash Edo
Intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion
What’s new in the world of law?
Fem­i­nist Health
Climb­ing trees, lamp posts and any­thing else

4:30
Rad­i­cal pol­i­tics in the age of col­lapse
The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and Fos­sil Fuel Financ­ing
Get­ting your elec­tric­i­ty from solar pow­er and wind
Rad­i­cal Par­ent­ing
Look­ing after our men­tal health — shar­ing ideas and expe­ri­ences

8:00
Cin­e­ma: films — cli­mate camp footage, ready steady skip etc

Mon­day
Take-down: please stay for a day or two to help take down the site. If you’ve got access to a vehicle/van, it’d be great if you could help trans­port­ing mar­quees, recy­cling etc to the places they need to go. Cheers!

More info about the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.
Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.
We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.
Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

URGENT CALL OUT: MAYO NEEDS YOU! NOW IS THE TIME

Dur­ing the next 2 weeks, the Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Dur­ing the next 2 weeks, the Soli­taire (the biggest pipe lay­ing ship in the world) is set to begin ille­gal­ly con­struct­ing the off­shore sec­tion of the pipeline. It is believed that the Soli­taire is on a pret­ty tight sched­ule & booked up for the next 2 years, so ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

After the suc­cess of Cli­mate Camp, come over to Ire­land and sup­port a com­mu­ni­ty deter­mined to resist Shell…but they need your help!
Although local resis­tance has been ongo­ing, the police and a hired secu­ri­ty force have meant it is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult. A few weeks ago 13 peo­ple were arrest­ed in Glen­gad (1 man remains in hos­pi­tal). How­ev­er the police are now just escort­ing peo­ple from the site and not arrest­ing peo­ple.

There­fore there is a real need for clever actions to help delay cur­rent con­struc­tion at the land­fall area in Glen­gad and the planned off­shore pipe lay­ing. The local peo­ple are call­ing for your assis­tance at this time.

It is expect­ed that once the off-shore pipe lay­ing is done, there will be anoth­er qui­et peri­od for sev­er­al months before con­struc­tion is due on the onshore sec­tion pos­si­bly next spring or sum­mer, so NOW IS THE TIME TO COME!

If you can­not come over please do what you can from home …organ­ise Ross­port film nights, protest at Shell garages & offices, con­tact the Irish Embassy & media.

Trav­el details on camp web­site www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com
The cheap­est and eas­i­est way to trav­el from Eng­land-Ire­land is to get a coach or train tick­et that includes fer­ry too. www.sailandrail.com — 08705 455 455 www.coachacross.com
Acco­mo­da­tion is avali­able at the camp house
we can win but we need you
e‑mail: rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
Home­page: http://www.shelltosea.com, www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com, www.indymedia.ie/mayo

Spirit of Freedom (August 2008)

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 August 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.
There are also a num­ber of non-list­ed pris­on­ers, who are not list­ed either by their own choice, or because they betrayed their fel­low activists and became infor­mants. And remem­ber these num­bers do not include those peo­ple who are either under House Arrest or on Bail pend­ing Tri­al. Nor do they include the activists whose loca­tions are cur­rent­ly unknown and who are described by the police as “on the run”. See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing.
Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. 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, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing of six and a half years impris­on­ment hav­ing reached a non-coop­er­a­tion plea-bar­gain with the author­i­ties who accuse him of involve­ment in two 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 Board­er 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).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

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).

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, FCI Terre Haute, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808, 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. At the moment Daniel is in tran­sit as he has been ordered to appear before some Grand Juries. Daniel is refus­ing to answer the Grand Jury ques­tions and is gain­ing addi­tion­al prison time because of this (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters, 36432–086, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, 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 Exeter, 30 New North Road, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4EX, 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).

Mar­tin Bal­luch, (JA Josef­s­tadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Mar­tin is a veg­an)

Christoph, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Christo­pher does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Christoph 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).

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. (Rod is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

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).

Jür­gen Faul­mann, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Jur­gen 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).

Felix Hnat (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Felix is a veg­an).

Jan, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Jan does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Jan is a veg­an).

Kevin Kroem­mer, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Kevin is a veg­an)

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HM Prison Blak­en­hurst, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, B97 6QS, 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).

Leo, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Leo does not wish to have his full name pub­lished. (Leo is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Chris­t­ian Moser, Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Chris­t­ian is a veg­an).

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).

Sabine, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. At the moment Sabine does not wish to have their full name pub­lished. (Sabine 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).

Elmar Völkl (JA Eisen­stadt), Jus­ti­zanstalt Wr. Neustadt, Max­i­m­il­iang. 3, 2700 Wr. Neustadt, Aus­tria. One of ten Aus­tri­an’s held on remand accused of var­i­ous ani­mal rights actions. (Elmar 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 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 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).

Augustin Kraus, Vazeb­ni veznice, PP‑1, Lit­o­merice, 41 201, Czech Repub­lic.
Serv­ing 14 months for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in attacks against local neo-nazis. His charge was “bod­i­ly harm”. He speaks Czech, Slo­vak and Pol­ish. You can also write him short post­cards in Eng­lish. (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, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, 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

Sitting on piles of coal, revolting peasants, trashing things & fixing other things together, it’s the latest EF! Action Update

Smelters smelt­ed and wood­chip­pers chipped, pro­tes­tors around the world have been busy again tak­ing action against the plan­et-trash­ers — read all about it in the lat­est quar­ter­ly EF! Action Update.

This EF!AU is jam packed with excit­ing actions, plus fea­tures on inter­na­tion­al resis­tance against coal in time for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, a resur­gence of anti-genet­ics cam­paign­ing, and pro­pos­als for a rolling block­ade next year of Kingsnorth. You’ll be inspired to Taste the Waste, Leave it in the Ground and who knows what else!

EF! mine rest planets later logoSmelters smelt­ed and wood­chip­pers chipped, pro­tes­tors around the world have been busy again tak­ing action against the plan­et-trash­ers — read all about it in the lat­est quar­ter­ly EF! Action Update.

This EF!AU is jam packed with excit­ing actions, plus fea­tures on inter­na­tion­al resis­tance against coal in time for this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action, a resur­gence of anti-genet­ics cam­paign­ing, and pro­pos­als for a rolling block­ade next year of Kingsnorth. You’ll be inspired to Taste the Waste, Leave it in the Ground and who knows what else!

With sto­ries of green­wash laid bare, guer­ril­la-gar­den­ing, revolt­ing peas­ants, protest camps against coal mines and air­ports, build­ings burnt down, con­vey­ors and trains stopped, tires deflat­ed, GM fields lib­er­at­ed & ‘tri­als’ decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, despite tear-gas, jail threats, and fortress-like field pro­tec­tion, con­tin­u­ing resis­tance in Mayo & Ice­land, and cam­paign suc­cess­es, the diverse uses of super­glue just become mun­dane. Got a bro­ken tea cup or an incin­er­a­tor to shut down? You know what to use!

And if smash­ing green­hous­es or hang­ing about 60 metres up seems wierd, read on…

Also includes full lists of eco­log­i­cal direct action groups, protest camps & sup­port groups. Bat­ter­ies not includ­ed.

Pick up your copy at the Camp for Cli­mate Action or at your near­est social cen­tre. Or drop us a line at actionup­date AT earthfirst.org.uk and we’ll post you as many as you like for dis­trib­ut­ing around town and at events.

Down­load the lat­est EF!AU to share with oth­ers, sub­scribe or check out some past issues. The next issue will come out at the begin­ning of Novem­ber.

And of course, this year’s EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing (click here for lat­est news) is from Wednes­day 27th August to Mon­day 1st Sep­tem­ber 2008, if you want to plot & plan, and laugh & chat with old friends & new.

Latest info on Camp for Climate Action (& action reports during the camp) — useful links including ‘what’s it like’ video

All the lat­est info you need to have a reward­ing Camp for Cli­mate Action is below — read more.

Also please note that dur­ing the camp, the best place to get relat­ed action reports will be https://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/climatecamp/, with oth­ers on the gen­er­al IMC newswire. Dai­ly video reports trail­er.

We’ll do a round-up of actions & pho­tos after­wards, as last year.

Climate camp penknifeAll the lat­est info you need to have a reward­ing Camp for Cli­mate Action is below — read more.

Also please note that dur­ing the camp, the best place to get relat­ed action reports will be https://indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/climatecamp/, with oth­ers on the gen­er­al IMC newswire. Dai­ly video reports trail­er.

We’ll do a round-up of actions & pho­tos after­wards, as last year.

Get­ting there | What to bring | Neigh­bour­hoods | Phones & secu­ri­ty | Direct action | 9th August mass action | Oth­er use­ful info about the camp | Work­shop pro­gramme - you’ll find 2 work­shops clear­ly labelled as EF! but there’ll be EF!ers, such as you dear read­er, sprin­kled here and there through­out the camp in all sorts of roles, or off site tak­ing action; also check out all the excit­ing UK coal resis­tance work­shops, main­ly in the Welsh neigh­bour­hood & not in the main work­shop pro­gramme.

Video — Attend­ing the camp. The prac­ti­cal­i­ties, fun, and fears. Views, reas­sur­ance, clar­i­fi­ca­tion, and enthu­si­asm from peo­ple who attend­ed in 2007, and a lit­tle bit of the mag­ic in their words and eyes.

Activists take site for the Camp for Climate Action and reveal location

30 July 2008

Activists take site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action and reveal loca­tion

Climate camp 08 banner & tripods30 July 2008

Activists take site for the Camp for Cli­mate Action and reveal loca­tion

100 peo­ple entered and secured an uncul­ti­vat­ed field at Deans­gate Ridge at 3.00pm today, only 1 km from Kingsnorth Pow­er Sta­tion. They erect­ed and climbed tripods to pre­vent police from mov­ing them and have erect­ed a mar­quee along­side a ban­ner which reads ‘No New Coal’.

Although the cli­mate camp activists have been upfront and open about most aspects of their plans, the loca­tion of the camp had not been revealed until today in order to pre­vent E.ON and the police from attempt­ing to stop it from hap­pen­ing. The uncul­ti­vat­ed field is on a road that runs between Hoo St Wer­burgh and High Hal­stow. The Camp for Cli­mate Action intends to return the field in two weeks in as good, if not bet­ter, con­di­tion than it was found.

Around 20 sheep were in the field when it was occu­pied. They have been round­ed up and are being tak­en care of with food and water.

The camp, which is due to offi­cial­ly start on Sun­day, 3 August, is expect­ed to attract thou­sands of peo­ple com­ing from all over the UK. The week long camp hosts hun­dreds of work­shops on sus­tain­able liv­ing and the pol­i­tics of cli­mate change. The camp will cul­mi­nate on Sat­ur­day 9 August in a mass direct action to shut down Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion on protest over E.ON’s plans to build the first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in the UK for 33 years.

“We want to warm­ly invite peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ty to come down and see for them­selves what the camp is all about,” said Ter­ry Graves, who has already pitched his tent up in the field.

“E.ON and the gov­ern­ment believe that you can have end­less fos­sil-fuelled eco­nom­ic growth in a world of finite resources,” said Christi­na Greens­ford, who helped to secure the camp. “Peo­ple from all over the UK are here to cre­ate a demo­c­ra­t­ic, low-car­bon soci­ety in which our long term future on this plan­et is pri­ori­tised over the short term prof­it mar­gins of the fos­sil fuel indus­try.”

“We have a future to pro­tect, and today, in set­ting up the cli­mate camp, we’ve drawn a line in the sand at Kingsnorth.” said Han­nah Abbots. “We will not allow com­pa­nies like E.ON drag us over the edge of cli­mate cat­a­stro­phe.”

Press can con­tact Conor O’Brian at 07530 306267 who is on site and arrange inter­views, either over the phone or on the perime­ter of the site.

Press can also con­tact the media team, who are not cur­rent­ly on site, at 07772 861 099

A press advi­so­ry will be short­ly issued giv­ing infor­ma­tion as to when the first media tours of the camp will take place.

camp media team
press@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

The OS grid ref­er­ence for the camp is TQ 773 742. The site is between Dean­gate round about on the A228 and the vil­lage of High Hal­stow. The site is on the west side of the road (left com­ing north from the A228) as you go up hill after the Dean­gate sports field and before Dux Court farm.

For direc­tions and oth­er use­ful info, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/21137

EarthFirst! gathering workshop call & travel info

LAST CALL FOR RUNNING WORKSHOPS

at the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk

Get in touch if you or your campaign/group/network would like to run a work­shop or ses­sion at the gath­er­ing, espe­cial­ly if you can offer work­shops on action train­ing, direct action cam­paigns, ecol­o­gy, eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.

Email us on sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk or ring 01524 383012

Dead­line 12 August!

We’ve already got lots of work­shops con­firmed. Join us for:


LAST CALL FOR RUNNING WORKSHOPS

at the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk

Get in touch if you or your campaign/group/network would like to run a work­shop or ses­sion at the gath­er­ing, espe­cial­ly if you can offer work­shops on action train­ing, direct action cam­paigns, ecol­o­gy, eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.

Email us on sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk or ring 01524 383012

Dead­line 12 August!

We’ve already got lots of work­shops con­firmed. Join us for:

DIRECT ACTION TRAINING
includ­ing: Blockad­ing, rec­cies for actions, secu­ri­ty for actions, how to plan actions, legal and arrest info, map read­ing for begin­ners, squat­ting, how to run legal sup­port and police liai­son

GET INVOLVED IN AND PLAN DIRECT ACTION CAMPAIGNS
Leave it in the ground — resis­tance to coal
Stop­ping GM test fields
Sav­ing Ice­land: resis­tance to heavy indus­try
Food and Cli­mate Change info and action
Oppos­ing the nuclear indus­try
Bio­fu­els
Smash Edo – what’s hap­pen­ing and inter­st­ing lessons for oth­er cam­paigns
Ris­ing Tide

ECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE LIVING
Learn about ecol­o­gy, eco-cen­tric ethics, sus­tain­able liv­ing and eco­log­i­cal restora­tion includ­ing field trips and hands-on work.

There’ll also be inter­na­tion­al and nation­al action round-ups, region­al get-togeth­ers, ses­sions on strat­e­gy, where next and how we com­mu­ni­cate.

———

More info about the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing

Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.
Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a
prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

WHERE IS IT?
The gath­er­ing is hap­pen­ing on love­ly fields less than 3 miles from Diss in Nor­folk, with reg­u­lar trains to Diss and bus­es from Diss to the site.
We rec­om­mend that you arrive Tue evening, as work­shops will start on Wednes­day morn­ing and run until Sun­day after­noon.

FOOD AND WHAT TO BRING
Deli­cious veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed by the Anar­chist Teapot for £4 per day, or you can cater for your­self
Bring camp­ing gear — if you want details of B&Bs in the area con­tact us.
We are ask­ing for a con­tri­bu­tion of £15-£25 accord­ing to what you can afford.
Dogs: the gath­er­ing is held at a dog free site, unfor­tu­nate­ly we will have to turn away any dogs that arrive.
Please leave your car at home, it’s real­ly easy to get to by pub­lic trans­port or come by bike. You can also check out our lift shar­ing board:
http://www.easf.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=15

WHAT YOU’LL FIND ON SITE
Wel­come tent at the gate
Work­shop spaces
Anar­chist Teapot Kitchen
Veg­gies Cafe
Kids space with toys
Library with books on rad­i­cal thought and some relax­ing fic­tion
Book stall by Nat­ter­jack Press
A space for leaflets and dis­plays
Cin­e­ma show­ing political/campaigns films
Bar
Wash­ing facil­i­ties and com­post toi­lets
Sauna and hot tubs
Renew­able pow­er

(Please not that the gath­er­ing is not a fes­ti­val)

Find out more and join in!

The near­est train sta­tion is up on the web­site (for book­ing advance train or coach tick­ets), and there’s a lift-shar­ing forum too.

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk