Category: South West England

South West Eng­land

15 Actions to Topple the Fossil Fuel Empire

Ris­ing Tide has just fin­ished pro­duc­ing two new resource book­lets …

1 — 15 Actions to Top­ple the Fos­sil Fuel Empire — per­fect to help plan your action for up and com­ing Fos­sil Fools Day — more on that at http://risingtide.org.uk/node/241

Topple Fossil Fuel Empire coverRis­ing Tide has just fin­ished pro­duc­ing two new resource book­lets …

1 — 15 Actions to Top­ple the Fos­sil Fuel Empire — per­fect to help plan your action for up and com­ing Fos­sil Fools Day — more on that at http://risingtide.org.uk/node/241

2 — Cli­mate Action Pop­u­lar Edu­ca­tion Pack — packed with tools to help you run engag­ing, inter­ac­tive work­shops on all aspects of cli­mate change for a wide range of peo­ple.

Both resources can be down­loaded from http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/other

Paddy´s Day of Action Against Shell

This year´s St Paddy´s day, 17th March, has been called as an Inter­na­tion­al day of action against shell, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port.

Peo­ple from all over Ire­land are set to join forces and show their unit­ed strength by going all the way to Lon­don to demon­strate on shell´s front door step.

This year´s St Paddy´s day, 17th March, has been called as an Inter­na­tion­al day of action against shell, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple of Ross­port.

Peo­ple from all over Ire­land are set to join forces and show their unit­ed strength by going all the way to Lon­don to demon­strate on shell´s front door step.

Glu­aiseacht, the Irish envi­ron­men­tal net­work organ­is­ing the trip, are call­ing for peo­ple to join them at the shell head office in Lon­don, or there is also a call out to take sol­i­dar­i­ty actions at shell garages and offices, St Paddy´s day parades and Irish embassies all over the world to coin­cide with the vis­it from 15th-17th March.

The shell cen­tre is locat­ed on the South Bank in front of Jubilee Gar­dens (SE1)
right next to Water­loo train sta­tion and across from the Lon­don Eye.

What´s Wrong With shell? — The Cor­rib Pipeline Project

Since 2000 the small rur­al com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land have been engaged in an epic bat­tle try­ing to pre­vent Shell, Sta­toil, and Marathon from build­ing a poten­tial­ly dev­as­tat­ing tox­ic onshore gas refin­ery and high pres­sure pipeline in their remote and envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive region.

Shell are the biggest stake­hold­er and ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the project, so have there­fore been the main tar­get of protest.

Com­mu­ni­ty Strength

From the sum­mer of 2005 mass pick­ets shut down the refin­ery con­struc­tion site after five Ross­port res­i­dents were impris­oned for refus­ing to allow Shell’s
sub-con­trac­tors access to their and their neigh­bours’ small farms which the pipeline is to go through. But in Octo­ber 2006 the Irish state came to the aid of shell by bring­ing in a mas­sive two hun­dred strong police unit to phys­i­cal­ly force a path for Shell to com­mence work. A large police pres­ence, con­sist­ing of Gar­dai (Irish police) from all over Ire­land, has stayed at the site to aid the work to con­tin­ue undis­rupt­ed.

The costs to the Envi­ron­ment, Com­mu­ni­ty & Health

Since shell start­ed build­ing the refin­ery, Car­row­more Lake, which is a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion as well as the local water sup­ply to 10,000 peo­ple, has been pol­lut­ed with dan­ger­ous­ly high lev­els of alu­mini­um com­ing from the build­ing site.

The gas pipeline is to oper­ate at such high pres­sure that accord­ing to the
government’s safe­ty study if rup­tured could poten­tial­ly kill peo­ple and destroy build­ings for hun­dreds of metres around.

The waste from the refin­ery is to be dumped into Broad­haven bay, where 220 sight­ings of sev­en whale and dol­phin species, plus sight­ings of two seal species have been record­ed.

This is all not to men­tion the irrepara­ble dam­age fos­sil fuels, like gas, are hav­ing on desta­bil­is­ing the glob­al cli­mate.

Although the resis­tance to shell in Coun­ty Mayo is strong, the Irish state & shell´s tac­tics of bru­tal­i­ty, repres­sion and intim­i­da­tion has paid a price on the peo­ple fight­ing the pipeline project.

So mark St Paddy´s day by show­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with their fight!

For more info:

http://www.indymedia.ie/mayo — Reports of news and actions about the pipeline
http://www.struggle.ws/rsc — Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp set­up to aid the cam­paign against shell
http://www.corribsos.com — Cam­paign group Shell to Sea

http://gluaiseacht.nologic.org/wordpress — Glu­aiseacht web­site

Latest details: Earth First! Winter Moot 2008 — February 22nd – 24th 2008 — Nottingham

Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

EF! fist tree 1Join us for
Activist skill share
Plan­ning rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change,
Shar­ing ideas for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Oppo­si­tion to the UK genet­ic crop tri­als and mega-dams in Ice­land
a chance to share info on your own cam­paign

Arrive from 5pm, Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 22nd 2008, with din­ner at 7 o’clock.
Open to all those who have been involved in rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action and to those who just want to find out more.

Cost: £15 (to include accom­mo­da­tion and food)
Crèche and dis­abled access both avail­able,
but please call to let us know if you need either or if you have oth­er needs.

At The Sumac Cen­tre, Glad­stone Street Not­ting­ham, www.veggies.org.uk/sumac
For more info call 01508 531636 (num­ber not avail­able dur­ing the event)

Fri­day late after­noon and evening will be a chance to arrive, and for intro­duc­tions, plus a G8 talk & film, and an Intro­duc­tion to EF!

We’ll be kick­ing off ear­ly on Sat­ur­day morn­ing (9am break­fast) — start­ing with all shar­ing the most impor­tant rea­sons why we’ve come to Not­ting­ham, we’ll get on with some prac­ti­cal dis­cus­sions around the EF! Action Update, the web­site, and the sum­mer gath­er­ing.
From what we’ve all said, we’ll be able in the after­noon to move on to ‘where next?’, plus shar­ing cam­paigns we’re involved with & see­ing what they need, and get­ting togeth­er local­ly and region­al­ly with oth­er folk who are there.

On Sun­day we’ll move into groups to con­crete­ly take the ideas for­wards from the Sat­ur­day, from the cam­paigns we’re already work­ing on and what we want to do togeth­er. We’ll fin­ish at 4pm, after hav­ing shared what we’ve come up with. Hoorah.

Earth First! is not an organ­i­sa­tion, but a way of using non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and the use of direct action to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. For fur­ther info check out www.earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/

Plus
All day Fri­day 22nd Feb­ru­ary, Sav­ing Ice­land UK meet­ing, also at the Sumac Cen­tre. Open to those inter­est­ed in trav­el­ling to Ice­land or tak­ing part in sol­i­dar­i­ty actions against the con­struc­tion of large, wilder­ness wreck­ing dams in Ice­land.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and essen­tial book­ing con­tact 01508 531636 or savingiceland@riseup.org

Critical Mass ‘Have a Go Hero’ cleared of all charges in Bristol (& London Critical Mass January ride report/video)

7.02.2008
In May of last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car, who had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist off their bike, from dri­ving away. For that he was arrest­ed for obstruct­ing the high­way, thrown to the floor by his neck whilst hand­cuffed, and then — sur­prise sur­prise — also arrest­ed for assault­ing a police offi­cer.

Bicycle Triumph7.02.2008
In May of last year, some­one stood in the road and tried to stop a car, who had hit a Crit­i­cal Mass cyclist off their bike, from dri­ving away. For that he was arrest­ed for obstruct­ing the high­way, thrown to the floor by his neck whilst hand­cuffed, and then — sur­prise sur­prise — also arrest­ed for assault­ing a police offi­cer.

Today, after 9 months of ner­vous wait­ing, he was final­ly cleared of all charges, as Bris­tol Mag­is­trates Court accept­ed a sub­mis­sion that the police evi­dence was at best ‘severe­ly flawed’ and at worst, fab­ri­cat­ed, and the tri­al was stopped.

A man that became involved after the event was also charged with assault and is await­ing to see if his charge will also be quashed as he can also argue that he was pre­vent­ing a police ‘mis­car­riage of jus­tice’.

The tri­al took a day and a half to realise what was evi­dent all along — that the defen­dant was only guilty of try­ing to do the police’s job when they bla­tant­ly weren’t inter­est­ed in doing it, for bla­tant­ly polit­i­cal rea­sons. Unbe­liev­ably, the police admit­ted to get­ting togeth­er to watch the cctv (pre­sum­ably over a nice cup of bovril) BEFORE writ­ing their state­ments, of fail­ing to fol­low PACE pro­ce­dures in the arrests, and of try­ing to pass off a wrestling move (clear­ly shown on the CCTV footage) as a form of ‘rea­son­able force’ in an arrest!

But the most unbe­liev­able part of the whole sor­ry mess is the police’s delib­er­ate allow­ing of the hit-and-run dri­ver to escape, and then nev­er fol­low­ing up the inci­dent, despite the fact leav­ing the scene of an acci­dent is a more seri­ous crime than those the defen­dants were charged with, and despite hav­ing a full descrip­tion of the car, dri­ver AND THE REGISTRATION PLATE. Makes you won­der who the ‘mys­tery dri­ver’ was does­n’t it .……

The next steps for the defen­dant is, first, cel­e­brate his nar­row escape from a polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed con­vic­tion, and then sue the police for the shock­ing way in which he was han­dled dur­ing the ‘prac­tice dum­my ses­sion’ that passed for his arrest. The local chief con­sta­ble observed the tri­al, so we assume that his full apol­o­gy and com­pen­sa­tion won’t take too long to sort.

Crit­i­cal Mass’s con­tin­ue in Bris­tol on the last Fri­day of every month, meet­ing at 5.30pm out­side the Hip­po­drome.

———–

A sub­dued start to a good ride, held up by a mas­sive traf­fic jam in the Strand, but it livened up lat­er with a bike high in Pic­cadil­ly Cir­cus and taunts to impa­tient car horns. Joy­ful chants of ‘More bikes less cars’ and ‘Whose streets? Our streets’.

Video: http://www.archive.org/details/cml25‑1–08

Sev­er­al sound sys­tems this time, some were threat­ened with SOCPA pros­e­cu­tion if they dared to play in the vicin­i­ty of Par­lia­ment. Cycle police were back after their Christmas/New Year break, about 28 in all — they usu­al­ly don’t turn up at all to the Decem­ber ride. They barked orders and blocked the ride at some inter­sec­tions but did a good job of cork­ing and even told off a few dri­vers. Lat­er they shut down a sound sys­tem in White­hall.

Just before Oxford Cir­cus, a wannabe sabo­teur threw a glass bot­tle into the road which shat­tered into lots of punc­tur­ing shards, some­thing to watch out for in future.

More:
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/
http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk/socpasounds.html

Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston demo — 24th March & byelaw challenge

12 noon East­er Mon­day — 24th March
Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton

We invite you to par­tic­i­pate in a live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and to cel­e­brate 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.

12 noon East­er Mon­day — 24th March
Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton

We invite you to par­tic­i­pate in a live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and to cel­e­brate 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.

This East­er marks the 50th anniver­sary of the first march to the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton — the heart of Britain’s nuclear weapons pro­gramme. We need you — and your friends, col­leagues, com­mu­ni­ties, and net­works — to sur­round the base and cre­ate a colour­ful, effec­tive, and mas­sive demon­stra­tion.

With par­lia­ment vot­ing in March 2007 for a new fleet of nuclear armed sub­marines, and with the con­struc­tion of facil­i­ties for a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads already under­way at Alder­mas­ton, it’s time to send a clear mes­sage to the gov­ern­ment that 50 years is enough!

While cel­e­brat­ing five decades of sus­tained cam­paign­ing against nuclear weapons, the empha­sis will be on embrac­ing the future, push­ing for dis­ar­ma­ment and work­ing togeth­er to build a broad move­ment that grows from strength to strength.

The event will be live­ly, with each gate at the site being linked to a dif­fer­ent era — with appro­pri­ate dec­o­ra­tion and enter­tain­ment — and is being organ­ised by CND nation­al and region­al groups and peo­ple from the wider anti-nuclear, peace and anti-war move­ments. If you would like to get involved in organ­is­ing for this event in your area, please get in touch.

Groups can come dressed as they want, could be in theme with the gates, or as weapons inspec­tors, or cam­paign­ers from the future, or as nuclear bombs, or flow­ers!

The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less! The event will be organ­ised using the ’ Block’ struc­ture so that your group comes ready to take up as much space around the site as pos­si­ble. We have a web­site for your ‘Block’ to add their details and how much space they can take up along the fence line.

For Exam­ple, East­ern Block, dress­ing as nuclear cow­boys can take up 200 meters of fence line using 2 ban­ners 100 peo­ple and a radioac­tive horse prop!

That’s just an exam­ple.

We need to start mobil­is­ing now and get our coach­es booked and the seats full! It will take 5,000 peo­ple to sur­round Alder­mas­ton AWE. The devel­op­ments at Alder­mas­ton are well on their way, we need to move our cam­paign­ing to the next stage, build an even stronger move­ment and stop the devel­op­ment of new nuclear weapons. THE BOMB STOPS HERE!

http://www.cnduk.org/aldermaston/

====================================

Aldermaston Women's Peace Campers at courtAlder­mas­ton byelaws — judi­cial review update

On 1 Feb­ru­ary 2008 Alder­mas­ton Wom­en’s Peace Camp(aign) took their Judi­cial Review of the Alder­mas­ton Byelaws 2007 to the High Court in Lon­don. Lord Jus­tice Mau­rice Kay and Mr Jus­tice Walk­er decid­ed to hear the case against the Sec­re­tary of State for Defence in full.

The case — a judi­cial review of the Min­istry of Defence’s (MoD) deci­sion to intro­duce byelaws which deny the women’s peace camp their right to free­dom of assem­bly — was brought by Pub­lic Inter­est Lawyers on behalf of a mem­ber of the Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp (AWPC).

At the High Court, argu­ments from the claimant and defen­dant were com­plet­ed by the end of the day and the Jus­tices are expect­ed to give their writ­ten judg­ment with­in the next fort­night.

After the hear­ing a spokes­woman from AWPC said “We feel that the byelaws are vague, that they under­mine the spe­cif­ic rights of assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion and that, in imple­men­ta­tion, they will be applied in a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner against camp women by the Min­istry of Defence Police”.

To date ten women have been arrest­ed under the Alder­mas­ton Byelaws 2007. All cas­es have been dropped after pre-tri­al review stage.

In relat­ed news, the camp announced today that it will be host­ing one of the gates for the Alder­mas­ton march 50th anniver­sary events this East­er. Called by CND, the 24 March event will be a “live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and a cel­e­bra­tion of 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.”

On East­er Mon­day AWPC will take up res­i­dence at their his­toric home — Fal­con­gate — and invite all women to join them. See link below for details. Gen­er­al details of the East­er event at http://www.cnduk.org/aldermaston/

—
For back­ground on the judi­cial review, see: http://www.aldermaston.net/news/212 and http://www.aldermaston.net/news/183

info@aldermaston.net
http://aldermaston.net/falcongate08.php

3 climate days of action: 1st April (Fossil Fools), 1st May (false solutions) & 3rd June (food)

For Fos­sil Fools Day on 1st April, see pre­vi­ous post
____________________________________________

1 MAY

May­day May­day: Inva­sion of the Cli­mate Snatch­ers.…

Network for Climate Action logoFor Fos­sil Fools Day on 1st April, see pre­vi­ous post
____________________________________________

1 MAY

May­day May­day: Inva­sion of the Cli­mate Snatch­ers.…

As cli­mate change ris­es up the polit­i­cal agen­da, the same cor­po­ra­tions that are large­ly respon­si­ble for the prob­lem are attempt­ing to dom­i­nate the main­stream debate about the solu­tions, in the hope to main­tain the eco­nom­ic sta­tus quo.

A huge num­ber of tech­no-fix­es are form­ing a new eco­nom­ic sec­tor: from bio­fu­els to nuclear pow­er, car­bon-trad­ing to hydro­gen fuel cells, dump­ing urine in the ocean to car­bon cap­ture and stor­age. Every­where cor­po­ra­tions are seek­ing the elu­sive elixir which allows to con­tin­ue busi­ness as usu­al.

All of these tech­nolo­gies are a dis­trac­tion from the real solu­tion to the prob­lems we face: a mas­sive reduc­tion in our con­sump­tion and the end to eco­nom­ic growth.

What’s wrong with these tech­nolo­gies?

* A lot of these tech­nolo­gies won’t be ready in time to save the cli­mate
* Many actu­al­ly increase car­bon emis­sions
* Some rely on a dif­fer­ent non-renew­able resource
* Many have mas­sive envi­ron­men­tal impacts
* None of them can pro­vide us with the amount of ener­gy we cur­rent­ly use
* Many will per­pet­u­ate prob­lems of social injus­tice

On May 1st, inter­na­tion­al work­ers day, lets chal­lenge these false solu­tions to cli­mate chaos and show the real solu­tion: far-reach­ing social change, and reduc­tion in con­sump­tion.

____________________________________________
3 JUNE

Day of Action on Food and Cli­mate Change

The Cli­mate Action day that bites.…

The kind of food we eat con­tributes up to a third of our green­house emis­sions. It’s about time for us to switch to plant based, organ­ic, sea­son­al and local­ly pro­duced food.

Cli­mate action starts on your din­ner plate, in the super­mar­ket, on your allot­ment and in your back yard, in the food pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tres, down on the farm, in your high street, at the air­port and in the lor­ry park.

Take action on 3rd June and help high­light the role of food and the food indus­try in cli­mate chaos.

Get involved — whether you’re into local food, per­ma­cul­ture, ani­mal rights, allot­ment­ing, human­i­tar­i­an issues, food pol­i­tics, trans­port cam­paign­ing. Join the dots on cli­mate change.

____________________________________________

Please dis­trib­ute this info wide­ly, stick it in your diaries and get
plan­ning. More info includ­ing a web­site to fol­low soon! In the mean­time
you can con­tact us at manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

For lots of resources and on tak­ing cli­mate action and con­tact details for
your near­est cli­mate action group see
http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk

Hitting Total in the Pocket

Over the last 2 months, activists tired of the lies and cor­po­rate white­wash have tak­en direct action to hit Total where it hurts them most — in the pock­et.

All 4 garages in the bris­tol area have been tar­get­ted. Hor­field, Con­gres­bury, Lawrence West­on, Yate. North, South, East, West. Win­dows were smashed, equip­ment dis­abled, and pro­pa­gan­da sprayed or post­ed so cus­tomers knew why the dam­age was done.

Over the last 2 months, activists tired of the lies and cor­po­rate white­wash have tak­en direct action to hit Total where it hurts them most — in the pock­et.

All 4 garages in the bris­tol area have been tar­get­ted. Hor­field, Con­gres­bury, Lawrence West­on, Yate. North, South, East, West. Win­dows were smashed, equip­ment dis­abled, and pro­pa­gan­da sprayed or post­ed so cus­tomers knew why the dam­age was done.

This was not done as a pub­lic­i­ty stunt, the only rea­son we are telling of our actions is so oth­ers are inspired. The aim was to cost Total mon­ey, and to show them (and oth­ers) that near or far, open or closed, noth­ing is Total­ly out of our reach.

Any­one who cares to look can find why we tar­get­ted Total, friend of the mur­der­ers and human rights abusers, ene­my of those try­ing to heal the world. We ded­i­cate these actions to those monks in the East and punks in the West — to all those who’ve had their heads split open by the cops or the mil­i­tary for try­ing to speak out.

To all those who think they can do what they want because no one cares any more — we say to you “be afraid. We have the abil­i­ty, the means and the desire to make you pay, one way or anoth­er.” To all those who rely on march­es, vot­ing, and oth­er ways of being dis­em­pow­ered and ignored we say to you “be inspired. Noth­ing is hope­less, every­thing is pos­si­ble.”

Support the Eco-Prisoners — Imbolc 2008 — they’re in there for us out here, please write

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 2008)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

Earth Liberation Prisoners logoSpir­it of Free­dom
(Feb­ru­ary 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)

Wel­come to the Feb­ru­ary 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As we enter Feb­ru­ary so we await three major events. First off, Jeff ‘Free’ Luers is due to be re-sen­tenced. We hope its good news. Sec­ond­ly, Eric McDavid is also due to be sen­tenced. As soon as Eric has been sen­tenced we urge every­one to send him let­ters of sup­port. And third­ly, the police infor­mant Jacob Fer­gu­son is also due to be sen­tenced. His cow­ard­ly deals and treach­ery means he won’t be sent to prison. But we await with inter­est to see what sen­tence this piece of scum does receive. If any­one hears, please do let ELP know. But whilst we await those three sen­tenc­ings, please don’t for­get all the oth­er eco-pris­on­ers. Remem­ber, 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, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

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. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

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.

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.

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

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

Jef­frey Luers, #1306729, Lane Coun­ty Adult Cor­rec­tions, 101 West 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401–2695, USA. Await­ing resen­tenc­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

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

Daniel McGowan #63794–053, Unit I, FCI Sand­stone, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1000, Sand­stone, MN 55072, 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.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh #30512–013, FCI Fair­ton, PO Box 420, Fair­ton, NJ 08320, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for set­ting fire to a McDon­ald’s restau­rant.

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 2½ years. 1) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 2) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Julio Vil­lanue­va, C.P. Pri­sion De Pam­plona, 31080, Iruna (Navar­ra), Spain.
Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

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.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

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

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to his involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign.

Nathan Block — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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.

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.

Rod Coro­n­a­do, Voice of the Earth, PO Box 732, Tuc­son, AZ 85702, USA. Due to be sen­tenced to one-year impris­on­ment after Rod informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing.

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.

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.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Down­view, Sut­ton Lane, Sut­ton, Sur­rey, SM2 5PD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Joy­an­na Zach­er — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Gub­s­ki Max­im, VK‑2 — 21, Batowa str. 4, Bobruisk, 213800 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Vladislav Vladimirovich Plyashke­vich, IK-10 otryad 4, Novopoltsk‑5 Viteb­skaya oblast, 211440 Belarus. Serv­ing 3 years for fight­ing with neo-nazis.

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, BNR: 727/07/7, JVA Tegel, Sei­del­str. 39, 13507 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties.

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

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

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

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

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

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

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI 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

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spring into action (though storms may be at the door) — the latest issue of the EF! Action Update has burst forth

Read all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on w

Rabbit under fenceRead all about occu­pa­tions & lock-ons of big indus­tri­al places around the world, cor­po­rate & gov­ern­ment block­ades, squat­ting, air­port inva­sions, sub­ver­tis­ing, cli­mate crim­i­nals locked & glued shut, trees climbed and chopped down, GM maize fields trashed, hunger strikes, bur­row­ing under fences, jump­ing on whal­ing boats, Buy­ing Noth­ing, Reclaim­ing the Streets and the unstop­pable singing of Christ­mas songs, not to men­tion skat­ing pen­guins. Even some upcom­ing dates to get stuck in or to meet oth­er direct action cra­zies. We could­n’t make it up even if we tried.

Anoth­er bumper issue, with a spe­cial insert on Agro­fu­els includ­ing a list of refiner­ies ‘in the pipeline’ or already on the ground, plus a legal update about the recent changes to your access to solic­i­tors in police sta­tions.

The lat­est issue of the Earth First! Action Update burst forth at the lat­est nation­al meet­ing of the Camp for Cli­mate Action (see climatecamp.org.uk for how the camp idea is auda­cious­ly mor­ph­ing this year).

Down­load it to print out and share here. Do get in touch with the edi­to­r­i­al col­lec­tive to let them know if you’re dish­ing it up round your way, or need paper copies, or want to give them one of the rar­er ingre­di­ents, dosh (to send it to pris­on­ers, protest camps and far beyond) — their con­tact details and more are here.

Western UK sabotage for the animals

COUNTRYSIDE ALLAINCE SIGNS DESTROYED AND HUNT CARS SCRATCHED.
24 Jan­u­ary 2008
Coun­try­side allaince signs were smashed and the side of a lan­drover was scratched, anoth­er hunt car had both sides and bon­net scraped hope the respray did­nt cost too much!

COUNTRYSIDE ALLAINCE SIGNS DESTROYED AND HUNT CARS SCRATCHED.
24 Jan­u­ary 2008
Coun­try­side allaince signs were smashed and the side of a lan­drover was scratched, anoth­er hunt car had both sides and bon­net scraped hope the respray did­nt cost too much!
————–
MCDONALDS GETS THE ALF TREATMENT.
23 Jan­u­ary 2008
“MEAT IS MURDER” was spray paint­ed on the front and back win­dows of a McDon­alds in the west, just to make sure they had trou­ble open­ing on time the next day all of the locks were glued.
————–
HUNT SCUM CAR RECIEVES PASSING VISIT FROM THE ALF
22 Jan­u­ary 2008
Pass­ing mem­bers of the ALF decid­ed to make the pro hunt stick­ers on one car in the west impos­si­ble to see when the car had all its win­dows where cov­ered com­plete­ly in spray paint­ed (have fun try­ing to dri­ve it to the garage!).

Mes­sages such as “ALF” and “HUNT SCUM” were left on the side so all the oth­er hunters in the area new why it had been done.

If you sup­port the hunt you are scum, but we do appre­ci­ate it when you dis­play stick­ers let­ting us know this fact, this way we can make sure you get what is com­ing to you!

For the ani­mals!

Your friend­ly local ALFers!

Read more at http://www.animalliberation.co.uk/