‘If you don’t fight, you’ve already lost’: Animal rights activist facing six years in jail remains defiant

20140417_092540 April 17, 2014 from corporate watch Today Debbie Vincent, an animal

20140417_092540 April 17, 2014 from corporate watch Today Debbie Vincent, an animal rights activist from the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiracy to blackmail after a five week long trial at Winchester Crown Court. She was also given an Anti Social Behaviour Order which means she can be arrested if she protests against or contacts Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS) or its business partners for a further five years after her release from prison. The sentence should serve as a wake up call to anti-capitalists of the need to offer solidarity to those who have been singled out for repression because of their involvement in effective resistance to corporate power. A press release from the Blackmail 3 support campaign quotes Debbie: “I have been made an example of because I put myself up as a public face of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and for believing that such places as Huntingdon Life Sciences should be resigned to the history books.” “In some ways I’m really not surprised I was found guilty, as I don’t believe anyone can get justice when faced with a political conspiracy charge and the huge resources of the state and multinationals against me. I will always have hope and will always continue to try my best to make the inhabitants of this planet more compassionate to all and try to make the world a better place for all.” What we are seeing is a coordinated campaign against animal rights activists in an effort to silence dissent,” said Adrian Shaw of the Blackmail 3 Support Campaign. “This is the third conspiracy to blackmail trial in the UK involving people accused of campaigning against Huntingdon Life Sciences.” Corporate Watch spoke to Debbie prior to the sentencing. She said: “What is scary in this world is oppression and injustice, when people hurt people, animals and nature. What is beautiful in this world is resistance, when people say 'enough is enough' and act. Oppression and injustice are everywhere, but so is resistance. Because some people know that if you fight you might lose, but if you don't fight, you've already lost.” The campaign SHAC was set up in 1999 with the aim of closing down Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). HLS is one of the largest contract testing companies in the world. They keep about 70,000 animals on site at their lab in Huntingdon. According to SHAC, “HLS will test anything for anybody. They carry out experiments which involve poisoning animals with household products, pesticides, drugs, herbicides, food colourings and additives, sweeteners and genetically modified organisms. Every three minutes an animal dies inside Huntingdon totalling 500 innocent lives every single day.” SHAC's tactics have been groundbreaking for direct action campaigns in their targeting of the network of companies with business relationships with HLS: from its customers to its service providers and from its suppliers to its investors. To read an analysis of the SHAC model of campaignining click here. Over the years SHAC has published details of the companies doing business with HLS on its website and has encouraged people to persuade these companies to cease their business with HLS. The SHAC website is clear that it is not encouraging people to break the law. SHAC contacts the companies and tells them that they will remain listed on its website until they cease doing business with HLS. Hundreds of companies have ceased trading with HLS. View a list here. HLS have been infiltrated and their practices exposed several times. To read undercover exposes of animal abuse at HLS click here. The arrests of the 'Blackmail 3' In June 2012 European arrest warrants were issued in the UK for two activists in Holland, who will be referred to as SH and NS in this article. On 6th July 2012 Debbie Vincent, who had been targeted by the police for many years for her involvement in the SHAC campaign, was arrested and detained on suspicion of conspiracy to blackmail. Her home address was searched. On the same day SH and NS were arrested and premises in Amsterdam were searched. Debbie was charged in July 2012 with conspiracy to blackmail, an offence under the 1977 Criminal Law Act. The British police have sought the extradition of the Dutch activists and the Dutch courts granted it. However, until now there is an ongoing dispute over the extradition as the lawyers for one of the Dutch defendants have demanded an undertaking from the British Secretary of State that he would serve his sentence in Holland if he was convicted. The charge placed by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) against Debbie was conspiring with 16 named people, including the two Dutch activists, and unnamed others “to blackmail representatives of companies and businesses and other persons” “by making unwarranted demands, namely to cease lawful trading with HLS, with menaces and with intent to cause loss to another.” The 13 other 'co-conspirators' have already been jailed for conspiracy to blackmail, at trials in 2009 and 2010 for a total of almost 70 years between them. For many of them the only evidence presented was involvement in lawful campaigning against the company and association with those involved in direct action. The use of the charge of blackmail against Debbie is another example of the twisting of the law to repress grassroots dissent against powerful corporations. Blackmail? The events relied on in Debbie's case were that in 2008 and 2009 actions were carried out in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland against Novartis, EuroNext, Schering Plough, BDO, AstraZeneca, Fortress and Nomura, all companies with business relationships with HLS. The actions included setting fire to directors' cars, company buildings and, in one case, the holiday hunting lodge of Daniel Vasella, Director of Novartis. Graffiti was daubed on directors' homes overnight and the ashes of Vasella's mother were stolen from the family tomb. However, in the words of Michael Bowes QC, the prosecutor in the case: “There is no evidence that Ms Vincent was present at the scene of any of the attacks, or incidents in Europe. There is no evidence that she was outside of the United Kingdom at the time of any of these attacks”. Instead the Crown Prosecution 'Service' (CPS) claimed that Debbie was guilty of involvement in a 'conspiracy to blackmail' involving those actions. The CPS claimed that there was evidence linking SH and NS to some of these actions. However they were not the ones in the dock. The prosecution argued that Debbie had been in phone contact with SH and NS and had attended the 2009 Animal Rights gathering in Oslo that they also attended. But the case went much further than that. The CPS argued that the SHAC campaign itself, in publishing details of companies on their website and encouraging people to protest against them, was guilty of blackmail. The effects of this legal 'logic' have broad implications for anti-corporate activists. For example, during the movement against apartheid in South Africa activists published details of companies like Barclays Bank and encouraged people to protest against them until they pulled out of South Africa. Was this an act of blackmail? Do campaign groups who publish the names and addresses of companies involved in fracking and encourage people to protest against them run the risk of convictions for blackmail? Is activist security a crime? The CPS's case summary says that “Debbie Vincent has taken steps to conceal her criminality by the use of encrypted computers (she has failed to provide the encryption codes despite being known to have been using a totally encrypted computer shortly before it was seized). Encrypted storage media was found hidden behind the kickboard of kitchen units at her address”. In highlighting this, the prosecutors were implying to the jury that Debbie had something to hide. The implication that the taking of lawful steps to protect privacy in the context of a concerted police campaign to monitor, criminalise, arrest and imprison activists seems laughable. However, it is a well rehearsed argument in animal rights cases. The set-up The prosecution had evidence that Debbie had contacted the directors of Novartis after the direct action against the company had taken place. However, they had no evidence linking Debbie to the direct action itself apart from the circumstantial links to NS and SH. In order to try and strengthen their case, the police worked with Novartis to try to entrap Debbie and another SHAC activist (who was also arrested but had his charges dropped, he will be referred to in this article as 'X') into admitting links to the robbing of the Vasella grave. SHAC had emailed Novartis, requesting that they cease dealing with HLS. Andrew Jackson, Global Head of Corporate Security at Novartis, replied and requested a meeting with the campaign. Jackson said that this meeting would be to discuss the issues raised in the email from the campaign. Debbie and the other activist arranged to meet representatives of Novartis at the Le Meridien Hotel in Piccadilly on 10th March 2010. Unknown to them, the company had arranged with the police to bug the meeting, and one of the people they were due to meet was an undercover officer, using the alias 'James Adams', who was masquerading as a Special Contracts Manager for Novartis. The activists were swept for bugs at the beginning of the meeting and each time they went to the toilet. They were told that the meetings were strictly confidential. After the meeting Adams got in touch with SHAC again and said that “certain things are outside the parameters of the dialogue” and asked Debbie and 'X' to set up another meeting, encouraging them to communicate with him via PGP email encryption. 'Adams' was eager to communicate directly with Debbie and 'X' rather than through the campaign. The clear intention was to coax the activists into offering to secure the return of the Vasella remains. Throughout the discussions in the meetings with Novartis, Debbie was clear that SHAC had no idea who took the remains and had no control over them. 'Adams', the undercover officer, took the lead during the conversations with Debbie. According to Debbie, he asked “leading questions about whether we were the right people” to talk to. Debbie's notes of the conversation record her as saying: “We're taking a risk the way the legal system is in this country to meet with you… [X] and I are painfully aware that going to these meeting with Novartis puts us in the spotlight, puts us at risk…" A representative of Novartis then says: "This is a confidential process…" In a later email to the company, Debbie said that she had spoken to some of the activists conducting demonstrations against Novartis and confirmed that they had agreed to stop protesting should Novartis end its contract with HLS. Soon after the second meeting with Novartis Debbie met 'James Adams' on the underground, as if by chance. In fact he had followed her onto the train. He tried to broach the issue of the Vasella remains again but Debbie refused to discuss the issue. Targeting of activists by political police units The arrest and prosecution of Debbie, and cases against animal rights activists more generally, are overseen by specialised political police units designed to protect corporations from public anger. In 1999 the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) was set up following the publication of a Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies report, which claimed that some protest groups “have adopted a strategic, long-term approach to their protests, employing new and innovative tactics to frustrate authorities and achieve their objectives”. The NPOIU has been responsible for planting undercover officers in protest movements. Debbie regards the use of undercover officers against her as a “sting operation”. She said she believed that Adams was “clearly part of National Domestic Extremism and Disorder Intelligence Unit”, formerly the National Domestic Extremism Unit, “who are just a re-branding of the Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit” and that “there is now a 25 year history of unaccountable practice by a secretive and unaccountable police unit”. Specialised political police units aim to criminalise and imprison activists and neutralise political movements that pose a challenge to corporate power or other aspects of the current system. 'Decapitating' the 'leaders' The strategy of the police units involved in overseeing Debbie's case is explored in the January 2013 edition of the European Journal of Criminology. It includes an article by John Donovan and Richard Timothy Coupe. Donovan is employed by the Metropolitan Police 'Service'. The article encapsulates the police and CPS's approach to the SHAC campaign as one of “leadership decapitation”: “Police agencies combating terrorist or organised crime groups principally employ intelligence-led activities (Innes et al., 2005) and covert investigative techniques for identifying group participants and linking them to criminal activities. These involve human surveillance, informants and under-cover officers, as well as covert, electronic techniques, including wire-tapping, to monitor incriminating communications and understand member roles and ties in criminal networks, such as the Neapolitan Camorra (Campana, 2011; Campana and Varese, 2012). As well as the arrest of members of terrorist groups who commit or plan crimes, leaders and upper echelons have been specifically targeted in order to ‘decapitate’ and weaken or terminate groups (Cronin, 2009; David, 2002; Jordan, 2009; Price, 2012), an approach still emphasised in counter-insurgency doctrine (Hauenstein, 2011). This was the approach adopted by UK police in seeking to disrupt and terminate SHAC’s campaign of intimidation.” The CPS's case summary claimed that Debbie was the representative of SHAC in the UK. Alistair Nisbet, the Senior Crown Prosecutor in the case, said: “Following the conviction of SHAC’s main leaders in 2008, Debbie Vincent’s role within the organisation grew. She became the public face of SHAC”. Of course, the police's notions of leaders within the SHAC campaign betray a fundamental lack of understanding of horizontal organising by protest movements. Nevertheless, this tactic of painting individuals as leaders and targeting them is the strategy behind the police efforts to railroad Debbie and other activists to prison; an organised attempt by the police to neutralise a political protest movement through the twisting of the law to imprison those who the authorities label as 'leaders'. Media greenscare So why aren't more people rallying to support Debbie and other SHAC campaigners? One reason is the police's attempts to discredit the movement in the media and thus to limit public solidarity for those under their cosh. In the past, mainstream media scare-stories about animal rights and environmental campaigners have been found to have been fabricated by political police units – see here. During Debbie's case the media coverage was deeply offensive, defamatory and discriminatory, focusing on the fact that Debbie had undergone gender reassignment. The Mirror's headline was “The boy who grew up to become a woman of terror” while the Daily Mail ran with “Sex-change soldier who became an animal rights terror commander” and made the unsubstantiated claim that Debbie had “been attacking animal testing labs for over ten years”. Debbie has already made a successful claim to the Press Complaints Commission and forced the Mail to amend an article which erroneously linked her to the Animal Liberation Front and linked SHAC to a previous blackmail case against the Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs campaign. This defamation in the press is undoubtedly stirred up by police press releases, aimed at generating a negative image of animal rights campaigners in the media in order to limit public support for the movement. It is of utmost importance that anti-corporate campaigners are not taken in by this spin, which is designed to protect corporate profits, and to stand in solidarity with those experiencing repression. Protecting corporations from dissent Pharmaceutical companies that are facing public anger over their activities have seized on Debbie's conviction to further restrict protest outside their premises. After the verdict in the trial, Novartis applied for a strengthened injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act (PHA) of 1997 against animal rights protesters. It was granted on 14 April 2014. The harsh terms of the injunction were requested, by notorious corporate lawyer Timothy Lawson Cruttenden, on the grounds that there could be a “backlash that occurs after the sentence”. The PHA Act was drafted and made its way through parliament as a provision designed to protect vulnerable people from harassment. Before the law was passed, the media had been evoking emotional accounts of the effect of stalking and the need to protect vulnerable individuals. The Act was never portrayed as a law designed to protect corporations and restrict protest. Yet, that's exactly what its being used for. The new conditions put in place by Novartis are an interim measure and will be examined at another court hearing. The interim injunction has been made against 'persons unknown' but potentially affects anyone demonstrating against Novartis. It restricts demonstrations to six people or fewer, in designated protest zones, with no amplified sounds, and forbids face-coverings or blood-splattered costumes. Anyone deemed to have breached the conditions can be arrested and may face up to five years in prison. However, last year a test case at the Old Bailey of two SHAC activists put into question the practicality of prosecuting activists arrested under PHA injunctions. See this Corporate Watch article for details of the case. Solidarity needed Debbie's conviction is part of an ongoing campaign of repression against the UK animal rights movement. A further seven SHAC activists have been charged with 'conspiracy to interfere with the contractual relations so as to harm an animal research organisation' under Section 145 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005). The charges relate to demonstrations against companies with business relationships with HLS. They are due to appear in court later this year. For more information on the ongoing repression of UK animal rights activists see the website: www.stopukrepression.org When we asked Debbie if she would need any particular support from people if she got a custodial sentence, she replied: “Practically, I'm not sure what my needs will be in prison, it will depend to a degree to where I go. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to cope, but being isolated from nature and friends will be the worst part. I will try to make the best of the bad situation, it's all a bit daunting and new. The whole charge and court case are still amazingly surreal.” “Keep on campaigning against all oppression and capitalist domination. Don't be afraid to speak out and never apologise for trying to make a difference and caring.” To see a list of imprisoned animal rights activists worldwide click here. Update: We have just heard that Debbie has been taken to Bronzefield Prison. Her prisoner number should be available soon.

Nearly a thousand environmental activists murdered since 2002

April 15, 2014  At least 908 people were murdered for taking a stand to defend the environment betwe

April 15, 2014  At least 908 people were murdered for taking a stand to defend the environment between 2002 and 2013, according to a new report today from Global Witness, which shows a dramatic uptick in the murder rate during the past four years. Notably, the report appears on the same day that another NGO, Survival International, released a video of a gunman terrorizing a Guarani indigenous community in Brazil, which has recently resettled on land taken from them by ranchers decades ago. According to the report, nearly half of the murders over the last decade occurred in Brazil—448 in all—and over two-thirds—661—involved land conflict.

"There can be few starker or more obvious symptoms of the global environmental crisis than a dramatic upturn in killings of ordinary people defending rights to their land or environment," said Oliver Courtney of Global Witness. "Yet this rapidly worsening problem is going largely unnoticed, and those responsible almost always get away with it. We hope our findings will act as the wake-up call that national governments and the international community clearly need."

But as grisly as the report is, it's likely a major underestimation of the issue. The report covers just 35 countries where violence against environmental activists remains an issue, but leaves out a number of major countries where environmental-related murders are likely occurring but with scant reporting.

"Because of the live, under-recognized nature of this problem, an exhaustive global analysis of the situation is not possible," reads the report. "For example, African countries such as Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Zimbabwe that are enduring resource-fueled unrest are highly likely to be affected, but information is almost impossible to gain without detailed field investigations."

In fact, reports of hundreds of additional killings in countries like Ethiopia, Myanmar, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe were left out due to lack of rigorous information.

Even without these countries included, the number of environmental activists killed nearly approaches the number of journalists murdered during the same period—913—an issue that gets much more press. Environmental activists most at risk are people fighting specific industries.

"Many of those facing threats are ordinary people opposing land grabs, mining operations and the industrial timber trade, often forced from their homes and severely threatened by environmental devastation," reads the report. "Indigenous communities are particularly hard hit. In many cases, their land rights are not recognized by law or in practice, leaving them open to exploitation by powerful economic interests who brand them as 'anti-development'."

As if to highlight these points, Survival International released a video today that the groups says shows a gunman firing at the Pyelito Kuê community of Guarani indigenous people. The incident injured one woman, according to the group. The Guarani have been campaigning for decades to have land returned to them that has been taken by ranchers.

"This video gives a brief glimpse of what the Guarani endure month after month—harassment, intimidation, and sometimes murder, just for trying to live in peace on tiny fractions of the ancestral land that was once stolen from them," the director of Survival International, Stephen Corry, said. "Is it too much to expect the Brazilian authorities, given the billions they're spending on the World Cup, to sort this problem out once and for all, rather than let the Indians' misery continue?"

According to the report, two major drivers of repeated violence against environmental activists are a lack of attention to the issue and widespread impunity for perpetrators. In fact, Global Witness found that only ten people have been convicted for the 908 murders documented in the report, meaning a conviction rate of just 1.1 percent to date.

"Environmental human rights defenders work to ensure that we live in an environment that enables us to enjoy our basic rights, including rights to life and health," John Knox, UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and the Environment said. "The international community must do more to protect them from the violence and harassment they face as a result."

Hunt Sabs prepare for second year of badger culling

Badger-4751-300x204 27 March 2014 from HSA

 

Badger-4751-300x204 27 March 2014 from HSA

 

At our AGM in June 2012 a spokesperson from the campaign group “Stop the Cull” addressed those of us present on their belief that the cull could only be successfully sabotaged with a lot of help from hunt sab groups. We were told that we'd have to do thousands of hours of preparatory sett surveying, that we'd get no sleep for weeks when it started, we'd lose all our holiday time from work and to top it all we didn't even know if we'd be even slightly successful in finding marksmen with silencers at potentially any location inside 100's of square miles. “Looking for a needle in a haystack” actually sounded easier.

We were also told that there was a lot of press interest in the badger culls and that it might be good for hunt sabs' public profile. Considering that for decades we have been portrayed in the main stream press as “thugs” no one was particularly enamoured with the idea of a media make over.

As it turned out the press didn't praise or recognise us for our behaviour or endeavours, but what did happen is that tens of thousands of people came into contact with us. Whether that was via speeches on demo's, from reports on Facebook or in the flesh in the cull zone. People learnt about us and they liked what they saw – groups of compassionate people who work hard in the field to protect wild animals from being hunted.

It is this very fact that we have “gone viral”, not just on social media, but in the real world, where it counts, that makes us an unstoppable force. Whether that's new sab groups forming across the country or small sab groups being overwhelmed with new people. The HSA membership has more than doubled in size in under a year and donations have increased dramatically.

 

When we got to the cull zones in 2013, it quickly became clear that we were making a massive difference. Right from the start groups, working closely with badger patrollers, engaged, and repelled, the badger killers. The HSA supported the sabs on the ground by giving grants totalling many thousands of pounds to help with transport, and crucially, the very expensive Gen2+ night vision equipment that enabled sabs to spot shooters from huge distances.

 

Many people will be unaware of the literally thousands of miles walked by sabs in the run up to the culls, as they mapped out all the setts over hundreds of square miles so they could defend them against shooters. The reason that the culls were sabotaged so spectacularly is due largely to that work.

That surveying work in Dorset this year won't rely on a few sab groups supported by a dozen or so locals. This year it's totally different. The British public has engaged with us en masse & we are confident that with their help, we will have every sett mapped in that zone easily by June 1st.

In 2012 we were told to expect a roll out to ten cull zones and then a further forty in following years. Here we are in 2014 with a cull policy in tatters and a roll out to one more cull zone a small possibility. We are prepared to take Dorset by storm and destroy any attempts to kill badgers

We will help “Stop the Cull”

 

That's what we do.

 

Join us.

Animal rights activist convicted as repression of activists in the UK intensifies

An animal rights activist has been convicted of conspiracy to blackmail after 5 weeks on trial at Winchester Crown Court.

An animal rights activist has been convicted of conspiracy to blackmail after 5 weeks on trial at Winchester Crown Court. Debbie Vincent of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign was accused of blackmail on the basis that SHAC pressured companies to end their business relationships with Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe's largest animal testing laboratory. The case is the latest development in the use of blackmail laws against animal rights activists. In 2010 seven SHAC campaigners were handed sentences of up to 16 years in prison for 'conspiring' to blackmail companies not to do business with HLS. Debbie was accused of being part of the same ten year 'conspiracy' as the previous defendants, from 2001-11, despite the fact that there was only evidence that she had been involved in the campaign from 2005. Police had bugged a house used by SHAC campaigners for an eight month period in 2005 and put those going in and out under surveillance. Much of the case against Debbie was on the grounds of guilt by association with the defendants convicted in 2010 and with unnamed people. The twisting of blackmail laws in this way has broad ramifications for the right to express dissent in the UK. The law is being used to intimidate people who are attempting to resist against corporate power. The logical extension of the use of the law in this way is that any campaigner who pressures a company to end its practices could be targeted. The prosecution argued that SHAC had posted details of companies on their website and encouraged people to protest against them. The CPS claimed that this amounted to blackmail, despite the fact that the SHAC campaign stipulated on its website that protests should be lawful. In the second week of the trial, after the defence demanded that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) give full disclosure of the papers at their disposal to the defence, it was revealed that an undercover police officer, using the alias 'James Adams' had masqueraded as an executive for Novartis and met with Debbie and another activist from the SHAC campaign to discuss Novartis' dealings with HLS. It seems that the police and Novartis were trying, unsuccessfully, to link the two activists to illegal direct action. Several officers from the National Domestic Extremism Unit gave evidence at the trial. The NDEU is a specialist police unit which aims to target activists involved in direct action campaigning. For more information on the UK's political police units click here.

Debbie is due in court for sentencing on April 17th. The CPS have indicated they intend to apply for an Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) to come into effect on her release which will restrict her movements. In 2010 indefinite ASBOs were granted against four convicted activists banning them from ever protesting against animal experimentation. The case is part of an ongoing campaign of police repression against the SHAC campaign. Seven SHAC activists have been charged with 'conspiracy to interfere with the contractual relations so as to harm an animal research organisation' under Section 144 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005). The charges relate to demonstrations against companies with business relationships with HLS. They are due to appear in court later this year A Stop UK Repression campaign has been set up to support animal rights activists bearing the brunt of this latest state crackdown on anti-corporate dissent. The campaign's website reads “In an atmosphere of increasing repression against activists and the criminalisation of effective campaigns, it is important that we show our solidarity for those involved and form a strong network to support the UK animal rights movement." More details at: www.shac.net
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2014/03/515954.html
www.stopukrepression.org/?page_id=75#

All for one, and one for all

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/02/blackmail3.gif

 

http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/02/blackmail3.gif

 

The state-sponsored crackdown on animal rights activists continues next month, with the opening of the third ‘conspiracy to blackmail’ trial relating to vivisection giants Huntingdon Life Sciences in Winchester…

Earth First! Direct Action Manual Is Ready for Print

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Cover for Direct Action Manual

Earth First! Direct Action Manual. To support this publication, preorder your copy or donate today.

After several years in development, the Earth First! Direct Action Manual is ready to go to press. A group of frontline activists has assembled over 300 pages of diagrams, descriptions of techniques and a comprehensive overview of the role direct action plays in our campaigns in defense of the Earth.

We are now in a three-week fundraising campaign to ensure that this critical book gets out to people who can use it. You can preorder your copy and get some extra thank you gifts for your early endorsement by donating today. More importantly, though, we have offered a chance for you to help us spread this knowledge. Every donation over $50 gives you the chance to send a free copy of the manual to a campaign of your choice. The more you give, the more manuals we can put in the mail.

The manual will be printed in the coming month with longtime Earth First! partner, The Gloo Factory. This community-minded, union print shop has supplied Earth First! and its affiliates with stickers and merchandise for decades and remains committed to using a high standard for recycled and reclaimed material, as well as supportive worker conditions.

The manual was first printed nearly two decades ago and has been out of print since its initial dissemination. Though many of the considerations for civil disobedience and intervention have remained tried and true, new elements have altered the ways we put these tactics into action. The Earth First! Direct Action Manual will continue the role of safe and effective actions in stopping the destruction of the planet.

Support this effort today!

Reclaim the Power gathering 8-9 February

After an incredible day of idea generation and visioning at the last gathering, it’s time for concrete proposals and decisions about our next steps.


Location: Oxford
Time: Saturday 8th February 11am ­­– Sunday 9th 4pm

Address: TBC
Crash Space/Social: Provided. Further details TBC.
Meals: Provided, donation cost TBC
Travel Pool: Available. Please book travel tickets in advance so that this can support the most people.
Notes from Manchester Visioning Day are here: http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3

In early December a large number of people came together to discuss the radical visions they had for the future – visions that Reclaim the Power, as a network, could help bring about.

It was a very open day of discussion with a clear structure, but with no pre-planned agenda. Everything we talked about was generated by participants, and a huge number of different ideas were placed on the table.

So what next? Well, the idea is that all of that discussion feeds into a month of creative proposal making before the next gathering. This will be a space for short and medium-term decision making where we work out what we’re doing in the next few months – and how this fits in with long term visions.

Rough proposal area groups formed at the December gathering, including:

1. How to challenge corporate power
2. Movement and diversity
3. Energy and fossil fuels
4. Positive solutions

If you would like to link up with these groups and input into proposals for next steps, just contact info@nodashforgas.org.uk and you will be put in touch with a group contact.

This said, all proposals are welcome! If you’re working on your own, outside these groups, then great. The more ideas the better.

The proposal deadline is the 31st January 2014. Please try and follow this rough four point list when writing them, as it is essential that all the proposals be considered on an equal footing.

1. What is it?
2. How does it link to long-term strategic aims?
3. Timeline?
4. Resources needed? (inc, people, costs, skills)

Specific venue and agenda details to follow soon. In the meanwhile, please check http://bit.ly/1lQ0Yd3 to see the discussions and outcomes of the last agenda.

See you soon,

RTP Gatherings Team

info@nodashforgas.org.uk

 

Earth First! Winter Moot 7-9 March 2014: programme up

A weekend gathering for people involved or want to know more about ecological direct action around the UK including fighting opencast coal, fracking, GM, nuclear power, new road building and quarries with discussions and campaign planning – emphasis on the tactics and strategies, community solidarity and sustainable activism.

A weekend gathering for people involved or want to know more about ecological direct action around the UK including fighting opencast coal, fracking, GM, nuclear power, new road building and quarries with discussions and campaign planning – emphasis on the tactics and strategies, community solidarity and sustainable activism.

Evening Friday 7th – afternoon Sunday 9th March 2014, Nottingham

Cost scale £20 to £30. This includes full vegan meals and accommodation.

It will be an indoor floor sleeping space so bring a warm sleeping bag and mat. Train to Nottingham then tram to Beaconsfield street– walk to the end turn right on to Gladstone St — 245 Gladstone St, Nottingham NG7 6HX — www.earthfirst.org.uk

Full map/travel details

For offers of help or questions email themiddle@earthfirst.org.uk

 

Programme

Friday

16.30-17.30 Security Workshop
17.30-18.30 Film

18.30 Dinner

20.00 Benefit Gig

Saturday

8.30-9.30 Breakfast
9.30-10.45 Intro go round of campaigns

10.45-11.00 Break

11.00-12.00 Future of Earth First Part 1
12.00-13.00 Security Workshop

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-14.30 Lush/fundraising workshop
14.30-18.15 Campaign Workshops (timings to be finalised to include Fracking, Nuclear, Roads and Coal)
18.15-18.30 Summer Gathering handover

18.30 Dinner
20.00 DJ??

Sunday

9.00-10.00 Breakfast fry up
10.00-10.30 Tidy up of venue
10.30-11.30 Feedback go round
11.30-12.30 Future of Earth First Part 2
12.30-14.00 Summer Gathering Planning (and time of other workshops to run in parallel)

14.00-15.00 Lunch
15.00 End

Bath – arson at car showroom

8th of January – incendiary device on delay left at Kia car showroom, Lower Bristol Road, Bath. Damage to the building facade. A brand new 4-x-4 and three cars also consumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploitative manufacturing industries who profit from choking our world, who also make status symbols for our class enemies.

8th of January – incendiary device on delay left at Kia car showroom, Lower Bristol Road, Bath. Damage to the building facade. A brand new 4-x-4 and three cars also consumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploitative manufacturing industries who profit from choking our world, who also make status symbols for our class enemies. This section of the Earth Liberation Front and Informal Anarchist Federation has them in our sights.

With the cops cleared of the execution of Mark Duggan that started the riots of 2011, as good a time as ever to re-ignite the streets.

Unfortunately for the enemy, the 32 year old man arrested for the action has no relation to our group.

Active solidarity with:
– the stirrings of new struggle against road building programs in the UK (traces of which we saw in Combe Haven), specifically with the ones who won't take the path of liberals and pacifists next time
– Swiss anarchist Marco Camenish (who is on hunger strike and refusing work since the 30th of December) and also informal anarchist prisoners Alfredo Cospito and Nicola Gai in Italy
– Henry Zegarrundo (who we recognise as a kindred spirit through his letters) targeted by the Bolivian prosecutors, those on the run, and the anarchist and indigenous peoples still fighting the highway development

Perennial Resistance ELF-FAI

Bristol – Toluca – Jakarta – Moscow – Buenos Aires – Melbourne – keep the fires burning

Bombing against Bristol office of Vinci, Life Sciences Centre constructors

We think that anyone serious about confronting domination as it stands today will sooner or later come to the questions of science and technology. It's clear how both have an increasingly vital role to the ruling order by creating, managing and spreading control within society and over the rest of an earth we're falsely separated from.

We think that anyone serious about confronting domination as it stands today will sooner or later come to the questions of science and technology. It's clear how both have an increasingly vital role to the ruling order by creating, managing and spreading control within society and over the rest of an earth we're falsely separated from. By investigating the development of these powers in the region and who makes it possible, we came to Vinci.

In the U.K, the French multinational energy and construction giant Vinci carry out specialist construction services for the police, Ministry of Defence and prisons, earthworks for motorways, railways and quarrying, power stations, offshore rigs and nuclear new-builds, as well as shopping centres and the like. Worldwide this corporation and its subsidiaries are active in many fields: dam building, private security, airports, uranium mines; these scum have no problem with inflicting carnage on the earth and us as part of it, raising an industrial cage around us both figuratively and literally, and feeding off the labours of their workforce while the bosses line their pockets and move on to the next contract.

In these respects we attack Vinci anyway, but one of our main motives for targeting them is because they're responsible for building the new Biological Life Sciences Centre soon to open at the University of Bristol.

We set off an explosive at Vinci's offices at Vantage business park, north of Bristol, at approximately 3:45 yesterday morning (6th January). It was placed with the aim of cutting off power lines, scorching the exterior and starting a fire inside. We considered the resident company in the next-door part of the unit a worthy secondary target in any damages (Whitehead, another construction and building servicing group who do commissioned work for Vinci).

A £54 million facility, the Biological Life Sciences Centre will offer courses for "the next generation of biologists" as well as current specialists, aiming to improve collaboration with the university's nanotechnology centre and just across from the Medical School's genetic engineering, vivisection and animal breeding labs. The world capitalist system sees advances in fields like this as key to the next round of discovery, enclosure and wealth creation. As the area around Bristol and Bath houses the biggest hi-tech design cluster in the world after America's Silicon Valley, this "revolution" is happening on our doorsteps, "with Bristol being an exciting and ideal place to carry out research over the coming years." (This is in the words of Professor Gary Foster, whose work at the University of Bristol in genetic-modification and other biotechnologies feeds the noxious pharmaceutical industry such as GlaxoSmithKline. The university breeds genetically-altered mice, for example, then morbidly subjects these living creatures to extensive nerve damage and hand the results to drug companies.)

One of the main thrusts of this drive is synthetic biology, a disturbing practice using the latest technology for "rewriting and rebuilding natural systems to provide engineered surrogates." In 2012 a conference at the University of Bristol stated that synthetic biology "could become a driving force of the national economy," and the government have declared it a top research priority. The European Union has now awarded £3.3 million to the University of Bristol just to create "public awareness" promoting the practice.

The logic of these kind of sciences has, as its primary goal, attempted control over everything. They reduce knowledge, that might be more deeply gained in wild relationships of interaction and interdependence, to a detached universe of obsessive measurement and objectification, arrogantly separating parts from the whole that gives them meaning as if everything were merely a machine to dismantle. This scientific tradition is closely tied up with the worldview that emerged during the early formation of commercial capitalism, which sought and still seeks to adapt lifeforms to the drive for profits, justify the domination and destruction of the living world, and implement a macho uber-rationalism scornful of everything fragile and organic on which all species depend. Right now, plant and animal genes are broken down and optimised in labs so they suit productive standards and to create new private property through patents. Where we might see the unique leaves, seeds, bodies and minds of ourselves and our fellow creatures, this science (if not necessarily each scientist, the results are the same) just sees lifeless objects to pick apart, study and sacrifice on the altar of economic usefulness to their paymasters who reap the benefits from this sick and sickening society.

For instance we can see the current push for genetically-modified (G.M) food in the U.K by the media, industry and government, for which these research institutions play an important part: such as advances in biotechnology for crops thanks to the Long Ashton Research Station run by the University of Bristol in the past. Scientists like Gary Foster are well aware of the dangers from G.M genes "leaking into the natural world" (again, his own words) but apparently the money and prestige from their mastery are worth more than our insignificant lives. A decade ago the first wave of G.M trials was slowed here by sustained pressure and crop-trashing; today sabotage continues from Holland to the Philippines, and others like us also won't be accomplices to these developments or their agents through inaction. It's necessary to attack the new wave of so-called 'life' science facilities at the root (those who design them, those who construct them) not just criticize the more well-known products of their research: because to these institutions all knowledge becomes another opportunity for control and exploitation, so extending the scope of a system that's in reality annihilating and artificialising life in all it's beauty.

Abroad, plant and animal die-offs as well as increased allergies and intolerances are already being attributed to G.M. With the bio-tech industry nonchalantly unleashing its monsters, especially across lands in the global south where patented G.M seeds that must be re-bought yearly exert a stranglehold, it many take generations to show some of their effects on infinitely complex webs of life that evolved over millions of years. That is, before civilised cultures began intensively manipulating them, today even down to the nano-scale. With the like of synthetic biology we're moving fast into a future where even lifeforms "in nature" are the products of laboratory experiments, and nothing remains that isn't engineered somewhere along the line by a human-centred system of scientific totalitarianism.

For obvious reasons as people turning against laws and domination in more than words we also stand against new policing and identification controls enabled by more forensics, biometrics etc. and the introduction of their common use in the information-age social prison (mobile fingerprinting, facial recognition systems, D.N.A swabs etc. – they didn't stop us yet though…).

This isn't Vinci's only U.K venture into this lucrative field either. They've also undertaken future expansions in science, technology and engineering departments at Swansea University. They've commissioned Whitehead for the job too, their neighbours at Vantage business park, who are now also marked by our attack. This will be the result for as long as society steps in line to realise the fantasies of a despotic science, reaching for their dreams which are our nightmares.

So what about the 'benefits' that these hi-tech institutions want to sell us, founded as they are on massive energy consumption and resource extraction, on the authority of a specialist caste's somehow-unreproachable meddling with our environments, and on the domestication of wild spaces and the torture of other animals? They promise us advances in (human) health, food and technology, fostering the illusion that science can fix all the damage incurred by the dominant ways of living. They expect us to forget how many of the diseases, disorders and cancers are directly caused by the same industrial output, globalised mass society, psychologically and physically unhealthy habitats and toxic workplaces of a culture which goes toward these labs and more in the first place. They expect us to forget that agri-monoculture production led to an anti-nutritious diet of manipulated short-term energising/comfort food at an escalating cost to the land, while diverse wild plant and animals species we used to coexist with get wiped out by the system's endless expansion and pollution. (Vinci's works being a prime example.) They expect us to forget how it's precisely the advances in complex technological systems that generate our dependance on their designers and manufacturers, alienation from ourselves as well as the earth as a whole and each other at the personal level, and increased efficiency in achieving the goals of society's rulers: profit and power, through misery and exploitation, pushing the planetary ecology toward collapse.

In short the sickness is civilisation itself, including its false solutions to its chronic problems steadily impoverishing survival for human and non-human populations alike, an unacceptable transgression on our intent to live freely.

Choosing direct action over despair we declare our part in a low-intensity urban war in its early stages across Bristol against the many faces of the system, with stones, paint or fire and with the plans, debates and daily refusals; sometimes almost imperceivable, sometimes devastating. In Britain's ugly cities and intensively-managed countryside a determined minority of rebels and wilderness-lovers sporadically take the offensive: some striking anonymously, some forming one-off action groups, and some having tested the open proposal of the Informal Anarchist Federation; not only in the south-west but Nottingham, Cambridge, London and now Glasgow.

Everything is at stake to us and we ourselves have no time to waste. Toward recovering our own volition and finding affinities for rebellion, our methods shall include intractable conflict without pause or negotiation: and much more besides, breaking with this miserable civil order with a wide variety of experiments and the full scope of our imaginations. Destruction is just another indispensable side of creation (and vice versa) not an opposite, we're now sure of that. Our insurgency would be justified as an end in itself in the face of this life we're raised into, but it's beyond only being reactive. It acts to solidify that we're already taking back in our face-to-face encounters and in our minds. It allows potential space for new and stronger relationships chosen by aware individuals mindful of all lifeforms, through actively weakening the current modes. Until some point of breakdown where whatever comes next is out of any society-wide control and reasoning, and so beyond society. Liberation can mean nothing less; tending toward the wild.

The international and internal battleground between anarchy and domination holds both losses and gains, of which some are known and some unknown to us. With this is mind we start the new year by celebrating the release of Braulio Duran (an unrepentant eco-anarchist who was held by the Mexican State) last October, albeit into the wider prison-society. When we discover solidarity with a locked-up comrade through their attitude and words, it doesn't diminish when they get 'out'; it just creates more grounds to keep fighting toward our mutual goals. Still 'inside', we remember the total-liberationist Adrian Gonzales and anarchist bandits of the Kozani case as well as Babis Tsilianidis; and Marco Camenisch, denied parole once again. Respect to the Mi'kmaq Warriors engaging the Canadian State/petro-industry aggressors in incendiary clashes, a renewed phase of indigenous militancy, and to the ones consistently defending both Khimki forest and the land of Notre-Dames-Des-Landes from Vinci's developments. A raised fist above the prison walls for Nicola Gai and Alfredo Cospito aka F.A.I/F.R.I Olga Nucleus, until cellblocks are rubble and jailers are ash.

On a sadder note, 2012 ended with the anarchist Sebastian Oversluij being fatally shot in Santiago while trying to collectively seize back some of what the banks extract every day from the exploited. Neither a victim or a martyr, we simply see someone who didn't bow their head and accept the system's rules, and we are glad to have such people as comrades. Even within this nonsensical, resigned and cynical modern culture, every action demands a reaction. When they kill one of the resisters, our enemies must pay in any way. This is how our struggle leaves behind empty gestures and keeps the dead from falling into oblivion. Blackened offices won't replace split blood, but they signal that same social war isn't finished, and our grief births rage.

Informal Anarchist Federation (F.A.I) Insurgents: Bristol North