Category: Yorkshire & The Humber

York­shire & the Hum­ber

Camp for Climate Action: Great Rebel Raft Regatta update & newspaper launched

THE GREAT REBEL RAFT REGATTA UPDATE

RaftsTHE GREAT REBEL RAFT REGATTA UPDATE

Fol­low­ing a pro­fes­sion­al recon­nais­sance and Health and Safe­ty test trip by boat last Wednes­day, rebel rafters and expe­ri­enced sailors gave the thumbs up for the water borne dis­obe­di­ence on the Mass Day of Action, August 9th. Launch­ing with the tides and if the weath­er is not blow­ing a gale, the action was deemed total­ly do able and has the poten­tial to be a spec­tac­u­lar suc­cess. The key will be in the num­ber of rafts, the more rafts ( or any­thing that floats !) there are the more impos­si­ble it will be for the forces of dark­ness to stop the arma­da reach­ing it’s tar­get. So start pack­ing pad­dles, canoes,inflatables, rafts, dinghies, amphibi­ous vehi­cles etc.. with your tent. Try to encour­age any yacht or boat peo­ple, pirates or sailors you know to join in. All rebel rafters will be requit­ed to attend a water safe­ty work­shop that will be run dai­ly for the three
days lead­ing up to the day of action, and will have to wear life jack­ets ( if you don’t have your own, these will be pro­vid­ed by the camp). A write up is avail­able on the GRRR web­site.

Mean­while many groups across the coun­try are get­ting excit­ed by the GRRR bug and plan­ning to build rafts and get teams togeth­er. If your group has any news, pic­tures of rafts or ideas to share, then send it to the con­stant­ly updat­ed news feed on www.thegrrr.net . For any fur­ther enquiries email: pirates@thegrrr.net

CLIMATE CAMP NEWSPAPER HITS THE STREETS AND FESTIVALS

Last week 30,000 news­pa­pers, beau­ti­ful­ly designed in black and bright cyan and not look­ing any­thing like a bor­ing polit­i­cal paper, came off the print­ing press and began their jour­ney around the coun­try.

Pub­lished to inspire peo­ple to come to the camp it is filled with full pages images of last years events, por­traits of hot cli­mate campers, a stun­ning map of this years camp and texts that describe the pol­i­tics of rad­i­cal cli­mate activism. If you would like copies to hand out in the street, fes­ti­vals, drop off in cafe’s etc. con­tact distribution@climatecamp.org.uk with your address and how many you want, they will be sent out asap or ring Isa 07984158 108 to find out where you can pick some up. The pdf’s is now online here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/node/23

250 hens liberated for Sean Kirtley

“With one more com­rade behind bars, we decid­ed to turn to a more direct form of action.

250 hens liberated for Sean Kirtley250 hens liberated for Sean Kirtley“With one more com­rade behind bars, we decid­ed to turn to a more direct form of action. Sean Kirt­ley got over 4 years for edit­ing a web­site. So why both­er doing any­thing legal?

Tak­ing the mes­sage from the gov­ern­ment loud and clear, we took up the tools of lib­er­a­tion dur­ing the night and made our way to an egg bat­tery farm south of York. We ‘broke in’ by open­ing the door to the low­er sec­tion of the farm and climb­ing up to the cages. Over-night we freed 250 hens and took them all to new homes across the coun­try.

This action is ded­i­cat­ed to Sean whose spir­it will still be out­side those bars help­ing ani­mals in the face of gov­ern­ment stitch-ups and a cor­rupt legal sys­tem.

The change is in our hands, the bat­tle has just begun…
The Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front”

anony­mous com­mu­nique — addi­tion­al pho­tos

Sup­port Sean Kirt­ley

Climate Camp Bike Ride

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

Peo­ple will be rid­ing to the cli­mate camp, start­ing from Glas­gow, descend­ing souther­ly pick­ing up thou­sands en route.

The final leg, Lon­don to Kingsnorth is on sun­day 3 August meet­ing under Water­loo bridge (south­side) at 9am
For more info on the route and how to get involved e‑mail climatecampbikeride@lists.riseup.net
Up the the veloru­tion.

arrest charges dropped — round-up: Fossil Fools Day & M1 Conspiracy

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

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M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008

As with the major­i­ty of protest arrests (if you do a NO COMMENT inter­view), though there’s been a load of peo­ple arrest­ed recent­ly, they’ve released with­out charge, on bail to return to a police sta­tion.

This gives the CPS time to decide what to do, but also hin­ders protest because the police can dic­tate puna­tive bail restric­tions.

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M1 Con­spir­a­cy Case Thrown Out

1st May 2008
Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court yes­ter­day. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Sev­en cli­mate camp activists against the widen­ing of the M1(1*) had the case against them dis­missed from Sheffield Crown Court today. Charged with con­spir­a­cy to cause a pub­lic nui­sance Judge Robin­son said that: “there was not a jot of evi­dence” for a jury to infer an endan­ger­ment of any mem­ber of the pub­lic.

Arrest­ed over a year ago the pro­test­ers had their hous­es raid­ed with prop­er­ty such as com­put­ers and phones tak­en and held for the dura­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion.

This rul­ing in the midst of a crack down (2*) on green protest sets a prece­dent for polic­ing of envi­ron­men­tal demon­stra­tions. The Judge resound­ing­ly reject­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s argu­ment that the hang­ing of ban­ners over the motor­way would con­sti­tute a pub­lic nui­sance. He went on to say: “that all of the avail­able mate­r­i­al (pre­sent­ed to
the court) is con­sis­tent only with peace­ful protest.”

Cam­paign spokesper­son Dr Julie White, a GP from Sheffield, said: “this is vic­to­ry for the right to protest in the face of gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy of expand­ing roads, run­ways and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions in a time of cli­mate cri­sis.”

The activists say that the expe­ri­ence has not deterred them from tak­ing action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change and will be attend­ing the Camp for Cli­mate Action(3*) at Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent this August.

Con­tact Julie White on 0779851073.

NOTES FOR EDITORS
1*) The Depart­ment of Trans­port have decid­ed against widen­ing the M1 any fur­ther: http://www.nowideningm1.org.uk/

2*) this month the Sun­day Her­ald report­ed that pro­tes­tors in Scot­land had been harassed by police after peace­ful demon­stra­tions: http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2210574.0.protesters_police_treated_us_like_terrorists.php

3*)The Camp for Cli­mate Action went to Heathrow last sum­mer over the build­ing of a third run­way this year it will pitch up at Kingsnorth over the poten­tial build­ing of the UK’s first new coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 30 years:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/

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Bac­ton gas ter­mi­nal 19

On 1st April, EF!ers block­ad­ed the gas ter­mi­nal at Bac­ton to cel­e­brate Fos­sil Fools Day. The police tried to arrest every­one, and got 19 peo­ple. For a full report, see http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20420

Due to return to a rur­al Nor­folk police sta­tion, peo­ple were keen to phone up the police sta­tion to find out what was hap­pen­ing. The police had not tak­en any deci­sion, and a few days before decid­ed to drop charges against all but 3 peo­ple locked-on who got off with cau­tions.

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Police drop charges against Wun­der­man pro­tes­tors

The three activists arrest­ed fol­low­ing the inva­sion of Wunderman’s offices have had all charges against them dropped.

The envi­ron­men­tal­ists, from direct action group Lon­don Ris­ing Tide, had been charged with “bur­glary of pens, paper and phone calls”.

They were held after stag­ing a four-hour sit-in over two of par­ent agency Y&R’s key clients – Land Rover and BAE Sys­tems.

The action was part of a world­wide cam­paign against cli­mate change, dubbed Fos­sil Fools Day. In the UK, the group also staged demon­stra­tions out­side Porsche deal­er­ships, the head office of E‑on, and a coal mine in Wales.

The three activists man­aged to get into the Y&R build­ing –Greater Lon­don House on Hamp­stead Road, NW1 – by pos­ing as exec­u­tives from a new­ly-pri­va­tised wing of the MoD called Har­rion­Pro­jects, a spoof com­pa­ny whose cen­tre­piece is the Har­rion, a civil­ian ver­sion of the Har­ri­er Jump-Jet.

Once inside, they bar­ri­cad­ed them­selves into the con­fer­ence room, oppo­site Wun­der­man EMEA chief exec­u­tive Mar­cus Starke’s office.

Yorkshire GM trial sabotaged

The Tad­cast­er GM pota­to tri­al has been decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, accord­ing to the Sun­day Mir­ror!

The Tad­cast­er GM pota­to tri­al has been decon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed, accord­ing to the Sun­day Mir­ror! Accord­ing to the arti­cle, they were com­plete­ly destroyed, and the Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter isn’t hap­py. Mr Woolas said: “The peo­ple behind this should have the guts to go pub­lic and join the debate about GM foods. Their arro­gance appalls me.” The attack on June 5 leaves Britain with just one remain­ing field of GM crops, gov­ern­ment sources said last night. The news has not appeared any­where else.

The Long Good Friday — coal train protest eventually evicted — final update

5am, Sat­ur­day 14th June 2008
Police con­firmed all pro­test­ers had been removed from the train, and arrests went “into dou­ble fig­ures”.

Coal train eviction 1Coal train eviction 25am, Sat­ur­day 14th June 2008
Police con­firmed all pro­test­ers had been removed from the train, and arrests went “into dou­ble fig­ures”.

Twen­ty-nine cli­mate cam­paign­ers halt­ed a train tak­ing fuel to Drax pow­er sta­tion in North York­shire on Fri­day.

Those arrest­ed face pos­si­ble charges of con­spir­a­cy to obstruct trains, obstruct­ing trains and rail­way tres­pass, police said.

The train remains where it stopped, close to the vil­lage of Carl­ton, near Goole, ahead of an inspec­tion.

Up to 100 police offi­cers, some in riot gear, board­ed the wag­ons of the train in the oper­a­tion to remove the activists.

Supt Ter­ry Nichol­son of British Trans­port Police said: “It’s been a lengthy oper­a­tion but our pri­or­i­ty has been the safe­ty of the pub­lic and our offi­cers.

“We have been deal­ing with the pro­test­ers in a safe and pro­fes­sion­al man­ner and we have been arrest­ing peo­ple for obstruct­ing the rail­way.”

One of the par­ty of demon­stra­tors said they had chained them­selves to the train and would need to be cut free if police want­ed to remove them.

Speak­ing from the train, one of the pro­test­ers, called Natal­ie, said: “The police have moved into the hop­pers. They’ve start­ed tak­ing stuff. There must be about 10 of them on the train but loads more around it.”

Some of the pro­test­ers could be seen mov­ing on to the top of the steel arch of the bridge over the Riv­er Aire where the train is parked, a few miles from the vil­lage of Carl­ton.

The train was stopped in Raw­cliffe, on the bor­der of North and East York­shire, appar­ent­ly by a pro­test­er wav­ing a red flag.

The envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign­ers used an iron gird­er bridge and climb­ing equip­ment to scale the 12ft high truck.

“This was a com­plex oper­a­tion as many of those arrest­ed had to be cut free hav­ing attached them­selves to rail vehi­cles and the over­bridge,” the BTP state­ment added.

The pro­test­ers had hoped to stay on the train for sev­er­al days and had with them food and water as well as a portable lava­to­ry.

See orig­i­nal sto­ry at http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20894

Video of start of evic­tion attempt

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Update:
At 12pm on Fri­day evening the last three coal train block­aders where evict­ed from the bridge above the block­ad­ed train. The occu­pa­tion had last­ed 16 hours and occu­piers had shov­elled around 30 tons of coal onto the tracks. 20 peo­ple where cut out of arm tube lock­ons and 9 were tak­en of the bridge, 29 were arrest­ed and charged with con­spir­cy to com­mit Unlaw­ful and mali­cious obstruc­tion of trains. Every­one was out of the police cells and account­ed for by 10pm Sat­ur­day evening. Every­one is bailed to return… you guessed it on the 31st of July and 4th 5th and 6th of August. The fires at Drax are still burn­ing but the move­ment to stop coal is grow­ing fast.

Redecorated: McDonalds for Sean Kirtley & SUVs for Jeff Luers

“McDon­alds in South York­shire had their toi­lets redec­o­rat­ed with ‘Free Sean Kirt­ley’ posters and ‘McDonalds=McMurder’ (Sheffield & Barns­ley restau­rants)

Till all are free..

PS: Some SUVs at a garage on Eccle­sall Rd, Sheffield, need­ed their paint­work redo­ing after a lit­tle redec­o­ra­tion in red…free Jeff Luers!”

“McDon­alds in South York­shire had their toi­lets redec­o­rat­ed with ‘Free Sean Kirt­ley’ posters and ‘McDonalds=McMurder’ (Sheffield & Barns­ley restau­rants)

Till all are free..

PS: Some SUVs at a garage on Eccle­sall Rd, Sheffield, need­ed their paint­work redo­ing after a lit­tle redec­o­ra­tion in red…free Jeff Luers!”

Sean Kirt­ley: http://supportsean.wordpress.com
Jeff Luers: http://freefreenow.org

Source: http://directaction.info

Protest halts Drax coal train as summer of discontent against coal continues…

Media — Inter­views are avail­able with pro­tes­tors: call 07944 367755 Pho­tos from the protest at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitefeed/ Pro­tes­tors have halt­ed a coal train car­ry­ing fuel for Drax pow­er sta­tion in York­shire, the sin­gle biggest source of CO2 in the UK. The protest comes six weeks before the 2008 Camp for Cli­mate Action at Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion … Con­tin­ue read­ing “Protest halts Drax coal train as sum­mer of dis­con­tent against coal con­tin­ues…”

Coal train stopped over river
Coal train banner
Coal train climber
Coal train stopped
Media — Inter­views are avail­able with pro­tes­tors: call 07944 367755
Pho­tos from the protest at http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitefeed/

Pro­tes­tors have halt­ed a coal train car­ry­ing fuel for Drax pow­er sta­tion in York­shire, the sin­gle biggest source of CO2 in the UK. The protest comes six weeks before the 2008 Camp for Cli­mate Action at Kingsnorth pow­er sta­tion — which will also high­light how using coal to sup­ply ener­gy will be a dis­as­ter for the plan­et.

Dressed in white over­alls and canary out­fits, they used safe­ty sig­nals to stop the train on a bridge over­look­ing the pow­er sta­tion, before climb­ing on board and dump­ing coal off onto the tracks.

The train has been stopped on a branch line used exclu­sive­ly for deliv­er­ing coal to Drax. Pro­tes­tors have used a net­work of climb­ing ropes to sus­pend them­selves under the bridge from the train — mean­ing any move­ment while the protest con­tin­ues is impos­si­ble.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

Updates at http://thecoalhole.org/

To find out what hap­pened next, go to http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20903

9th June Noise Demo at UK Coal Head Office Protest — next one 14th July

UK Coal is about to dev­as­tate a beau­ti­ful part of the Der­byshire coun­try­side by start­ing an open cast mine. So ‘Leave it in the Ground’ and Earth First! decid­ed to make some noise over it with peo­ple from Der­by, Not­ting­ham Leeds, Sheffield, Man­ches­ter and Brighton as well as oth­er places, all trav­elled to UK Coals Head office in Don­cast­er to make some noise.

UK Coal 1st noise demo 1UK Coal 1st noise demo 2UK Coal is about to dev­as­tate a beau­ti­ful part of the Der­byshire coun­try­side by start­ing an open cast mine. So ‘Leave it in the Ground’ and Earth First! decid­ed to make some noise over it with peo­ple from Der­by, Not­ting­ham Leeds, Sheffield, Man­ches­ter and Brighton as well as oth­er places, all trav­elled to UK Coals Head office in Don­cast­er to make some noise.

On arrival the police were there as expect­ed, but did lit­tle to engage us and a lit­tle lat­er in the day a 2 police officer’s with a cam­era and a video did appear in a daft attempt to intim­i­date us. UK Coal had there own secu­ri­ty at the gate who just stood there more bored than the police.

The day was hot and very sun­ny at the bleak entrance of UK coals Head Office, a soul less place with noth­ing that said they were very proud of their com­pa­ny, no ornate plants, flow­ers or trees, just a big main­tained hedge for their pri­va­cy. It is no won­der they are hap­py to destroy beau­ti­ful coun­try­side for the dirty coal.

Every one was in high spir­its and chilled as we all made noise for the after­noon in the sun. The plod just looked bored and there faces were get­ting red­der by the hour under the fluro’ jack­ets and hel­mets.

We were fine of course, as we occu­pied the UK Coals sign for the only bit of shade while the plod kept roast­ing; we also sat around eat­ing cake, pasties and sausage roles all from Veg­gies in a take out form, while still mak­ing a din.

At times the noise sound­ed good and they delib­er­ate­ly had to try and play bad­ly just so it was annoy­ing, after all it was no pic­nic. Ban­ners were also hung and a police offi­cer told us we could tie them to a lamp post, not that we need­ed his per­mis­sion. Dri­vers com­ing in or out were also leaflet­ed and many motorists pass­ing the entrance beeped in sup­port (prob­a­bly ex min­ers who hate open cast­ing with a pas­sion)

It’s not just the local open cast, peo­ple are oppos­ing of course but also the UK pol­i­cy on coal that is now out­dat­ed as cli­mate change looms in front of our eyes. Burn­ing coal is threat­en­ing the glob­al envi­ron­ment and all our futures and UK coal are cash­ing in on cli­mate dev­as­ta­tion and destruc­tion. The Lodge House site in Der­byshire is just one of 7 sites and Lodge house will have 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal ripped out of a 122 hectare area in 5 years

Local media had turned out and radio inter­views were done over the phone and there is more stuff to fol­low check http://leaveitintheground.org.uk and http://leaveitintheground.wordpress.com for the lat­est infor­ma­tion

derby@earthfirst.org.uk

Next event: noise demo out­side UK Coal on Mon­day 14th July 2008 — meet 3:30 at Don­cast­er train sta­tion, or 4pm at UK Coal

World Naked Bike Ride UK

A peace­ful, imag­i­na­tive and fun protest against oil depen­den­cy and car cul­ture. A cel­e­bra­tion of the bicy­cle and also a cel­e­bra­tion of the pow­er and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of the human body. A sym­bol of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the cyclist in traf­fic.

World Naked Bike Ride logoA peace­ful, imag­i­na­tive and fun protest against oil depen­den­cy and car cul­ture. A cel­e­bra­tion of the bicy­cle and also a cel­e­bra­tion of the pow­er and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of the human body. A sym­bol of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the cyclist in traf­fic. The world’s biggest naked protest: 50+ cities and thou­sands of rid­ers par­tic­i­pate world­wide, includ­ing more than 1500 in the UK in 2007.

http://worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/

To check any details of rides below, see http://nakedwiki.org/wiki/UK

# Southamp­ton: Fri 6 June, 6pm
# Brighton & Hove: Sat 7 June, 11am
# York: Sat 7 June, 4pm
# Sheffield: Sun 8 June, 2pm
# Man­ches­ter: Fri 13 June, 6pm
# Cardiff: Sat 14 June, (time is still being finalised)
# Lon­don: Sat 14 June, 3pm
# Edin­burgh: 28 or 29 June — TBC

# There is dis­cus­sion about pos­si­ble rides in Cam­bridge, Belfast, Glas­gow, Oxford, or even a Bris­tol to Bath ride.