Category: Other

Oth­er

WAKE UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNTRYSIDE FROM NEW PLANNING LEGISLATION

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

PR 2012 ‑15                                                                           28/1/12

Does a com­pa­ny want to dig a big hole near you? Is it inter­est­ed in try­ing to extract sand, clay. grav­el, stone or coal? If it is, and the site is going to be more than 100 hectares, then why not sug­gest to the own­er that they can side­step going to the Local Author­i­ty and have the plan­ning appli­ca­tion con­sid­ered by a new ‘fast- track’ method. Label it a ‘Nation­al­ly Sig­nif­i­cant Infra­struc­ture Project’ and it can then be decid­ed on, in a year, by a  Plan­ning Inspec­tor who, unlike local peo­ple and local­ly elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, will not know the site, will not be affect­ed and will not know you.

Far- fetched ideas?  Unfor­tu­nate­ly not. These ideas are part of the pro­pos­als in the Government’s Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill now before Par­lia­ment. It will enable sec­ondary leg­is­la­tion to be passed that, in its present form , will allow an appli­cant to by-pass the local demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion mak­ing process and have their appli­ca­tion treat­ed as a Major Infra­struc­ture Project. The Gov­ern­ment have ini­ti­at­ed a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion process on the pro­pos­al enti­tled  ‘Nation­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant infra­struc­ture plan­ning: extend­ing the regime to busi­ness and com­mer­cial projects: con­sul­ta­tion’ which can be down­loaded from here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nationally-significant-infrastructure-planning-extending-the-regime-to-business-and-commercial-projects

The Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has analysed what the effect would be if the leg­is­la­tion was in place now on open­cast mine pro­pos­als. There are 11 pos­si­ble or actu­al pro­pos­als for open­cast mines in Eng­land cur­rent­ly. Under these pro­pos­als, deci­sions about the four largest could be tak­en out of the hands of the Local Author­i­ty and giv­en to a sin­gle unelect­ed per­son to decide. Our Brief­ing Note “ Growth and Infra­struc­ture Bill: Pro­posed 100 Hectare Thresh­old” pub­lished along with this Press Release @

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/11/503382.html

 out­lines fur­ther why The Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work argues against this pro­pos­al and urges oth­er com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal groups to urgent­ly study these pro­pos­als and voice their objec­tions.

All respons­es, on forms pro­vid­ed in the con­sul­ta­tion doc­u­ment, have to be in by 7/1/13.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It func­tions as a medi­um through which to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land (Just Say No to Lig­nite), Scot­land (Coal Action Scot­land), Wales (Green Val­leys Alliance, The Merthyr Tyd­fil Anti Open­cast Cam­paign), Eng­land, (Coal Action Net­work), Northum­ber­land, (Whit­ton­stall Action Group, Hal­ton Lea Gate Res­i­dents)) Co Durham (Pont Val­ley Net­work), Leeds, Sheffield (Cow­ley Res­i­dents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skel­mansthor­pe Action Group)  Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm Open­cast Oppo­si­tion), Der­byshire (West Hal­lum Envi­ron­ment Group, Smal­l­ey Action Group and Hill­top Action Group) , Leices­ter­shire (Minor­ca Open­cast Protest Group) and Wal­sall (Alumwell Action Group).

Con­tact­ing LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordi­na­tor, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

 

 

Grapes of wrath

Vine­yards in Sark  sab­o­taged.

Sup­port wires – some up to 200 yards long – have been cut and repairs will take up to six months. The cost is esti­mat­ed at tens of thou­sands of pounds.

Vine­yards in Sark  sab­o­taged.

Sup­port wires – some up to 200 yards long – have been cut and repairs will take up to six months. The cost is esti­mat­ed at tens of thou­sands of pounds.

Kevin Delaney of Sark Estate Man­age­ment says staff who have been work­ing on the project are dis­traught.

In all 40,000 vines have been affect­ed out of the 100,000 plant­ed. The sup­port wires were sev­ered at both ends and in the mid­dle. Mr Delaney said it was a “night of dev­as­ta­tion”.

The act of sab­o­tage came ahead of a protest about the scale of vine­yard plan­ta­tions in the island. The Agri­cul­ture Com­mit­tee have called for a halt on the con­ver­sion of graz­ing land. They fear it will lead to the col­lapse of farm­ing and dam­age bio­di­ver­si­ty.

More than 80 islanders staged a protest near a field cur­rent­ly being ploughed for vine­yard devel­op­ment.

In a pub­lic state­ment the com­mit­tee say

“The scale of this new mono­cul­ture will have a dev­as­tat­ing effect on Sark’s unique and diverse wildlife. Many species which rely on Sark’s healthy fields – from earth­worms, insects, but­ter­flies, moths, bats, birds, up to Pere­grine Fal­cons which nest around our cliffs, will suf­fer as the tra­di­tion­al envi­ron­ment is impov­er­ished.

“We call on the Sark Estate Man­age­ment to halt present work and recon­sid­er the agri­cul­tur­al plans and pri­or­i­ties for their land in Sark.”

The agri­cul­ture com­mit­tee say they have wor­ries about the use of Bor­deaux Mix­ture, which con­tains cop­per sul­phate, becom­ing air­borne and spread­ing out­side the vine­yards. 

EF! Winter Moot 2013: 22–24th February, near Preston

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

A week­end get-togeth­er for peo­ple involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action, from fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er to road build­ing. There’ll be dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning – with the empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies we use, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism. This year we’ll be in Lan­cashire…

 

Update: full trans­port details and pro­gramme at link below.

Read more

(Mexico) Community defeats giant cement company in Mexico

CEMEX oppo­nents from Hidal­go

CEMEX oppo­nents from Hidal­go

CEMEX can­not burn more waste in the state of Hidal­go

In a state­ment released yes­ter­day by GAIA, the Huicha­pan com­mu­ni­ty, in the cen­tral México’s state of Hidal­go, has achieved a his­toric vic­to­ry, after 6 months of protests and legal actions that drove to the clo­sure of the plant of Proam­bi­ente com­pa­ny, a sub­sidiary of Cemen­tos Mex­i­canos, CEMEX, by the Sec­re­tary of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources.

This plant was respon­si­ble for receiv­ing and pro­cess­ing a large part of the 12,000 tons of sol­id waste gen­er­at­ed dai­ly in Mex­i­co City, to be burned as an alter­na­tive fuel in the kilns of CEMEX plant in Huicha­pan.

Ship­ping to cement kilns was a major “solu­tion” dri­ven by the Mex­i­co City gov­ern­ment (GDF), through an agree­ment with CEMEX, for the treat­ment of Mex­i­can capital’s waste, after the clo­sure of  Bor­do Poniente land­fill (the largest in Latin Amer­i­ca), in Decem­ber 2011, and has been strong­ly crit­i­cized for its neg­a­tive impacts on human health and the envi­ron­ment derived from its poten­tial emis­sions of heavy met­als, diox­ins and furans, and oth­er con­t­a­m­i­nants.

The inhab­i­tants of the town of Huicha­pan, main­ly in the com­mu­ni­ties of Maney, Don­goteay and Zothe, locat­ed around the CEMEX plant, start­ed to feel the neg­a­tive effects on health and ecosys­tems when it began to receive and indis­crim­i­nate­ly burn waste from DF and orga­nized their­self in the Cit­i­zens Unit­ed for the Envi­ron­ment (CUMA) move­ment, to resist this false solu­tion to a prob­lem gen­er­at­ed else­where in the coun­try and raise their own alter­na­tives for waste man­age­ment.

The local com­mu­ni­ty has been con­stant­ly sup­port­ed by biol­o­gist Jorge Tadeo Var­gas, from the Glob­al Alliance for Incin­er­a­tor Alter­na­tives (GAIA), and State Rep. San­dra Ordaz Oliv­er, Pres­i­dent of the Health Com­mis­sion of the State Con­gress, who are com­mit­ted to enforce statewide in Hidal­go the ban of com­bus­tion of munic­i­pal sol­id waste and haz­ardous waste, and pro­mote a Zero Waste law for the state and its munic­i­pal­i­ties, includ­ing more sus­tain­able options such as waste reduc­tion and sep­a­ra­tion at source, reuse, recy­cling and com­post­ing.

 

BBC Investigates Opencast Mining

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

BBC’s COUNRTYFILE PROGRAMME INVESTIGATES WHY A REMOTE HAMLET IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF A PLANNING BATTLE OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.

A small vil­lage, of just 75 house­holds, is all that may stand between pre­serv­ing large sec­tions of the Eng­lish coun­try­side and the expressed desire of the UK Min­er­al Extrac­tion Indus­try to see more per­mis­sions giv­en to exploit­ing England’s min­er­al resources in areas that are more envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive and / or are clos­er to where peo­ple live.

The unfor­tu­nate vil­lage is Hal­ton Lea Gate, locat­ed on the Cum­bria / Northum­ber­land bor­der and near an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty. A team from the BBC’s Coun­r­ty­file pro­gramme was film­ing there recent­ly to inves­ti­gate why this spot now finds itself on the front line of a nation­al plan­ning con­tro­ver­sy.

 In ear­ly August, after a Pub­lic Inquiry into an Appeal to grant per­mis­sion for an Open­cast Mine, the Inspec­tor found in favour of the Appli­cant. The sting in the tale, for all oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in Eng­land, is the rea­son­ing giv­en by the Inspec­tor to allow the Appeal. His rea­son­ing set a new case law prece­dent, it is argued, which affects all future min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions in Eng­land.

 What the Appli­cant has to repli­cate in the future, is the argu­ment used here: that there is a nation­al need for the min­er­al in ques­tion, in this case coal. If they can per­suade the Plan­ning Author­i­ty (or the Inspec­tor, if the Appli­ca­tion has gone to an Appeal) that this is the case, then ‘great weight’ has to be attached to this claim. So much weight it seems, that this fac­tor alone may over­ride all oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions.  (1)

This sit­u­a­tion has arisen as a con­se­quence of the Gov­ern­ment imple­ment­ing the new Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work. In the time lead­ing up to the 2010 elec­tion, lob­by­ing organ­i­sa­tions such as Coal­pro and the CBI lob­bied long and hard for a relax­ation of the plan­ning rules for min­er­al extrac­tion. (2) It seems, from this exam­ple, the first Pub­lic Inquiry for min­er­al extrac­tion to be held under the new rules, that their efforts have been reward­ed. The advice of the Inspec­tor has now gone to the Depart­ment of Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment to be con­firmed or reject­ed by a Min­is­ter.

The BBC came to inves­ti­gate the issue and explore why local peo­ple have tak­en on the task of rais­ing £40,000 so that they can mount a Judi­cial Review over the deci­sion. If local peo­ple are suc­cess­ful in rais­ing the mon­ey and mount­ing a suc­cess­ful action, they may have pre­vent­ed the flood­gates from open­ing and saved Eng­land from expe­ri­enc­ing a rash of min­er­al plan­ning appli­ca­tions for devel­op­ing swathes of the coun­try­side. This is now a Pub­lic Appeal, and dona­tions can be made payable to The North Pen­nines Pro­tec­tion Group, who have been one of the local groups who have opposed this Appli­ca­tion

An e peti­tion to the Gov­ern­ment has been start­ed about this plan­ning deci­sion and its impli­ca­tion for sim­i­lar plan­ning deci­sions else­where which can be signed by fol­low­ing this link:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/36985

Steve Leary for the Loose Anti Open­cast Net­work com­ment­ed

“ LAON was con­tact­ed by the BBC in the lead up to film­ing for the Coun­try­side pro­gramme. We are delight­ed to be able to coop­er­ate in the mak­ing of the pro­gramme and show why we argue that this is an issue of nation­al impor­tance which will affect oth­er com­mu­ni­ties up and down the Coun­try if the deci­sion is not changed.

We know of five oth­er open­cast mine appli­ca­tions, near Smal­ly in Der­byshire (George Farm) , Kirklees, Sth. York­shire (Dearne Lea), Trow­el in Not­ting­hamshire (Short­wood Farm) , Whit­ton­stall in Northum­ber­land ( Hood­sclose) and Gateshead  (Birk­lands) that will be affect­ed by this deci­sion if it stands.

In addi­tion, we are aware of three oth­er sites where a poten­tial appli­cant is mak­ing the final deci­sion to pro­ceed with a full appli­ca­tion in Gateshead,   Mar­ley Hill Recla­ma­tion) , Der­byshire ( Hill Top Project near Clay Cross) and Northum­ber­land  (Fer­neybeds near Wid­dring­ton Sta­tion, Northum­ber­land) which might also be affect­ed.

The issue here though, we believe, goes way beyond open­cast min­ing. It’s about relax­ing the rules around all forms of min­er­al extrac­tion from pits for sand, grav­el and clay to quar­ries for gran­ite and lime­stone to open­cast mines for coal. This is what the indus­try lob­bied for and now, it seems, the Gov­ern­ment has deliv­ered, if it upholds the Inspector’s rec­om­men­da­tion to approve the Appli­ca­tion and the Judi­cial Review fails. We there­fore urge peo­ple every­where, who cher­ish and love our coun­try­side, to sup­port both the peti­tion and the pub­lic appeal for mon­ey to take this case to a Judi­cial Review.”

The Coun­r­ty­file edi­tion of the pro­gramme is to be broad­cast on Sun­day 30th Sep­tem­ber 2012. It will include a 12 minute sec­tion on the Hal­ton Lea Gate issue.

———————————————————————————-

Ref­er­ences

1)   For more infor­ma­tion on the sig­nif­i­cance of this deci­sion as far as open­cast mine appli­ca­tions are con­cerned see  LAON PR7 here

http://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/2754

2)   Evi­dence about the lob­by­ing to relax these plan­ning rules can be found here.

Brief­ing Note E2 “Ener­gy Pol­i­cy and the Pro­posed Nation­al Plan­ning Pol­i­cy Frame­work,” MOPG 2011  @

http://www.leicestershirevillages.com/measham/mopg-briefing-notes-series.html

——————————————————————-

ABOUT LAON

The Loose Anti-Open­cast Net­work (LAON) has been in exis­tence since 2009. It  func­tions as a medi­um through to oppose open cast mine appli­ca­tions through which any per­son / group can com­mu­ni­cate ideas, infor­ma­tion, requests for infor­ma­tion and pos­si­bly con­cert­ed actions if we find a tar­get. In addi­tion feel free to invite any oth­er per­son / group who oppose open­cast min­ing appli­ca­tions, to join the net­work so that it grows. At present LAON links indi­vid­u­als and groups in N Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales, Northum­ber­land, Co Durham, Leeds, Kirklees Not­ting­hamshire, Der­byshire, Leices­ter­shire and Wal­sall.

You can now fol­low LAON on Twit­ter @ https://twitter.com/Seftonchase

Anti Opencast Coal March in Clay Cross

A march is tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to any pro­pos­al to seek to open­cast mine on the Hill­top Project site. For more info see

http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/events/2774

A march is tak­ing place on Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber to show the strength of oppo­si­tion to any pro­pos­al to seek to open­cast mine on the Hill­top Project site. For more info see

http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/events/2774

Eco-anarchist Luca “Billy” Bernasconi is free (Switzerland)

Hel­lo to all the com­rades:

I left on Sun­day, August 19. The judge (was foam­ing at the mouth!), like Sil­via, I am also grant­ed parole hav­ing reached two-thirds of the sen­tence. Find­ing the warmth of veg­an com­pas, find­ing sights and words, it’s a pure joy to me.

Hel­lo to all the com­rades:

I left on Sun­day, August 19. The judge (was foam­ing at the mouth!), like Sil­via, I am also grant­ed parole hav­ing reached two-thirds of the sen­tence. Find­ing the warmth of veg­an com­pas, find­ing sights and words, it’s a pure joy to me.

Despite the iso­la­tion imposed on us dur­ing this time, in fact, there has not been a sin­gle time when I had the feel­ing of being alone. From the let­ters, from the news of events and ini­tia­tives, the news that came of actions, was almost pal­pa­ble ener­gy, a strong expe­ri­ence, despite every­thing. So, by force and warmth received from the courage, I can not say thank you enough. Thanks, real­ly.

Nat­u­ral­ly, noth­ing is over, rather, it is just a new begin­ning along “the path off the main street.”

Now miss­ing Cos­ta and Mar­co, Por­co dio!

Total sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those inves­ti­gat­ed and raid­ed by the oper­a­tion “Man­gia­fuo­co” and all the Anar­chist rebels still inside.

Thanks,

Buenos Aires: Banner drop at the Metro for the Swiss Embassy in solidarity with Marco Camenisch (Argentina)

On Wednes­day 28th August, we hung a ban­ner on the build­ing of the Metro where the Swiss Embassy resides. While we were removed, we scat­tered fly­ers around the place.

On Wednes­day 28th August, we hung a ban­ner on the build­ing of the Metro where the Swiss Embassy resides. While we were removed, we scat­tered fly­ers around the place. With this sim­ple action, we express our sol­i­dar­i­ty with our anar­chist com­rade Mar­co Camenisch, a pris­on­er of Switzer­land, cur­rent­ly on hunger strike. To him we send our love. To him and to all our com­rades that meet behind the walls, but are nev­er defeat­ed, and nev­er repent.

All our hate to the State and the pris­ons. They will nev­er stop us because our sol­i­dar­i­ty is stronger than their repres­sive blows and organ­i­sa­tions.

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary sol­i­dar­i­ty to all the indomitable pris­on­ers all over the world.

Com­rade­ly greet­ings to all those who, day by day, strug­gle against this sys­tem of exploita­tion.

Death to the State!
Long Live Anar­chy!

Indi­vid­u­al­ist Anar­chists

5,000 March Against Fracking in DC

More than 5,000 peo­ple from all over the nation, and var­i­ous parts of the world includ­ing Aus­tralia, unit­ed [Sat­ur­day, July 28] on the West lawn of the U.S. Capi­tol demand­ing Con­gress take imme­di­ate action to stop frack­ing.

More than 5,000 peo­ple from all over the nation, and var­i­ous parts of the world includ­ing Aus­tralia, unit­ed [Sat­ur­day, July 28] on the West lawn of the U.S. Capi­tol demand­ing Con­gress take imme­di­ate action to stop frack­ing. After the ral­ly that began at 2 p.m., ral­ly par­tic­i­pants marched for more than one hour, stop­ping at the head­quar­ters of the America’s Nat­ur­al Gas Alliance and Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute.

Peo­ple impact­ed by frack­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties joined forces with 136 local and nation­al orga­ni­za­tions to call on Con­gress to Stop the Frack Attack and pro­tect Amer­i­cans from the dan­ger­ous impacts of frack­ing.

Ral­ly speak­ers includ­ed, Bill McK­ibben, co-founder of 350.org; Josh Fox, pro­duc­er of Gasland; Calvin Till­man, for­mer may­or of Dish, Texas; Alli­son Chin, board pres­i­dent of the Sier­ra Club, and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers from swing states affect­ed by frack­ing.

“As the increas­ing­ly bizarre weath­er across the plan­et and melt­ing ice on Green­land makes clear, at this point we’ve got no choice but to keep fos­sil fuels under­ground. Frack­ing to find more is the worst pos­si­ble idea,” said McK­ibben.

“The amaz­ing thing about this prob­lem is that there’s a solu­tion… We know that  we can run the world on renew­able ener­gy. We know that we can run the world on the wind. And today, we have a reminder that we can run the world on the sun,” said Fox. [Ed. note: While we sup­port actions to stop frack­ing, see our arti­cle cri­tiquing this per­spec­tive on so-called clean alter­na­tives]

Today’s ral­ly was part of the first nation­al event to stop the frack attack. The ral­ly is the cul­mi­na­tion of three days of train­ing to fur­ther esca­late the move­ment to stop abuse by the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Large groups from swing states includ­ing Ohio, Col­orado, Penn­syl­va­nia and North Car­oli­na attend­ed the train­ing and ral­ly to make sure that frack­ing is a key part of the upcom­ing elec­tion.

“Just weeks ago in North Car­oli­na, our leg­is­la­ture ripped up decades of ground­wa­ter pro­tec­tions for rur­al drink­ing water, in order to allow frack­ing and invite in dirty indus­try cam­paign dol­lars. So we add our voic­es to the nation­al move­ment call­ing on Con­gress to pro­tect our homes, our drink­ing water and our health by repeal­ing the 2005 oil and gas exemp­tions,” said Hope Tay­lor, a farmer near Durham and exec­u­tive direc­tor of Clean Water for NC.

Ral­ly par­tic­i­pants have three key demands: an end to dirty and dan­ger­ous frack­ing, clo­sure of the sev­en legal loop­holes that let frack­ers in the oil and gas indus­try ignore the Safe Drink­ing Water Act, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, and full enforce­ment of exist­ing laws to pro­tect fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties from the effects of frack­ing.

“It is time for us to come togeth­er as a peo­ple and let the law mak­ers that work for us know that we are tired of being run over by the out-of-con­trol oil and gas indus­try,” said Till­man.

While at the head­quar­ters of America’s Nat­ur­al Gas Alliance, ral­ly orga­niz­ers deliv­ered six jugs of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water in haz­mat suits and then head­ed to the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute where a 20-foot-high mock oil rig was smashed to the ground.

This event was a launch­ing point for the move­ment, and will be fol­lowed by events in Albany, NY on Aug. 25, Philadel­phia on Sept. 20 and Sept. 21, and sub­se­quent events in oth­er states and regions affect­ed by frack­ing.

London Critical Mass kettled and arrested

27.7.12

27.7.12

Coin­cid­ing with the Olympics open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, peo­ple are tweet­ing that over 100 cyclists are being put on coach­es and arrest­ed, after being ket­tled and some CS/pepper sprayed for cycling in Olympic-only lanes and break­ing an imposed Sec­tion 12 for­bid­ding going north of the riv­er.  Cops ensured David Beck­ham could get through at one point by punch­ing cyclists. 

Video (dur­ing).  Video (arrest­ed onto bus­es after).  2 reports below, and pre-CM ‘why I’m going’ (& this link to updat­ed report):

More than 100 cyclists were arrest­ed by police close to the Olympic Sta­di­um on the open­ing night of the Games.

There were scuf­fles between police and cyclists on the out­skirts of the Olympic Park, at about 22:30 BST.

Peo­ple tak­ing part in a month­ly mass bike ride held in Lon­don said they were “ket­tled” near the sta­di­um.

The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police said they had made arrests for Pub­lic Order offences but have not respond­ed to the ket­tling claim.

The force said two groups had been detained — the first on Bow Fly­over and the oth­er in Warton Road, Strat­ford.

A spokesman for Scot­land Yard said: “A num­ber of peo­ple in breach of reg­u­la­tions imposed on a month­ly cycling event have been arrest­ed.”

In a state­ment, the force said the con­di­tions on the cycle ride had been put in place “to pre­vent seri­ous dis­rup­tion to the com­mu­ni­ty and the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Olympic Games”.

Ker­ry-Anne Men­doza, 31, who describes her­self as a cam­paign­er and writer, said: “We were cycling down the Bow Road [in Strat­ford] and the police direct­ed us down a cul-de-sac.

“Then they ket­tled us in there. There is a line of police cars and vans behind that.”

She added: “They have not com­mu­ni­cat­ed with us or told us why we are being held here or when they will let us out.”

The reg­u­lar Crit­i­cal Mass ride is a pro-cycling event.

Joel Ben­jamin, who has been on a num­ber of Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides pre­vi­ous­ly, said there were 400–500 cyclists who met on the south side of Water­loo Bridge.

“Usu­al­ly there is a light police pres­ence,” he said. “Today there were far more police than I’ve seen before.”

‘Cel­e­bra­tion of cycling’

He said police used a sound sys­tem to tell cyclists there were restric­tions placed on the ride but not what it meant.

“Basi­cal­ly, they did­n’t want us to go north of the riv­er. The police had put a road­block stop­ping all traf­fic going north.”

He said police took a “heavy-hand­ed stance”.

Scene close to Olympic Park
“I saw sev­er­al cas­es of the police being aggres­sive and phys­i­cal, drag­ging peo­ple off their bikes to the ground.

“I did­n’t see any arrests, but my friend, a solic­i­tor was arrest­ed.

“I left at about 8.30pm and man­aged to not get arrest­ed, but I think around 100 peo­ple have been arrest­ed.

“I guess there were peo­ple there who are against the Olympics, but Crit­i­cal Mass is real­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of cycling, there was no need to get so heavy hand­ed. ”

The Met Police said a num­ber of the arrest­ed cyclists had been removed from the area near the Olympic Park.

The arrest­ed cyclists have been detained under Sec­tion 12 of the Pub­lic Order Act.

———————–

The Olympics has start­ed and it seems cycling has become a crim­i­nal offence, wor­thy of police bru­tal­i­ty – I hope the Olympic cyclists are okay tomor­row.

Hang on a minute: this is the same Olympics that politi­cians have been try­ing to brand as the green­est Olympics ever? Also, they did say how this would encour­age peo­ple to get fit and into sport, didn’t they?

Crit­i­cal mass met as it does on a month­ly basis to cycle as a swarm, for com­mu­ni­ty reclaim­ing of streets in Lon­don. It met near Water­loo Bridge, at the South­bank Cen­tre. From reg­u­lars’ accounts, as it is not a “protest”, this is nor­mal­ly free from police sup­pres­sion and it fol­lows the whims of the mass, with no clear direc­tion end­ing its route on the Roy­al Mall.

On this gath­er­ing, the police were there on mass too: an author­i­tar­i­an mass. They announced that under a sec­tion 12 no cyclists were allowed to cross the rivers and go to any of North Lon­don. Like oth­ers there, this was where I live, and haven’t I been bom­bard­ed with Olympics posters encour­ag­ing me to get on my bike.

The over a thou­sand peo­ple assem­bled, did not move for a while. Then we set off first try­ing to cross Water­loo Bridge. The police blocked this route.I moved with the mass and we had sim­i­lar prob­lems at Black­fri­ars, our way blocked by a police line, which was also block­ing the traf­fic. Then we head­ed to try South­wark Bridge, again this was blocked.

Inci­den­tal­ly, it was noticed amongst the crowd that David Beck­ham was stuck the oth­er side of the road­block in a dark SUV head­ing south. His pres­ence stirred rip­ples of excite­ment, although the focus was more about how to head over the riv­er.

As passers­by start­ed to pay a bit more atten­tion, to take pic­tures and look at him, the police react­ed. Or in my inter­pre­ta­tion, unlaw­ful­ly over­re­act­ed a lit­tle like the impo­si­tion of the Sec­tion 12. I saw cyclists thrown off their bikes, hit and man­han­dled for stand­ing still. If the police had not blocked the road, this would not have hap­pened. I report­ed this, moments lat­er, to a senior offi­cer; explain­ing that one of the offi­cers had com­mit­ted assault – he was not inter­est­ed.

I even­tu­al­ly crossed a bridge, as many oth­ers did, and made my way towards Strat­ford; fol­low­ing a pro­ces­sion of riot vans. In Strat­ford, these vans were lined the streets, with offi­cers ket­tling a group of cyclists who had done bet­ter exer­cis­ing their rights to free move­ment.

When I arrived the police had ket­tled around one hun­dred cyclists, also I heard there were oth­er ket­tles else­where and fur­ther arrests and assaults by police offi­cers. These cyclists were tak­en away by the bus load, hand­cuffed with an offi­cer per per­son. I over­heard a senior police­man remark that they were going to var­i­ous police sta­tions, and their bike tagged and tak­en to a depot.

———————–

Why I’m going to the Crit­i­cal Mass this fri­day

Here’s my rea­son why; back in 2005, we found out the news that Lon­don was going to host the Olympic games, lots of peo­ple in the media make com­ments about how much of a shit hole Strat­ford is, but truth is, its not real­ly that shit, it’s just an easy tar­get for the devel­op­ers, there’s no one to defend it. Any­way since 2005 the amount of rede­vel­op­ment with yup­py flats and Tescos pop­ping up all over the town is out of con­trol, the locals have been pushed to once side. I’m mates with a local Tory cam­paign, fun­ny cause he’s a tory, and all his con­stituents hate the Olympics, and he agrees. I’m assum­ing that after the Olympics like the Mil­le­ni­um Dome and Iraq, the top politi­cians will admit it was a bit of sham. Every­where I go I hear peo­ple moan­ing about the Olympics, and then when I turn on the TV, I see noth­ing but smil­ing faces. Even my par­ents who are mis­er­able, Dai­ly Mail types want to see the VIP lanes blocked. We got taxis dri­vers moan­ing, dairy farm­ers out on strike, now its times for the oppo­site end of the spec­trum to join in with the crit­i­cal mass. When I heard about the crit­i­cal mass, I thought it was time to give ‘them’ a her­nia with stress. 130 quid fine for cycling in the VIP lane? that’s an insult to the nor­mal peo­ple who are stuck in Lon­don. Any­way over the years I’ve was part of the Sum­mit Hop­ping move­ment, but no-one in Lon­don has realised all the Olympics is anoth­er polit­i­cal sum­mit, and it should of been treat­ed as such, with mas­sive direct action, ban­ner drops, etc etc. Any­way if your com­ing to the mass on fri­day, expect the police, GCHQ and they’re oth­er resources to real­ly treat us like shit. On sat­ur­day a face­book event was blocked with in one-hour of its cre­ation, I hope the girl who made the event does­n’t use her own ip address. GCHQ are def­i­nite­ly going to watch this one. Prob­a­bly a mas­sive Copen­hagen ket­tle on one of the bridges, or south­bank, so keep your wits about you, ride a blue bar­clays bike, and ditch it if shit gets heavy lets not for­get, the psy­cos of our Armed Forces are in Lon­don in num­bers, and they can’t tell the dif­fer­ence between an Afghan wed­ding and ter­ror­ist camp. Keep telling your mates, and invite them along. See you in the streets.