Category: Other

Oth­er

Son of Shell to Sea hunger striker assaulted and arrested at Glengad beach

13.09.2008
Today at mid­day around 50 local and nation­al Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to reclaim Glen­gad beach, Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, from Shell. Despite Shel­l’s com­mit­ment to allow pub­lic access to the beach, for the past two months the beach has been closed to the pub­lic while prepara­to­ry pipeline work is ongo­ing.

Glengad fence13.09.2008
Today at mid­day around 50 local and nation­al Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to reclaim Glen­gad beach, Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion, from Shell. Despite Shel­l’s com­mit­ment to allow pub­lic access to the beach, for the past two months the beach has been closed to the pub­lic while prepara­to­ry pipeline work is ongo­ing.

When cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to exer­cise their right to pub­lic access to the beach they were met by Gar­da vio­lence. Four peo­ple were arrest­ed, includ­ing hunger strik­er Mau­ra Har­ringot­n’s son. Ms. Har­ring­ton’s son was treat­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly bru­tal­ly by the Gar­dai. Four Gar­dai knelt on his back, pushed his face into the sand for sev­er­al min­utes and twist­ed his arms behind his back.

One wit­ness to the arrests stat­ed, “There were over 50 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in the demon­stra­tion and out of all these the Gar­dai clear­ly sin­gled out Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s son. They called him by name and then assault­ed him. It was no co inci­dence that it was Mau­ra’s son that was so vio­lent­ly arrest­ed.”

All who were arrest­ed are cur­rent­ly being held in Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion.

At the time of writ­ing Mau­ra Har­ring­ton, Shell to Sea, is into her fifth day of a hunger strike which she began on Tue 9th August at approx­i­mate­ly 6pm when Shel­l’s pipe-lay­ing ship the Soli­taire arrived in Broad­haven Bay, Erris, Co Mayo.

Mau­ra is clear that her hunger strike will end in one of two ways.

1) Writ­ten con­fir­ma­tion that the Soli­taire has left Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters.
2) Her death.

Rossport Update on 11th September 2008 & solidarity action in Brighton & upcoming action in London

An update on the sit­u­a­tion as of this morn­ing in occu­pied Erris

After a tru­ly momen­tous day in Erris yesterday,things are much calmer this morn­ing.
The Soli­taire has been con­firmed to be sta­tionery in Killy­begs Co Done­gal.

An update on the sit­u­a­tion as of this morn­ing in occu­pied Erris

SolitaireAfter a tru­ly momen­tous day in Erris yesterday,things are much calmer this morn­ing.
The Soli­taire has been con­firmed to be sta­tionery in Killy­begs Co Done­gal.

Police pres­ence in the area is still very heavy this morn­ing although the gen­er­al atmos­phere (aside from at the com­pound gates) is slight­ly less tense. Mau­ra Har­ring­ton con­tin­ues her coura­geous hunger strike at the com­pound gates with round the clock sol­i­dar­i­ty from both locals and the camp.
Shell to Sea hunger striker

It is still not clear how exact­ly the Soli­taire sus­tained the dam­age to its “stinger”
The stinger is DEFINITELY slight­ly dam­aged in one sec­tion how­ev­er this reporter can con­firm that it was not so dam­aged on Tues­day night when it arrived in Broad­haven Bay and that con­di­tions all through­out Tues­day night were absolute­ly calm both at land and on sea (remem­ber­ing that the Soli­taire can oper­ate in extreme­ly heavy seas unhin­dered due to its size).

The cause of the dam­age is a heav­i­ly spec­u­lat­ed upon mat­ter and I will not add to oth­er than the fact that AllSeas Ltd may be con­trac­tu­al­ly relieved from its oblig­a­tions under a damge clause in the con­tract.

More from yes­ter­day

Lock-on protest

The 5 peo­ple who locked on in atro­cious con­di­tions for 6 and a half hours from 5.30am to mid­day and blocked the road were all released with­out charge from Bel­mul­let Gar­da Sta­tion. 4 were held for 6 and a half hours and 1 was released after 4 hours. They report that they were treat­ed well in Gar­da cus­tody and that their needs were attend­ed to cor­rect­ly.

Up to 15 peo­ple were in atten­dance in sol­i­dar­i­ty at one point or anoth­er dur­ing the day, Shell to Sea lock-on 1Shell to Sea lock-on 2Gar­dai refused to allow any to stay inside the walls of the (pub­lic) station,including a solic­i­tor who is part of the protests. The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are all in good form today and proud of their actions and a good day for the cam­paign.

Pat O’Don­nell and son
Pat O’Don­nell and son as has been pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed were again arrest­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing to pre­vent them exer­cis­ing their legal enti­tle­ment to fish the waters of Broad­haven Bay. The pair were again arrest­ed under the “blank cheque” that is Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994.

This was the sec­ond time the pair were arrest­ed in 24 hours and released with­out charge,a spu­ri­ous use and fla­grant abuse of the law A pos­si­ble route to stem this behav­iour would be to seek an injunc­tion in the High Court to pre­vent the Gar­dai from using the law in this way,this how­ev­er is a very rare achieve­ment and is unlike­ly to be heard.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s hunger­strike
Mau­ra con­tin­ued coura­geous­ly with her refusal to eat until the Soli­taire leaves Irish ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters. She has been giv­ing inter­views to media at inter­vals and has been chat­ting with sup­port­ers when the police are at a safe dis­tance. Gar­dai were,at 4am on Wednes­day morn­ing ‚revving their engines extreme­ly loud­ly right in front of Mau­ra’s car in order to dis­turb her sleep as much as pos­si­ble. Sup­port­ers have main­tained a con­stant pres­ence since the begin­ning of the action at 5pm Tues­day.
The hunger strike con­tin­ues

SOLITAIRE
We do not know whether or not the Soli­taire will return. We remain on high alert.

All sol­i­dar­i­ty in what­ev­er form and wher­ev­er is need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed.

—

10th Sep­tem­ber:

Five Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty campers have locked on to a bridge about 100m from the gates of the Shell com­pound in Glen­gad. The campers have been locked on since 4:30am — 5am. Gar­daí have refused to call the fire brigade, but have put a makeshift wee tent over the pro­tes­tors, and have cut a drain in the side of the road to allow lodg­ing rain on the road to drain off.

Two fish­ing boat skip­pers (plus crews) have been arrest­ed after Gar­daí board­ed the ves­sels as they approached the Soli­taire at anchor in Broad­haven Bay. Local on-the-scene reports say that Pat ‘the Chief’ O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan are among those arrest­ed. Gar­daí are alleg­ing pub­lic order offences (I expect to hear they’ll all be released with­out charges soon). Gar­daí are pre­vent­ing access now to the com­pound gates, where Mau­ra Har­ring­ton remains in her car and on hunger strike. Gar­daí are using the lock-on action as a pre­text for stop­ping pub­lic move­ment along that stretch of road.There is only one pro­tes­tor keep­ing watch on Mau­ra with a cam­era, but sup­port­ers can get close to both of them through the fields near­by. Inter­net con­nec­tion has returned to the Camp office, since about an hour before this post­ing.

Wel­come to Ire­land 2008 — Shel­l’s lit­tle police state!

Get up to Mayo now and con­front their vio­lent thiev­ing plans!

Pat O’Don­nell and his son Jonathan were AGAIN arrest­ed this morn­ing as they were attempt­ing to to exer­cise their legal right to be a sea.

The lock-on con­tin­ues to block the road from the Bel­mul­let side and the police have set up a road-block form the oth­er side of the com­pund (Pol­lath­omais side)

The 2–3 mile area in between is a pen where the police are pre­vent­ing peo­ple from walk­ing (although peo­ple are access­ing the road,and Maura,through the fields.

The Police are attempt­ing to begin the cut­ting of the pipes that are being used in the lock-on,this could take quite some time as they are extreme­ly thick.

The lock-on par­tic­i­pants are lying in pud­dles of water at this stage as the rain con­tin­ues to lash down in Erris.

A con­stant vig­il was kept at Mauras side all ngith with at least 5 peo­ple there at all times to ensure the cops did­nt try any­thing.

The Soli­taire is sta­tionery at its anchor loca­tion and there is no activ­i­ty on the com­pound at Glen­gad.

It must be under­lined that the arrests of Pat O’Don­nell and his com­rades are TOTALLY spu­ri­ous ‚a bull­shit appli­ca­tion of Sec­tion 8 of the Pub­lic Order Act 1994 to keep the Chief and his fish­er­men col­leagues off the waters.

An injunc­tion is being sought to pre­vent fur­ther spu­ri­ous arrests.

——-

Brighton solidarity action with Shell to SeaTwo activists are cur­rent­ly occu­py­ing the roof of the Shell petrol garage on Pre­ston Road, Brighton in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ties resist­ing the Cor­rib gas pipeline devel­op­ment in Ross­port, Ire­land. This action is in response to an urgent call out made by the Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty camp due to the pres­ence of the pipe lay­ing ves­sel, the Soli­taire, in Broad­haven bay and the immi­nent com­mence­ment of the build­ing of the pipeline.

The ship that is to build the pipeline is booked for the next two weeks. If Shell is able to fol­low its timetable to bring the pipeline into land, this will cre­ate mas­sive prob­lems for any resis­tance to the project in the future. Shell will be cre­at­ing ‘facts on the ground’ which will essen­tial­ly make it eas­i­er to push through a deci­sion on the land route, which local res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have been fight­ing against. If work is pre­vent­ed at this time, it is unlike­ly that the ship will be able to return for at least two years as it has already been booked up.

Since 2005 there has been mas­sive resis­tance, includ­ing a strong cam­paign of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, from the local com­mu­ni­ty, around Ire­land and beyond.

Update — 4:30pm

The two pro­test­ers came down some­time after 3–30 and were imme­di­ate­ly arrest­ed fol­low­ing an accu­sa­tion by the man­ag­er (a real­ly nasty piece of work) of crim­i­nal dam­age to the roof. Quite how she knew this with­out look­ing can be for the courts to decide (can’t wait). They are now in Holling­bury Cus­tody suite.

—–

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Action
12 noon Mon­day 15th Sep
Allseas UK offices,7 Albe­mar­le St, West­min­ster Lon­don WIS 4HQ

Allseas owns the Soli­taire which tried to lay the gas pipe in Broad­haven Bay, Mayo last Tues­day. It has been dam­aged and may return to Hol­land. A local Woman is on hunger strike until it leaves Irish waters and we in the UK have been asked to demon­strate at the Allseas offices in sup­port of Mau­ra. The offices pre­vi­ous­ly adver­tised on this web­site can­not be con­firmed as the Allseas offices so we are going to their reg­is­tered address in West­min­ster. Please show sol­i­dar­i­ty to the peo­ple of Erris if you can.

The Solitaire arrives in Broadhaven Bay

9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Solitaire9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Local peo­ple have been alarmed to see so many police offi­cers, and sin­is­ter fig­ures in green rain­jack­ets, who may be police (although the Irish Police, the Gar­da Siochá­na, usu­al­ly wear blue) or could be Shell secu­ri­ty or even mem­bers of the Irish Army.

Inter­net access in the area near the Shell com­pound has been cut off, and the main road to the beach has been blocked.

Oppo­si­tion to the pipe lay­ing oper­a­tion con­sists of a num­ber off envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal activists based in the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, local fish­er­men who are wor­ried about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the waters they depend on, and many local peo­ple who are con­cerned that the off­shore sec­tion of the Shell scheme is being put in place while no plan­ning per­mis­sion exists for the onshore sec­tion.

A local school prin­ci­pal has vowed to refuse food until the ship leaves the area. She has parked her car in front of the Shell com­pound. A fish­er­man from near­by Por­turlin who refused to move his crab gear from the path of the Soli­taire has been arrest­ed.

In 2005 a num­ber of local peo­ple were jailed for 94 days for oppos­ing the Shell project as it was then con­fig­ured.

Since then, the project has been dogged by con­tro­ver­sy, with many arrests, court cas­es, injuries, com­plaints to the Gar­da Com­plaints Board and Ombuds­man, and polit­i­cal activ­i­ty both in and out­side the Dáil.

In recent weeks there have been 29 sep­a­rate arrests in thee area around Glen­gad beach, where the pipe is due to make land­fall.

Shell spokes­peo­ple have claimed that the project has not been affect­ed by the protests. They say that recent delays to the project have been caused by severe weath­er.

Some news­pa­pers have claimed that the project, which is being car­ried out by a con­sor­tium of com­pa­nies includ­ing Sta­toil from Nor­way and Marathon Oil from Texas in the Unit­ed States, will ben­e­fit the coun­try, even though all of the nat­ur­al gas will belong to the Cor­rib part­ners and no roy­al­ty will be charged. There is no con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tion for Shell, the scheme’s major share­hold­er and oper­a­tor, to sell any of the gas to Bord Gáis Éire­ann, and so the resource will be sold to the high­est bid­der.

The will be no finan­cial ben­e­fit to Irish con­sumers from the Cor­rib gas field.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists have warned that the onshore sec­tion of the scheme, which includes a huge refin­ery being con­struct­ed nine kilo­me­ters inland at Bel­lan­aboy, will be expand­ed and used to process gas from oth­er fields off the west coast in the the future. They also say that Shell will use the prece­dent of an onshore refin­ery to strong arm their way into installing sim­i­lar schemes in oth­er places around the world.

The Irish gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Green Par­ty Min­is­ters of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, has backed Shel­l’s scheme. Last month the Gar­da released fig­ures show­ing that 11 mil­lion euro had been spent polic­ing the project since 2006, more than half the amount the force spent on fight­ing organ­ised crime.

Activists on the ground in Mayo have asked for assis­tance. Those not in a posi­tion to trav­el to Mayo can hold sol­i­dar­i­ty protests (this arti­cle could be used as the basis for leaflets) at the Irish embassy or Shell petrol sta­tions. Green Par­ty politi­cians in Britain may have some influ­ence over their coun­ter­parts in the Irish Green Par­ty.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!

Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170
Train + fer­ry from £21 from most cities www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/rail-and-sail/

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030
(own­ers of the Soli­taire)

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

For more info see indymedia.ie/mayo

Rossport latest & solidarity actions (Berlin, London

Shell to Sea activists board the Soli­taire
8.09.2008
This after­noon three Shell to Sea activists, one car­ry­ing the Tri­colour, board­ed the Soli­taire to hand deliv­er a let­ter of protest to the Cap­tain of the ship fol­low­ing his fail­ure to respond to pre­vi­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion .

Shell to Sea activists board the Soli­taire
8.09.2008
This after­noon three Shell to Sea activists, one car­ry­ing the Tri­colour, board­ed the Soli­taire to hand deliv­er a let­ter of protest to the Cap­tain of the ship fol­low­ing his fail­ure to respond to pre­vi­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion .

The three men were part of a crew of five Shell to Sea activists in four ves­sels (James Con­nol­ly, Jim Larkin, Bob­by Sands and Geron­i­mo), who pad­dled out to the Soli­taire in Done­gal Bay this morn­ing.

Rep­re­sent­ing the views of many from the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by the Cor­rib gas project, the let­ter asks the Cap­tain of the Soli­taire to recon­sid­er his, and the ship’s, par­tic­i­pa­tion in the devel­op­ment.

The Cap­tain was also invit­ed to Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp for din­ner to give him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with the local com­mu­ni­ty affect­ed by the Cor­rib gas project and to hear their con­cerns.

Today’s board­ing is just one of many recent marine based actions car­ried out by Shell to Sea . Cam­paign­ers have vowed to pre­vent the Soli­taire from car­ry­ing out pipeline work in Broad­haven Bay.

Pro­tes­tor John O Con­nell at Killy­begs stat­ed, “Resis­tance to the Cor­rib gas project will con­tin­ue. New marine activists are join­ing us every day and if nec­es­sary we will block­ade both Killy­begs Har­bor and Broad­haven Bay to stop ves­sels involved in the work. There is no con­sent for Shell’s project and it will not be com­plet­ed.”

—-

On Sun­day 7th Sep­tem­ber, the doors of the Irish Embassy in Berlin were glued shut and graf­fi­ti was left say­ing “Shell Out of Ross­port” and “No Pipeline”. This action was tak­en in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those fight­ing the lay­ing of the pipeline in Ross­port and those fight­ing the destruc­tion of life by gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions every­where.

—-

Rythms of Resis­tance are going to play out­side the Irish embassy at 3.30 this
Wednes­day (10th) in sup­port of our friends in Mayo. If you can come along to 17 Grosvenor Place,
Lon­don, SW1X 7HR, it would be great.

Eight arrested as Shell begin winching operation in Rossport

Late Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea.

Shell winch boatLate Thurs­day evening, Shell To Sea flotil­la attempt­ed to block the winch boat which has just arrived at Glen­gad. 11 small craft were launched from the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp. They strong­ly resist­ed the Gar­daí and Navy boats who attempt­ed to ram the Shell To Sea dinghies and knock the occu­pants into the sea. The resis­tance last­ed for 2 hours and was cheered on by a huge local crowd who had gath­ered in sup­port along the cliffs and beach.

Yes­ter­day evening at Glen­gad, eight Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed for oppos­ing the lat­est work being car­ried out by Shell. At approx­i­mate­ly 7pm a barge began work pulling a winch­ing cable into the land­fall area at Glen­gad. This is one of the most cru­cial stages in the off­shore pipeline that can be dis­rupt­ed.

Three squadrons of Shell to Sea ves­sels took to the water to stop the work. They were opposed by fif­teen Shell, Navy and Gar­daí boats. Despite this the winch­ing work was delayed for one and a half hours while Gar­daí and Navy per­son­nel worked with Shell secu­ri­ty in arrest­ing sev­en peo­ple from the water. Sub­se­quent­ly an eighth Shell to Sea pro­tes­tor was arrest­ed out­side the gates of the com­pound under the Pub­lic Order Act. All have been released with­out charge.

Dur­ing this action all of the S2S Fleet were rammed by Gar­da or Shell boats, with the excep­tion of the S2S safe­ty boat which was threat­ened with ram­ming by the Gar­daí boats before she with­drew. All of Shel­l’s ‘safe­ty’ boats had Gar­da per­son­nel on board and the Gar­dai, Navy and Shell worked togth­er through­out.

One of those arrest­ed Mary Camp­bell stat­ed “Despite being opposed by 9 Gar­da and Navy boats, we were still able to stop work for one and a half hours. Our com­mu­ni­ty is tak­ing on the might of both Shell and the State but the bat­tle is far from over. We will con­tin­ue to resist this project. There is no con­sent.”

The Shell to Sea ves­sels seized by the Gar­daí and Navy dur­ing the protest were The Niamh Cinn Óir, The Maedbh, The Michael Davitt, The Luke Kel­ly, The Ron­nie Drew, The Robin Hood and The Hypa­tia.

At present, the winch­ing oper­a­tion is only part com­plet­ed. It can’t be pre­dict­ed exact­ly when they will attempt to com­plete the work due to stormy weath­er con­di­tions. Gales are fore­cast for the next few days. How­ev­er, the work WILL hap­pen as soon as the weath­er is fine. There is still time to get to Mayo! Check out www.coribsos.com for more info and www.rossportsolidaritycamp.110mb.com/ for trav­el and acco­mo­da­tion info

GRASS: The Battle For Wembley Park Sports Ground Video

On Mon­day 4 August 2008 the Grass Roots Alliance for Social Sports (GRASS) was forcibly evict­ed from the Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground in rough scenes and under sketchy legal grounds.

GRASS evictionOn Mon­day 4 August 2008 the Grass Roots Alliance for Social Sports (GRASS) was forcibly evict­ed from the Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground in rough scenes and under sketchy legal grounds.

Using an exist­ing evic­tion order from the Tent City Occu­pa­tion and an evic­tion order on the Sports Ground busi­ness­es, Brent Coun­cil forcibly evict­ed the GRASS pro­tes­tors. Then the coun­cil turned on the four squat­ters in the house on the site, evict­ing them with­out any pri­or notice — some­thing maybe the Brent Squat­ters Asso­ci­a­tion should look into.

A video of the evic­tion from that morn­ing can be found here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08mWEt6DUZM

An indepth report is here.

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/09/smash-school-privatisation-battle-for.html

The day panned out caus­ing end­less dis­rup­tion for Brent Coun­cil, as they grew increas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed at the pro­tes­tors con­tin­u­ous actions to halt the start of work on the tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion for the Ark Wem­b­ley Park Acad­e­my, which is due to open at the start of term in Sep­tem­ber.

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk

Earth Liberation Prisoners — September 2008

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.

Spir­it of Free­dom

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.

Spir­it of Free­dom
(August 2008)

“The whole expe­ri­ence has been tough, but all the kind and strength­en­ing words and wise thoughts from strangers made it much eas­i­er!”
(For­mer Swedish Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.

There are also a num­ber of non-list­ed pris­on­ers, who are not list­ed either by their own choice, or because they betrayed their fel­low activists and became infor­mants. And remem­ber these num­bers do not include those peo­ple who are either under House Arrest or on Bail pend­ing Tri­al. Nor do they include the activists whose loca­tions are cur­rent­ly unknown and who are described by the police as “on the run”. See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing. Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Tre Arrow, SWIS #640393, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 1120 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Port­land, Ore­gon 97206, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing of six and a half years impris­on­ment hav­ing reached a non-coop­er­a­tion plea-bar­gain with the author­i­ties who accuse him of involve­ment in two arsons. 1) an arson on log­ging trucks 2) an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. (Tre is a raw ener­gy veg­an — He has asked that his let­ters of sup­port are writ­ten on scrap paper or tree-free paper).

Grant Barnes #137563, San Car­los Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serv­ing 12 years for set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. The let­ters ELF were spray paint­ed onto all of the vehi­cles. (Grant is a veg­an).

Nathan Block, #36359–086, FCI Lom­poc, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 18 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Eight years for the mur­der of a Swiss Board­er Guard whilst on the run. In ‘02 Mar­co com­plet­ed a 12-year sen­tence in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Italy. (Mar­co is a meat eater who encour­ages organ­ic liv­ing).

Daniele Casali­ni, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Burla 59, 43100 Par­ma, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Daniele is a veg­an).

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Francesco Gioia, C.C. Sol­lic­ciano, Via Giro­lamo Min­ervi­ni 2/R, 50142 Firen­ze Sol­lic­ciano (FI), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy. (Francesco is a veg­e­tar­i­an and Straight Edge).

Pao­la Gori, Via delle Mac­chie 9, 57124 Livorno, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist await­ing tri­al accused of allow­ing her house to be used to plan ille­gal activ­i­ty. (Pao­la is a veg­an).

Bryan Lefey #38664–086, FDC SeaT­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. On remand accused of an ELF action that saw the dam­ag­ing of GM trees and the dam­ag­ing of US Forestry Ser­vice vehi­cles. (Diet unknown).

Jef­frey Luers, # 13797671, CRCI, 9111 NE Sun­der­land Ave, Port­land, OR 97211–1708, USA. Serv­ing 10 years for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck. The orig­i­nal sen­tence was 22 years & 8 months, but was reduced on appeal. (Diet unknown).

Eric McDavid, 16209–097. FCI Vic­torville Medi­um II, PO BOX 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 19 years & 7 months for plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants. At the point of his arrest no crim­i­nal dam­age has actu­al­ly occurred. (Eric is a veg­an).

Daniel McGowan, #63794–053, FCI Terre Haute, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808, USA. Serv­ing 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth log­ging cor­po­ra­tion. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. At the moment Daniel is in tran­sit as he has been ordered to appear before some Grand Juries. Daniel is refus­ing to answer the Grand Jury ques­tions and is gain­ing addi­tion­al prison time because of this (Daniel is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

Bri­ana Waters, 36432–086, FDC — Seat­ac, Fed­er­al Deten­tion Cen­ter, P.O. Box 13900, Seat­tle, WA 98198, USA. Serv­ing six years for involve­ment in an ELF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty. (Diet unknown).

Joy­an­na Zach­er, #36360–086, FCI Dublin, 5700 8th St.- Camp Parks- Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568, USA. Serv­ing 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted her role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Diet unknown).

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS
(All Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers fol­low a min­i­mum veg­e­tar­i­an diet and most are veg­an).

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

Dan Amos VN7818, HMP Exeter, 30 New North Road, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4EX, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Dan is a veg­an)

Gregg Avery TA7450, HMP Win­ches­ter, Rom­sey Road, Win­ches­ter, SO22 5DF, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Gregg is a veg­an).

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand hav­ing plead­ed guilty to con­spir­a­cy to black­mail Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (Nat is a veg­an).

Mel Broughton TN9138, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, Bucks MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson and black­mail cam­paign against an Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty vivi­sec­tion estab­lish­ment. (Mel is a veg­an).

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

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

Jacob Con­roy #93501–011, FCI Vic­torville Medi­um I Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 5300, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing 48 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Jake is a veg­an).

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI El Reno, PO Box 1500, El Reno, OK 73036, USA. Serv­ing one-year impris­on­ment after he informed peo­ple how to make an incen­di­ary device dur­ing a speech at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing. (Rod is a veg­e­tar­i­an).

Don­ald Cur­rie A3660AA, HMP Parkhurst, New­port, Isle of Wight, PO30 5NX, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS. (Don is a veg­an).

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

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, Route #37Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Lau­ren is a veg­an).

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

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

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

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

Sean Kirt­ley WC 6977, HM Prison Blak­en­hurst, Hewell Lane, Red­ditch, B97 6QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing four and a half years for run­ning an anti-vivi­sec­tion cam­paign web­site. (Sean is a veg­an).

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

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

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (Heather is a veg­an).
Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

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

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, USP Mar­i­on, P.O. Box 1000 Mar­i­on, IL 62959, USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign. (Andrew is a veg­an).

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

Ker­ry Whit­burn TB4886, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion. (Ker­ry is a veg­an).

Sarah White­head, VM7684, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing two years for: 1) res­cu­ing a pup­py from hor­rif­ic con­di­tions. 2) res­cu­ing over 100 ani­mals from a pet breed­er who was lat­er pros­e­cut­ed for ani­mal abuse. Also await­ing tri­al for SHAC activ­i­ty. (Sarah is a veg­an)

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

Helen Wood­son, 03231–045, FMC Car­swell — Admin. Max. Unit, POB 27137, Ft. Worth, TX 76127, USA. Serv­ing 8 years 10 months for actions that focused on the inter­re­la­tion­ship of war & the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al world. The actions includ­ed pour­ing red paint over the secu­ri­ty desk of a fed­er­al court and mak­ing threat­en­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly Helen had served 20½ years for: 1) Using a ham­mer to dis­arm a nuclear mis­sile silo. 2) Burn­ing $25,000 on the floor of a bank whilst denounc­ing war, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion & eco­nom­ic injus­tice. 3) Mail­ing warn­ing let­ters with bul­lets attached to Gov­ern­ment & cor­po­rate offi­cials. (Diet unknown).

THE LECCE FIVE
The Lec­ce Five have been charged with “sub­ver­sive asso­ci­a­tion” accused of dam­ag­ing Esso petrol pumps to oppose the War on Iraq; sab­o­tag­ing the cash machines of a bank which funds an immi­gra­tion cen­tre; and tar­get­ing the multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny Benet­ton in sup­port of Mapuche land rights activists in Chile. All of the defen­dants are cur­rent­ly either under house arrest or released on bail.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Vah­tang Devitlidze, ul. Libbedo­va 42, UO 68/2, otryad 14, briga­da 142, g. Hagyshen­sk, Krasnodarskiy Kray, 352680 Rus­sia. Serv­ing 2½ years for stab­bing a neo-nazi in the leg whilst defend­ing him­self from attack. (Diet unknown).

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

Fabio Milan, C.C. via Pianez­za 300, 10151 Tori­no, Italy. On remand accused of fight­ing with the police after an anti-fas­cist protest. (Diet unknown).

Andrea Neff, Bnr: 746/07/2, Jus­tizvol­lzugsanstalt fur Frauen in Berlin, Arkonas­trasse 56, 13189 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 14 months for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ty. (Diet unknown).

Chris­t­ian Süm­mer­mann, Bnr: 441/08/5, JVA Plötzensee, Lehrter­str. 61, 10557 Berlin, Ger­many. Serv­ing 40 months for breach­ing the peace whilst serv­ing a sus­pend­ed sen­tence issued for anti-fas­cist activ­i­ties. (Diet unknown).

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

Yuri Yure­vich Milevskiy, SIZO #7 kam­era 38, g. Brest, ul. Kar­la Mark­sa 86, 224000 Belarus. On remand for fight­ing with neo-nazis. (Diet unknown).

OTHER PRISONERS

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

Vagge­lis Botzatzis, Komo­ti­ni Juridi­cal Prison (“Dikastikes Fylakes Komo­ti­nis”), T.K. 69100, Greece. On remand accused of set­ting fire to two com­pa­ny cars owned by a energy/power com­pa­ny. It is believed that the per­son or per­sons unknown who car­ried out the arson did so in protest at the destruc­tion of the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and in sup­port of two work­ers who died at the pow­er plant. Vagge­lis is also accused of set­ting fire to a bank and start­ing a fire inside a car yard. (Meat Eater).

Richard Sills (Address Unknown, USA). Serv­ing 15 months for bomb hoax­ing a Uni­ver­si­ty say­ing they would be tar­get­ed by the ALF if they didn’t stop their ani­mal exper­i­ments. (Diet unknown).

Michael W. Sykes, 100 East 2nd St, Mon­roe, Michi­gan 48161, USA. Youth held on remand accused of anti-sprawl arsons, crim­i­nal dam­age, spray-paint­ing an anar­chist sign and burn­ing the Amer­i­can flag. (Diet unknown)

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

MOVE

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

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

Michael Davis Africa (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grater­ford, PO Box 244, Grater­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), SCI Mahanoy, 301 Morea Rd, Frackville, PA 17932, USA.

William Philips Africa (AM4984) and Del­bert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dal­las Draw­er K, Dal­las, PA 18612, USA.

Mumia Abu Jamal, (AM8335), SCI Greene, 175 Progress Dri­ve, Way­nes­burg PA 15370, USA. In 1981 Mumia, for­mer Black Pan­ther and vocal sup­port­er of MOVE, was framed for the mur­der of a cop. He was orig­i­nal­ly sen­tenced to death but is cur­rent­ly await­ing re-sen­tenc­ing fol­low­ing a court hear­ing in 2001.

STATEMENT ON VIOLENCE
Some peo­ple list­ed in this newslet­ter have car­ried out vio­lent actions. ‘Spir­it of Free­dom’ does not con­done vio­lence. But we are also against cen­sor­ship & believe peo­ple can decide for them­selves who they wish to sup­port.

ABOUT E.L.P. SUPPORT NETWORK
ELP is an inter­na­tion­al eco-pris­on­er sup­port net­work found­ed, in Britain, in 1993 to sup­port jailed eco-activists. We sup­port the pris­on­ers by pro­duc­ing var­i­ous reg­u­lar pris­on­er lists:

Spir­it of Free­dom is ELP’s inter­na­tion­al month­ly pris­on­er list­ing which is cir­cu­lat­ed by e‑mail.

Urgent ELP! Bul­letin is an e‑mail ser­vice that dis­trib­utes the names of any new eco-pris­on­er as soon as ELP gets their details. For more info e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

On-Line Newslet­ters — ELP has a num­ber of web­sites that pro­vide news, pris­on­er lists and addi­tion­al info about ELP & the pris­on­ers.

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Greek lan­guage ELP Web­site
http://greekelp.blogspot.com

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

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

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

Aus­tralian ELP.SN is our Aus­tralian con­tact. For more info e‑mail elp4321@hotmail.com

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

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

Greek ELP.SN is our Greek con­tact. For more info e‑mail greekelp@yahoo.gr

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

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

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers Sup­port Net­work
elp4321@hotmail.com
http://spiritoffreedom.org.uk

CLIMATE ACTION NEWS SHEET 82, AUGUST 2008

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

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

—————-
RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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RECENT HAPPENINGS:
—————-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

———-

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

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

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

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

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

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

A week of free workshops, discussions & skill-sharing in London

The plan­ning for the Lon­don FreeSchool week is going well with con­firmed work­shops and the such like start­ing to appear on the web­site. Bowl Court Social Cen­tre, the orig­i­nal loca­tion for the weeks event, was sad­ly evict­ed a cou­ple of weeks ago.

The plan­ning for the Lon­don FreeSchool week is going well with con­firmed work­shops and the such like start­ing to appear on the web­site. Bowl Court Social Cen­tre, the orig­i­nal loca­tion for the weeks event, was sad­ly evict­ed a cou­ple of weeks ago. How­ev­er, the event lives on and has moved to the ram­pART ( http://www.rampart.co.nr) and LARC ( http://www.londonarc.org.) After all a free school should not be lim­it­ed and con­tained by con­crete walls!

The dead­line for work­shops is soon approach­ing so if you are up for facil­i­tat­ing some­thing over the week drop us a line ( deschooling_society@lists.riseup.net) with a brief descrip­tion of the event, how long you will need, your avail­abil­i­ty between the 1st and 7th Sep­tem­ber and if you have any spe­cial require­ments (e.g. Tools / equip­ment). If you do this by mon­day then we can include it in the timetable.

If you want to know what is hap­pen­ing over the week and when, you are unfor­tu­nate­ly going to have to wait until the full timetable has been released next Wednes­day. But here’s a lit­tle taster…

MONDAY 1st SEPTEMBER 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Wel­come to Lon­don FreeSchool!
Come along, have some lunch, meet each oth­er and find out about the week ahead.

GENDER & AUTONOMOUS SPACES
Autonomous spaces are not immune from the kind of casu­al sex­ism that is still com­mon in the wider cul­ture but the prob­lem is rarely dis­cussed. One solu­tion has been to set up women only spaces but many peo­ple feel that these avoid the prob­lem rather than address­ing it. This work­shop will be about explor­ing how peo­ple feel about ques­tions of gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty in the con­text of rad­i­cal activism and how we can find ways to address the issues.

SAFER SPACES
Its about acknowl­edg­ing that oppres­sive behav­iours and ideas are still with in our ‘rad­i­cal’ activist com­mu­ni­ties, no mat­ter how ‘rad­i­cal’ we think we are. The point of the work­shop is to get peo­ple to think and talk about this, find ways to deal with this in their com­mu­ni­ties and work to stop their own oppres­sive behav­iours.

GETTING RID OF EDUCATION: COMMUNITIES FOR LEARNING
No ones needs to be edu­cat­ed. We all learn all the time. What peo­ple need are resours­es and sup­port to help them get where they want to go. What does this sort of an organ­i­sa­tion look like and how can you start one? Come and find out!
Leslie Bar­son (Safran) home edu­cat­ed her two chil­dren and found­ed and runs The Oth­er­wise Club, a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre for fam­i­lies choos­ing not to send their chil­dren to school, in NW Lon­don since 1993.

SCHOOL PRIVATISATION
A dis­cus­sion on school pri­vati­sa­tion in the UK and the Wem­b­ley Tent City Occu­pa­tion ( http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/) with Hank Roberts.

A PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION TO FOOD BUYING GROUPS
Have you ever thought of get­ting togeth­er with a group of peo­ple to buy food in bulk? Come and meet oth­er folks who’d like to do the same, to find out more and start plan­ning your food-buy­ing group. Cheap­er food, autonomous organ­is­ing, stronger links with­in our com­mu­ni­ties, and no more
super­mar­kets: let’s make the best of the reces­sion!
Please bring pens and paper, espe­cial­ly mark­ers and flipchart-like paper, to share if you have any

FOOD NOT BOMBS…
is a net­work of inde­pen­dent direct action groups. They all use food that is being thrown away, cook deli­cious veg­an meals and serve it for free to any hun­gry per­son! Come with us for a bit of skip­ping (get­ting food from the bins!), veg­an cook­ing, serv­ing and clean­ing! It’s polit­i­cal, fun and empow­er­ing!

BASICS OF GENETICS
what’s a cell? what’s a chro­mo­some? what’s the DNA? what’s a gene? what’s a genome? what’s a genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied organ­ism? what’s cloning? etc.
Have you ever asked your­self these ques­tions?
We’ll try to talk about all that togeth­er!

INTERNET ARCHITECTURE / PHILOSOPHY
The idea for the dis­cus­sion is to look at the way the tech­ni­cal aspects of the inter­net have polit­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal impli­ca­tions. Some of these are well known, oth­ers not so well known. Start­ing
from a few tech­ni­cal points I hope the group can dis­cuss gen­er­al ideas around the hack­er cul­ture that has shaped the inter­net, as it applies to social net­works and polit­i­cal engage­ment. Some sam­ple prin­ci­ples from inter­net engi­neer­ing cul­ture:
“Be con­ser­v­a­tive in what you do; be lib­er­al in what you accept from oth­ers.” (Jon Pos­tel)
“We reject: kings, pres­i­dents and vot­ing. We believe in: rough con­sen­sus and run­ning code.” (David D. Clarke)

deschooling_society@lists.riseup.net
http://londonfreeschool.wordpress.com

65 Indigenous Communities Declare Victory in Peru

21st August 2008
Indige­nous groups in Peru are claim­ing vic­to­ry after more than a week of protests through­out the state.

Peru indigenous groups' victory21st August 2008
Indige­nous groups in Peru are claim­ing vic­to­ry after more than a week of protests through­out the state.

A day after the gov­ern­ment declared mar­tial law in three of the provinces affect­ed by the protests, on August 19 a con­gres­sion­al com­mis­sion vot­ed to over­turn the con­tro­ver­sial law known as Decree 1015, which the indige­nous groups were chal­leng­ing.

They say the law “makes it eas­i­er for min­ing and ener­gy com­pa­nies to buy com­mu­nal­ly owned land, will lead to a for­eign land grab, espe­cial­ly in the Ama­zon rain for­est,” Reuters explains. “Gar­cia passed the law by decree ear­li­er this year under spe­cial pow­ers Con­gress grant­ed him to bring Peru­vian law into com­pli­ance with a new free-trade deal with the Unit­ed States.”

The Con­gres­sion­al Com­mis­sion said Gar­cia ‘went too far’ with the decree, and “agreed in prin­ci­ple to bring any new land law into com­pli­ance with Con­ven­tion 169 of the Inter­na­tion­al Labor Orga­ni­za­tion. The Com­mis­sion also issued an offi­cial doc­u­ment to the Exec­u­tive call­ing for the over­turn of Supreme Decree 058‑2008-PCM, impos­ing the states of emer­gency,” adds Bill Wein­berg of the WW4Report.

The head of Peru’s leg­is­la­ture fol­lowed the announce­ment by say­ing it may go to a floor vote on Fri­day.

Gar­cia, on the oth­er hand, thinks revok­ing the decree is a “huge mis­take,” and that it will con­demn Peru’s indige­nous and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties to “anoth­er cen­tu­ry of back­ward­ness and mis­ery.”

It’s not all that far off from the truth. How­ev­er, it is in fact Garcia’s decree that would be con­demn­ing them to more “back­ward­ness and mis­ery.”

That’s why Six­ty-five indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties rose up and threat­ened a vio­lent con­fronta­tion with the state. And it’s why those same com­mu­ni­ties are now cel­e­brat­ing.