Saving Iceland Blockades Century Aluminum Smelter and Elkem Steel Factory

Sav­ing Ice­land, July 21st 2008
Press Release

Century blockade 1Sav­ing Ice­land, July 21st 2008
Press Release
GRUNDARTANGI – Today 20 activists from Sav­ing Ice­land block­ad­ed the sin­gle sup­ply road to Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s smelter on Hvalfjor­dur and Elkem – Ice­landic Alloys steel fac­to­ry. They have chained them­selves to each oth­er using arm tubes to form a human block­ade as well as using tri­pod for the first time in Ice­landic his­to­ry.

The action went on for three hours and nobody was arrest­ed. “We protest the envi­ron­men­tal and human health haz­ards Century’s baux­ite min­ing and refin­ing activ­i­ties in Jamaica, their plans for a new smelter and refin­ery in West Con­go. Both Century’s and Elkem’s expan­sion plans will also mean destruc­tion of unique geot­her­mal areas in Ice­land and pro­duce large amounts of green­house gas emis­sions,” says Miri­am Rose of Sav­ing Ice­land (1).

Cen­tu­ry in West-Con­go: open­cast baux­ite min­ing
In 2007 Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum Com­pa­ny signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing (MOU) with the Repub­lic of the Con­go (ROC) for the exclu­sive right to devel­op an alu­mini­um smelter, alu­mi­na refin­ery and a baux­ite mine (2). It spec­i­fies a min­i­mum com­mit­ment of 500 megawatts of gas-gen­er­at­ed elec­tri­cal ener­gy. Cen­tu­ry is sur­vey­ing where to mine the baux­ite and will start build­ing the smelter as soon as pos­si­ble (3).

“We believe that the Repub­lic of the Con­go has all of the ingre­di­ents nec­es­sary to sus­tain a prof­itable alu­minum indus­try,” said Cen­tu­ry CEO Logan W. Kruger (2).
“Kruger is right,” says Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son of Sav­ing Ice­land. “Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al rat­ed the ROC as one of the most cor­rupt regimes in the world. Exact­ly the kind of regimes alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions like to deal with…” (4)

“It’s very unlike­ly the poor will have any ben­e­fit from this devel­op­ment but they will pay the price of the envi­ron­men­tal impact. Oil rev­enue in the coun­try has nev­er reached them, why would it be dif­fer­ent for baux­ite?” Úlfhildar­son con­tin­ues.
“Con­sid­er­ing the baux­ite reserves in West Con­go, it is clear that Cen­tu­ry is plan­ning large scale open cast min­ing there, in the same way oth­er cor­po­ra­tions are attempt­ing in Oris­sa and what has also hap­pened in Jamaica, Guyana and Guinea,” says Indi­an alu­mini­um expert and author Samaren­dra Das who will be talk­ing on this top­ic at Reyk­javik Acad­e­mia on Wednes­day (see note a.).

“All over the world, where baux­ite is mined the envi­ron­ment is being destroyed and people’s liveli­hoods and health tak­en away from them. Peo­ple in Ice­land need to know where the baux­ite that is refined and then smelt­ed into alu­mini­um comes from,” says Das.
Cen­tu­ry in Jamaica: envi­ron­men­tal and health haz­ards
Cen­tu­ry-owned St Ann Baux­ite, it’s pre­de­ces­sor Kaiser as well as the ALCOA, RioT­in­to-Alcan and Rusal (which owns 1/3 of Cen­tu­ry), are also active in Jamaica, have been held respon­si­ble for rain­for­est being destroyed and tox­ic pol­lu­tion of drink­ing water (5,6,7). Cen­tu­ry want to open up a sec­ond mine and refin­ery in a joint ven­ture with Chi­nese Min­metals. That com­pa­ny is asso­ci­at­ed with prison labour fac­to­ries and gross human rights abus­es in Chi­na and else­where (see note b.).

Elkem – Ice­landic Alloys: pol­lu­tion acci­dents every week
Elkem — Ice­landic Alloys wants to expand its facil­i­ty at Grun­dar­tan­gi on Hvalfjor­dur for pro­duc­ing fer­rosil­i­con for the steel indus­try. It is already one of Iceland’s largest con­trib­u­tors to green­house gas­es and oth­er pol­lu­tants; expan­sion of the smelter would lead to a sig­nif­i­cant increase in Iceland’s car­bon emis­sions (1).
In July 2007 it was report­ed (8) that Elkem ‘acci­den­tal­ly’ released a huge cloud of pol­lu­tion from their plant. Appar­ent­ly the acci­dent was due to human error. Thor­dur Mag­nus­son, an Elkem spokesman, then said that this human error “recurs sev­er­al times a week.” Sig­ur­b­jorn Hjal­ta­son, chair­man of Kjosarhrep­pur parish, said that Elkem usu­al­ly pro­duced the emis­sions at night through­out the year.

About Sav­ing Ice­land
Last Fri­day, Sav­ing Ice­land stopped work at the con­struc­tion site of Cen­tu­ry Aluminum’s planned new smelter in Hel­gu­vík. This is part of their fourth sum­mer of direct action against heavy indus­try in Ice­land. In July 2007 activists also block­ad­ed the smelter and steel fac­to­ry.
Sav­ing Ice­land was start­ed by Ice­landic envi­ron­men­tal­ists ask­ing for help to protest the Ice­landic wilder­ness, the largest remain­ing in Europe, from heavy indus­try. As well as Cen­tu­ry, oth­er alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions ALCOA and Rio Tin­to-Alcan want to con­struct new smelters. This would require exploita­tion of all the geot­her­mal areas in the coun­try, as well as damming all major glacial rivers (see note c.).

This year, the fourth action camp to pro­tect Ice­landic nature has been set up near the Hell­ishei­di geot­her­mal plant east of Reyk­javik, which is cur­rent­ly being expand­ed to pro­duce elec­tric­i­ty for Cen­tu­ry Alu­minum.

More infor­ma­tion
http://www.savingiceland.org

with a movie of the action
saving­ice­land at riseup.net

Notes

A.) On Wednes­day July 23, 19.30 h. Sav­ing Ice­land and Future­land will hold a con­fer­ence with the Indi­an writer, sci­en­tist and alu­mini­um expert Samaren­dra Das and ‘Dream­land’ author Andri Snær Mag­nus­son, on the influ­ence of the alu­mini­um indus­try in the third world. Also, the con­cept of alu­mini­um as a ‘green’ prod­uct will be exam­ined. It will take place at Reyk­javik Acad­e­mia, Hring­braut 121. Mr Das is avail­able for inter­views; please con­tact one of the Sav­ing Ice­land con­tacts above.

B.) In 2004 Min­metals attempt­ed a takeover of Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­ny Noran­da but were declined in 2005 due to seri­ous con­cerns over human rights abus­es by the Chi­nese com­pa­ny. This report details Minmetal’s asso­ci­a­tion to forced labour:
Dhir, Aaron A. (2006). ’Of Takeovers, For­eign Invest­ment and Human Rights: Unpack­ing the Noran­da-Min­metals Conun­drum’, Bank­ing and Finance Law Review, 22, 77–104.
C.) For more details and an overview of projects in Ice­land, see: http://www.savingiceland.org/sos
Ref­er­ences
(1) Ice­landic Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment (2006). Iceland’s fourth nation­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion on cli­mate change, report to the UNFCCC. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/isl… [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(2) AZ Mate­ri­als News (2007). Cen­tu­ry Alu­mini­um to Build Alu­mini­um Smelter in Repub­lic of Con­go. http://www.azom.com/News.asp?NewsID=7734 [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(3) Afrique en Ligne (2008). Con­go to build alu­mini­um smelter in Pointe-Noire. http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/africa-… [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(4) Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al (2006). Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions Index 2006. Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al, Berlin.
(5) Zadie Neufville, April 6, 2001, ’Baux­ite Min­ing Blamed for Defor­esta­tion’. See http://forests.org/archive/samerica/baux…. [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(6) Mines and Com­mu­ni­ties report,’Bauxite Mine Fight Looms in Jamaica’s Cock­pit Coun­try’, 24th Octo­ber 2006. http://www.minesandcommunities.org/artic…. [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(7) Al Jazeera (2008). Envi­ron­men­tal dam­age from min­ing in Jamaica, June 11, 2008 News. Avail­able through http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJa2ftQwf…. [Accessed 20–6‑08]
(8) MBL.is (2007). Reykur frá járn­blendi­verksmiðjun­ni Grun­dar­tan­ga. http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2007/07… [Accessed 20–6‑08]

Eviction gets go ahead — Bodge House

19th July 2008
Activists for­ti­fy Bodge House against UK Coal open cast mine and the evic­tion squad

The group of direct activists occu­py­ing Lodge House open­cast site since 18th June have declared that they are ready to resist evic­tion.

19th July 2008
Activists for­ti­fy Bodge House against UK Coal open cast mine and the evic­tion squad

The group of direct activists occu­py­ing Lodge House open­cast site since 18th June have declared that they are ready to resist evic­tion.

UK Coal plans to mine 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal over 5 years from the site near Smal­l­ey, der­byshire.

The com­pa­ny failed in its first attempt to evict the activists but suc­ceed­ed in obtain­ing an pos­ses­sion order at the crown court in Der­by today.

The activists are for­ti­fy­ing Prospect Farm and have built a num­ber of tree­hous­es and an under­ground tun­nel sys­tem.

Sophie from Not­ting­ham said ’ The deci­sion to mine this site was tak­en by cen­tral gov­ern­ment against the wish­es and best inter­ests of local peo­ple and in spite of the coun­cil refus­ing plan­ning per­mis­sion. Occu­py­ing the land is our last defence now that democ­ra­cy has failed. We are call­ing for peo­ple to join us in oppos­ing UK Coal’s greed and con­tempt for local opin­ion.’

‘Open­cast min­ing is par­tic­u­lar­ly pol­lut­ing and dev­as­tates large areas of coun­try­side. Min­ing more coal is not a solu­tion to our ener­gy prob­lems as it is a major cause of cli­mate change. We need to reduce ener­gy use and adapt to more sus­tain­able ways of liv­ing.

We need help in mak­ing finale prepa­ra­tions so get your ass­es here for the fun…

for more infor­ma­tion con­tact 07503 335870

or go to www.leaveitintheground.wordpress.com
http://www.leaveitintheground.org.uk

Anti-Wembley Academy occupation comes to an end

18.07.2008
The Tent City Occu­pa­tion of Wem­b­ley Sports Ground was evict­ed this morn­ing at 7.30am (report to fol­low). Hank Roberts — Brent Sec­re­tary of the NUT and ATL — had to be removed from the roof of the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on the site, where he had d‑locked him­self to a flag­pole. Spe­cial­ist baliffs had to use an angle-grinder to seper­ate him from the pole. Sup­port­ers gath­ered in front of the gate to the carpark; as he was removed from the site, he was bestowed with rap­tur­ous applause for his brave stand.

18.07.2008
The Tent City Occu­pa­tion of Wem­b­ley Sports Ground was evict­ed this morn­ing at 7.30am (report to fol­low). Hank Roberts — Brent Sec­re­tary of the NUT and ATL — had to be removed from the roof of the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on the site, where he had d‑locked him­self to a flag­pole. Spe­cial­ist baliffs had to use an angle-grinder to seper­ate him from the pole. Sup­port­ers gath­ered in front of the gate to the carpark; as he was removed from the site, he was bestowed with rap­tur­ous applause for his brave stand.

Cam­paign­ers (& Hank him­self) were sur­prised to observe that he was not arrest­ed for breach of the injunc­tion — served on Tues­day. Hank Roberts still has to pay an otstand­ing fee of £3,500 to Willes­den Coun­ty Court.

The fight to stop the Acad­e­my get­ting plan­ning per­mis­sion con­tin­ues, even though plans to build the ‘pre-acad­e­my’ for an ini­tial 200 pri­ma­ry-school pupils in por­to­cab­ins on the site will now pro­ceed. The fight to guar­an­tee local afford­able access for the local kids to the recre­ation ground and foot­ball pitch­es con­tin­ues along­side this aim to stop the acad­e­my being built, whether the lat­ter goal will be acheived or not.

Oth­er info:

Gallery
http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/gallery.html

ITV Lon­don Tonight Report:
http://www.itvlocal.com/london/news/?player=LON_News_15&void=204972

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13
Stop them Pri­vatis­ing Our Schools avail­able on Reel News issue 12
Wem­b­ley Occu­pa­tion avail­able on Reel News issue 10
http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Some pre­vi­ous posts for fur­ther infor­ma­tion:

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site:
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

Anti City Academy protest camp defies eviction order

16.07.2008
Today Teach­ers and their sup­port­ers were cel­e­brat­ing as the dead­line to leave their protest camp expired with­out the threat­ened evic­tion. Offi­cers of the coun­cil were present but announced that they would only ‘report back’ the sit­u­a­tion. Bailiffs were seen cas­ing the area ear­li­er before the dead­line.

Academy squat banner16.07.2008
Today Teach­ers and their sup­port­ers were cel­e­brat­ing as the dead­line to leave their protest camp expired with­out the threat­ened evic­tion. Offi­cers of the coun­cil were present but announced that they would only ‘report back’ the sit­u­a­tion. Bailiffs were seen cas­ing the area ear­li­er before the dead­line.

Part of the protest is on the roof so it could well take Brent coun­cil a while to organ­ise the evic­tion. Today a unex­pect­ed­ly high num­ber of sup­port­ers and local res­i­dents came out to block the removal of the protest camp. Mem­bers of the local RMT and TSSA branch­es, who were hav­ing their month­ly meet­ings near­by, also turned out to reg­is­ter their dis­gust at gov­ern­ment plans to pri­va­tise local edu­ca­tion.

Swomp4 direct environmental action in Amsterdam

Swomp4 direct action in the Rusten­burg­er­straat in Ams­ter­dam squats piece of land and starts urban regen­er­a­tion per­ma­cul­ture project.

Swomp4 direct action in the Rusten­burg­er­straat in Ams­ter­dam squats piece of land and starts urban regen­er­a­tion per­ma­cul­ture project.

On Fri­day July 11 a group of squat­ters occu­pied this piece of land in the Rusten­burg­er­straat in de Pijp in Ams­ter­dam. Tech­ni­cal­ly they are wild campers, as the law in Hol­land only allows you to squat a build­ing that has been emp­ty for one year. With­in three days they already had run­ning water and had start­ed to plant veg­eta­bles and devel­op an urban per­ma­cul­ture project. This is direct action at its very best. The land was going to waste in the heart of the city, and these guys are try­ing their utmost to turn the sandy waste­land into a green oasis. This com­ing Sat­ur­day they are plan­ning a per­ma­cul­ture work­shop. Yes­ter­day it was inspir­ing talk­ing to them and lis­ten­ing to their plans. Their heart is in the right place and they care about how we use land in cities, the hous­ing sit­u­a­tion in a city that is becom­ing gen­tri­fied, and the envi­ron­men­tal issues of the day. Instead of hav­ing meet­ings and mak­ing plans, these guys took direct action to do some­thing pos­i­tive and show the local com­mu­ni­ty what is pos­si­ble in the field of urban regen­er­a­tion. So far most of the neigh­bors have react­ed in a pos­i­tive way. The campers are in a gold­fish bowl, and I admire their courage and deter­mi­na­tion. Some of them are old friends that I have known from protest actions in the past. These are peo­ple who stand by you when the going gets tough. So I wish them all the luck in the world and I’ll be back to take more pic­tures and get more news in the days ahead. Swomp4 is a cool action, for nature, the com­mu­ni­ty, and the future.

Spirit of Freedom (July 2008)

Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

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

Prisoner Solidarity 8Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

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

Wel­come to the July 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As a num­ber of ELP sup­port­ers will be aware, ELP has tra­di­tion­al­ly ded­i­cat­ed our newslet­ters to fall­en friends, who have either been killed or seri­ous­ly injured as a result of their protest activ­i­ties. For the past few months ELP has­n’t car­ried any ded­i­ca­tion and we hoped that we would not have to ded­i­cate anoth­er newslet­ter to a fall­en friend again. How­ev­er last month, ELP received the heart­break­ing news about the death of Marie Vesco. Marie was a French activist liv­ing in Eng­land. She was involved with a num­ber of groups includ­ing ‘Food Not Bombs’. On Wednes­day the 4th of June 2008 Marie was cycling to the Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade when a Four Wheel Dri­ve
vehi­cle (an SUV if your Amer­i­can) swerved across two lanes hit­ting Marie. A sec­ond vehi­cle then also hit Marie. Marie died instant­ly: she was just a few days away from her 20th birth­day. Marie is remem­bered as a warm, loud, fun, viva­cious fig­ure with an infec­tious laugh that was always ready to help oth­ers. ELP under­stands that at least two Crit­i­cal Mass cycle rides have already been ded­i­cat­ed to Marie. Like­wise in mem­o­ry of Marie ELP is ded­i­cat­ing this newslet­ter to her mem­o­ry. The loss of Marie is a blow for the move­ment and our thoughts are with her fam­i­ly and friends.

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).

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, Colum­bia Coun­ty Jail, 403 Jack­son Street, Portage, Wis­con­sin 53901, 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. (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).

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

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Jailed for breach­ing her parole con­di­tions imposed on her for telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der­ing scum what she thought of them. Also await­ing tri­al accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (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, Anti­rep 2008, Post­fach 101, 1070, Vien­na, 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.

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).

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).

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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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).

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

Heather Nichol­son VM4859, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dx. TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. On remand accused of con­spir­a­cy to black­mail, in rela­tion to her involve­ment with the SHAC cam­paign. (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).

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

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).

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

Wembley Anti-Academy Tent City Facing Eviction: Party And Resist!!!

On Tues­day 15 July 2008 Brent Coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives will attend Willes­den Coun­ty Court at 10.30am to seek a court order for the imme­di­ate evic­tion of the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground Tent City Occu­pa­tion.

On Tues­day 15 July 2008 Brent Coun­cil rep­re­sen­ta­tives will attend Willes­den Coun­ty Court at 10.30am to seek a court order for the imme­di­ate evic­tion of the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground Tent City Occu­pa­tion. Par­ty Fri­day night. Meet the locals and get involved.

The Wem­b­ley Tent City Occu­pa­tion opposed to the Wem­b­ley Park Acad­e­my school and all UK school pri­vati­sa­tion asks for sup­port­ers, protest Willes­den Coun­ty Court, join the cam­paign, squat the sports ground now and get ready for direct action.

Help make this the biggest pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the Blair lega­cy that sold off UK schools to pri­vate investors who have no inter­est in edu­cat­ing chil­dren, oth­er than how much prof­it it is going to make them, prof­it from your hard-earned tax­pay­er’s mon­ey.

Expe­ri­enced NVDA peo­ple are need­ed. Join the protest, or just vis­it. Your knowl­edge would be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed. your bod­ies will be more appre­ci­at­ed.

It’s time to resist!

Protest the Willes­den Coun­ty Court, Acton Lane, Willes­den, on Tues­day 15 July, 10.30am.

Meet those involved this Fri­day, 11 July, from 3.30pm till late at the “Back on site or pre-evic­tion par­ty? — you decide!”

Wem­b­ley Tent City Occu­pa­tion, Bridge Road, Wem­b­ley.

Near­est Tube: Wem­b­ley Park (Met­ro­pol­i­tan Line)
Turn left out the sta­tion, walk up the hill to main junc­tion on Bridge Road, turn left, walk 100 metres, turn left into the gate way to Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground and you’re there.

Bus­es: 83 from Gold­ers Green Stn, 302 from Ken­sal Rise Stn, 297 from Willes­den Bus Garage

Tent City Occu­pa­tion (see here for con­tact details)

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

Pre­vi­ous cov­er­age

Anti-Acad­e­my Teach­ers Take To The Trees
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/5074

Wem­b­ley Sum­mer Camp Open: Squat The Land, Smash School Pri­vati­sa­tion
http://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/20984

Wem­b­ley Teach­ers Say No To Pri­va­tised School­ing
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/wembley-teachers-say-no-to-privatised.html

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

The Boil on Bus­son’s Butt
http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/07/boil-on-bussons-butt.html

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13
http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Tent City Occu­pa­tion
http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

Wembley Summer Camp Open: Squat The Land, Smash School Privatisation

Teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against

Wembley Tent CityWembley treehouseTeach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers in Wem­b­ley, Brent, North West Lon­don, have re-squat­ted the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and are call­ing out for peo­ple to join them, squat the land and join the largest protest against the pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

Brent local teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers have made a call out for peo­ple to help squat the land at Wem­b­ley Park Sports Ground on Bridge Road, next to Wem­b­ley Park under­ground sta­tion, and join the largest and most promi­nent cam­paign against the accel­er­at­ing pri­vati­sa­tion of the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, the brain child of ex-prime min­is­ter Tony Blair.

Peo­ple are asked to join the Tent City Occu­pa­tion or just vis­it, help build net­works, share infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge on non-vio­lent-direct-action, and when the con­struc­tion work­ers arrive, which could be as ear­ly as this week, help in and exe­cute non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project.

On 03 June 2008 Brent Town Coun­cil approved the child char­i­ty Ark pro­pos­al to begin the con­struc­tion of the pri­va­tised Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my School.

The meet­ing held by coun­cil heads at Brent Town Hall, descend­ed into farce, as the local com­mu­ni­ty, angry that they were ignored dur­ing all pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions with the coun­cil and Ark, were threat­ened with removal from the plan­ning meet­ing and the Acad­e­my plan­ning appli­ca­tion deci­sion to be made in secret, which would have been an ille­gal move on the part of the coun­cil.

That plan­ning meet­ing approved the tem­po­rary hous­ing of 200 school pupils in huts while the Ark Acad­e­my is built around them over the next two years, putting chil­dren in dan­ger on a con­struc­tion site, cranes over­hang­ing the por­ta­cab­ins and tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion, just so the mon­ey flow from UK tax­pay­er to the pri­va­tised school investor, and the prof­it, can start by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

One rea­son the Wem­b­ley Acad­e­my open­ing date was moved for­ward from Sep­tem­ber 2009 to 2008 was because local oppo­si­tion against the Acad­e­my and the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion has been so mas­sive in Brent, Ark thought that advanc­ing the school start date would crush the resis­tance.

Con­nec­tions are being made with the Bat­tersea Crane Dis­as­ter Group, the Con­struc­tion Safe­ty Cam­paign and the Pim­li­co school teach­ers who are also fight­ing the pri­vati­sa­tion of their school by ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist, and Tory par­ty fun­der, John Nash and his com­pa­ny Sov­er­eign Cap­i­tal.

Pim­li­co school pupils are already being put at risk, as 1050 chil­dren are being edu­cat­ed while the school is demol­ished around them. Cranes are already over­hang­ing their class rooms and con­struc­tion debris and dust believed to con­tain asbestos is sweep­ing across the play­ground into class­rooms.

But this sit­u­a­tion, autho­rised by local and nation­al gov­ern­ment, will see 200 chil­dren being edu­cat­ed in the mid­dle of a con­struc­tion site. With the cur­rent safe­ty record of UK con­struc­tion sites, it draws seri­ous con­cern for the well­be­ing of the stu­dents.

But anoth­er con­cern is pri­vate invest­ment tak­ing over the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem, instill­ing their pri­vate, cor­po­rate, and reli­gious indi­vid­ual beliefs in the edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

The Vardy Foun­da­tion, set up by Chris­t­ian fun­da­men­tal­ist Reg Vardy, already has its hands on sev­er­al UK Acad­e­mies and has since erad­i­cat­ed evo­lu­tion from the schools, teach­ing only cre­ation­ism.

The Wem­b­ley Ark Acad­e­my will be run by french/swiss and mul­ti­mil­lion­aire Arki Bus­son — long-term friend of Tony Blair — who is known to hold what can only be described as strict Catholic beliefs.

Ark is set to run 12 UK Acad­e­my schools, six of which will be opened by Sep­tem­ber 2008.

As con­struc­tion work begins and the resis­tance turns to non-vio­lent-direct-action to halt the project, con­struc­tion could begin as ear­ly as this work, pri­vate secu­ri­ty and police are expect­ed to be employed to force evic­tion on the pro­tes­tors.

The teach­ers, res­i­dents and cam­paign­ers of Brent have asked for all to come, squat the land, save the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground and sur­round­ing green space for the local com­mu­ni­ty and wildlife, and halt the fur­ther gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of Wem­b­ley.

Bring your mum, your broth­er, your dog — squat this land, join the protest, make a stand and to say no to the pri­vati­sa­tion of UK edu­ca­tion. Say no to edu­ca­tion for prof­it. Join the Wem­b­ley Park Tent City Occu­pa­tion.

Make a stand. Say no to pri­va­tised edu­ca­tion. Get on the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Under­ground line to Wem­b­ley Park, bring a tent, bring a friend, and make a stand.

All pho­tos cour­tesy of free­lance jour­nal­ist Jason N. Parkin­son
All Stills © Jason N. Parkin­son 2008 All Rights Reserved

Tent City Occu­pa­tion (see here for con­tact details)

http://www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk/

—-

Pre­vi­ous cov­er­age

Anti-Acad­e­my Teach­ers Take To The Trees

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/380945.html

Wem­b­ley Teach­ers Say No To Pri­va­tised School­ing

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/wembley-teachers-say-no-to-privatised.html

200 School Pupils In Huts On A Con­struc­tion Site

http://jasonnparkinson.blogspot.com/2008/06/200-school-pupils-in-huts-on.html

Save Our Schools 22-minute film avail­able on Reel News issue 13

http://www.reelnews.co.uk/

Activists disrupt work at site of opencast coal mine

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.

29.06.2008

Activists yes­ter­day obstruct­ed a steam­roller which was being used to set a tar­mac ramp designed allow heavy plant machin­ery access to the fields where UK Coal intend to extract around 1 mil­lion tonnes of coal.

Once the steam­roller had halt­ed, one activist pro­ceed­ed to d‑lock them­selves to the machine.
All remained until the police arrived, which was a con­sid­er­able time lat­er. How­ev­er, the spon­ta­neous action clear­ly delayed their work, as the site fore­man spent much time talk­ing to the police etc.

Con­cerned of Smal­l­ey
http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/leaveitintheground/

London, Brighton & Manchester Critical Masses commemorate dead cyclists

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

June’s Crit­i­cal mass in Lon­don saw a slight­ly dif­fer­ent route. As always we met at South­bank and man­aged to leave at 7.15pm.

Fol­low­ing the killing of Marie Vesco on the A23 her friends, ram­pART and Food Not Bombs asked peo­ple to ride to Brix­ton, where she served free food every Sun­day after­noon with Brix­ton Food Not Bombs.

Approx­i­mate­ly 600 cyclists left Water­loo going South via Lam­beth North, then Elephant& Cas­tle, going round a few times stop­ping the traf­fic. Via the Oval we went to Brix­ton, where we stopped at Win­drush Square. By now there were maybe 300–400 cyclists left (there was a bit of North-Lon­don snob­bery). Dif­fer­ent peo­ple spoke about Marie and how they missed her. How she died and why she worked with Brix­ton Food­Not­Bombs and how giv­ing out free food was so impor­tant to her. There was a min­ute’s silence for her.

Then we cycled North again, police stopped us halfway up towards Stock­well. They had tried to dic­tate the tem­po pre­vi­ous­ly, but rogue cyclists broke through, stopped the traf­fic ahead of the police line and in that way forced the police to let the Mass go (Health and Safe­ty and all…).

They man­aged to block Stock­well Road and we did­n’t quite get the momen­tum of break­ing through. To the cop­pers’ sur­prise the tip of the Mass turned around, cycling back on them­selves and turn­ing off the main road fur­ther down (Sid­ney Road I think). We made our way to the Oval, cycling past the Crick­et knobs, some of which were using bad lan­guage, when we came in sight. Oth­ers were sup­port­ive.

Vaux­hall Bridge end­ed up being a bit of a split­ter were we lost a few peo­ple. Going across the bridge, past Par­lia­ment we hit the square, encir­cling it a cou­ple of times, until some­thing hap­pened with the sound sys­tem (as always) not quite sure what. music stopped. Rais­ing bikes, block­ing road, we then went to see the queen. The whole ride took about two hours and a bit. Nice atmos­phere, good mix of peo­ple and bikes and so good to have some music on the way (three sound sys­tems).

What hap­pened with the sound sys­tem on the North side of Par­lia­ment Square was that the police stopped it play­ing and rid­ers strong­ly object­ed to this ban which caused a long traf­fic holdup.

The cycle police keep on tar­get­ing Crit­i­cal Mass sound sys­tems in the SOCPA zone around Par­lia­ment while doing noth­ing to stop sound sys­tems in cars, bus­es and lor­ries. Also the SOCPA leg­is­la­tion is cur­rent­ly under review and oth­er police are tend­ing not to enforce it.

video of ride.

More videos:

cycling down brix­ton road

through brix­ton high street

out­side the ritzy, enjoy­ing some tunes, before a min­utes silence in mem­o­ry of Marie Vesco

rid­ing up the mall

bring­ing the mass & some music to the queen
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Yes­ter­day the Brighton Crit­i­cal Mass month­ly bicy­cle ride was done in the mem­o­ry Marie Vesco — the young French woman who had been killed on her way from Lon­don to the Car­ni­val Against the Arms Trade, that was held on the 4th of June. We, at Crit­i­cal Mass decid­ed to com­plete her jour­ney to EDO MBM (ITT) bomb fac­to­ry that she could not make.

The usu­al meet­ing place The Lev­el, 6 p.m. saw police wait­ing for some sort of a demo. There were: 2 police vans full of cop­pers, 1 CCTV UNIT van, 6 motor­bikes, and none of the police on bicy­cles.

The ride had com­menced as have rode onto Lewes Road escort­ed by police motor­bikes. For a while it felt as if we were prime min­is­ters escort­ed to some impor­tant meet­ing.

When we had reached the bot­tom of the Home Farm Road there were few police wait­ing for us. We then went to the fac­to­ry to be aston­ished by the police pres­ence at the fac­to­ry. There were at least 40 offi­cers with dogs wait­ing for some sort of a riot.

We have held one minute silence for Marie and went back to town where after a half an hour police had left us alone.

Over­all a suc­cess.

video of ride.

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This month Man­ches­ter crit­i­cal mass had a one minute silence to hon­our two pas­sion­ate cyclists that were killed this month by motorists, and to remem­ber all our cycling com­rades that have been killed on the roads.

NORMAN FAY
Nor­man Fay died on Fri­day, June 20. He was cycling to the York cycle ral­ly when a motorist col­lid­ed with him.

“He was just 72 so it’s come as a real shock.

Nor­man had a well deserved rep­u­ta­tion for fine crafts­man­ship and engi­neer­ing, and had an infec­tious love of all things cycling. His bikes have been many peo­ple’s intro­duc­tion to cycling and his exper­i­men­ta­tion with dif­fer­ent cycle forms appealed to hard core enthu­si­asts and occa­sion­al rid­ers alike. I’ve been the lucky own­er of a cou­ple of his bikes, one of which I bought when I was 18 and I still have but is sad­ly gath­er­ing dust in the hut.

Both Nor­man and his late wife Mar­i­on were both found­ing mem­bers of South Tyne­side Friends of the Earth.

Whilst he died rel­a­tive­ly young in mod­ern terms, his con­tin­ued cycling proved that you’re nev­er to old to get on your bike. Maybe it’s time I dust­ed off mine.

A true local hero.”

MARIE VESCO

Marie Vesco was killed by a car on Wednes­day 4th June while cycling to Brighton. Active in var­i­ous Lon­don social cen­tres, Whitechapel and Brix­ton Food Not Bombs, she now had plans to open a new social cen­tre.

Marie was part of a group of twelve cyclists who left Brix­ton in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing to join the Smash EDO demo. They were on the A23 by Burgess Hill when an impa­tient gas guz­zling imbe­cile swerved across two lanes straight into Marie, then anoth­er car hit her. She died instant­ly, there was noth­ing her friends could have done. The dri­ver of the sec­ond car got straight on his phone as soon as he came to a halt — not for an ambu­lance but to call his lawyer. He then start­ed push­ing Marie’s mates around. One dri­ver has been arrest­ed.