how to make lock-ons (lessons from Faslane 365)

The basic prin­ci­ple of a lock-on is to lock your­self onto some­thing so that you can­not be eas­i­ly phys­i­cal­ly removed. That some­thing can be anoth­er per­son or some­thing fixed. The best way is with a climb­ing cara­bi­na and a chain or rope around your wrist. The impor­tant thing is to make it very dif­fi­cult for the police or who­ev­er to cut your lock-on off. Thats where the fun part comes in, cov­er­ing that lock-on to make it very dif­fi­cult to get to, thus delay­ing the author­i­ties and mak­ing your block­ade as suc­cess­ful as pos­si­ble. They will pos­si­bly have access to spe­cial­ist equip­ment.

The basic prin­ci­ple of a lock-on is to lock your­self onto some­thing so that you can­not be eas­i­ly phys­i­cal­ly removed. That some­thing can be anoth­er per­son or some­thing fixed. The best way is with a climb­ing cara­bi­na and a chain or rope around your wrist. The impor­tant thing is to make it very dif­fi­cult for the police or who­ev­er to cut your lock-on off. Thats where the fun part comes in, cov­er­ing that lock-on to make it very dif­fi­cult to get to, thus delay­ing the author­i­ties and mak­ing your block­ade as suc­cess­ful as pos­si­ble. They will pos­si­bly have access to spe­cial­ist equip­ment.

Sim­ple steel lock-on tubes are great but can be cut into in 20 min­utes with a spe­cial­ist drill head. The yel­low pipes with a 2 cm thick wall are also great because the plas­tic actu­al­ly melts around the drill head mak­ing them very hard to get into.

To make an oil drum lock-on you sim­ply need an oil drum and some pip­ing — prefer­ably steel — which is just wide enough to fit your arm in and no more, cut so that it is as long as the bar­rel is wide. Drill a hole in the mid­dle of this pipe sec­tion so that a met­al rod can be insert­ed, this is what you actu­al­ly lock on to. Cut holes on either side of the bar­rel so that this pipe can fit in in such a way that two peo­ple can lock-on on either side. Then sim­ply fill this bar­rel with con­cre­ate and all sorts of hell like scraps of met­al (lengths of thick steal wire will hold it togeth­er), meg­amor­phic rock (very sol­id rock), quartz and the odd dia­mond if you want to bling it up, lengths of shred­ded polyprop is also very good at stop­ping the break-up of con­cre­ate from the wrath of a jack ham­mer. If you wan­na be real hard­core putting in can­is­ters of camp­ing gas or lighter filler make the cops quite reluc­tant to cut into them (or even just say­ing you have, they wont take the risk), this is of course pret­ty dan­ger­ous. It will take the most skilled cut­ting crew in the coun­try at least a cou­ple of hours to cut you out of there. Two peo­ple locked on is bet­ter than one because with one per­son they may just try to lift it out of there with a fork lift truck, two bod­ies makes this far less like­ly.

The “Baby bar­relâ€? lock on is much more port­ible, fit­ting into a nor­mal ruck-sack this one is for the block­ad­er on the go. Its just a steel lock on tube insert­ed into a small bar­rel length­ways, its a sim­i­lar idea as the oil bar­rel lock on with the con­crete mass sur­round­ing where you are locked on to the oth­er per­son inside the tube. It is a lit­tle eas­i­er to cut into but its porta­bil­i­ty and ease of con­struc­tion makes this the one to have this christ­mas.

Porta­bil­i­ty is often an impor­tant fac­tor. Being able to stash and camoflage your lock-on will help here but always have a plan B if it gets found. The police will even­tu­al­ly be able to cut you out, no mate­r­i­al is unbreak­able but the longer you can hold your block­ade the more you will have achieved out of your even­tu­al arrest. Hap­py blockad­ing.

EF! gathering advance notice: date & contact to get involved

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

The Earth First Gath­er­ing 2007 is well into the plan­ning stage.

Make space in your diary now: 18th — 22nd July 2007, some­where in Nor­folk. Please cir­cu­late this infor­ma­tion wide­ly.

If you want to get involved con­tact nexter@riseup.net.

Thanx
The Col­lec­tive.

Pipeline camp at Trebanos decides to close, Milford Haven camp continues, & more to come

pipeline protests respect wish­es of landown­er , to pro­tect her from bul­ly­ing police and nation­al grid offi­cials.…

after con­tin­ued har­rass­ment and bul­ly­ing from the police and nation­al grid, the 68 year old lady on whose land the tre­banos pipeline protest was on has aked pro­tes­tors to leave. she was informed by her legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive that she still risked a £60k fine and pos­si­ble arrest, although we are still unsure as to how seri­ous the dan­ger of this hap­pen­ing to her was.

pipeline protests respect wish­es of landown­er , to pro­tect her from bul­ly­ing police and nation­al grid offi­cials.…

after con­tin­ued har­rass­ment and bul­ly­ing from the police and nation­al grid, the 68 year old lady on whose land the tre­banos pipeline protest was on has aked pro­tes­tors to leave. she was informed by her legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive that she still risked a £60k fine and pos­si­ble arrest, although we are still unsure as to how seri­ous the dan­ger of this hap­pen­ing to her was.

to save her from this ordeal her wish­es have been respect­ed, this is a protest where the locals call the shots.

this is no defeat, we stopped them for near­ly 2 weeks, and got them to aban­don their plans to use explo­sives to blast sec­tions of unsta­ble hill­side near a school.

the landown­er, just like the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of local peo­ple, is still com­plete­ly against the pipeline and in sup­port of pro­tes­tors.
our num­bers are swelling as word of mouth and var­i­ous pub­lic­i­ty stunts have helped inform peo­ple about this, an issue which has been kept very qui­et by the author­i­ties. this is the biggest ener­gy project Brit­ian has ever seen, and it’s fos­sil fuel.… every lev­el of cor­rup­tion and intim­i­da­tion and incom­petance has been employed by those at the helm of this fos­sil fuel dis­as­ter.

mean­while the moth­ers and grand­moth­ers at mil­ford haven are con­tin­u­ing to stop work. they are camped on a pub­lic foot­path along the pro­posed route.

author­i­ties are hav­ing great trou­ble mov­ing them.… its pub­lic land you see

there are 36 places in total where the pipeline’s intend­ed route cross­es pub lic foot­paths.…. so if any­one’s up for camp­ing, then find your­self a spot and go.…

more info soon on our next site

eco-prisoners — Spirit of Freedom November 2006

Spir­it of Free­dom
(Novem­ber 2006)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing”

Prisoner Solidarity 12Spir­it of Free­dom
(Novem­ber 2006)
Pro­duced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

“I thank you all dear­ly for writ­ing”
(Jon Able­white, Ani­mal Rights Pris­on­er)

Wel­come to the Novem­ber 2006 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. First off I’d like to appol­o­gise for this edi­tion of the newslet­ter being late. As peo­ple may be aware the USA-SHAC 7 where all due to start their prison sen­tences this month and we were await­ing to hear where they were before we went to print. Sad­ly all of the USA-SHAC 7 defen­dants are now in jail so we urge every­one to please write to them. They have been jailed for mere­ly report­ing the news, so please do sup­port them. How­ev­er, whilst sup­port­ing the USA-SHAC 7, please don’t for­get the oth­er pris­on­ers. They also need our sup­port. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, please sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

COURT REPORTS & LEGAL UPDATES

OREGON UPDATE
In ear­ly Novem­ber 2006, it was announced that four Amer­i­cans, Jonathan Paul, Daniel McGowan, Nathan Fraz­er Block and Joy­an­na Zach­er, who are all defen­dants in the Ore­gon Case, had entered Guilty pleas to var­i­ous charges against them.

When enter­ing their Guilty Pleas these four remained true to their prin­ci­ples and although admit­ting their own guilt refused to name any
oth­ers. It is unclear what length of sen­tences the four will receive but it is clear they no longer face the pos­si­ble ‘Life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole’, which they were fac­ing if they’d gone to tri­al. All four are due to be sen­tenced in mid-Decem­ber 06.

Also in ear­ly Novem­ber, Grand Jury pris­on­er, Jeff Hogg, was released from prison. Jeff had always refused to tes­ti­fy against any­one in the Ore­gon case and was serv­ing an indef­i­nite prison sen­tence as a result. ELP cel­e­brates Jef­f’s release and praise him for his moral stance.

With oth­er news in this inves­ti­ga­tion, in ear­ly Octo­ber 2006, two of the police infor­mants in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton arson case, Lacey Phill­abaum and Jen­nifer Lynn Kolar (also known as Jen), plead­ed guilty to their roles in the arson which occured in 2001. Kolar also admit­ted to an arson against a gun club. Fol­low­ing their guilty pleas Kolar is expect­ed to receive a sen­tence of between 5–7years impris­on­ment, whilst Phul­labaum is expect­ed to received 3–5 years impris­on­ment.

As soon as any of the sen­tences, of any of the defen­dants in this case, are known ELP will bring you the news. How­ev­er we would like to remind every­one that we do not sup­port police infor­mants and there­fore, although report­ing their sen­tences, we will not be list­ing the prison details of any of the police infor­mants in this case. We do offer our total sup­port to those who have plead­ed guilty to their per­son­al charges but not coop­er­at­ed with the author­i­ties whilst doing so.

Also, despite the var­i­ous guilty pleas ELP would like to remind every­one that this case is not over. There are still at least three defen­dants in this case who loca­tions are unknown to the FBI. And also, Bri­ana Waters has for­mal­ly plead­ed not guilty to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton fire and is sched­uled for tri­al in May 2007. ELP will keep you informed as to all the devel­op­ments in Bri­ana’s tri­al.

NADIA WINSTEAD
In mid-Octo­ber 2006, Amer­i­can ani­mal rights activist, Nadia Win­stead, was found Guilty of con­tempt of court after she refused to tes­ti­fy before a Grand Jury which is inves­ti­gat­ing a series of Ani­mal and Earth Lib­er­a­tion actions. Nadia was grant­ed leave to appeal her con­vic­tion and that appeal hear­ing is due lat­er on this month. ELP will bring you more news just as soon as we have it.

IL SILVESTRE UPDATE
In ear­ly Novem­ber 2006, Giuseppe Bonam­i­ci, was released from prison under house arrest. Giuseppe is one of ten Il Sil­vestre mem­bers, arrest­ed in May 2006, who has been charged with using explo­sives to destroy an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest against nuclear pow­er. Fol­low­ing Giuseppe’s release this means that six of the ten defen­dants are now under house arrest, but four remain impris­oned.

The remain­ing four are all said to be doing well and remain­ing strong. One of the four Benedet­ta Galante, ini­tial­ly after her impris­on­ment found her­self sub­ject to strict mail cen­sor­ship and only received a few let­ters with­in the first four months of her impris­on­ment. How­ev­er, her mail now does appear to be reach­ing her and is described as “flood­ing in”, so much so that the prison does­n’t have enough mail cen­sors to keep up with her post!!!

Besides the four Il Sil­vestre pris­on­ers await­ing tri­al fol­low­ing the May 06 arrests, ELP would like to remind every­one that a fifth Il Sil­vestre activist is also cur­rent­ly impris­oned. Francesco Gioia is serv­ing 5 years and 2 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. He is also await­ing tri­al for escap­ing from house arrest.

JOE HARRIS
On 20/09/06 British Ani­mal Rights activist, Joe Har­ris, was sen­tenced to 3 years impris­on­ment for tak­ing direct action against Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences tar­gets. His tac­tics includ­ed glu­ing locks and slash­ing car tyres.

MADELINE BUCKLER
On 22/09/06 British Ani­mal Rights activist, Made­line Buck­ler, was sen­tenced to 2 years impris­on­ment for send­ing hate mail to the Hall fam­i­ly, who use to sup­ply guinea pigs to the vivi­sec­tion indus­try.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

Fadal­la Idris Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam. The sen­tence for this crime is Death.

Mohamed Ahmed Ala­jaimy (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam. The sen­tence for this crime is Death.

Tre Arrow, CS# 05850722, Van­cou­ver Island Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­ter, 4216 Wilkin­son Rd., Vic­to­ria, BC, V8Z 5B2, Cana­da. On remand accused of involve­ment with an arson on log­ging trucks and an arson on vehi­cles owned by a sand & grav­el com­pa­ny. Both arsons occurred in the USA. Tre is fight­ing his extra­di­tion to the USA.

Nathan Block, #1663667, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also charged with involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

Fed­eri­co Bonam­i­ci, Casa di Reclu­sione, ia Nuo­va Pog­gio­re­ale 177, 80143 Napo­lo Pog­gio­re­ale (NA), Italy. Il Sil­vestre mem­ber on remand accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon. Also accused of plan­ning to over­throw the State.

Mar­co Camenisch, Post­fach 3143, CH-8105 Regens­dorf, Switzer­land. Serv­ing 27 years. 1) Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy elec­tric­i­ty pylons lead­ing from nuclear pow­er sta­tions. 2) Sev­en­teen 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.

Ibai Eder­ra, Car­cel de Pam­plona, C/San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 — Iruñez — Pam­plona, Navar­ra (España), Spain. Serv­ing just under 5 years for sab­o­tag­ing machin­ery at the con­tro­ver­sial Itoiz dam con­struc­tion site.

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do #03895–000, FCI Tuc­son, 8901 South Wilmot Rd, Tuc­son, AZ 85705, USA. Serv­ing 8 months for his role in an Earth First! hunt sab­o­tage against a moun­tain lion hunt. Rod is also fac­ing addi­tion­al charges relat­ing to a speech he made at an ani­mal rights gath­er­ing in 2003.

William Fre­di­ani (cur­rent­ly under house arrest). Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 6 years impris­on­ment for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action.

Benedet­ta Galante, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Con­tra­da Capo di Monte, 82100 — Ben­even­to (BN), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 6 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

Francesco Gioia, Via Maiano, 10, 06049 Spo­le­to, Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 5 years 2 months for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al for escap­ing from house arrest.

Sil­via Gueri­ni, Carcere “La Doz­za”, Via Del Gomi­to 2, 40127 Bologna, Italy.
Il Sil­vestre mem­ber on remand accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon.

Leonar­do Lan­di (cur­rent­ly under house arrest). Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 6 months impris­on­ment for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action.

Jef­frey Luers, #13797671, OSP, 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310, USA. Serv­ing 22 years & 8 months for arson on a SUV deal­er­ship & the attempt­ed arson of an oil truck.

Ali Mohamed Alhas­sen Mas­sad (address unknown). Sudan anti-dam pro­test­er on remand accused of Wag­ing War against the State for protest­ing against the con­struc­tion of a dam. The sen­tence for this crime is Death.

Eric McDavid X‑2972521 4E 231A, Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Main Jail, 651 “I” Street, Sacra­men­to, CA 95814, USA. On Remand accused of plan­ning to destroy the prop­er­ty of the U.S. Forestry Ser­vice, mobile phone masts and pow­er plants.

Christo­pher McIn­tosh 30512–013, USP Hazel­ton, US Pen­i­ten­tiary, PO Box 2000, Bruce­ton Mills, WV 26525, USA. Serv­ing 8 years for a joint ELF/ALF arson attack on a McDon­alds restau­rant.

Alessio Per­on­di (cur­rent­ly under house arrest). Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 3 years 8 months impris­on­ment for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action.

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist sen­tenced to 5 years for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. Also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

John Wade #38548–083, FCI Peters­burg Low, Satel­lite Camp, PO Box 90027, Peters­burg, VA 23804, USA. Serv­ing 37 months for a series of ELF actions against a num­ber of tar­gets includ­ing McDon­alds & Burg­er King; urban sprawl; the con­struc­tion indus­try; and an SUV deal­er­ship.

Joy­an­na Zach­er #1662550, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. On remand accused of involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an SUV deal­er­ship. Also charged with involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

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.

Natasha Avery NR8987, HMP Bronze­field, Woodthor­pe Road, Ash­ford, Mid­dle­sex, TW15 3JZ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 16 months for a pub­lic order offence after telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der what she thought of them.

Dave Blenk­in­sop EM7899, HMP Rye Hill, Onley, War­wick­shire, CV23 8AN, Eng­land. Serv­ing 10 years. 1) Three years for a stave attack on the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of HLS. 2) 18 months for res­cu­ing 600 guinea pigs from a lab sup­pli­er. 3) 51â?„2 years for plant­i­ng incen­di­ary devices under an abat­toirs vehi­cles.

Made­line Buck­ler PR7492, HMP Mor­ton Hall, Swinder­by, Lin­coln, LN6 9PT, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for send­ing hate mail to a fam­i­ly who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

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.

Rod­ney Coro­n­a­do. Serv­ing 8 months for his role in an Earth First! hunt sab­o­tage against a moun­tain lion hunt. See his details in the Eco-Defence Pris­on­ers list.

Don­ald Cur­rie TN 4593, HMP Wood­hill, Tat­ten­hoe Street, Mil­ton Keynes, MK4 4DA, Eng­land. On remand accused of arson against a couri­er com­pa­ny with links to the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

Josh Dem­mitt 12314–081, FCI Saf­ford, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, P.O. Box 9000, Saf­ford, AZ 85548, USA. Serv­ing 30 months for an ALF arson on a Uni­ver­si­ty ani­mal test­ing facil­i­ty.

Dar­ius Fullmer #26397–050, FCI Fort Dix Satel­lite Camp, P.O. Box 1000, Fort Dix, NJ 08640 USA. Serv­ing 12 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Garfield Mar­cus Gab­bard TB 4271, HMP Moor­land (Closed), Bawtry Road, Hat­field Wood­house, Don­cast­er, South York­shire, DN7 6BW, Eng­land. Serv­ing 36 months for Affray dur­ing an ani­mal rights demo where he jumped onto a car and kicked a secu­ri­ty guard who pulled him off the car.

Lau­ren Gaz­zo­la #93497–011, FCI Dan­bury Route #37, 33 1/2 Pem­broke Road, Dan­bury, CT 06811 USA. Serv­ing 54 months impris­on­ment for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land.
Serv­ing 51â?„2 years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

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.

Joseph Har­ris, TN5728, HMP Lewes, Brighton Road, East Sus­sex, BN7 1EA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 3 years for dam­ag­ing the prop­er­ty of peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences.

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

Chris McIn­tosh. Serv­ing 8 years for a joint ALF/ELF arson on a McDon­alds.
See his details in the Eco-Defence Pris­on­ers list.

Josephine Mayo PR6508, HMP Drake Hall, Eccle­shall, Stafford­shire, ST21 6LQ, Eng­land. Serv­ing 4 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

John Smith TB4887, HMP Lowd­ham Grange, Lowd­ham, Not­ting­ham, NG14 7DA, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 years for attempt­ing to black­mail a farmer who sup­plied guinea pigs for vivi­sec­tion.

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.

Daniel Wad­ham TF5524, HMP Rochester, Kent. ME1 3QS, Eng­land. Serv­ing 12 months for a pub­lic order offence after telling a fox hunt­ing mur­der what he thought of them.

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.

Peter Daniel Young, #10269–111, FCI Vitorvill Medi­um II, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 5700, Ade­lan­to, CA 92301, USA. Serv­ing two years for releas­ing mink and fox­es from six dif­fer­ent fur farms. Also await­ing tri­al for his alleged involve­ment in a raid on a fur farm in South Dako­ta.

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 201â?„2 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.

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

Bren­dan Walsh, 12473–052, FCI Allen­wood Low, PO Box 1000, White Deer, PA 17887, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for an arson on an army recruit­ment office in protest at the War on Iraq.

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 under house arrest.

ANTIFA PRISONERS

Lasan­dra Bur­well W063658, Ohio Refor­ma­to­ry for Women, 1479 Collins Ave. Marysville, OH 43040, USA. Serv­ing 5 years for tak­ing part in an
anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tion which turned into a riot.

Igor Kisielewicz, syn Alek­san­dra, A.S. Bia­lystok, Koperni­ka 21, 15–377 Bia­lystok, Poland. Serv­ing 3 months for fail­ing to do his com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice imposed for antifa activ­i­ty.

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

PARTY & PROTEST
Around the world there have been sev­er­al mas­sive protests against glob­al cap­i­tal­ism and its envi­ron­men­tal impact. The fol­low­ing have all been jailed in con­nec­tion with the protests.

Jonathan Philip Robert, Crisp Coun­ty Deten­tion Cen­ter, 197 Ga. Hwy. 300 South, Cordele, GA 31015, USA (12 months)

OTHER PRISONERS

Ted Kaczyn­s­ki (04475–046), US Pen — admin Max Facil­i­ty, PO Box 8500, Flo­rence Col­orado 81226, USA. Serv­ing mul­ti­ple life sen­tences for the infa­mous ‘Unabomber’ anti-tech­nol­o­gy bomb­ing & mur­der cam­paign.

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.

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.

MOVE
MOVE is an eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group who car­ried out protests in defence of all life. 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 Grate­ford, PO Box 244, Grate­ford, PA 19426–0244, USA.

Edward Good­man Africa (AM4974), 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.

MAPUCHE PRISONERS & OTHER LAND RIGHTS PRISONERS
Due to space lim­i­ta­tion we can­not pub­lish the names & address­es of the Mapuche & Land Rights pris­on­ers in this edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom, how­ev­er if you would like a list please con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom.

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 bimonth­ly pub­li­ca­tion (avail­able via e‑mail or in a paper ver­sion). If you would like to receive a copy con­tact Spir­it of Free­dom, BM Box 2407, Lon­don, WC1N 3XX, Eng­land. Or e‑mail ELP4321@hotmail.com

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

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

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.

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

North Amer­i­can ELP Pris­on­er Fund. The North Amer­i­can ELP group has set up a fund where peo­ple can pay mon­ey, for North Amer­i­can Eco-Defence and Ani­mal Rights pris­on­ers, which will then be dis­trib­uted to the North Amer­i­can pris­on­ers. For infor­ma­tion about the Fund and how to make a dona­tion please con­tact naelpsn@mutualaid.org

DEDICATION
ELP feels it its impor­tant to remem­ber those who have died defend­ing Moth­er Earth. We use Samhain (a tra­di­tion­al time to remem­ber the dead) as our oppor­tu­ni­ty to hon­our all our fall­en friends who have died over the years.

Due to space lim­i­ta­tion we can only list EF! & ELF style fall­en friends.
But for a full list of all Ani­mal & Earth Lib­er­a­tion activists who’ve died in defence of the plan­et check out our full memo­r­i­al list on our web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

This edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom is joint­ly ded­i­cat­ed to Amer­i­can David “Gyp­sy” Chain, who was crushed to death in Sep­tem­ber 1998 when a tree was felled on top of him whilst he defend­ed the forests; Ital­ian activists Maria Rosas & Edoar­do Mas­sari who died in cus­tody, in 1999, whilst await­ing tri­al for their alleged involve­ment in the sab­o­tag­ing of a high speed rail line con­struc­tion site in the North­ern Ital­ian Alps; Brazil­ian Jose Mar­lu­cio da Sil­va who was shot dead by police in July 2000 whilst attempt­ing to storm & occu­py a bank dur­ing an anti-GM protest; British activist ‘Jo’ whose body was found in her burnt out hut at the Nine Ladies anti-quar­ry protest camp
in March 2002; Amer­i­can Beth O’Brien, who died in April 2002 after falling from a tree she was sit­ting in whilst try­ing to defend the forests; Brazil­ian Bar­tolomeu Morais da Sil­va (aka “Brasil­ia”) who led the strug­gle against ille­gal log­ging, land fraud and destruc­tive large-scale infra­struc­ture projects was found mur­dered in July 2002 from shot gun wounds and his legs bro­ken; Amer­i­can Robert “Naya” Bryan, died Octo­ber 2002 after falling from a tree he was sit­ting in whilst try­ing to defend the forests; French activist Sébastian B., who, in Novem­ber 2004, was run by a train car­ry­ing nuclear waste after Sébastian had tied him­self to the tracks; Amer­i­can William “Bill” Rodgers who end­ed his own life in Decem­ber 2005 fol­low­ing his arrest for a series of ELF & ALF actions.

If you know of some­one who should be on this list, but isn’t, please let ELP know.
“ELP Sup­port Net­work”

Ten Reasons to Block LNG in Wales, contractors address & First victory for Trebanos protestors

Cor­po­rate greed and mind­less mate­ri­al­ism threat­en to destroy the plan­et. Act now

Ten rea­sons to join the protest at Mil­ford Haven LNG

1. The sup­posed jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for this facil­i­ty is that we need a secure source of ener­gy when we run out of our own. When is this pro­ject­ed need going to exist? We have just received a pipeline from the huge stocks of Nor­way. We have so much gas we haven’t got room to store it.

Cor­po­rate greed and mind­less mate­ri­al­ism threat­en to destroy the plan­et. Act now

Ten rea­sons to join the protest at Mil­ford Haven LNG

1. The sup­posed jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for this facil­i­ty is that we need a secure source of ener­gy when we run out of our own. When is this pro­ject­ed need going to exist? We have just received a pipeline from the huge stocks of Nor­way. We have so much gas we haven’t got room to store it.

2. If the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing to rely on Russ­ian gas at some hypo­thet­i­cal point in the future rep­re­sents a strate­gic threat to our ener­gy sup­ply, how does get­ting it from the Mid­dle East in vul­ner­a­ble ships improve our secu­ri­ty?

3. The answer is that Qatar, which has the third largest reserves of LNG in the world after Rus­sia and Iran, is the staunchest ally of the USA in the Mid­dle East. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly the LNG com­pa­ny oper­at­ing out of Mil­ford is owned by the US giant Car­lyle group, whose involve­ment with the Bush Neo-cons is well doc­u­ment­ed, and who stand to make enor­mous prof­its. http://english.pravda.ru/comp/2002/06/25/31119.html
http://www.ameinfo.com/94204.html

4. The plan­ning process has been pushed through, against pub­lic protest into safe­ty fac­tors, as a pro­to­type of the Blair gov­ern­ments need to secure ener­gy sup­plies from pri­vate com­pa­nies. Effec­tive­ly their pow­er depends on main­tain­ing cen­tral con­trol of the leg­is­la­tion relat­ed to plan­ning for large ener­gy projects.

5. The Haven is emi­nent­ly unsuit­able for this kind of project; being locat­ed in haz­ardous waters and sit­u­at­ed with­in metres of numer­ous oil stor­age tanks. SIGTTO – the industry’s safe­ty con­sul­ta­tion net­work has con­demned the sit­ing of the LNG Ter­mi­nal at Mil­ford.
http://sigtto.re-invent.net/DNN/

6. The pipeline is osten­si­bly so large to act as a stor­age facil­i­ty as a deter­rent to Ter­ror­ist attack. Not only is this unten­able in view of the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the ships, but this kind of pres­surised pipe has no prece­dent in this coun­try and its safe­ty remains a mys­tery which they have refused to inves­ti­gate.

7. This whole project is total­ly unnec­es­sary. As the film Incon­ve­nient Truth points out, we can solve our ener­gy needs and cli­mate change by adopt­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures. In this light such mas­sive invest­ment in waste­ful tech­nol­o­gy is absurd and dis­tracts us from the need to cre­ate long-term renew­able solu­tions.

8. This whole affair rep­re­sents the steam­rol­ler­ing of pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion. The first many knew, includ­ing those who had signed con­sents for a “pipelineâ€? of unspec­i­fied dimen­sions to cross their land, of the mas­sive destruc­tion wrought on 200 miles of welsh coun­try­side with motor­way size routes cut through price­less land­scapes, was when they sud­den­ly found it all hap­pen­ing.

9. In many places the routes have passed per­ilous­ly close to dwellings, elec­tri­cal cables and, as in the case of Tre­banos, where they have at last pre­vent­ed them blast­ing through the moun­tain, pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant risk of land­slides. Pre­vi­ous acci­dents using this tech­nol­o­gy don’t bear con­tem­plat­ing; the pre­cau­tion­ary prin­ci­ple must apply here.

10. Why should this devel­op­ment come through the heart­land of rur­al Wales? Reports sug­gest the ter­mi­nal and Re-gas­si­fi­ca­tion plant should be sit­ed off­shore and brought in some­where along the Bris­tol Chan­nel. This shows that cor­po­rate inter­ests are at stake and even vie with each oth­er to deter­mine that the route of the pipeline does not go through their land.

http://www.green-culture.blogspot.org

=====================================

Con­trac­tor Details for LNG pipeline
22.11.2006 19:06
Main con­trac­tor fo LNG pipeline are:-
Land Marine Project Engi­neer­ing Ltd
Dock Road North
Broms­bor­ough
Wirral
CH6 2LN
Tel No 0151 641560
Fax No 0151 6449990
http://landandmarine.com
A quick look at web­site lists they are under­tak­ing con­tracts for MOD as well work­ing in even more envi­ro­men­tal parts of the globe

=====================================

In the face of con­cert­ed oppo­si­tion from local peo­ple, the gov­ern­ment has reversed its deci­sion to allow the pipeline con­struc­tors to use explo­sives close to the vil­lage of Tre­banos in South Wales.

BBC news report on the reversed deci­sion from the DTI.

This clear­ly would not have hap­pened with­out the cam­paign of resis­tance from local peo­ple, so this is only the first step on the path to stop­ping this enor­mous­ly destruc­tive pipeline.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/6170620.stm

Radford Mill organic farm squatted

Hi folks,latest update from rad­ford mill farm is that despite repeat­ed attempts at nego­ti­a­tion with Richard Fox, the land­lord, we have been forced by his behav­iour to occu­py the farm on a squat­ting basis. We were try­ing to nego­ti­ate a new wave of help for the place and save it as an organ­ic farm and eco project.

Hi folks,latest update from rad­ford mill farm is that despite repeat­ed attempts at nego­ti­a­tion with Richard Fox, the land­lord, we have been forced by his behav­iour to occu­py the farm on a squat­ting basis. We were try­ing to nego­ti­ate a new wave of help for the place and save it as an organ­ic farm and eco project.

We were tak­en to court on 16th Nov. In Bath, at the coun­ty court. Where the case has been adjourned and referred to Bris­tol coun­ty court. We are now wait­ing for a date this may come in a few weeks or hope­ful­ly will not be dealt with until the new year.

There are a good num­ber of legal argu­ments and we are con­fi­dent that this process may take many months. Now is the time for action! We are going to talk to the Cli­mate change camp group (meet­ing at ythe Albany Cen­tre, Mont­pe­lier, Bris­tol Sat 18th Nov 11am ‑7pm.) and are dis­cussing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of tak­ing direct action and set­ting up a camp at the farm to raise the issues of sus­tain­able land use,climate change and land dis­tri­b­u­tion as well as many more envi­ron­men­tal issues.

At this crit­i­cal time for the envi­ron­ment we must take action and call on all who care for the future to come to the farm and take part in change. We have a talk­ing cir­cle every weds 7/8pm to share feelings,thoughts and dis­cuss actions.

We must car­ry on as if we will be at the farm for a long time to come and antic­i­pate a long drawn out cam­paign across many parts of the land.

We would like to hear from any­one who would like to run a work­shop or event and help with farm work. The farm is under new co-ordi­na­tion and we need help to net­work it. Please for­ward this email to your lists. Hope­ful­ly we will be hav­ing a win­ter sol­stice cel­e­bra­tion make a diary note. For fur­ther info for action con­tact Phoenix 07769 791387 (http://www.circlecommunity.org)

If not now then when, if not us then who. is it you? One Love Many hands
make light work.

U cant Kill the spir­it.

Safe Haven Pipeline Demo update & contact details

18.11.2006

since thurs­day a group protest­ing about lack of safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion have been block­ing the lay­ing of the pipeline right next to the LNG constryc­tion site — they are dig­ging in for the long haul!

18.11.2006

since thurs­day a group protest­ing about lack of safe­ty reg­u­la­tions and pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion have been block­ing the lay­ing of the pipeline right next to the LNG constryc­tion site — they are dig­ging in for the long haul!

Thanks to Schnews newslet­ter I got down to the demo yes­ter­day after­noon to find 3 OAPS hud­dled in a tent on the pub­lic foot­path which runs right through the mid­dle of the mas­sive con­struc­tion site of the new Mil­ford Haven LNG ter­mi­nal.

The weath­er was appalling and they have already roughed it for one night. As soon as they had pitched camp on thurs­day hordes of cops and offi­cials sur­round­ed them with every man­ner of arc lights, gen­er­a­tors, fen­ce­posts, barbed wire and then packed up and went off to leave the site desert­ed for the week­end.

The ower­whelm­ing pres­ence of machin­ery and earth­works seems to blot out the exis­tence of the Safe Haven protest group who are cam­paign­ing to have the offi­cial Risk Assess­ment report released for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion — apart from the actu­al pipeline there are grave con­cerns over the safe­ty of the re-gas­si­fi­ca­tion plant. Pre­vi­ous acci­dents with this kind of tech­nol­o­gy have been known to pro­duce fire­balls of 27 square Km.

They have been try­ing to raise aware­ness of the issues ever since the vir­taully non-exis­tent pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion for the Plan­ning of this vast and unnec­es­sary white ele­phant — which just turns out to be anoth­er pet project for the mon­ey-spin­ning Car­lyle group [Bush and Sau­di Patron­age].

They are cur­rent­ly on a pub­lic foot­path so there may be a strug­gle to evict them — basi­cal­ly they want to get the Safe­ty report into the pub­lic are­na and believe that if the facts are known they stand to gain con­sid­er­able con­ces­sions even if the whole thing does­n’t get stopped com­plete­ly.

Any sup­port grate­ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed phone 07752 698489 for details

——————————————————————————————–

Any­one wish­ing to con­tact the camp at Tyn y Pant Farm in the Swansea Val­ley where pro­tes­tors are occu­py­ing a length of pipe and have done since Sun­day 12th Novem­ber 2006 please tele­phone 07805 038725. The protest goes into it’s sec­ond week amidst amaz­ing sup­port from the peo­ple of the area who have had enough of being walked over by cor­po­rate busi­ness for the instal­la­tion of a fos­sil fuel indus­tri­al sized pipeline to cre­ate a mar­ket for raped gas from for­eign coun­tries. Remem­ber every time you turn on a gas flame or an elec­tric light that it is not so that you can see or be warm but to enable some­one, some­where, prob­a­bly not in your coun­try, to make a prof­it.
We ask all those who come into con­tact with the fenc­ing sur­round­ing this pipeline to please tie a piece of green cloth or rib­bon to the fence. One piece for every tree that has been destroyed in the wake of the pipeline, one rib­bon for every per­son that will live in fear of this mas­sive pipeline under their feet for the next 30 years if it is not stopped and one rib­bon for every unnec­es­sary death from ter­ror­ism and its caus­es
Thank you for your sup­port all those who have already shown it.

Stop the pipeline! info flyer + events this week (& second camp started)

Stop the Pipeline!!
Land and homes across Wales are cur­rent­ly being destroyed for a huge, unsafe gas pipeline. Is this the best way to tack­le cli­mate change?

Trebanos pipeline 1Stop the Pipeline!!
Land and homes across Wales are cur­rent­ly being destroyed for a huge, unsafe gas pipeline. Is this the best way to tack­le cli­mate change?

What’s wrong with the pipeline?

The pipeline will be 150 miles long from Mil­ford Haven through the Bre­con Bea­cons into Glouces­ter, mak­ing it the biggest pipeline of its kind in Europe, cut­ting a chunk the width of a motor­way. Despite con­cerns about on going cli­mate chaos the gov­ern­ment is putting their ener­gy and resources into dig­ging up beau­ti­ful coun­try­side and people’s homes for more non-renew­able ener­gy, rather than build­ing for alter­na­tives like solar, wind and hydro pow­er.

Locals groups have formed in resis­tance to the pipeline. Many feel they have not been prop­er­ly con­sult­ed, some feel bul­lied and deceived, on an issue that affects them direct­ly, with some peo­ple hav­ing their homes com­pul­so­ri­ly pur­chased. There have also been many safe­ty con­cerns as peo­ple feel the gov­ern­ment have rushed plans through with­out prop­er health and safe­ty checks. For exam­ple, it’s being built on the only earth­quake zone in Britain, parts of it is on land that’s deemed too unsta­ble for hous­es and the gas is odour­less so locals wouldn’t know if there was a leak. In Tre­banos, near Swansea, it was decid­ed the land was too unsta­ble for mains gas pipelines to the vil­lage and now they’re build­ing Europe’s biggest gas pipeline!

What’s been hap­pen­ing this week?

Due to the absur­di­ty of these plans, and the fact that no amount of cam­paign­ing has had an effect, peo­ple have recent­ly tak­en direct action to stop work along the pipeline. At 5.30am last Mon­day (12th Novem­ber) activists entered the work­site with some peo­ple climb­ing on to machin­ery and oth­ers occu­py­ing parts of the pipeline. The pro­tes­tors have claimed squatter’s rights on a sec­tion of pipeline and have suc­cess­ful­ly stopped work since Mon­day. On Thurs­day 16th anoth­er protest site was start­ed by con­cerned fam­i­lies in Mil­ford Haven in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the pro­tes­tors in Tra­banos. There is also a green rib­bon cam­paign for locals to show sup­port for the protest.

What next?

A mass bike ride has been orga­nized for Fri­day 24th Novem­ber to raise aware­ness and show oppo­si­tion to the gas pipe line. Meet out­side Y Mochyn Du pub in Sophia gar­dens at 3.30pm.

More peo­ple are join­ing the camps as we speak but help and sup­port are always need­ed, any­one with spare time is wel­come to join in.
For reg­u­lar updates and infor­ma­tion see www.indymedia.org.uk

Please Email, Phone or Write Today In Support Of Tortured Filipino Anarchists

Please take a minute to email, phone, fax, or write in sup­port of The Saga­da 11, young anar­chists false­ly accused of a Maoist gueril­la attack and tor­tured in The Philip­pines. Today, Novem­ber 17th is an inter­na­tion­al action day for them! A sam­ple let­ter and con­tact details for offi­cials fol­low this short descrip­tion of the back­ground to the case…

Please take a minute to email, phone, fax, or write in sup­port of The Saga­da 11, young anar­chists false­ly accused of a Maoist gueril­la attack and tor­tured in The Philip­pines. Today, Novem­ber 17th is an inter­na­tion­al action day for them! A sam­ple let­ter and con­tact details for offi­cials fol­low this short descrip­tion of the back­ground to the case…

BACKGROUND
On Feb­ru­ary 14th this year, a group of anar­cho-punks from across the Philip­pines aged 15–25 were on a trip to Saga­da, a well known hik­ing spot, to go walk­ing. Police stopped the vehi­cle they were hitch­hik­ing with and bru­tal­ly arrest­ed them with­out a war­rant. Lat­er, they were told of an attack by Maoist gueril­las on a mil­i­tary out­post a few days before. When they denied involve­ment, they were sub­ject­ed to fur­ther tor­ture includ­ing suf­fo­ca­tion, elec­tro­cu­tion, sim­u­lat­ed exe­cu­tions and drown­ing. The two youngest had to be released, but the 9 oth­ers have been charged with arson and mur­der.

The youths were all active in eco­log­i­cal cam­paigns and groups such as Food not Bombs, but there is no evi­dence of any con­nec­tion with any Maoist organ­i­sa­tions, or gueril­la groups, or any evi­dence for the crime. Their arrest was ille­gal. They are being held under ter­ri­ble con­di­tions with­out even basic neces­si­ties or enough food in over­crowd­ed cells.

Inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty could make a huge dif­fer­ence to this case. You can say you are phoning/writing about the Saga­da 11, men­tion their names, and that you would like to enquire about their welfare/you think the arrests were illegal/demand their imme­di­ate release, etc. Please remem­ber that they are being accused of being part of Maoist gueril­la actions so be care­ful what you asso­ciate them with any­thing polit­i­cal­ly.

QUICK CONTACT DETAILS
Fil­ipino police: Gen. Arturo Lumibao: 0063 27264361
Jail:see address below, phone num­ber: 0063 744222304
Fil­ipino Embassy: 0207 9371600, Fax: 020 79372925, Email: embassy@philemb.co.uk

Oth­er impor­tant email address­es to send to: rvpuno@dilg.gov.ph, chiefacosta@edsamail.com.ph, sechbp@infocom.com.ph, drpvq@yahoo.com, omb1@ombudsman.gov.ph, ssyed@ohchr.org, tb-petitions@ohchr.org, scronin@ohchr.org . The full con­tact details are giv­en after the sam­ple let­ter but you can copy this email list to make mail­ing eas­i­er…

SAMPLE LETTER

I recent­ly heard about a case involv­ing eleven young peo­ple arrest­ed, tor­tured and false­ly accused of a ter­ror­ist attack in The Phillip­ines…

Names of those still in jail:

1. Run­dren Berloize Lao (24) of Gerona, Tar­lac.
2. Ander­son Alon­zo (18) of Cali­nan, Davao City
3. Aldoz Chris­t­ian Manoza (18) of Sam­paloc St.,
San­tolan, Pasig City
4. Ron Pandi­no (20) of Barangay May­at­ba, Siniloan,
Lagu­na
5. Jethro Vil­la­gra­cia (21) of Cali­nan, Davao City
6. Neil Rus­sel Bal­a­ja­dia (25) of No. 026 Tawiran St.,
San­tolan, Pasig City
7. Dar­win Ala­gar (21) of Barangay Tipu­so, Urdane­ta
City, Pan­gasi­nan
8. Arvie Nunez (21) of Barangay Silan­gang Mayao,
Luce­na City
9. Jef­fer­son dela Rosa (20) of No. 211 A.M. De Leon
St., San­tolan, Pasig City
All of them are present­ly detained in a jail in La
Trinidad, Benguet.

Name of minor vic­tims released to their parent’s
cus­tody:

1. Frencess Ann Bernal (15) of Calumpang, Marik­i­na
City
2. Ray Lester Men­doza (16) of Blk. 157 Lot 32 San
Fran­cis­co St., Barangay Rizal, Makati City

Name of per­sons charged with tor­ture: Gen­er­al Vil­lam­or Bumanglag, provin­cial direc­tor of the Benguet Provin­cial Police Office (BPPO); Police Super­in­ten­dent Brent Mad­ja­co, head of the 1604th Police Provin­cial Mobile Group (PPMG) and his men; and uniden­ti­fied mil­i­tary agents and Cafgu mem­bers

It has come to my atten­tion that the 11 per­sons, who were arrest­ed and sub­se­quent­ly tor­tured by the police and mil­i­tary men on 14 Feb­ru­ary 2006, have filed anoth­er crim­i­nal charges before the Benguet Prosecutor’s Office on June 28. In the new com­plaint, the vic­tims charged the police and mil­i­tary offi­cials for arbi­trary arrest and deten­tion. As you are aware, the Region­al Tri­al Court (RTC) in La Trinidad, Benguet had already ruled on May 19 that the arrest of the 11 vic­tims was ille­gal.

I am deeply con­cerned that the prosecutor’s office may fur­ther delay in resolv­ing this new com­plaint of arbi­trary arrest and deten­tion. I am aware that pri­or to the fil­ing of this com­plaint, on March 31 the vic­tims had also filed for vio­la­tion of Repub­lic Act 7438 against the same respon­dents. No for­mal charges have yet been filed against them in court. It is report­ed that the Office of the Deputy Ombuds­man for the Mil­i­tary and Oth­er Law Enforce­ment Office have yet to act on the rec­om­men­da­tion made by the prosecutor’s office. Only until the Ombuds­man takes action to the rec­om­men­da­tion of the pros­e­cu­tors the case will make progress in court.

Also, the admin­is­tra­tive case filed with the region­al office of the Nation­al Police Com­mis­sion (Napol­com) is also drag­ging at their office. The Com­mis­sion has yet to com­mence its sum­ma­ry hear­ing of the admin­is­tra­tive com­plaint that the vic­tims also filed on July 20 and 21, despite a long hia­tus between its orig­i­nal com­plaint filed to them. The delay to resolve the case on part of the Com­mis­sion and Ombuds­man is seri­ous­ly
affect­ing this case. I am deeply con­cerned this sit­u­a­tion may pro­long unless act­ed upon while the vic­tims remained in jail.

I am deeply con­cerned that charges of rob­bery with homi­cide, which was re-filed by the police­men against the 11 vic­tims, after the court’s rul­ing that the 14 Feb­ru­ary 2006 arrest and deten­tion of the vic­tims was ille­gal could be a mere rehash. I am extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed that the vic­tim­s’ alle­ga­tions that the con­fes­sion and evi­dence tak­en from them by way of tor­ture, which the police used pros­e­cut­ing them, have not been act­ed upon. To my under­stand­ing, the suc­ceed­ing proceeding–filing of the case–should have been sub­se­quent­ly declared as null and void as the arrest have already been declared ille­gal. I there­fore urged the court, to con­sid­er these cir­cum­stances in their future delib­er­a­tion.

I urged your appro­pri­ate inter­ven­tion to ensure that the com­plaints the vic­tims filed to the pros­e­cu­tors’ office, ombuds­man and the police com­mis­sion are act­ed upon prompt­ly. I believed that you would com­plete­ly agree that prompt­ness to resolve these cas­es is very essen­tial. Please also request the prosecutor’s office in Benguet to con­sid­er drop­ping the charges of rob­bery with homi­cide against the vic­tims re-filed by the police con­sid­er­ing giv­en the court’s rul­ing. If this can­not be done, please request the court to con­sid­er approv­ing the victim’s peti­tion for rein­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Rein­ves­ti­ga­tion is nec­es­sary in order that the alle­ga­tions of tor­ture are dealt with accord­ing­ly.

Addi­tion­al­ly, please request the con­cerned gov­ern­ment agen­cies, in par­tic­u­lar the Philip­pine Nation­al Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philip­pines (AFP) to con­sid­er­ing dis­man­tling the armed mili­tias they are utilizing–Civilian Aux­il­iary Force Geo­graph­i­cal Unit (CAFGU). The uti­liza­tion of Cafgu had already result­ed to abus­es. In this case, CAFGU mem­bers had been accused of tak­ing part in the ille­gal arrest and deten­tion. The gov­ern­ment must send a strong mes­sage against the use of this force.

I trust that you will take action on this case.

Yours sin­cere­ly,

FULL CONTACT DETAILS

1. Mr. Ronal­do V. Puno
Chair­man
Nation­al Police Com­mis­sion (Napol­com)
A. Fran­cis­co Gold Con­do­mini­um II
EDSA cor. Mapagma­hal St., Dil­i­man
Que­zon City
PHILIPPINES
Voice: +63 2 925 0330 / 31
Fax: +63 2 925 0332
Email: rvpuno@dilg.gov.ph

2. Mrs. Per­si­da V. Rue­da-Acos­ta
Chief, Pub­lic Attor­ney Office (PAO)
DOJ Agen­cies Build­ing,
NIA Road East Avenue
1104 Que­zon City
PHILIPPINES
Tel. No. +63 2 929 9010 / 9436
Fax No. +63 2 927 6810 / 926 2878
Email: chiefacosta@edsamail.com.ph

3. Direc­tor Gen­er­al Oscar Calderon
Chief, Philip­pine Nation­al Police
Camp Gen­er­al Rafael Crame
Que­zon City
PHILIPPINES
Tel: +63 2726 4361/4366/8763
Fax: +63 2724 8763

4. Atty. Joce­lyn Castil­lo
Region­al Direc­tor, Com­mis­sion on Human Rights
Cordillera Admin­is­tra­tive Region
3rd floor SSS Baguio Branch Bldg., Har­ri­son Road
2600 Baguio City
PHILIPPINES
Tel: +63 074 619 9088/ 074 619 9089

5. Mr. Raul Gon­za­lez
Sec­re­tary
Depart­ment of Jus­tice
DOJ Bldg., Padre Fau­ra
1004 Mani­la
PHILIPPINES
Fax: +63 2 521 1614
Email: sechbp@infocom.com.ph

6. Ms. Purifi­ca­cion Quisumb­ing
Com­mis­sion­er
Com­mis­sion on Human Rights
SAAC Bldg., Com­mon­wealth Avenue
U.P. Com­plex, Dil­i­man
Que­zon City
PHILIPPINES
Tel: +63 2 928 5655 / 926 6188
Fax: +63 2 929 0102
Email: drpvq@yahoo.com

7. Mr. Orlan­do Casimiro
Deputy Ombuds­man for the Mil­i­tary and
Oth­er Law Enforce­ment Offices
3rd Floor, Ombuds­man Bldg., Agham Road
Dil­i­man (1104) Que­zon City
PHILIPPINES
Tel: +63 2 926 9032
Fax: +63 2 926 7572
Email: omb1@ombudsman.gov.ph

8. Pro­fes­sor Man­fred Nowak
Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Ques­tion of Tor­ture
Attn: Mr.Safir Syed
OHCHR-UNOG
1211 Gene­va 10
SWITZERLAND
Tel: +41 22 917 9230
Fax: +41 22 9179016 (ATTN: SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE QUESTION OF TORTURE)
E‑mail: ssyed@ohchr.org, tb-petitions@ohchr.org
9. Mr. Lean­dro Despouy
Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the inde­pen­dence of judges and lawyers
Attn: Sonia Cronin
Room: 3–060
OHCHR-UNOG
1211 Gene­va 10
SWITZERLAND
Tel: +41 22 917 9160
Fax: +41 22 917 9006 (ATTN: SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR INDEPENDENCE JUDGES & LAWYERS)
E‑mail: scronin@ohchr.org

For more info, http://www.brightonabc.org.uk

Wellbeing@Climate Camp

The WELLBEING SPACE @ the Cli­mate Camp
— Analy­sis and Expe­ri­ences -
By Activist Trau­ma Sup­port and the Well­be­ing Group at the Cli­mate Camp

climate camp wellbeing tentThe WELLBEING SPACE @ the Cli­mate Camp
— Analy­sis and Expe­ri­ences -
By Activist Trau­ma Sup­port and the Well­be­ing Group at the Cli­mate Camp

While Well­be­ing in the main­stream soci­ety is most­ly con­nect­ed with saunas and mud­packs, we tried to give it a dif­fer­ent con­no­ta­tion in activist cir­cles. Per­son­al well­be­ing (while the word may sound quite fluffy to some, and while we were at first unsure about it, by the end of the Cli­mate Camp it was obvi­ous that it worked well) is about us. It’s about how we deal with the stress of organ­is­ing and a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty, it is about our phys­i­cal well­be­ing, about tak­ing breaks, not becom­ing sleep deprived, it is about avoid­ing burnout and devel­op­ing sus­tain­able activism. It involves deal­ing with the fear and trau­ma caused by police con­fronta­tions, it involves learn­ing to stay calm when there’s a lot of pres­sure on, and most impor­tant­ly know­ing your own lim­its and treat­ing your­self well. Tak­ing care of each oth­er and tak­ing care of ourselves….so that we can con­tin­ue our resis­tances.

The well­be­ing space at the Camp for Cli­mate Action near Leeds in Sep­tem­ber 2006 was a tak­en on by a group in order to pro­vide resources for the well­be­ing of activists. In 2005 at the Camp in Stir­ling against the G8, Activist Trau­ma Sup­port had run a Recov­ery Dome for peo­ple who had been trau­ma­tised or who felt they need­ed sup­port. A lot of peo­ple used the space and we felt that it was suc­cess­ful and need­ed. How­ev­er there was also the issue that it quick­ly came to be called the ‘Trau­ma Ten­t’. This made it hard for peo­ple to approach, it being some­what unclear what was avail­able inside, and pos­si­bly some peo­ple feel­ing that maybe they only had the right to come in if they were trau­ma­tised.

We took these points on board. Also we had already start­ed work­ing more on burnout and sus­tain­able activism, since it is a com­mon prob­lem amongst activists and has been near­ly entire­ly neglect­ed as a top­ic, despite the fact that it can have dev­as­tat­ing effects. (See burnout fly­er on our web­page).

The Well­be­ing space

We adjust­ed our con­cept and cre­at­ed a well­be­ing tent at the camp. The idea was to pro­vide a calm space, away from the Camp cen­tre, but one not too iso­lat­ed. A big sign at the entrance said: ‘Come in – to have a break, de-stress, relax, have a cup of tea, talk to some­body, recov­er, book a mas­sage or book a coun­selor.’ Our inten­tion was to take the stig­ma and fear away and make it eas­i­er for peo­ple to come in. Inside we had three areas – a recep­tion with infor­ma­tion mate­r­i­al about trau­ma, burnout and how to deal with the police, tea mak­ing facil­i­ties and places to sit, a recov­ery area where peo­ple could have a lie-down, two more pri­vate spaces for body work and talk­ing.

Fur­ther­more we had a sec­ond small­er tent in the back, for more intense talk­ing ses­sions and body­work. The space was open from 11 to 24h, but staffed at all times for emer­gen­cies. We organ­ised our­selves in shifts of 3 hours with 2 peo­ple for each shift, every­body tak­ing on one shift per day. Alto­geth­er 15 peo­ple were involved in run­ning the space, a core group and some satel­lites. We held dai­ly group meet­ings of around 60–90 min­utes, which made sure that there was a mech­a­nism for debrief­ing, as well as a place for dis­cus­sion, group bond­ing, updates and organ­is­ing.

We also ran two work­shops – one on burnout and sus­tain­able activism and anoth­er one on activist trau­ma and recov­ery (to book one of these work­shops for your affin­i­ty group, con­tact us by email)

Group debrief­in­gs

After the main day of action, some par­ents from the kids block approached us for a facil­i­tat­ed group debrief­ing and after­wards anoth­er debrief­ing, espe­cial­ly adapt­ed, was held for the kids who had been on the kids block, – maybe the first kids debrief­ing after a kids block action ever… It was very suc­cess­ful and we realised how impor­tant it is to approach groups and to offer a debrief­ing after an action or to give them guide­lines on how to run one. Typ­i­cal­ly this is done in go-rounds, going into the roles peo­ple had and what they expe­ri­enced, so that every­body gets a com­plete pic­ture of what was actu­al­ly going on. Then going into what peo­ple thought and felt, so there is a gen­er­al aware­ness of each oth­ers emo­tion­al state and so that the brain can process the expe­ri­ence by talk­ing about it. We decid­ed that we need to be more proac­tive in approach­ing affin­i­ty groups and neigh­bor­hood meet­ings to offer this.

Avoid­ing Burnout

By also offer­ing a space that key organ­is­ers felt com­fort­able using, while gen­er­al­ly open­ing up the top­ic and mak­ing it eas­i­er for peo­ple to talk about burnout, there seemed to be a big change in the gen­er­al atmos­phere of the camp. A lot of the time peo­ple can work far beyond their bound­aries and then they are out of the game for months after­wards. In this man­ner atmos­pheres can be cre­at­ed where tak­ing a break is regard­ed as a betray­al. This atmos­phere was ques­tioned and start­ed to change. Peo­ple with a lot on came in, lay down for a while, got a mas­sage, or just took time for them­selves. This is hard­er than it sounds if you have a lot of respon­si­bil­i­ty and work and peo­ple come con­stant­ly run­ning to you. It is hard to take a break and feel con­fi­dent that things will also hap­pen­ing with­out you, maybe dif­fer­ent­ly, but the world will keep turn­ing. Giv­ing impor­tance to your own well­be­ing enables you work to work more pro­duc­tive­ly. You can enjoy more and you won’t be total­ly shat­tered for ages after­wards. Offer­ing mas­sages can be very help­ful in this respect. This time we did not have enough peo­ple to cov­er demand ade­quate­ly, and in truth we did not organ­ise this area well enough, but at the same time a lot of mas­sages were giv­en to relieve the emo­tion­al stress and phys­i­cal pains of hard work.

Activist Trau­ma and Recov­ery

Since there was not a huge amount of police bru­tal­i­ty, not as much trau­ma sup­port was need­ed; but it was used by peo­ple who had been attacked by the police and also by peo­ple who felt stressed by the expe­ri­ences of the day. That this is nor­mal and not some­thing to be ashamed of is part of the par­a­digm shift we are work­ing towards. Talk­ing about it, with some­body from well­be­ing, or a friend, is an impor­tant step.

“Mental healthâ€? mat­ters

For­tu­nate­ly peo­ple with so called ‘men­tal health issues’ also feel that it is safe for them to come to an action camp. In this sense the space and the sup­port was used by peo­ple who had dif­fi­cul­ty cop­ing, or who had just stopped their med­ica­tion. It was an advan­tage to us that our team was so diverse, in this way we could help with var­i­ous dif­fer­ent issues. Our age range is from 20 to 50 and includes psy­chol­o­gists, coun­selors, activists who have been trained in emo­tion­al sup­port, body work­ers and social work­ers. We hope for a more inte­gra­tive approach towards dif­fer­ent states of mind inside activists’ com­mu­ni­ties.

Con­clu­sion

Although the peo­ple work­ing on well­be­ing and Activist Trau­ma Sup­port come from all over the UK, and some from main­land Europe, over the course of Cli­mate Camp our group has become much more sol­id, with more peo­ple want­i­ng to get involved and work on this. To build upon this we have decid­ed to hold week­end meet­ings, 3 times a year, from now on, in order to give space for more in-depth work; rather than just work­ing at camps and con­ver­gence cen­ters.

Alto­geth­er the expe­ri­ence has been very pos­i­tive. We got a lot of good feed­back. Espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing was the point about the changes you can’t see and mea­sure – how peo­ple think and talk dif­fer­ent­ly, how it feels dif­fer­ent to be at a place with a well­be­ing space rather than at one with none. Some peo­ple said it was reas­sur­ing in its own way, like hav­ing a medic around, even if you might not need her this time. We are aware that there are prob­a­bly var­i­ous things we could have done bet­ter or dif­fer­ent­ly. Please let us know if you have any feed­back. BTW, we as indi­vid­u­als inside this group also keep learn­ing what we preach, still strug­gling at times…This is a learn­ing process for all of us, the more peo­ple involved the more effec­tive it will be. At this stage in that process, it felt real­ly good to be part of the gen­er­al polit­i­cal suc­cess of the Cli­mate Camp, espe­cial­ly in the sense of fight­ing repres­sion in ways that make our move­ments stronger and more ver­sa­tile.

Con­tact:
If you have any feed­back, crit­i­cism or ideas about our work and our pres­ence at the camp or want to get involved please con­tact us.  activist_trauma@riseup.net, Phone: 07962 406940
www.activist-trauma.net (with a data­base of peo­ple who offer sup­port and trained coun­selors and psy­chol­o­gists (write to us to sign up if you want to offer your skills))
 trauma_info-subscribe@lists.riseup.net (send blank email to receive irreg­u­lar info (low traf­fic))