Iceland camp closes — actions continue — arrest update

Protest Camp Clos­es but Actions Con­tin­ue

27 July 2007

Today we wrapped our protest camp at Bringur, Mos­fell­shei­di, but we are not through with this sum­mers actions.

This means that if you are plan­ning to join us in our fight against heavy indus­try in Ice­land you are not too late. We have plen­ty of ener­gy left and loads of tar­gets to protest at.

Write to us at savingiceland@riseup.net if you want to find us or call 8572692.

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Locals of Haf­nar­fjor­dur Protest Against May­or’s Betray­al of ALCAN Ref­er­en­dum

26 July 2007

Locals in Haf­nar­fjor­dur protest­ed on Thurs­day against the Coun­cil’s attempts to betray the results of the local ref­er­en­dum in March about the enlarge­ment of the ALCAN smelter which is sit­u­at­ed in near­by Straumsvik.

In spite of a mas­sive PR cam­paign paid for by ALCAN (includ­ing an ille­gal gath­er­ing by ALCAN of per­son­al data about indi­vid­u­als in Haf­nar­fjor­dur) the major­i­ty of the inhab­i­tants reject­ed the enlarge­ment.

After the ref­er­en­dum both ALCAN and the May­or of Haf­nar­fjor­dur, Lud­vik Geirs­son, issued a series of con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments claim­ing that the results of the ref­er­en­dum were not legal­ly bind­ing.

Lat­er they sur­faced with the idea that the ref­er­en­dum only applied to a plan­ning per­mis­sion of a cer­tain spot by the exist­ing fac­to­ry and that noth­ing could stop it being built on a land­fill on the oth­er side of the fac­to­ry. (1)

The locals dropped two dif­fer­ent ban­ners. One stat­ing that ‘NO MEANS NO — ENLARGEMENT IS CRIMINAL’ and the oth­er say­ing ‘NIETSCHE KILLED GOD — LUDVIK KILLED DEMOCRACY’.

Sav­ing Ice­land wish to con­grat­u­late the inhab­i­tants of Haf­nar­fjor­dur for their con­tin­u­ing oppo­si­tion to the evil that has now meta­mor­phised into Rito Tin­to-ALCAN.

1.- See: ALCAN and May­or decide: To Hell with Democ­ra­cy in Haf­nar­fjör­dur!

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State Harass­ment of Sav­ing Ice­land Activists

Sav­ing Ice­land demands that:
*The activist cur­rent­ly in prison is either moved to a wom­ens prison with a full apol­o­gy or released imme­di­ate­ly for lack of state resources.
*All stolen pass­ports must be released imme­di­ate­ly, accord­ing to inter­na­tion­al law.
*An end to the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion and state harass­ment of envi­ron­men­tal activists.

The Ice­landic Police have stepped up their repres­sion of Sav­ing Ice­land activists whilst their 2007 Sum­mer protest camp fin­ish­es. [1] One activist has been refused the right to appeal her prison sen­tence and is cur­rent­ly in soli­tary con­fine­ment. Fif­teen have had their pass­ports stolen by the Police, who refuse to give any firm rea­sons as to why or when they will be returned. Five peo­ple were arrest­ed for putting up polit­i­cal street art, includ­ing the own­er of the build­ing that was to be paint­ed. Nine police vehi­cles turned up at a par­ty in which many SI activists were attend­ing and entered the build­ing with­out war­rant.

After being arrest­ed in the vicin­i­ty of the Rio Tin­to-Alcan alu­mini­um smelter in Straumsvik on the 24th of July [2], one activist had her sen­tence from the 2006 protest camp laid on her. Instead she was giv­en the choice to either imme­di­ate­ly pay 100,000 ISK or serve eight days in prison. She was refused her right to appeal, which would have giv­en her a month to choose her options. She chose to go to prison instead of pay­ing her fine. Now she is in Heg­ningarhusid, an all mens prison, and there­fore in soli­tary con­fine­ment.
”

“Why, if there were no spaces in a wom­en’s prison, and if she should have been giv­en her time of appeal, has she been rushed off into a mens prison, leav­ing her iso­lat­ed and in soli­tary con­fine­ment? This is ille­gal and feels like a polit­i­cal deci­sion designed to unfair­ly treat polit­i­cal activists.” says Sav­ing Iceland´s Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son

Fif­teen utlendi­gar (for­eign) activists have had their pass­ports siezed by the Reyk­javik Police Dep. After many con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments, Geir Jon, Head of Police, has stat­ed that all pass­ports will be sent to the Keflavik or Sey­d­is­fjor­dur police depart­ments who will return the pass­ports upon the activists depar­ture. We won­der whether this will be the case, or whether activists are to be kept in the coun­try ille­gal­ly until the time of their tri­al.

“Pass­ports are the prop­er­ty of the state that issues them, not the Ice­landic states to do with as they please. If some­one whose iden­ti­fi­ca­tion has been seized by the police needs urgent med­ical atten­tion or seeks a res­i­dents per­mit in Ice­land, for exam­ple, how are they to do this with­out their id?” says Úlfhildar­son

Four polit­i­cal street artists were about to apply paint to a wall in Lau­gave­g­ur, Reyk­javik, at 4am on the 28th of July, when they were sur­round­ed by nine spe­cial forces police. Whilst the own­er of the wall that was to be paint­ed made it clear that he gave full per­mis­sion to the artists, the police decid­ed to arrest not only the artists, but the own­er of the house too! In total, five were arrest­ed, pho­tographed, impris­oned for up to sev­en hours and final­ly released with­out charge.

On the same night a house par­ty in Selt­jarnar­ness which was attend­ed by Sav­ing Ice­land activists was sur­round­ed by police. Over twen­ty police­men in nine cars and vans turned up to tell the partiers to turn their music down. Also, two of the police­men were rel­a­tives of the peo­ple inside, one hav­ing been brought all the way from Haf­nar­fjor­dur. The police entered a wing of the house which was uncon­nect­ed to the par­ty with­out a war­rant.

Sav­ing Ice­land demands that:
*The activist cur­rent­ly in prison is either moved to a wom­ens prison with a full apol­o­gy or released imme­di­ate­ly for lack of state resources.
*All stolen pass­ports must be released imme­di­ate­ly, accord­ing to inter­na­tion­al law.
*An end to the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion and state harass­ment of envi­ron­men­tal activists.