Update Australia Action — woodchip arson, Tasmania

anony­mous com­mu­nique:

“On the morn­ing of Thurs­day the 31th of July, the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front attacked the Vic­to­ri­an office of Gunns Ltd with molo­tov cock­tails, caus­ing exten­sive fire dam­age. This was an act of eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage and resis­tance against the pro­posed Tamar Val­ley Pulp Mill, an eco-cidal project which would cause dis­as­trous and irre­versible dam­age to the ancient and pre­cious eco-sys­tem of Tas­ma­nia.

anony­mous com­mu­nique:

“On the morn­ing of Thurs­day the 31th of July, the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front attacked the Vic­to­ri­an office of Gunns Ltd with molo­tov cock­tails, caus­ing exten­sive fire dam­age. This was an act of eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage and resis­tance against the pro­posed Tamar Val­ley Pulp Mill, an eco-cidal project which would cause dis­as­trous and irre­versible dam­age to the ancient and pre­cious eco-sys­tem of Tas­ma­nia.

This mill’s hunger for wood­chips would mean a dou­bling of the already immense cur­rent rate of wood-chipping[1], rav­aging the native forests of the North-East of the state. It would bring the Tas­man­ian Wedge-tailed eagle, the Spot­ted Tail Quoll and the Giant Fresh-Water Cray­fish to the brink of extinction[2]. It would spew 30 bil­lion litres of diox­in and furan laced efflu­ent into the Bass Straight every year[3], con­sume up to 40 bil­lion litres of fresh water[4], and con­tribute great­ly to cli­mate change[5].

We will not accept Gunns’s con­tin­u­al assault on Tasmania’s old growth forests, wildlife, water sup­plies and car­bon sinks. More extreme forms of eco-cide call for more extreme forms of protest.

We will not cease until Gunns aban­dons its con­tro­ver­sial Tamar Val­ley Pulp Mill.

In defense of our Earth,

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front.

[1] Gunns Ltd. Bell Bay Pulp Mill, Draft Inte­grat­ed Impact State­ment.
[2] Gunns’s refer­ral under the EPBC Act, April 2007.
[3] Uni­ver­si­ty of Mel­bourne and Forestry Tas­ma­nia 2003: Bekessy tran­scripts, Wielang­ta court case 2006.
[4] Gunns Ltd. Bell Bay Pulp Mill, Draft Inte­grat­ed Impact State­ment.
[5] Trees- The for­got­ten solu­tion to cli­mate change; The Wilder­ness Soci­ety, 2006.”

Spirit of Freedom (August 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)

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)

Wel­come to the August 2008 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. As peo­ple will soon see, ELP’s pris­on­er lists have grown yet again. If we exclude the Geek anar­chist, Vagge­lis Botzatzis, and the two Amer­i­cans Richard Sills and Michael Sykes (all of whom are list­ed by ELP as ‘Oth­er Pris­on­ers’), there are now 40 list­ed ani­mal & earth lib­er­a­tion pris­on­ers in Europe & Amer­i­ca.
There are also a num­ber of non-list­ed pris­on­ers, who are not list­ed either by their own choice, or because they betrayed their fel­low activists and became infor­mants. And remem­ber these num­bers do not include those peo­ple who are either under House Arrest or on Bail pend­ing Tri­al. Nor do they include the activists whose loca­tions are cur­rent­ly unknown and who are described by the police as “on the run”. See­ing so many good peo­ple removed from their fam­i­lies & loved ones for mere­ly act­ing out of com­pas­sion and a desire to stop envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and ani­mal abuse is heart­break­ing.
Some of the pris­on­ers ELP lists are very well known, oth­ers are less well known. How­ev­er ALL of them deserve our love and sup­port. ALL of the list­ed pris­on­ers wel­come let­ters of sup­port. Even if it’s just a card say­ing “Hi. I’m think­ing of you”. So please, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the eco-pris­on­ers. And no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

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

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

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

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

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

Rod Coro­n­a­do — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jonathan Paul — See details in Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Pris­on­ers List.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel McGowan — See details in Eco Defence Pris­on­ers List.

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

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

Jonathan Paul, #07167–085, FCI Phoenix, Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, 37910 N 45th Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85086, USA. Sen­tenced to 51 months for an ALF arson on a horse meat plant. Also admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF con­spir­a­cy. (Jonathan is a veg­an).

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

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

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

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

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

PLOUGHSHARES PRISONERS

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

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

ANTIFA PRISONERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OTHER PRISONERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

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

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SAVING ICELAND BLOCKADES RIO TINTO-ALCAN’S SMELTER IN ICELAND

Aug 01 2008
“STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF ÞJÓRSÁ FOR ARMS PRODUCTION!”

Rio-Tinto/Alcan blockadeAug 01 2008
“STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF ÞJÓRSÁ FOR ARMS PRODUCTION!”

HAFNARFJORDUR, ICELAND — Activists from Sav­ing Ice­land have today begun stop­ping traf­fic to and from Rio Tinto-Alcan’s alu­mini­um smelter in Straumsvík, Haf­nar­fjor­dur, by chain­ing them­selves to the gates of the plant. Sav­ing Ice­land is protest­ing against Rio Tinto-Alcan’s plans to increase their alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty on the island, the con­se­quences of which would would be that sig­nif­i­cant parts of Iceland’s unique envi­ron­ment would have to be destroyed for ener­gy gen­er­a­tion. The activists are also protest­ing against the worlds largest alu­mini­um producer’s involve­ment with the arms indus­try.

Rio Tin­to-Alcan wants to increase its pro­duc­tion in Straumsvík by 40 thou­sand tons per year with­out enlarg­ing the smelter build­ing itself. At the same time the com­pa­ny is plan­ning to build a sec­ond alu­mini­um smelter in the towns of Keil­isnes or Þor­lák­shöfn (1).

Reyk­javík Ener­gy (Orku­vei­ta Reyk­javíkur) pulled out from an ener­gy deal with Rio Tin­to-Alcan because of strong pub­lic oppo­si­tion to their expan­sion, result­ing in the geot­her­mal­ly active Bitra moun­tain being saved.(2)

At the same time, Landsvirkjun (the nation­al ener­gy com­pa­ny) is plan­ning to go ahead with the con­struc­tion of three dams in the Thjórsá riv­er, south Ice­land, as well as one in the adjoin­ing Tung­naá riv­er. They have already signed an ener­gy expan­sion con­tract with Rio Tin­to-Alcan (4). In Decem­ber 2006, the two com­pa­nies signed a con­tract which stat­ed that Rio Tin­to-Alcan would share the cost of the three dams in Thjórsá (5).

Cor­rup­tion in Haf­nar­fjörður
In the end of March 2007, a pub­lic ref­er­en­dum took place in Haf­nar­fjör­dur, where a major­i­ty in the city vot­ed against the enlarge­ment of their Rio Tinto-Alcan’s smelter. Lúd­vík Geirs­son, may­or of Haf­nar­fjör­dur, said that the ref­er­en­dum was a “vic­to­ry for democ­ra­cy” and added that he would fol­low the con­clu­sion (6). Rio Tin­to-Alcan announced that they were then con­sid­er­ing to move their pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty to to Thor­lák­shöfn.

Only three months lat­er, Lúd­vík sat at a meet­ing with Ran­nveig Rist, direc­tor of Alcan in Ice­land, and Michael Jacques, direc­tor of Alcan Pri­ma­ry Met­al Group, where they dis­cussed the future of Alcan in Ice­land. One idea dis­cussed was to increase the Straumsvik smelter’s capac­i­ty into the sea, on top of a land­fill mound, rather than onto a lava rock area cleared by Alcan in antic­i­pa­tion of a pos­i­tive result from the ref­er­en­dum (7). Many see this as a betray­al of the ref­er­en­dum spir­it, which was not in regards to the speci­fici­ties of Alcan’s expan­sion but their expan­sion alto­geth­er.

“Is this real­ly what Geirs­son calls the ‘vic­to­ry of democ­ra­cy’? Bro­ken promis­es?” says Snor­ri Páll Jóns­son Úlfhildar­son, from Sav­ing Ice­land. “His behav­iour show clear­ly how much pow­er the alu­mini­um cor­po­ra­tions have here in Ice­land. The author­i­ties seem to not dare to speak or act against these cor­po­ra­tions will.”

Alcan’s links with the arms indus­try
August 30th, 2006, Alcan signed a long-term con­tract for their involve­ment with the pro­duc­tion of the F‑35 Join­t­er Strike Fight­er, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the arms pro­duc­ers Lock­heed Mar­tin, Nothrop-Grum­man and BAE Sys­tems (8).

“This is not a respectable com­pa­ny” says Sofie Larsen from Sav­ing Ice­land. “Until now, Alcoa has got the most atten­tion here in Ice­land when it comes to the links between alu­mini­um pro­duc­tion and the arms indus­try. Yet, Alcan is no bet­ter at all, since the com­pa­ny is con­tract­ed to sev­er­al dif­fer­ent weapon pro­duc­ers.”

Alcan pro­duces alu­minum for EADS (Euro­pean Aero­space and Defense and Space) (9), whose line of mil­i­tary heli­copters and fight­er jets includes the Eurofight­er Tycoon, Mirage F1 and EF18 Hor­net. EADS is also a lead in the pro­duc­tion of mis­siles (10).

“On it’s web­site, EADS claims that the company’s prod­uct is only sold to coun­tries who ´guar­an­tee a respon­si­ble approach to high-tech mil­i­tary air sys­tems´” says Sofie, ”but on the same site, one can find videos which glo­ri­fy Nazi Germany’s air­force (11). What kind of ethics is that?”

The damming of Thjórsá riv­er
Despite strong local resis­tance from farm­ers unwill­ing to give up their land for Rio Tinto-Alcan’s expan­sion, Landsvirkjun have been work­ing full time to push through the four dam project. Landsvirkjun has again and again gone up to the riv­er, try­ing to get farm­ers to agree with the con­struc­tion. When they received a let­ter signed by nine of the ten farm­ers affect­ed by the Urridafoss water­fall Thjórsá dam, stat­ing that they refused to par­tic­i­pate in any fur­ther dis­cus­sions with the ener­gy agency, Landsvirkjun threat­ened to force­ful­ly expro­pri­ate their land.

Recent­ly the dis­trict coun­cil of Flóahrep­pur made an agree­ment with Landsvirkjun to include the Urridafoss dam into their dis­trict plan. Jón Árni Vig­nis­son, a farmer who lives by Thjórsá, said that they had done so after Landsvirkjun had promised to pump funds into a vari­ety of their minor infra­struc­ture projects: road, water sup­ply and mobile phone recep­tion improve­ments (12). Essen­tial­ly, the local gov­ern­ment had been bribed.

The enlarge­ment of Rio Tinto-Alcan’s capac­i­ties in Ice­land and the damming of the Thjórsá riv­er are high­ly cor­rupt projects which Sav­ing Ice­land demands the imme­di­ate halt­ing of.

Ref­er­ences:

(1) Mbl.is, Álfram­leiðs­la hjá Alcan aukin um 22 prósent, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(2) Mbl.is, Fyrirhugaðar framkvæmdir og orkusala hal­dast í hen­dur, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(3) Mbl.is, 200 mw orkusala úr sögun­ni, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(4) Vísir.is, Alcan kep­pir áfram um orku Þjórsár, http://visir.is/article/20070909/FRETTIR…
(5) Heimasíða Rio Tin­to-Alcan á Íslan­di, http://www.riotintoalcan.is/?PageID=12&a…
(6 )Mbl.is, Sig­ur fyrir lýðræðið, http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/200…
(7) Mbl.is, Álver á land­fyllingu, http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2007/06…
(8) Vef­síða Alcan, http://www.alcan.com/web/publishing.nsf/…(JSF
(9) Vef­síða ABC Mon­ey, http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/132007869…
(10) Vef­síða EADS, http://www.eads.com/1024/en/businet/defe…
(11) Myn­d­band sem segir sögu EADS, http://www.eads.com/xml/content/OF000000…
(12) Sunnlen­s­ka Frét­tablaðið, 30. tölublað, Eigum mar­ga aðra valkosti, bls. 8–9, 24. Júlí 2008

Cobham, Surrey : Activists Blockade Cargill Europe Head Office

1.08.2008
Since 7.50 am this morn­ing, 20 par­tic­i­pants in this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action and mem­bers of Action Against Agro­fu­els have been blockad­ing the only access gate to Cargill’s Euro­pean region­al head office in Cob­ham, Sur­rey. 8 activists have locked on to the gates clos­ing the site down com­plete­ly. Agrobusi­ness giant Cargill are being tar­get­ed by the pro­test­ers for their role in rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing as well as for prof­i­teer­ing from the food cri­sis.

Cargill blockade, Cobham1.08.2008
Since 7.50 am this morn­ing, 20 par­tic­i­pants in this year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action and mem­bers of Action Against Agro­fu­els have been blockad­ing the only access gate to Cargill’s Euro­pean region­al head office in Cob­ham, Sur­rey. 8 activists have locked on to the gates clos­ing the site down com­plete­ly. Agrobusi­ness giant Cargill are being tar­get­ed by the pro­test­ers for their role in rain­for­est destruc­tion and land-grab­bing as well as for prof­i­teer­ing from the food cri­sis.

Han­nah Ritchie from the group says: “Cargill is using the boom in agro­fu­els to expand soya, palm oil and sug­ar plan­ta­tions, dis­plac­ing com­mu­ni­ties, food crops and destroy­ing ecosys­tems. Destroy­ing rain­forests and oth­er bio­di­verse ecosys­tems, includ­ing healthy soils, is one of the quick­est ways of heat­ing the plan­et. This is why we are blockad­ing the Cargill office two days before the offi­cial start of the Cli­mate Camp at Kingsnorth.”

Accord­ing to the UN World Food Pro­gramme, 100 mil­lion more peo­ple are going hun­gry as food prices have risen by 83% in three years. At the same time, Cargill’s prof­its have risen to record lev­els, going up by 86% in just nine months, since the com­pa­ny is prof­i­teer­ing from high food prices.

Jor­dan Craig says: “For com­pa­nies like Cargill, agro­fu­els are an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make more prof­its from food, to take over more land from small farm­ers and com­mu­ni­ties and to fur­ther destroy local food pro­duc­tion. This is why we need an imme­di­ate halt to gov­ern­ment poli­cies such as the manda­to­ry blend­ing of petrol and diesel with bio­fu­els in the UK, as well as an end to ‘free trade’ food and agri­cul­tur­al poli­cies which sole­ly boost the pow­er and the prof­its of agribusi­ness­es like Cargill. Instead of agro­fu­els, we need to have poli­cies that sup­port Food Sov­er­eign­ty, i.e. which put peo­ple’s right to food first and sup­port small-scale, bio­di­verse, organ­ic farm­ing, instead of ener­gy-inten­sive agri­cul­ture.”

Con­tacts:

Par­tic­i­pants in the action can be con­tact­ed at the fol­low­ing num­bers 07527–124478 or 07964–068147

Notes:

1. Agro­fu­els are bio­fu­els made from crops and trees grown on mono­cul­tures for that pur­pose.

2. Cargill owns 25% of shares in the UK’s biggest bio­fu­el sup­pli­er, Green­er­gy Inter­na­tion­al. They have major invest­ments in US corn ethanol, Brazil­ian sug­ar cane ethanol, as well as palm oil and soya, and they are involved in joint ven­tures to devel­op GM agro­fu­els. Cargill is the world’s biggest grain trad­er, the biggest exporter of sug­ar cane and soy­bean from Brazil, the biggest soy­bean crush­er in Paraguay and one of the world’s five largest palm oil traders.

3. For more infor­ma­tion about the harm which Cargill is caus­ing to com­mu­ni­ties and ecosys­tems in Brazil, Paraguay and Papua New Guinea, see http://understory.ran.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/cargill_letter1.pdf

www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

Cambridge Mill Road Social Centre evicted but car-park squatted

On Fri­day 1st around 9AM, police and bailiffs kicked down the door to the social cen­tre and start­ed evict­ing peo­ple from the premis­es. No advance warn­ing was giv­en. It goes to show that Tesco can nev­er be trust­ed, as they reneged on their promise not to take pos­ses­sion of the build­ing before they need­ed to start build­ing.

On Fri­day 1st around 9AM, police and bailiffs kicked down the door to the social cen­tre and start­ed evict­ing peo­ple from the premis­es. No advance warn­ing was giv­en. It goes to show that Tesco can nev­er be trust­ed, as they reneged on their promise not to take pos­ses­sion of the build­ing before they need­ed to start build­ing.

Tesco were obvi­ous­ly very con­fi­dent that the pre­vi­ous night’s plan­ning meet­ing (to allow them to build waste and air­co facil­i­ties) would find in their favour. As it turned out, their appli­ca­tion was turned down. No doubt Mill Road­’s Broad­way will soon sport a set of shiny met­al win­dow boards.

—

We cor­doned off part of the car park behind the evict­ed mill road social cen­tre, and are now squat­ting the site.

At 3:15pm today (Fri­day) we cor­doned off part of the car park behind the evict­ed mill road social cen­ter, so at to make a clear bound­ary, and are now squat­ting the site. Please feel free to come and join us. As it is open air, accom­mo­da­tion is camp­ing. If any­one has any spare tar­pau­lin they could give/lend us this would be use­ful.

Bicyclists Attack Failed Businesses With Seeds, Art

Fri­day, August 1st — “We don’t need anoth­er park­ing lot” read one of over 30 sten­ciled card­board signs erect­ed Fri­day evening across the fences of var­i­ous failed busi­ness­es through­out San­ta Cruz by a group of bicy­clists as part of a “Going Out of Busi­ness & Green Futures” com­mu­ni­ty ride.

Parking lot stencilFri­day, August 1st — “We don’t need anoth­er park­ing lot” read one of over 30 sten­ciled card­board signs erect­ed Fri­day evening across the fences of var­i­ous failed busi­ness­es through­out San­ta Cruz by a group of bicy­clists as part of a “Going Out of Busi­ness & Green Futures” com­mu­ni­ty ride.

Part protest against car cul­ture, part liv­ing art project, and part prank, the group of about 20 bicy­clists vis­it­ed the sites of for­mer gas sta­tions, dri­ve thrus, autodeal­er­ships, and more, plant­i­ng wild flower seeds, and oth­er dec­o­ra­tions depict­ing a dete­ri­o­rat­ing econ­o­my and hopes for a green­er, wilder future. “Prop­er­ty is Theft”, “My heroes car­ry guns in the their minds”, and “Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Com­ing Soon!” read some of the signs post­ed out­side fenced off build­ings and pave­ment crack­ing open with weeds.

The ride was in response to a state­ment sent by the Cor­po­rate Rulers of Amer­i­ca that read:

“To the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States,

Due to cir­cum­stances beyond our con­trol, we regret to inform you that we will no longer be able to con­tin­ue run­ning this coun­try as all of our assets are no longer viable.

Effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly, we will no longer be pro­vid­ing you with low-wage mean­ing­less jobs, cheap gaso­line, or hours upon hours of info­tain­ment. Fur­ther­more, we can­not guar­an­tee that the remain­der of our mass pro­duced prod­ucts are of any qual­i­ty beyond the val­ue assumed by our cor­po­rate logos, nor are they envi­ron­men­tal­ly safe. We also can­not guar­an­tee that your pen­sions will be paid, that your sav­ings are secure, or that you’ll be get­ting the best health care in the indus­tri­al­ized world. In fact, to be com­plete­ly hon­est, we’ve nev­er real­ly meant any­thing we’ve said but do thank you for believ­ing in us nonethe­less.

We here­by relin­quish all deeds of pri­vate prop­er­ty and assume no respon­si­bil­i­ty with what hap­pens to it from here on out.

Final­ly, we’d like to thank you for all your years of ser­vice and sac­ri­fice, but most of all, thank you for your obe­di­ence to our way of life, we seri­ous­ly could­n’t have done it with­out you. We wish you the best of luck. You’re on your own.

Sin­cere­ly,
Cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca”

By Sat­ur­day after­noon, most of the signs had been removed…But the seeds have been sown.

More words & pho­tos

Office Attacked in Protest of Pulp Mill

“On the morn­ing of Thurs­day the 31th of July, the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front attacked the Vic­to­ri­an office of Gunns Ltd. This was an act of eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage and resis­tance against the pro­posed Tamar Val­ley Pulp Mill, an eco-cidal project which would cause dis­as­trous and irre­versible dam­age to the ancient and pre­cious eco-sys­tem of Tas­ma­nia.

“On the morn­ing of Thurs­day the 31th of July, the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front attacked the Vic­to­ri­an office of Gunns Ltd. This was an act of eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage and resis­tance against the pro­posed Tamar Val­ley Pulp Mill, an eco-cidal project which would cause dis­as­trous and irre­versible dam­age to the ancient and pre­cious eco-sys­tem of Tas­ma­nia.

This mill’s hunger for wood­chips would mean a dou­bling of the already immense cur­rent rate of wood-chipping[1], rav­aging the native forests of the North-East of the state. It would bring the Tas­man­ian Wedge-tailed eagle, the Spot­ted Tail Quoll and the Giant Fresh-Water Cray­fish to the brink of extinction[2]. It would spew 30 bil­lion litres of diox­in and furan laced efflu­ent into the Bass Straight every year[3], con­sume up to 40 bil­lion litres of fresh water[4], and con­tribute great­ly to cli­mate change[5].

We will not accept Gunns’s con­tin­u­al assault on Tasmania’s old growth forests, wildlife, water sup­plies and car­bon sinks. More extreme forms of eco-cide call for more extreme forms of protest.

We will not cease until Gunns aban­dons its con­tro­ver­sial Tamar Val­ley Pulp Mill.

In defense of our Earth,

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front.

[1] Gunns Ltd. Bell Bay Pulp Mill, Draft Inte­grat­ed Impact State­ment.
[2] Gunns’s refer­ral under the EPBC Act, April 2007.
[3] Uni­ver­si­ty of Mel­bourne and Forestry Tas­ma­nia 2003: Bekessy tran­scripts, Wielang­ta court case 2006.
[4] Gunns Ltd. Bell Bay Pulp Mill, Draft Inte­grat­ed Impact State­ment.
[5] Trees- The for­got­ten solu­tion to cli­mate change; The Wilder­ness Soci­ety, 2006.”

Report­ed anony­mous­ly by Bite Back

DC Students for a Democratic Society & Potomac Earth First! Funk I‑69

July 31, 2008

Smash I-69 bannerJuly 31, 2008
Resis­tance to the con­struc­tion of Inter­state 69 con­tin­ued nation­al­ly on Mon­day as near­ly 100 peo­ple took over K Street in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. to demon­strate their oppo­si­tion to NAFTA & I‑69. SDSers, Potomac EF!ers, and oth­ers danced in the streets, hand­ed out hun­dreds of fliers and stick­ers about I‑69, and held cor­po­ra­tions pub­licly account­able for their com­plic­i­ty in I‑69 and the Plan Puebla Pana­ma. Dis­tract­ing the police with their funky dance moves, the crowd was able to storm the Cato Insti­tute, a right-wing think tank respon­si­ble for forc­ing neolib­er­al ide­ol­o­gy down the throats of com­mu­ni­ties across the world, and left their pris­tine glass doors plas­tered with anti-I-69 stick­ers.

The row­dy crowd con­tin­ued to the offices of HNTB, a plan­ning firm respon­si­ble for I‑69, but were lim­it­ed to block­ing traf­fic and chant­i­ng by the line of riot police pro­tect­ing their cor­po­rate boss­es. The group final­ly danced its way down to the Wash­ing­ton Post, hold­ing the cor­po­rate apol­o­gist respon­si­ble for uncrit­i­cal­ly sup­port­ing neolib­er­al poli­cies and free trade agree­ments through­out the Amer­i­c­as. Once again, the crowd was almost obtained entrance to the offices, dis­tract­ing those inside and dis­rupt­ing work, but were forced down the stairs by a line of riot police.

The action forced hun­dreds of peo­ple to stop in their tracks (lit­er­al­ly, as traf­fic was stopped by a danc­ing recla­ma­tion of the streets), open their eyes, and learn about Inter­state 69. It also served as a reminder to those respon­si­ble for Inter­state 69: we know where you are, we will con­tin­ue to vis­it you wher­ev­er you hide, and all that pro­tects you are thin glass doors and a line of riot police. Cap­i­tal­ism may be glob­al­ized, but so is resis­tance.

Police invade Climate Camp — and FIT are ejected

2.08.2008
The For­ward Intel­li­gence Team made a for­ay onto the field today but were eject­ed from the field by campers.

Police incursionPolice try to nick climate camp plumbingClimate campers sit on woodpileWood chain from cops to camp2.08.2008
The For­ward Intel­li­gence Team made a for­ay onto the field today but were eject­ed from the field by campers.

Police still feel con­fi­dent to wan­der about the site in pairs — fol­lowed and escort­ed, natch — but the arrival of the FIT with cam­eras proved too much.

Accord­ing­ly they were sur­round­ed and eject­ed from the field today by the camp.

Num­bers are swelling — the clmate camp info line is very busy with last minute requests for direc­tions — and we will soon be empow­ered to reclaim absolute own­er­ship of the site.

———-

Activists dove under police vans and formed human chains to pre­vent them from get­ting on site, and peo­ple scram­bled up the dou­ble tripods — but campers were out­num­bered 3 to 1 by the police.

Although police claimed to be search­ing for mate­ri­als that could be used on the 9th August day of action, they also seized items such as guy-ropes for safe­ly secur­ing mar­quees, radios used in med­ical emer­gen­cies, and build­ing mate­ri­als essen­tial for the con­struc­tion of com­post toi­lets. The seizures went as far as the con­fis­ca­tion of such ridicu­lous items as a bicy­cle repair kit, three board games and a pack of chil­dren’s crayons.

But the real stand off took place over water pipes and wood for the kitchens. In a twist of supreme irony, as the coun­cil dug a pipeline to deliv­er fresh water, activists had to engage in a tug of war with the police to keep the water pipes on site — which they did suc­cess­ful­ly. And as the police brought in a flat-bed lor­ry to remove wood for the kitchens, activists climbed onto the wood­pile and pre­vent­ed it from being tak­en away.

As the police gave in and the lor­ry drove away, a cheer went up and campers imme­di­ate­ly formed a human chain to car­ry the wood up to the kitchens. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is for the time being a small police pres­ence on site.

Every­thing is now calm on site, but the raid has put the set-up back by half a day, so more peo­ple on site are need­ed to get the camp ready for this Sun­day. The big push will be hap­pen­ing over Fri­day and Sat­ur­day as the major­i­ty of mate­ri­als arrive, and there’s plen­ty of work to be done — so come on down!

31.07.2008
This after­noon over 100 police offi­cers invad­ed the Cli­mate Camp, claim­ing to search for mate­r­i­al that could be used for crim­i­nal dam­age. Since there are only around 150 peo­ple cur­rent­ly on site, more peo­ple are urgent­ly need­ed to make the site more secure. There are reports that sev­er­al peo­ple were arrest­ed.

Activists who blocked police vehi­cles were removed in a very heavy hand­ed man­ner. The names and details of many peo­ple were tak­en. Mate­ri­als were removed from site, includ­ing a wet suit. All the while, a police heli­copter was in the sky over the camp.

Police have now left.

—

IMC time­line:

19:10 — Police num­bers on site are now sub­stan­tial­ly reduced but they have installed a mobile police sta­tion at the entrance to the camp and there is talk of a per­ma­nent patrol. Campers cur­rent­ly nego­ti­at­ing the return of the prop­er­ty stolen by police, much of which is essen­tial to set­ting up the camp infra­struc­ture.

18.36 — The wood pile has been saved. Peo­ple sat on the wood­pile pro­tect­ing it and even­tu­al­ly the police gave up and sent the recov­ery vehi­cle away. The seizure of water pipe was also attempt­ed but stopped by peo­ple sit­ting on it.

18.15 — Cur­rent­ly the police are remov­ing the pile of con­struc­tion wood using a 24 hour recov­ery vehi­cle. Oth­er con­fis­cat­ed items now include: lots of rope, lots of tools, 3 boardgames, a lad­der, boil­er suits, flares. Police have emp­tied entire vans. Half of the police have gone off-site, the oth­er half stopped the search but are still on-site. So far 2 peo­ple have been arrest­ed, 1 for stop­ping police from going into their tent (obstruc­tion).

16.40 — Over 200 police offi­cers have entered the site with vehi­cles and a police heli­copter is hov­er­ing over­head. Police were issued with a war­rant for the search­ing and seiz­ing of arti­cles for use in crim­i­nal dam­age. Con­fis­cat­ed items have includ­ed: planks of wood, car­pet and a war-on-ter­ror boardgame. Every tent is being searched. Peo­ple are up in the tripods. Some offi­cers are report­ed act­ing aggres­sive­ly towards peo­ple try­ing to resist the search. For­ward Intel­li­gence Teams (FIT) are walk­ing around the site pho­tograph­ing and film­ing peo­ple.

—

Any mate­ri­als relat­ing to the Day of Action, includ­ing things that appear to be innocu­ous (oars, inflat­a­bles, pumps, D‑locks for bikes and so on) may be seized by the police.

You may like to store such items off­site for col­lec­tion at a lat­er date.

Eviction Postponed for Wembley Sports Ground; New Threats

On Wednes­day morn­ing the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground occu­piers and local busi­ness­es saw off coun­cil work­ers, who came to evict the local busi­ness­es as part of a sim­plis­tic divide-and-con­quer manoeu­ver, but were forced to back off and post­pone the evic­tion ’til Fri­day.

On Wednes­day morn­ing the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground occu­piers and local busi­ness­es saw off coun­cil work­ers, who came to evict the local busi­ness­es as part of a sim­plis­tic divide-and-con­quer manoeu­ver, but were forced to back off and post­pone the evic­tion ’til Fri­day.

Last Sat­ur­day, the 26th, saw a new group occu­py the Wem­b­ley Sports Ground. The group, called GRASS (Grass-Roots Alliance for Social Spaces), claims that the con­struc­tion of a new Acad­e­my on the grounds will close them off from the local com­mu­ni­ty and exclude many chil­dren and young peo­ple from using it. With dwin­dling com­mu­ni­ty resources due to fund­ing cuts across the nation (to help pay for the Olympics), and reports of ris­ing youth crime and vio­lence all over Lon­don, the group says that exclud­ing even more young peo­ple from safe social spaces could dri­ve them to the streets, and towards vio­lent gang crime.

On Mon­day, con­struc­tion work­ers and land sur­vey­ors attempt­ed to enter the site, and found them­selves faced with locals and campers, as well as a large tire bar­ri­cade. The locals chat­ted to the work­ers and informed them of what was going on, while the campers buck­led down in front of the gate. The work­ers left and every­one had a nice drink in the sun.

After this, the coun­cil decid­ed to try out the usu­al tac­tics of author­i­ty every­where, and informed the busi­ness­es on the site (four in all: the foot­ball ground, a kids’ nurs­ery, a motor­bike dri­ving school and a car­wash) that they must leave by Wednes­day 9am. Any­one could see this as an attempt to turn busi­ness­es against com­mu­ni­ty, and the plan back­fired as the busi­ness­es held a meet­ing and decid­ed to resist, along with the camp occu­piers. On Wednes­day morn­ing a coun­cil work­er, along with a legal aide, arrived on site and informed the busi­ness­es that their evic­tion has been post­poned until Fri­day morn­ing.

Brent Coun­cil is in deep trou­ble, as they have already promised sev­er­al par­ents that their chil­dren have places in the unbuilt school, which is due to open at the begin­ning of the school year in Sep­tem­ber. With less than five weeks to go, it has become abun­dant­ly clear that the pri­vate­ly-owned and run acad­e­my (fund­ed by ARK, a chil­dren’s “char­i­ty” man­aged by sev­er­al rich busi­ness­men, includ­ing Arpad Bus­son) will not be built in time. Sources say that the plan is for sev­er­al por­ta­cab­ins to be laid out to start with, while the school itself will be built around the stu­dents dur­ing the school year.

Mean­while, the cam­paign by locals to keep their sports­ground open and free of pri­va­tised edu­ca­tion has been going for the past two years, as con­sul­ta­tions with the com­mu­ni­ty have result­ed in open mass oppo­si­tion to the idea. The coun­cil, how­ev­er, has steam­rollered over the opin­ions of local peo­ple and went ahead with the plan.

Tomor­row is Fri­day, and there are reports of sev­er­al coun­ter­mea­sures being con­truct­ed to stop the bailiffs from evict­ing the camp­ground and busi­ness­es. If you are inter­est­ed in com­ing along to help, there are plen­ty of tents and sleep­ing bags, and you will be made wel­come. The sports ground is on Forty Avenue, Wem­b­ley Park Sta­tion being the near­est tube. For infor­ma­tion and direc­tions, please call 07533192116.