Critical Mass and Carfree day in Brussels

What a week­end for cyclists. Fri­day evening and the reg­u­lar Brus­sels Crit­i­cal mass was held one week ear­ly to coin­cide with mobil­i­ty week. Around 80 cyclists sprout­ed up at the Porte de Namur and reclaimed the streets of Brus­sels for an hour or two. This month there was a prac­ti­cal theme to cre­ate a DIY cycle lane. Recent­ly the Major of the city decid­ed that the cycle lane along the main boule­vard through cen­tral Brus­sels was a men­ace to traf­fic and even encour­aged cyclist to get in the way of hon­est car dri­ving cit­i­zens. What to do when that Major takes away the cycle path. A sim­ple ques­tion, you get togeth­er with your friends and paint it back again. Get­ting rid of the cycle hat­ing Major will prob­a­bly be the next step but that’s anoth­er action.

Brussels Critical Mass 1
Brussels Critical Mass 2
Brussels Critical Mass 3
Brussels Critical Mass 4
What a week­end for cyclists. Fri­day evening and the reg­u­lar Brus­sels Crit­i­cal mass was held one week ear­ly to coin­cide with mobil­i­ty week. Around 80 cyclists sprout­ed up at the Porte de Namur and reclaimed the streets of Brus­sels for an hour or two. This month there was a prac­ti­cal theme to cre­ate a DIY cycle lane. Recent­ly the Major of the city decid­ed that the cycle lane along the main boule­vard through cen­tral Brus­sels was a men­ace to traf­fic and even encour­aged cyclist to get in the way of hon­est car dri­ving cit­i­zens. What to do when that Major takes away the cycle path. A sim­ple ques­tion, you get togeth­er with your friends and paint it back again. Get­ting rid of the cycle hat­ing Major will prob­a­bly be the next step but that’s anoth­er action.

Brus­sels is a city of con­tra­dic­tions and for Sat­ur­day lunch time the city invit­ed cyclists for a sump­tu­ous nosh up. Any­one who was a cyclist was wel­come to help them­selves. A won­der­ful feast for non veg­e­tar­i­an wine lovers and the deserts were out of this world. Not so good on the cycle lanes but the free food almost makes up for it.

Sun­day was the car­free day and it real­ly was car­free in the whole city, not just one or two streets. It’s hard to describe the dif­fer­ence ban­ish­ing the cars can make to a city. Brus­sels, if only for one day became a place for peo­ple. Swarms of cyclists filled the streets peo­ple on foot could and did move about with­out risk of being run over by impa­tient dri­vers. The sun was shin­ing the air was clean for once and the angry honk­ing of car horns beau­ti­ful­ly absent. If only every day could be like this. The street is a place for peo­ple, city chil­dren need to play and a cup of cof­fee on a pave­ment café some­how tastes bet­ter when there isn’t traf­fic roar­ing by a few feet away. This might just be my opin­ion but the peo­ple of Brus­sels did seem to agree with me, well at least the ones who still remem­ber how to move about with­out a car.

Also for mobil­i­ty week the Brus­sels based envi­ron­men­tal group, Auto-nomie pre­sent­ed an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly car, tru­ly an envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly car. Zero emis­sions is a thing of the past, this car has neg­a­tive emis­sions. If you care about the plan­et but still want a car that turns heads this is the mod­el for you and the con­ver­sion is cheap and easy. Take out the engine replace is with a few wheel­bar­rows full of good qual­i­ty soil and plant your favorite fruits and veg­eta­bles. Cruis­ing through the streets of Brus­sels in a cus­tomized car like no oth­er is the way to go. When your friends get tired of push­ing what bet­ter way of revi­tal­iz­ing them than a tasty car grown straw­ber­ry. The car was on dis­play in cen­tral Brus­sels all last week.

Join Big Blockade of Faslane Nuclear Base 1st October

Hun­dreds of peace activists will risk arrest on Octo­ber 1st when over a thou­sand peo­ple are expect­ed to join in a “Big Block­ade” of Faslane Naval Base. This will be the cul­mi­na­tion of the Faslane 365 year of actions against Tri­dent, Britain’s weapon of mass destruc­tion. Peo­ple and groups from all over Britain (and abroad) will use diverse non­vi­o­lent meth­ods to block the entrances to the nuclear base and dis­rupt the ongo­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent.

Faslane 365 logoHun­dreds of peace activists will risk arrest on Octo­ber 1st when over a thou­sand peo­ple are expect­ed to join in a “Big Block­ade” of Faslane Naval Base. This will be the cul­mi­na­tion of the Faslane 365 year of actions against Tri­dent, Britain’s weapon of mass destruc­tion. Peo­ple and groups from all over Britain (and abroad) will use diverse non­vi­o­lent meth­ods to block the entrances to the nuclear base and dis­rupt the ongo­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent.

As they have done over the past twelve months, the groups and indi­vid­u­als, who will include Mem­bers of the Scot­tish and Euro­pean Par­lia­ments and well-known singers and artists, will high­light the ille­gal­i­ty, inse­cu­ri­ty and waste of resources inher­ent in the deploy­ment and renew­al of Tri­dent. Through­out the day there will be colour­ful, cre­ative and dra­mat­ic actions at the gates, includ­ing many dif­fer­ent kinds of lock-ons and sit-downs.

“This Big Block­ade will be a car­ni­val of resis­tance to cel­e­brate Faslane 365’s achieve­ments in high­light­ing and dis­rupt­ing the ille­gal nuclear deploy­ments over the year,” said Dr Rebec­ca John­son from the Faslane 365 Steer­ing Group. “We will join togeth­er to mark the end of this year’s cam­paign­ing, and to make clear our deter­mi­na­tion to keep up pres­sure on the Scot­tish and UK gov­ern­ments to get rid of Tri­dent and to take the lead in mov­ing the world towards the total elim­i­na­tion of nuclear weapons, in accor­dance with the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty and the wish­es of the major­i­ty.”

As diverse groups of activists block­ade the gates, folk leg­ends Leon Rossel­son and Seize the Day will be pro­vid­ing music, and the renowned Roy Bai­ley and David Fer­rard will per­form songs from a forth­com­ing album about the Iraq War. A twelve-mem­ber choir will sing the ora­to­rio Tri­dent — A British War Crime, by Camil­la Can­can­ta­ta, first per­formed at the Edin­burgh High Court in 2005. The Rev. Kathy Gal­loway, leader of the Iona Com­mu­ni­ty, will cel­e­brate a com­mu­nion ser­vice at 10am at the North Gate with Cler­gy Action and Chris­t­ian CND. Sev­er­al Mem­bers of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment, includ­ing Marlyn Glen (Labour), Robin Harp­er (Green) and Patrick Harvie (Green), as well as Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cym­ru) have con­firmed their par­tic­i­pa­tion and will be avail­able for inter­views.

Since Faslane 365 start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006, thou­sands have par­tic­i­pat­ed and more than 950 peo­ple have been arrest­ed. Par­tic­i­pants have includ­ed elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Scot­tish, UK and Euro­pean Par­lia­ments and local coun­cils, Friends of the Earth, Green­peace, Bud­dhists, Chris­tians, ‘Uni­ty!’ union of asy­lum seek­ers, artists, writ­ers, aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents from the UK, Europe and Japan, atom­ic bomb sur­vivors from Nagasa­ki, teach­ers, lawyers, health pro­fes­sion­als and pen­sion­ers. Spe­cif­ic groups have come from many regions of Scot­land, Eng­land and Wales and from eleven oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries, as well as Japan and the Unit­ed States. Promi­nent par­tic­i­pants includ­ed the Bish­op of Read­ing Stephen Cot­terell, for­mer UN Assis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Prof Sir Richard Jol­ly, Nobel Peace Lau­re­ate Mairead Maguire, Adri­an Mitchell, A.L.Kennedy, actor Roger Lloyd Pack and singer-song­writer Bil­ly Bragg.

NVDA train­ings and acco­mo­da­tion will be Sun­day after­noon and evening in Glas­gow. Coach­es leave from Edin­burgh at 4:30 am and Glas­gow at 5:30am
Mon­day. For details and to book see www.faslane365.org/1Oct

For fur­ther back­ground infor­ma­tion on Tri­dent, a sum­ma­ry of the polit­i­cal con­text of the cam­paign, and a selec­tion of pho­tos from the year­long block­ade see the full Press Brief­ing Pack on the web­site. www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

Con­tacts: 0845 45 88 365 / 07733 360955 / 07768 312 676
info@www.faslane365.org
http://www.faslane365.org

Playing with Fire: The Story of Daniel McGowan, “eco-terrorism” and the Green Scare

Grow­ing up in New York City, Daniel McGowan saw first-hand how pol­lu­tion fogged the air and fouled the beach­es in some of the city’s poor­est com­mu­ni­ties, set­ting him on a life­long path of envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice. But how he end­ed up drenched in gaso­line and set­ting fire to Oregon’s Jef­fer­son Poplar Farms in 2001 and was lat­er tar­get­ed as a “domes­tic ter­ror­ist” is the sto­ry of some­one who cared too much and didn’t know what else to do.

Playing with Fire coverGrow­ing up in New York City, Daniel McGowan saw first-hand how pol­lu­tion fogged the air and fouled the beach­es in some of the city’s poor­est com­mu­ni­ties, set­ting him on a life­long path of envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice. But how he end­ed up drenched in gaso­line and set­ting fire to Oregon’s Jef­fer­son Poplar Farms in 2001 and was lat­er tar­get­ed as a “domes­tic ter­ror­ist” is the sto­ry of some­one who cared too much and didn’t know what else to do.

Born in Brook­lyn and raised in Queens’ Rock­away Beach, Daniel McGowan grew up sand­wiched between asphalt and the sky, in a for­est of build­ings and buzzing streets. Until Dec. 7, 2005, the 33-year-old with a round face and a chip­munk smile was most­ly known in local cir­cles for his involve­ment in a vari­ety of activist projects. Today, after a near­ly two-year legal bat­tle that saw him labeled an “eco-ter­ror­ist” by the U.S. gov­ern­ment, McGowan is serv­ing a sev­en-year sen­tence at a fed­er­al prison in Min­neso­ta on 15 counts of arson, attempt­ed arson and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit arson against two pri­vate com­pa­nies in Ore­gon in 2001.

McGowan, whose arrest shocked his fam­i­ly and friends, and his case was lumped togeth­er with nine oth­ers as part of the Fed­er­al Bureau of Investigation’s Oper­a­tion Back­fire, which pro­duced 65 indict­ments for actions at 17 tar­gets, includ­ing pri­vate com­pa­nies, uni­ver­si­ties and gov­ern­ment facil­i­ties across five states from 1996–2001, in what the FBI called a “cam­paign of domes­tic ter­ror­ism.” The actions were all claimed by the Envi­ron­men­tal Lib­er­a­tion Front (ELF) or the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front (ALF), an under­ground, decen­tral­ized move­ment of rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal­ists, which McGowan par­tic­i­pat­ed in between 1999 and 2001 while liv­ing in Eugene, Ore­gon.

“At a cer­tain point, I got involved in the ELF,” McGowan told The Indypen­dent at his Brook­lyn home in June, a few weeks before report­ing to prison. “At the time it seemed like a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion, but it also coin­cid­ed with my increas­ing grief and rage I was feel­ing about the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion I saw. I went to Ore­gon and I couldn’t believe how okay peo­ple were with what was going on. We’d dri­ve to the edge of town and you saw the log­ging mills, or you went into the for­est and stum­bled upon a clear cut. It just blew me away. I had to find a way to chan­nel that grief and rage.” The dilem­ma McGowan faced has trou­bled activists for gen­er­a­tions. When you try every form of “accept­able” advo­ca­cy to make change with lit­tle suc­cess, what do you do?

“A Cam­paign of Domes­tic Ter­ror­ism” In the mid­dle of the night on May 21, 2001, McGowan found him­self in the vehi­cle shop of Jef­fer­son Poplar Farms in of Clatskanie, a small town in north­west Ore­gon on the Colum­bia Riv­er. He had just fin­ished lay­ing out soaked gaso­line sheets and tow­els con­nect­ed to a home­made incen­di­ary device, designed to set fire to a fleet of SUVs and the com­pa­ny office. The pri­vate­ly owned facil­i­ty had been select­ed as an ELF tar­get because McGowan and his accom­plices believed it was involved in genet­ic research by grow­ing a hybrid vari­ety of poplar-cot­ton­wood trees that would help tim­ber com­pa­nies replace the region’s old-growth forests with com­mer­cial tree farms.

“We torched Jef­fer­son Poplar because hybrid poplars are an eco­log­i­cal night­mare threat­en­ing native bio­di­ver­si­ty in the ecosys­tem,” the sabo­teurs wrote in a com­mu­nique that was released after the action. “Our forests are being liq­ui­dat­ed and replaced with mono-cul­tured tree farms so greedy, earth-rap­ing cor­po­ra­tions can make more mon­ey.”

“At some lev­el, I thought it [ELF actions] was effec­tive,” McGowan said. “If I would have writ­ten a state­ment that I think genet­ic-engi­neered trees are bad and old­growth log­ging is bad and sent it to every media out­let in the coun­try, it wouldn’t have been paid atten­tion to,” he explained. “There is some­thing real­ly strange about when you attach a state­ment to an arson it sud­den­ly becomes news­wor­thy … it is like pro­pa­gan­da with teeth.”

For McGowan, the actions were part of his search for the right mix of tac­tics to make pos­i­tive change.

“For me, the actions were not grotesque or not about destroy­ing things. I had a hard time get­ting into the mind set to destroy oth­er people’s stuff or even liv­ing [genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied] organ­isms,” he said. “I would get sick before actions, get ner­vous — it was real­ly dif­fi­cult. But I did it because I felt that the oth­er things weren’t work­ing, and that while there was a pre­pon­der­ance of oth­er tac­tics being tried, these tac­tics weren’t being tried and I thought that maybe there is some­thing we can do to help the issue.”

Between 1996 and 2001, an under­ground cell of activists based in Eugene, Ore­gon, called “the Fam­i­ly” in gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments, tar­get­ed fed­er­al and uni­ver­si­ty research facil­i­ties, meat and lum­ber com­pa­nies, a car deal­er­ship, wild horse cor­rals and oth­er “earth rap­ers,” as described by com­mu­niques released at the time.

Accord­ing to the FBI, the string of high pro­file actions that hit 17 tar­gets in the Pacif­ic North­west in the late 1990s caused near­ly $80 mil­lion in prop­er­ty dam­age. These actions are only a few of the more than 600 inci­dents claimed by the ELF and ALF nation­wide since 1996. “I think that’s real­ly what all these actions are about — is real­ly get­ting pub­lic atten­tion to some of these issues,” said Jim Fly­nn, a Eugene-based envi­ron­men­tal­ist in a July 2007 USA Today arti­cle. “If we were able to affect pol­i­cy change through more legal means, then cer­tain­ly that’s the way these peo­ple would go. Nobody enjoys being under­ground, and that lifestyle.”

TO CONTINUE READING ARTICLE, VISIT: http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/enemy-of-the-state/

SIDEBAR ARTICLES:

Why Green Makes the Right See Red
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/why-green-makes-the-right-see-red/

The Birth of a Buzz­word: “Eco-ter­ror­ism”
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/the-birth-of-a-buzz-word-eco-terrorism/
NOTE: See Ron Arnold’s response)

The Net Widens: Free Speech on Tri­al
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/the-net-widens/

Under­ground Eco-defend­ers
http://www.indypendent.org/2007/09/15/underground-eco-defenders/

Please leave com­ments on the arti­cles if you want!

THE INDYPENDENT is the news­pa­per of the NEW YORK INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER — www.indypendent.org

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For his address to write to, oth­er eco-pris­on­ers, tips for writ­ing etc, go to http://www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

Sun 23rd Sep: Rally Against Olympic Evictions — on Allotment Demolition Day

Details of March & Ral­ly Against Olympic Evic­tions on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day — Sun­day 23rd Sept
Meet 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall

The demo will be in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er evict­ed groups such as Clays Lane Hous­ing Co-op who have already been evict­ed from their homes and traveller/Gypsy com­mu­ni­ties soon to be evict­ed. The demo in Hack­ney calls into ques­tion the exces­sive social, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal costs of the Olympics as a cat­a­lyst for (de)regeneration.

Marsh Lane allotment protest flierMarsh Lane allotmentsDetails of March & Ral­ly Against Olympic Evic­tions on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day — Sun­day 23rd Sept
Meet 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall

The demo will be in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er evict­ed groups such as Clays Lane Hous­ing Co-op who have already been evict­ed from their homes and traveller/Gypsy com­mu­ni­ties soon to be evict­ed. The demo in Hack­ney calls into ques­tion the exces­sive social, eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal costs of the Olympics as a cat­a­lyst for (de)regeneration.

For a leaflet/flyer for this event, click onto the Lifeis­Land web­site:
http://www.lifeisland.org/

“Devel­op­ment” — at what cost?
Their con­sul­ta­tion = we know best

Plan­ning per­mis­sion for the Manor Gar­dens Allot­ments tem­po­rary relo­ca­tion site at Marsh Lane Fields in Waltham For­est was grant­ed on Tues­day June 12th 07. The Lon­don Devel­op­ment Agen­cy’s plan has always been to remove them to make way for a foot­path to the sta­dia need­ed for the four weeks of the Olympics.

Manor Gar­dens, bequeathed to be allot­ments ‘in per­pe­tu­ity’ by their orig­i­nal own­er the ‘Right Hon’ Major Vil­liers, sit in the North cen­tral sec­tion of the Olympic Park. The site has been ear­marked to be vacat­ed on Sun­day 23rd Sep­tem­ber.

How­ev­er, allot­ment hold­ers aren’t going out with a whim­per. Tomor­row, they are going to hold a march and ral­ly on Allot­ment Demo­li­tion Day. Allot­ment hold­ers, sup­port­ers and cam­paign­ers will be meet­ing at 2pm out­side Hack­ney Town Hall, march­ing to Hack­ney Wick Com­mu­ni­ty Asso­ci­a­tion Baths, 80 East­way, E9.

National Camp for Climate Action Meeting Nov 3–4 Oxford

The Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.

Climate camp main marquee at night - planet has no emergency exits bannerThe Cli­mate Camp on its own did­n’t stop cli­mate change — but it’s part of a grow­ing social move­ment that can! Come and take the next steps for­ward at the upcom­ing UK-wide meet­ing on Nov 3–4 in Oxford. Every­one is wel­come, whether you came to the camp, or were sim­ply inspired by it.

The Cli­mate Camp had 4 key aims: edu­ca­tion, direct action, sus­tain­able liv­ing, and build­ing a social move­ment to col­lec­tive­ly tack­le cli­mate change and build a bet­ter world. Region­al meet­ings have been hap­pen­ing up and down the coun­try, and in Oxford we will meet to col­lec­tive­ly share all our ideas for tak­ing our aims fur­ther.

The agen­da for this meet­ing has not yet been set — if you have any ideas about top­ics you think it is impor­tant for us to dis­cuss, or if you are up for help­ing with plan­ning and facil­i­tat­ing this meet­ing, please email meetings@climatecamp.org.uk.

Local groups: please send any write-ups of dis­cus­sions from your debrief meet­ings to website@climatecamp.org.uk, so they can be put on the web­site, and meetings@climatecamp.org.uk, so they can be fed into the nation­al meet­ing agen­da.

Prac­ti­cal info:
The meet­ing will run 11–6 on Sat­ur­day Nov 3 and 10–5 on Sun­day Nov 4.
The venue is the East Oxford Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Princes Street, Oxford (see http://www.eocsc.co.uk/find_us.htm for direc­tions and a map). Veg­an food will be pro­vid­ed at a cost of approx­i­mate­ly £10 a day. Floor acco­mo­da­tion is avail­able (bring a sleep­ing bag!) and do please email oxford@climatecamp.org.uk in advance so we know how many peo­ple are com­ing! If you have any dietary, access, creche, or oth­er needs, please get in touch by email­ing oxford@climatecamp.org.uk.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion will be added to the web­site, www.climatecamp.org.uk, soon.

Allotment Holders Sowing the Seed of Resistance in Reading

On Mon­day 17th Sep­tem­ber 07 Cow Lane allot­ment hold­ers began their first action against plans to bull­doze the site to make way for a new road as part of the Read­ing sta­tion upgrade.

Cow Lane allotmentsOn Mon­day 17th Sep­tem­ber 07 Cow Lane allot­ment hold­ers began their first action against plans to bull­doze the site to make way for a new road as part of the Read­ing sta­tion upgrade.

See http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/377780.html for pre­vi­ous report.

Allot­ment hold­ers where alert­ed to the arrival of sur­vey­ors gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion for the new road design last week. To ensure this event did not go unno­ticed allot­ment hold­ers quick­ly mobilised to greet and dis­miss the sur­vey­ors.

Most allot­ment hold­ers were at work, how­ev­er a small group man­aged to make a very vis­i­ble pres­ence at the gates to the allot­ment site. They erect­ed a 10 metre long ban­ner over the entrance, fash­ioned some makeshift plac­ards and hand­ed out 500 leaflets to pass­ing motorists, many of whom where very sup­port­ive, hoot­ing there horns and stop­ping to take leaflets. The usu­al sharp-wit­ted rant of ‘Get a Job’ was only heard once towards the end of the day. Friends from Com­mon Ground com­mu­ni­ty gar­den and asso­ci­at­ed activists also turned up to show sup­port.

One Land­scape Archi­tect had the audac­i­ty to turn up only to be turned away with a clear mes­sage that we intend to fight to save our allot­ments, and those com­pa­nies involved would not be immune from action.

The allot­ments are under threat due to the clo­sure of one of the Cow Lane bridges and a sub­se­quent diver­sion of the road as a part of devel­op­ment plans for Read­ing sta­tion. The road will also affect the Read­ing Fes­ti­val site, Mobile home res­i­dents and the River­side Sports and social cen­tre.

We also made it into our local rag ( http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/2015/2015224/protest_over_allotment_land)

Find out more about us and our cam­paign at www.cowlane.org.uk

Oth­er allot­ment sites under threat!
www.lifeisland.org
www.eastleigh-allotments-association.org.uk

Critical Mass to oppose Mottram — Tintwistle bypass

Last Fri­day saw a dozen peo­ple attend for the inau­gur­al Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Glos­sop had seen noth­ing like it — all kinds of cyclists, includ­ing a mobile sound sys­tem, with peo­ple com­ing from as far afield as Man­ches­ter and Traf­ford (cycling all the way to Glos­sop and back from it!) to attend. Plus some friends from Glos­sop Kinder Velo.

1st Glossop Critical MassLast Fri­day saw a dozen peo­ple attend for the inau­gur­al Glos­sop Crit­i­cal Mass. Glos­sop had seen noth­ing like it — all kinds of cyclists, includ­ing a mobile sound sys­tem, with peo­ple com­ing from as far afield as Man­ches­ter and Traf­ford (cycling all the way to Glos­sop and back from it!) to attend. Plus some friends from Glos­sop Kinder Velo.

We cer­tain­ly attract­ed a lot of atten­tion — along with a van load of police and a motor­cy­cle police­man. We’re clear­ly doing some­thing right.

And the press atten­tion has fol­lowed in its wake — today’s Man­ches­ter Evening News gave away a half page arti­cle and pho­to, along with a page on their web­site. The lat­ter is attract­ing a fair amount of debate (with pre­dictable com­ments from petrol­heads), so please feel free to join in.

The organ­is­ers, Road Alert Glos­sop, are keen to repeat the event in the not too dis­tant future, although next mon­th’s clock changes mean Fri­day evenings will be out until 2008.

We are told that video-pix­ies were present to film some of the pro­ceed­ings, and that a film will fol­low soon…

———————————

PROTESTORS got on their bikes dur­ing the rush hour to cam­paign against the con­tro­ver­sial Mot­tram – Tin­twistle bypass.

They set off from Glos­sop rail­way sta­tion to cycle to Tin­twistle at Fri­day teatime on a four-mile route organ­ised by the Road Alert Glos­sop group.

The stunt was intend­ed to high­light the fact that bikes and peo­ple should be catered for on roads, not just cars and traf­fic, and raise aware­ness of Swal­lows Wood, which is threat­ened by the pro­posed 3.5‑mile bypass.
Adver­tise­ment

“It went real­ly well,” said organ­is­er Jonathan Atkin­son.

“We got about 20 peo­ple out. One guy brought a sound sys­tem on a lit­tle trail­er with him! We had peo­ple from Glos­sop Cycling club and peo­ple from Staly­bridge and Man­ches­ter as well.

“There was a five year old on the back of a bike and the old­est per­son there was in his 70s I’d say.”

Cars beeped their horns in sup­port of the cyclists and the cam­paign­ers end­ed their wheeled protest with a well-deserved drink at Tintwistle’s Bulls Head pub.

Jonathan added: “We had a police escort, as well, which real­ly helped us.

“There was an arti­cle in the Guardian say­ing more mon­ey should be spent on cycle lanes to save the gov­ern­ment thou­sands in health care and con­ges­tion costs, so we real­ly do need to do some­thing.”

The pub­lic inquiry into the bypass was set to resume yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) after it was dra­mat­i­cal­ly halt­ed when the High­ways Agency admit­ted it had got its fig­ures wrong.

For more infor­ma­tion on the group you can vis­it http://www.myspace.com/roadalert

(from the Glos­sop Adver­tis­er)

Gatwick No Border Camp, September 19th To 24th — new location (due to police harrassment) & events

The camp is now locat­ed near Bal­combe, West Sus­sex, south of Craw­ley.
Camp Info­line: 07949790570 or 07934718677

No Borders CampThe camp is now locat­ed near Bal­combe, West Sus­sex, south of Craw­ley.
Camp Info­line: 07949790570 or 07934718677
Map

Events Dur­ing The No Bor­der Camp:

Thurs­day, 20th Sep­tem­ber
Wel­come Demon­stra­tion — Craw­ley Town Cen­tre, 5pm-7pm. To inform peo­ple about and invite them to par­tic­i­pate in the No Bor­der Camp.

Fri­day, 21st Sep­tem­ber:
Gath­er­ing at Lunar House, the Home Office report­ing cen­tre in East Croy­don, 10am-2pm. A con­vergeance between those who have papers and those who don’t; infor­ma­tion-shar­ing, exchang­ing sto­ries, food and music.

Sat­ur­day 22nd Sep­tem­ber
Transna­tion­al Demon­stra­tion at Tins­ley House deten­tion den­tre at Gatwick, 12pm-2pm. Tins­ley House, which has a capac­i­ty of 146, was the first pur­pose-built deten­tion cen­tre in the UK. The new planned Gatwick deten­tion cen­tre is to be built close by.

Lat­er that day, groups will present their work and expe­ri­ences in a Transna­tion­al Forum at the camp.

Work­shops
Announced work­shops so far include ones with migra­tion con­trols, ID Cards, prac­ti­cal sup­port of peo­ple in deten­tion, the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the Mid­dle East, alter­na­tive media, expe­ri­ences from cam­paigns against com­pa­nies and much more.

Full details of all this and more at http://noborders.org.uk/

Rossport solidarity — Leeds, London, Bristol, Reading, Madrid, Ireland (Clare, Belfast) & at Bellanboy

15.09.2007
Yes­ter­day morn­ing at 8am, a ban­ner was hung over the A58 /Leeds Inner Ring Road in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the day of action against Shel­l’s plans for a gas pipeline & refin­ery in Mayo, Ire­land.

15.09.2007
Yes­ter­day morn­ing at 8am, a ban­ner was hung over the A58 /Leeds Inner Ring Road in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the day of action against Shel­l’s plans for a gas pipeline & refin­ery in Mayo, Ire­land.

The ban­ner read:
Stop Shell Hell in Ire­land
www.shelltosea.com

——–

Activists con­struct ‘high pres­sure pipeline’ at Irish Embassy in Lon­don

Fri­day morn­ing at 9.30 am, diplo­mats and passers-by were sur­prised to wit­ness a “dodgy agree­ment” between a ‘Shell rep­re­sen­ta­tive’ and ‘the Taoiseach’, and find a ‘pipeline under con­struc­tion’ at the Irish Embassy in Lon­don. A group of activists had gath­ered at the Embassy to high­light and shame the Irish Gov­ern­men­t’s involve­ment with Shell in the con­struc­tion of a high pres­sure raw gas pipeline at Ross­port in Coun­ty Mayo.

The demon­stra­tors unveiled their ban­ner: “Bertie Ahern: Shelling Ire­land out!” In the style of Char­lie Chap­lin, activists dressed as Bertie Ahern and a Shell rep­re­sen­ta­tive per­formed a series of ‘dodgy deals’. The Irish Taoiseach “begged” Shell to “Take own­er­ship of our nat­ur­al resources – for noth­ing!”, and offered Shell and oth­er oil com­pa­nies “100% of the prof­it” with “low tax­a­tion”, “gar­da oppres­sion”, “false pros­e­cu­tions of pro­tes­tors” and “the oppor­tu­ni­ty to destroy EU-pro­tect­ed envi­ron­ments” as sweet­en­ers. The aim of the per­for­mance was to draw to atten­tion the irra­tional­i­ty of the gov­ern­men­t’s sup­port of Shel­l’s con­struc­tion of the dan­ger­ous and exper­i­men­tal pipeline in Mayo.

Anne-Marie O’Reil­ly, an activist at the embassy this morn­ing, explained:

“I can under­stand why Shell would be in favour of these terms and would­n’t have any objec­tion to the gar­da baton charg­ing peace­ful pro­tes­tors. But I can­not com­pre­hend why the gov­ern­ment would give away Ire­land’s resources and allow the destruc­tion of envi­ron­ment and com­mu­ni­ty when there is no ben­e­fit to Irish peo­ple. Per­haps anoth­er sto­ry of cor­rup­tion will emerge when it’s too late to stop the pipeline?”

The action coin­cid­ed with the sit-down protest at the refin­ery in Bel­linaboy and with ‘Shell to Sea’ sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in Brighton, Berlin and across Europe.

——–

Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide did a sol­i­dar­i­ty demo at the Shell Garage on Muller Road, East­ville, Bris­tol from 5:30 till 7:30. It was small but per­fect­ly formed, with good leaflets (thanks to Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty posse) and ban­ners (thanks to clever trevor).

Sev­er­al dri­vers changed their minds and went else­where for their petrol when they saw us or spoke to us about what is going on in Ross­port at Shel­l’s behest. We hand­ed out leaflets at the zebra cross­ing, where bored and exas­per­at­ed dri­vers were trapped in their lit­tle met­al box­es carp­ing, honk­ing and scratch­ing at each oth­er like bat­tery chick­ens. It gave them some­thing to read in the exten­sive traf­fic jam that sat next to the garage.
Sev­er­al Irish passers-by showed par­tic­u­lar inter­est.

The fore­court was almost com­plete­ly emp­ty most of the time we were there, so we effec­tive­ly shut it down with­out any police action or oth­er such quo­tid­i­an aggro.

Pho­tos were tak­en and will appear short­ly if for­tune and our sil­i­con mas­ters smile upon us.

Our press release is below.

STARTS

We are at the Shell petrol sta­tion on Muller Road in Bris­tol today (Sep 14th) occu­py­ing the fore­court in protest against Shell’s treat­ment of the peo­ple of Ross­port, in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land.

From 6pm we will be there, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the com­mu­ni­ty of Ross­port, who have been impris­oned, beat­en and intim­i­dat­ed by the Irish police at Shell’s request.

We are activists from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide, a group who cam­paigns about cli­mate change and human rights.

Shell want to build a dan­ger­ous and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive gas pipeline and refin­ery right next to people’s hous­es on unsta­ble marsh land. There is mas­sive oppo­si­tion in the local com­mu­ni­ty and there has been sup­port for their strug­gle across Ire­land and inter­na­tion­al­ly, with many Shell garages being tar­get­ed for demos.

In 2005, 5 men were jailed for 3 months for refus­ing to allow Shell access to their land. Fol­low­ing their impris­on­ment the com­mu­ni­ty set up a pick­et at the pro­posed refin­ery site, stop­ping work for over a year. Last autumn, large num­bers of police moved into the area and beat the com­mu­ni­ty off the streets. Numer­ous peo­ple were hos­pi­tal­ized and the police bru­tal­i­ty has been inter­na­tion­al­ly con­demned. More recent­ly state repres­sion has involved the ini­ti­a­tion of mali­cious pros­e­cu­tions against promi­nent local cam­paign­ers. Despite the strong forces work­ing against them, the com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to resist. We are here in sup­port of their strug­gle.

ENDS
Con­tact: Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide 07988 460373 or 07983 350021

Notes for jour­nal­ists

Major Crit­i­cisms of the Project

Unprocessed gas will be piped at unique­ly high pres­sure lev­els, dan­ger­ous­ly close to dwellings and through sev­er­al SACs’ (spe­cial areas of con­ser­va­tion), sup­pos­ed­ly under the pro­tec­tion of EU law.
The gas will be processed at a refin­ery with­in the catch­ment area of the local reser­voir, Car­row­more lake, which pro­vides the drink­ing water for 10,000 peo­ple.
An Taisce (The Irish Nation­al Trust) has stat­ed that if the project goes ahead, Car­row­more Lake will even­tu­al­ly have to be closed as a source of drink­ing water.
The refin­ery will be a huge source of air and water pol­lu­tion. Between 200,000 and 300,000 kg of methane (a major green­house gas) will be emit­ted annu­al­ly, with the risk of vapor cloud explo­sions and acid rain.
The site will hold over 5000 tonnes of dan­ger­ous chem­i­cals. Over 1500 tonnes of methanol (a highy tox­ic chem­i­cal) are expect­ed to be ‘lost’ each year. This will be emit­ted, with the waste water, into
Broad­haven bay, “an impor­tant area for a num­ber of marine mam­mal species and for oth­er marine life” accord­ing to a report com­mis­sioned by Shell. The waste water would also con­tain heavy met­als such as arsenic, mer­cury and cad­mi­um. Any waste not pumped into the bay will drain instead into Car­row­more Lake.
The project will adverse­ly impact on the liveli­hoods of the region’s farm­ers and fish­er­men due to the mas­sive land, air and water pol­lu­tion.
All the prof­its from the gas extrac­tion will go direct­ly to the oil com­pa­nies, the Irish peo­ple will gain noth­ing.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion is avail­able from:
www.gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=576
www.indymedia.ie
www.corribsos.com

http://risingtide.org.uk/bristol

——–

On Fri­day 14th Sep­tem­ber, Read­ing Grass­roots Action and oth­ers from around Read­ing took part in a pick­et of a lcoal Shell garage. This pick­et was made in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the anti-pipeline/re­fin­ery com­mu­ni­ty strug­gle tak­ing place in Ross­port, Ire­land.

We protest­ed for about an hour on the fore­court, giv­ing out many leaflets to dri­vers. The Police arrived just as we left.

The fol­low­ing leaflet was giv­en out:

NO SHELL HELL IN IRELAND!

In Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land, a busi­ness coali­tion led by Shell Oil — with the approval of the Irish gov­ern­ment and full pro­tec­tion by the police — are plan­ning to:

- Forcibly take land from local res­i­dents and build an exper­i­men­tal high pres­sure gas pipeline (at four times the usu­al pres­sure) run­ning next to homes and destroy­ing rare eco-sys­tems. The pipe will run through bog­gy land with a his­to­ry of land­slides. In Mex­i­co, a pipeline of low­er pres­sure explod­ed, killing twelve peo­ple.

- Con­struct a gas refin­ery on unsta­ble bog, using pre­vi­ous­ly untried meth­ods to sta­bilise the bog sur­face. Emis­sions from the refin­ery will bad­ly pol­lute the near­by Car­row­more Lake, source of the region­al water sup­ply. Con­crete being used in the con­struc­tion has already been found to be faulty.

- Pump tox­ic waste into Broad­haven Bay, the source of local fish­er­men’s liveli­hoods. A research team found that Broad­haven Bay was an impor­tant breed­ing and rear­ing area for dol­phins and whales.
Nor­mal and best prac­tice is to refine the gas off­shore, bring­ing it ashore at much low­er pres­sure. Yet, the gov­ern­ment is hap­py with the dan­ger to local peo­ple and is giv­ing Irish gas away for prac­ti­cal­ly noth­ing, forc­ing the Irish peo­ple to pay the costs. But things are not going to plan…

Shell hoped to have the whole thing up and run­ning by 2003. Yet, with extra­or­di­nary courage, local peo­ple have protest­ed, block­ad­ed and refused to com­ply. To date, no work has been able to start on the pipeline, and hard­ly any work has hap­pened on the refin­ery.

In 2005, five local farm­ers were jailed for not allow­ing Shell on their land, one farmer has suf­fered a stroke after intim­i­da­tion by Shell con­trac­tors and in late 2006 extreme police vio­lence was used against pro­tes­tors. How­ev­er, block­ades by local peo­ple conit­nue tak­ing place every morn­ing and last month, activists from UK took part in an occu­pa­tion of the site, along with local peo­ple and oth­ers, stop­ping work for two hours. This is cost­ing Shell mil­lions!

Today is a day of action against Shell. About 200 peo­ple block­ad­ed the refin­ery this morn­ing by sit­ting in the entrance way. Rough­ly 170 then entered the site and stood on machin­ery to stop work. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, riot police are once again pro­tect­ing the cor­po­ra­tion instead of cit­i­zens, and there has been heavy vio­lence against peace­ful pro­tes­tors, and sev­er­al bru­tal arrests. In spite of this, the sit-down block­ade con­tin­ued, stop­ping all deliv­er­ies to the site.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it: www.corribsos.com and www.indymedia.ie

——–


There was a sol­i­dar­i­ty pick­et of the Irish Embassy in Madrid, organ­ised by the Fed­eración Anar­quista Ibéri­ca, the Iber­ian sec­tion of the Inter­na­tion­al of Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tions (http://www.iaf-ifa.org/) They have also made up posters about Ross­port, and car­ried arti­cles in their month­ly mag­a­zine, Tier­ra y Lib­er­tad.

I think the ban­ner reads ‘Shell Destroys the State Com­plies’

——–

Clare Rossport demo
Clare Shell to Sea Pick­et — 14th Sept ’07.

In Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Mayo and today’s Sit-Down Protest at Bel­lan­aboy.

It’s been clear for the last 2 years that the argu­ment against the Shell Cor­rib Gas Project is won.

And the amount of cars beep­ing their horns in Ennis this evening is tes­ta­ment to the sup­port for Shell to Sea, gen­uine­ly.

The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue in their refusal to debate the argu­ments and nego­ti­ate a set­tle­ment, and they per­sist in using force against the protests at Bel­lan­aboy, a protest that has gained nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sup­port and recog­ni­tion as … LEGITIMATE & JUST.

Greens — You have buried your heads in the Fian­na Fáil mire. Yoy are com­plic­it now. You are prov­ing your­selves to be unre­li­able and unwor­thy of trust. The Green Par­ty pumps for Shell.

email clareshell­tosea at gmail dot com
phone 085 1607287
——–
Belfast Rossport demo
Sol­i­dar­i­ty Shell pick­et in Belfast
Fri­day Sep­tem­ber 14, 2007

Belfast Shell to Sea organ­ised a pick­et of the Shell sta­tion in Ander­son­stown today in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the nation­al mobil­i­sa­tion in Bel­lan­aboy in Mayo.

Over a dozen activists took part in the pick­et and dis­trib­uted leaflets to pass­ing motorists and pedes­tri­ans, and received a lot of honk­ing from cars show­ing their sup­port. Despite it tak­ing place dur­ing rush hour and the road being extreme­ly busy, the fore­court of the sta­tion was left desert­ed for most of the time the pick­et was on.

email shell­toseabelfast at gmail dot com

——–
Bellanboy September 07 blockade
News from protest at Ross­port

Text mes­sage from the site of pro­posed refin­ery reports at 7.30 ” good turn out, over 200 so far, no trucks through the main gates and low police pres­ence”.

Updates

- 8:28
Between 50–120 have just stormed the main gate of the refin­ery and are head­ing up the cen­tral road to where the machin­ery is work­ing.

- 8:40
Pro­test­ers have gone through the sec­ond gate and are on the main site.

- 8:50
Text received from the protest:
“They kept the machines going until the last minute, peo­ple are stand­ing on a drilling machine, most work stopped, pro­test­ers and cops wan­der­ing around enor­mous site”.

- 8.59
” Two arrests, one bad­ly beat­en, get­ting pushed out pret­ty aggres­sive­ly’

- 9:34

The are now over 150 peo­ple occu­py­ing refin­ery site. There have been 7 deten­tions with peace­ful pro­tes­tors being assault­ed by sev­er­al Gar­daí who were not in the usu­al uni­form…

At least two pro­tes­tors were seri­ous­ly assault­ed and tak­en away.

- 9.47: “Riot police out in force. Protest cor­doned off. batons out and lots injured. Three arrest­ed so far”.

- 10:00
Site has been cleared by Pub­lic Order Unit with some bru­tal­i­ty. Arrestees appear to have been released in Bel­mul­let or along the road.

There’s a sit down protest out­side the gate with approx­i­mate­ly 170 pro­tes­tors being ringed by a large force of the coun­try’s finest.

Reports com­ing in of cops scream­ing to each oth­er to’break their fuck­ing arms’ with a lot of kick­ing and punch­ing going on (obvi­ous­ly direct­ed at the peace­ful pro­tes­tors). sev­er­al cops real­ly went for it but we’ve record­ed good video evi­dence. Cam­eras and tape are being hid­den to avoid a repeat of the inci­dent last year at Lennon’s quar­ry where a video cam­era was tak­en and smashed by the cops.

One fair­ly seri­ous assault to report and pos­si­bly 2 or 3 pro­tes­tors unac­count­ed for…

- 10:42
A num­ber of those arrest­ed were released either out­side the gates of the main site or once they reached Bel­mul­let. It is unclear as to whether peo­ple have been charged or not.

There is a sit down protest out­side the gate once more with 170 — 200 pro­tes­tors being ringed by a large force of the coun­try’s finest.

Costa Nothing strikes again!

15.09.2007 — more cof­fee, tea and cake hand­ed out by the caf­feinat­ed crew

You may have already seen last week’s report about our adven­tures. If not check this out first.

15.09.2007 — more cof­fee, tea and cake hand­ed out by the caf­feinat­ed crew

You may have already seen last week’s report about our adven­tures. If not check this out first.

So here’s a brief report from this week’s Cos­ta Noth­ing.

No pic­tures as we’re lame and for­got to bring a cam­era. Oh, actu­al­ly, I lie. A few pic­tures were tak­en by a pho­tog­ra­ph­er from the Oxford mail who com­plained that we were late (sup­posed to start at 2pm but rolled up at ten past — oh these vol­un­teers — you just CAN’T get the staff these days). Any­way, he got got huffy because one of the crew would­n’t do an ‘angry’ pose (her default pose is chirpy!) and left quick­ly to ‘go to Wan­tage’.

We got through the cake a lot quick­er this time, espe­cial­ly as it went to feed some hun­gry peo­ple who had the munchies.

We would like to do it again BUT:
1. It’s get­ting expen­sive. We’ve had £4 back in dona­tions — but have spent over £25 for the last two weeks.

2. We’re run­ning on a crew of 5/6. To main­tain some­thing like this takes peo­ple. The peo­ple who have been involved so far are also involved in many oth­er activ­i­ties, and — believe it or not — have full-time jobs; more peo­ple are need­ed to sus­tain this cam­paign.

So we may not do it next week. But if anoth­er crew wants to take it on…If you want to come and play then email dizzydaisy[at]riseup.net