Siberian protest camp attacked by neo-nazis

In the ear­ly morn­ing of 21st July, neo-nazi skin­heads launched a vicious and unpro­voked attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp in Angarsk, Siberia, Rus­sia. The nazis vio­lent­ly attacked activists in their sleep­ing bags and tents with iron rods, knives and air pres­sure guns. 21 year old Ilya Boro­daenko from Nachod­ka suf­fered a head-frac­ture dur­ing the attack and lat­er died in hos­pi­tal from his injuries. At least nine oth­ers have been report­ed to be seri­ous­ly injured, one of which has had both their legs bro­ken. Tents were set on fire and sev­er­al belong­ings were stolen.

bloody antinuke T-shirtIn the ear­ly morn­ing of 21st July, neo-nazi skin­heads launched a vicious and unpro­voked attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp in Angarsk, Siberia, Rus­sia. The nazis vio­lent­ly attacked activists in their sleep­ing bags and tents with iron rods, knives and air pres­sure guns. 21 year old Ilya Boro­daenko from Nachod­ka suf­fered a head-frac­ture dur­ing the attack and lat­er died in hos­pi­tal from his injuries. At least nine oth­ers have been report­ed to be seri­ous­ly injured, one of which has had both their legs bro­ken. Tents were set on fire and sev­er­al belong­ings were stolen.
The camp start­ed last week and is aimed at protest­ing against a planned cen­tre of ura­ni­um enrich­ment in Angarsk. Ever since the arrival of the activists, the police have tried to intim­i­date them and have entered the camp in an attempt to gath­er infor­ma­tion about planned actions. The organ­i­sa­tion who planned the camp, the ‘Eco­log­i­cal Wave of Baikal’, had planned var­i­ous ral­lies in the sur­rond­ing area to inform locals about the plans and drum up sup­port for the cam­paign.
Finan­cial help and oth­er forms of sol­i­dar­i­ty are urgent­ly need­ed. Con­tact xmaki­max (at) gmail.com or ogo­po­gos (at) gmail.com if you are able to offer sup­port

Activist targetted in latest arrest at EDO MBM

At a peace­ful demon­stra­tion against Brighton arms com­pa­ny EDO MBM on July 18th 2007
a pro­test­er was arrest­ed and a sound sys­tem seized in the lat­est show of
force by Sus­sex police. Police used an obscure coun­cil bylaw which has

At a peace­ful demon­stra­tion against Brighton arms com­pa­ny EDO MBM on July 18th 2007
a pro­test­er was arrest­ed and a sound sys­tem seized in the lat­est show of
force by Sus­sex police. Police used an obscure coun­cil bylaw which has
nev­er been used in a pros­e­cu­tion to con­fis­cate the equip­ment. Last week the
same pro­test­er had charges for a pub­lic order offence dropped after hav­ing
to spend two days in court.

The week­ly protest was policed by around 10 police offi­cers includ­ing two
inspec­tors and an evi­dence gath­er­ing team film­ing the protest.

Sus­sex police have made over 40 arrests dur­ing the three-year cam­paign
against the US-owned bomb com­po­nent man­u­fac­tur­er EDO MBM, the vast major­i­ty
of which have result­ed in acquit­tals or charges being dropped. As well as
the two activists who had charges against them dropped last week, two
pro­test­ers who staged a rooftop demo at the EDO MBM fac­to­ry against
Israel’s bom­bard­ment of Lebanon last year won their court case last month.

Spokes­woman Sarah John­son said ’ Despite Sus­sex Police repeat­ed­ly fail­ing
in their attempts to crim­i­nalise peace­ful protest they con­tin­ue to tar­get
activists who demon­strate against a com­pa­ny on their doorstep respon­si­ble
for war crimes com­mit­ted across the globe. We refuse to be intim­i­dat­ed and
will con­tin­ue our cam­paign against EDO MBM until they shut down.’

NATO Defeated by EarthFirst! in the Netherlands

For two years Groen­Front! — Dutch & Bel­gian Earth­First! — have been fight­ing with the local com­mu­ni­ty in Schin­veld, in the south­east of the coun­try, to pre­serve a for­est that would be destroyed for the sake of the NATO air­force base across the Ger­man bor­der. A direct action camp was evict­ed in Jan­u­ary, and 15 acres were destroyed, but 35 acres saved. Groen­Front! was prepar­ing to reoc­cu­py the woods awat­ing the final out­come of a legal bat­tle between the local coun­cil and nation­al gov­ern­ment, but now to great sur­prise, the pro­tes­tors have been vin­di­cat­ed and the forests are def­i­nite­ly saved from NATO’s bloody claws. On July 18th the Dutch high­est admin­is­tra­tive court ruled that the log­ging of Schiveld for­est is ille­gal. This means the min­istry of defence can­not con­tin­ue the log­ging of the for­est as request­ed by NATO, it also means the log­ging of the first six hectares in Jan­u­ary 2006 was ille­gal. The for­est would need to be destroyed to allow AWACS radar planes to lift off with more fuel in order to fly direct­ly to Afghanistan and Iraq.

For two years Groen­Front! — Dutch & Bel­gian Earth­First! — have been fight­ing with the local com­mu­ni­ty in Schin­veld, in the south­east of the coun­try, to pre­serve a for­est that would be destroyed for the sake of the NATO air­force base across the Ger­man bor­der. A direct action camp was evict­ed in Jan­u­ary, and 15 acres were destroyed, but 35 acres saved. Groen­Front! was prepar­ing to reoc­cu­py the woods awat­ing the final out­come of a legal bat­tle between the local coun­cil and nation­al gov­ern­ment, but now to great sur­prise, the pro­tes­tors have been vin­di­cat­ed and the forests are def­i­nite­ly saved from NATO’s bloody claws. On July 18th the Dutch high­est admin­is­tra­tive court ruled that the log­ging of Schiveld for­est is ille­gal. This means the min­istry of defence can­not con­tin­ue the log­ging of the for­est as request­ed by NATO, it also means the log­ging of the first six hectares in Jan­u­ary 2006 was ille­gal. The for­est would need to be destroyed to allow AWACS radar planes to lift off with more fuel in order to fly direct­ly to Afghanistan and Iraq.

For almost 30 years local pro­tes­tors in Schin­veld have fought against NATO, first to stop the reopen­ing of the base, then to reduce the nui­sance caused by the out­dat­ed AWACS radar planes, and, since the evic­tion of the action camp and the log­ging in 2006, rad­i­calised by GroenFront!‘s for­est camp, to close down the base.

When NATO want­ed 20 hectares of the for­est cut and it looked as if the local coun­cil would be over­ruled by the min­istries of defence (own­er of the for­est) and infra­struc­ture, they con­tact­ed Groen­Front! and start­ed a cam­paign where Schin­veld was high­light­ed in the New York Times.

Groen­Front! and the local com­mu­ni­ty protest group Stop Awacs start­ed a series of small­er actions. After thethe spring of 2005, the num­ber of actions increased when the min­is­ter of infra­struc­ture gave out a log­ging per­mit on August 3rd 2005, after a Nim­by-leg­is­la­tion pro­ce­dure (not in my back yard).
The local coun­cil and Stop Awacs tried to stop the log­ging until the final rul­ing (the one that came today) would have been made, but the court decid­ed against that on the 2nd of Decem­ber 2005. On Sun­day Decem­ber 4th 2005, Groen­Front! occu­pied the for­est and start­ed an inten­sive inter­na­tion­al cam­paign.

The camp was evict­ed on Jan­u­ary 9th 2006, the after­noon before about 2000 locals walked their demo in sup­port of the activist into the for­est, in spite of a restric­tion order, and cheered at the inter­na­tion­al group of more than 100 activist occu­py­ing the trees at that moment. Before the police could start evict­ing the trees, they had to remove sev­er­al hun­dred locals who stayed in the woods after the demon­stra­tion, try­ing to avoid police block­ades and com­mit­ting oth­er forms of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence as the may­or used emer­gency leg­is­la­tion against his own peo­ple.

Overview of last week’s events in Rossport

This sum­mer has seen the Shell to Sea cam­paign gain increas­ing momen­tum as con­struc­tion of the pro­posed onshore gas refin­ery in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land begins.

This sum­mer has seen the Shell to Sea cam­paign gain increas­ing momen­tum as con­struc­tion of the pro­posed onshore gas refin­ery in Coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land begins. The planned refin­ery and the high pres­sure pipeline, which would sup­ply it with unprocessed gas from the off­shore Cor­rib gas field, have been bit­ter­ly opposed by local res­i­dents and their many nation­al and inter­na­tion­al sup­port­ers, since it was first pro­posed in 2000. Shell and their part­ners Sta­toil and Marathon had hoped to have the facil­i­ty in oper­a­tion by 2003, but mas­sive local resis­tance has meant that four years on, the devel­op­ment is still in its infan­cy.

This week resis­tance was stepped up fol­low­ing the jail­ing of three local fish­er­men accused of assault­ing Gar­dai (Police) dur­ing a Shell to Sea pick­et last year. On Wednes­day 11th July, two years on from the jail­ing of the Ross­port 5, these men became Coun­ty Mayo’s lat­est polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. The judge’s ver­dict was met with dis­be­lief by all involved in the cam­paign. The pros­e­cu­tions case was based sole­ly on con­tra­dic­to­ry tes­ti­monies from mem­bers of the Gar­dai. Before sen­tenc­ing the Judge stat­ed that she had reser­va­tions about this evi­dence. In par­tic­u­lar, that one Guard claimed he did not know if he had been hit by ’a car or a per­son’, and anoth­er claimed to have been punched with the left arm of a right hand­ed man. She also stat­ed that the injuries detailed by the Gar­dai were not seri­ous enough to war­rant a sec­tion three assault charge. Despite this, she found the three men guilty of this charge. Pat O’Donnell and Enda Carey were sen­tenced to three months in prison, Jonathan O Don­nell, four months. All also received a 500 Euro (rough­ly £330) fine. Expe­ri­ence of state and cor­po­rate cor­rup­tion is now com­mon­place for this small com­mu­ni­ty, but this overt com­plic­i­ty of the judi­cia­ry has still come as a shock. The injus­tice of the incar­cer­a­tion of three men with no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions, based on a pros­e­cu­tion case with no evi­dence, has seen the Shell to Sea cam­paign once again revi­tal­ized.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing the com­mu­ni­ty respond­ed with a show of strength at the dai­ly pick­et out­side the pro­posed refin­ery at Bel­lan­aboy. Over 100 peo­ple came to demon­strate both their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the three men and their res­olute oppo­si­tion to Shell‘s project. As peo­ple attempt­ed to use their bod­ies to block con­struc­tion vehi­cles on route to the site the police respond­ed with bru­tal­i­ty. One woman was thrown across the road, injur­ing her hip, leg and arm, and a fif­teen year old lad was injured when a police­man gouged his eye.

After the pick­et sup­port­ers drove to the fishermen’s bail hear­ing. Analy­sis that the ver­dict and sen­tence had been prej­u­diced, hand­ed out by a Judge with a clear polit­i­cal agen­da, was con­firmed when she denied each of the men bail for var­i­ous arbi­trary rea­sons. She refused to accept cash as a bond, nor would she accept proof of sav­ings from a joint bank account state­ment with­out both par­ties present (the per­son unable to attend was one of the impris­oned men!). Final­ly, she refused the lat­est state­ment from an indi­vid­u­als account for not being recent enough, despite the pro­vi­sion of a sup­port­ing receipt tak­en that day from an ATM machine.

The next day the con­se­quences of the Judge’s deci­sion were played out on the ground at Bel­lan­aboy. The morn­ing pick­et was well attend­ed and clown army activists pro­vid­ed the pick­et with amuse­ment while they held the Gar­dai’ atten­tion. At 9.20am a local res­i­dent and some­one from the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp locked-on to a car, block­ing a bridge on the main haulage route to the refin­ery site. Sur­round­ed by around 40 sup­port­ers (held behind police lines) they main­tained the block­ade for around 6 hours. Mean­while, oth­er groups of local peo­ple set up spon­ta­neous block­ades on the alter­na­tive routes to the site. They used their bod­ies to obstruct the road, pre­vent­ing Shell vehi­cles from pass­ing but allow­ing free move­ment of oth­er traf­fic. Con­struc­tion lor­ries returned to their quar­ries with full loads as the haulage routes were blocked for most of the work­ing day. At 15.20 the fire brigade cut the locked-on men free and they were arrest­ed. The men were charged with sev­er­al offences and released sev­er­al hours lat­er.

In the evening around 100 cars drove to meet the three fish­er­men who had been grant­ed bail that morn­ing. In an inspir­ing act of sol­i­dar­i­ty they were wel­comed home by a vehi­cle pro­ces­sion through near­by towns with horns blar­ing and haz­ard lights flash­ing. When the pro­ces­sion reached the pro­posed refin­ery site it stopped. Around 200 peo­ple massed at the main entrance and peo­ple at the front of the crowd began to kick in the gates. Some peo­ple scaled the gates and undid the bolts on the oth­er side enabling the final pad­lock to be eas­i­ly forced open by the crowd out­side. Around 100 peo­ple entered and marched through the site for around 20 min­utes. Tak­ing con­trol of the Shell site was a fit­ting end to a high­ly suc­cess­ful day. The com­mu­ni­ty here are clear­ly demon­strat­ing that in the face cor­po­rate impe­ri­al­ism, con­tin­ued Gar­dai vio­lence and a biased judi­cia­ry, their dis­sent is unwa­ver­ing.

More about recent events can be found at :

Check out: www.shelltosea.com www.indymedia.ie/mayo

What you can do

* Vis­it the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp. Vis­i­tors are always wel­come. The camp is set in a beau­ti­ful loca­tion and a vis­it pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn more about the cam­paign and to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty direct­ly through join­ing the pick­et and tak­ing part in action. Sup­port roles are diverse and the func­tion­ing of the camp depends on this diver­si­ty. Among oth­er things peo­ple are need­ed for ‘camp-sit­ting’, DIY and to take part in action. If you are think­ing of com­ing to take action try com­ing with ideas and, if pos­si­ble, a crew! For more info and trav­el direc­tions: www.rossportsolidaritycamp.com

* Spread aware­ness of the cam­paign in your local area. E‑mail the camp for pro­pa­gan­da (it should be down­load­able online soon) rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com

* Organ­ise a sol­i­dar­i­ty action at your local Shell garage or dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tre ‑see www.shell.com for address­es.

* Organ­ise an action or pick­et at the Irish embassy or Shell HQ (both in Lon­don)

Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh under threat

We have 12 days to sub­mit objec­tions to the plan­ning depart­ment.
please cir­cu­late wide­ly and respond asap.

The Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh is under threat as the land­lord has put in a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to turn the space into a flat. ACE is now the only social cen­tre left in scot­land.

We have recent­ly reopened after exten­sive ren­o­va­tions and con­tin­ue to be a valu­able resource

www.autonomous.org.uk for more infor­ma­tion on our cur­rent activ­i­ties

We have 12 days to sub­mit objec­tions to the plan­ning depart­ment.
please cir­cu­late wide­ly and respond asap.

The Autonomous Cen­tre of Edin­burgh is under threat as the land­lord has put in a plan­ning appli­ca­tion to turn the space into a flat. ACE is now the only social cen­tre left in scot­land.

We have recent­ly reopened after exten­sive ren­o­va­tions and con­tin­ue to be a valu­able resource

www.autonomous.org.uk for more infor­ma­tion on our cur­rent activ­i­ties

We need as many folk as pos­si­ble to write to the fol­low­ing address as soon as pos­si­ble — we have about 12 days left to object.

you can use the tem­plate let­ter below but it car­ries more weight if it is a per­son­al let­ter. please also include your name,address and the date:

kirsty.hope@edinburgh.gov.uk
Plan­ning and Strat­e­gy Depart­ment
for the atten­tion of Kirsty Hope
Waver­ley Court
Lev­el G2
4 East Mar­ket St
Edin­burgh EH8 8BG

with this sub­ject stat­ed:

Re Plan­ning Appli­ca­tion 07/02348/FUL

17 West Mont­gomery Place, Edin­burgh EH7 5HA

in sol­i­dar­i­ty
on behalf of ace
——————–

below attached let­ter

To the Head of Plan­ning and Strat­e­gy, City Devel­op­ment Depart­ment, City of Edin­burgh Coun­cil, 1 Cock­burn Street, Edin­burgh EH1 1ZJ

Re Plan­ning Appli­ca­tion 07/02348/FUL

17 West Mont­gomery Place, Edin­burgh EH7 5HA

Dear Sir/ Madam

I wish to object to the appli­ca­tion for plan­ning per­mis­sion to con­vert the above prop­er­ty into a flat. This would result in the loss of the valu­able com­mu­ni­ty facil­i­ty cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ed in these premis­es.

I con­sid­er that the ACE char­i­ty oper­at­ing in 17 West Mont­gomery Place pro­vides a very use­ful resource in this neigh­bour­hood, and serves a real local need.

I under­stand that the Council’s devel­op­ment pol­i­cy is to pro­tect local shops, com­mu­ni­ty halls and meet­ing rooms – I would urge that this pol­i­cy be adhered to, and that this plan­ning appli­ca­tion be refused.

Yours sin­cere­ly

SIGNATURE

Any addi­tion­al com­ment :

ace@autonomous.org.uk
http://www.autonomous.org.uk

If you could also send a copy of your mes­sage to the local coun­cil­lors for the Lei­th Walk ward, that would be great.
Here are their details.

Coun­cil­lor Angela Black­lock (Labour)
angela.blacklock@edinburgh.gov.uk

Coun­cil­lor Dei­dre Brock (Scot­tish Nation­al Par­ty)
deidre.brock@edinburgh.gov.uk

Coun­cil­lor Mag­gie Chap­man (Green Par­ty)
maggie.chapman@edinburgh.gov.uk
as she is on hol­i­day, please also send to
Coun­cil­lor Ali­son John­stone (Green Par­ty)
alison.johnstone@edinburgh.gov.uk

Coun­cil­lor Louise Lang (Lib­er­al Democ­rats)
louise.lang@edinburgh.gov.uk

Anticivilization gathering 2007

FIRST DRAFT OF PROGRAMME FOR THE 2007 ANTICIVILIZACION GATHERING

We have almost fixed the timetable for debates and the work­shop.
SATURDAY 8 SEPTEMBER
Morn­ing:
Wel­come and prepar­ing the place for the gath­er­ing. First work­shops.

FIRST DRAFT OF PROGRAMME FOR THE 2007 ANTICIVILIZACION GATHERING

We have almost fixed the timetable for debates and the work­shop.
SATURDAY 8 SEPTEMBER
Morn­ing:
Wel­come and prepar­ing the place for the gath­er­ing. First work­shops.
After­noon:
Debate: ”The kaos and the wilder­ness” hold by XXX.
SUNDAY 9 SEPTEMBER
Morn­ing:
Debate: “A non prim­i­tivist anti­civ­i­liza­tion” hold by Wolfi from the Will­full Des­obe­di­ence.
After­noon:
Work­shops.
MONDAY 10 SEPTEMBER
Morn­ing:
“Glob­al change, a chance for author­i­tar­i­an­ism”
After­noon:
Work­shops.
TUESDAY 11 SEPTEMBER
Morn­ing:
“Post ecol­o­gism. Towards an ecol­o­gy with­out roman­ti­cism”.
After­noon:
Work­shops.

Until now we have agreed about some work­shops:
“Your health on your hands or self con­trol of your health”
“Relax­ation and body rela­tions”
“A laugh­ing work­shop.”
“An approach to nano-tech­nol­o­gy”
“Mak­ing soap”
“A work­shop about intru­sion”
“Cryp­tog­ra­phy and PGP”
Also there will be the pos­si­bil­i­ty of mak­ing bread.
If you want to hold a work­shop or a debate, please con­tact us to orga­nize it on time. We expect that peo­ple will share their abil­i­ties, the­o­ries, emo­tions, …

ATTENTION!!
There is more infor­ma­tion at http://anticiv.blogspot.com and there’s a forum to dis­cuss the 4 main debates in the gath­er­ing: kaos, non prim­i­tivist anti­civ , glob­al change and post-ecol­o­gism at www.nodo50.org/llavors for peo­ple who won’t be able to attend or which are too impa­tient and want to start already.

REMEMBER!!
You need to bring your tent, sleep­ing bag, plate, glass or cup, spoon and fork.

We would be glad about any trans­la­tion of this call into oth­er lan­guages and the spread­ing of it.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

llavors@nodo50.org

Tesco Blockade in Porthmadog

A protest was held at Tesco’s store in Porth­madog north Wales on Sat­ur­day 14.07.07 to protest about
— Tesco’s token use of Welsh on signs etc with­in their stores
— Tesco’s link to Adec­co recruit­ment agency who recent­ly banned their staff from speak­ing Welsh
— Tesco’s destruc­tion of small local shops and busi­ness­es (see www.tescopoly.com)

Porthmadog Tesco blockade 1Porthmadog Tesco blockade 2A protest was held at Tesco’s store in Porth­madog north Wales on Sat­ur­day 14.07.07 to protest about
— Tesco’s token use of Welsh on signs etc with­in their stores
— Tesco’s link to Adec­co recruit­ment agency who recent­ly banned their staff from speak­ing Welsh
— Tesco’s destruc­tion of small local shops and busi­ness­es (see www.tescopoly.com)

The entrance was blocked and a pro­test­er arrest­ed for plas­ter­ing posters announc­ing that the store was shut

For full details of the protest see http://cymdeithas.org/2007/07/14/former_chairman_arrested_in_porthmadog_demo.html#rhagor

European activist gatherings (Ecotopia, Portugal 4–19 Aug & ASEED international activist camp, Bulgaria, 26–29 July)

You are invit­ed to Eco­topia 2007 — Migra­tions

This year Eco­topia will take place between 4 — 19 August in Aljezur in the south of Por­tu­gal.

Eco­topia is a two-week activist camp and an open event for every­one inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice issues.

You are invit­ed to Eco­topia 2007 — Migra­tions

This year Eco­topia will take place between 4 — 19 August in Aljezur in the south of Por­tu­gal.

Eco­topia is a two-week activist camp and an open event for every­one inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal and social jus­tice issues.

More info at http://www.ecotopiagathering.org/

Inter­na­tion­al Activist Camp — Bul­gar­ia 2007 July 26th — 29th

In the skirts of Pirin moun­tain, south-west Bul­gar­ia, about 2.5 kilo­me­ters away from an old vil­lage, peo­ple from Bul­gar­ia, Mace­do­nia, Roma­nia, the Nether­lands and else­where in Europe will get togeth­er to share ideas and strate­gies for cam­paign­ing on envi­ron­men­tal and social issues and get inspired by each oth­ers’ activ­i­ties and work.

More info at http://www.aseed.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=381&Itemid=1

mobile phone masts destroyed by tank, Australia

July 15, 2007

A FORMER Tel­stra work­er alleged­ly stole a tank and used it to demol­ish six mobile phone tow­ers as he led police on a wild two-hour ram­page through west­ern Syd­ney yes­ter­day.

APC destroying phone mastsJuly 15, 2007

A FORMER Tel­stra work­er alleged­ly stole a tank and used it to demol­ish six mobile phone tow­ers as he led police on a wild two-hour ram­page through west­ern Syd­ney yes­ter­day.

More than 20 police chased the tank but were pow­er­less to stop it, retreat­ing to a safe dis­tance as the huge vehi­cle cut a path of destruc­tion through six sub­urbs.

They could only watch as the dri­ver, hang­ing out of the top at times, alleged­ly rammed the tank through fences and into six mobile phone tow­ers, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion relay sheds and an elec­tri­cal sub­sta­tion.

The dam­age caused major dis­rup­tions to mobile phone ser­vices in Syd­ney’s west yes­ter­day.

The divorced father alleged­ly stole the 1967 Tro­jan armoured per­son­nel car­ri­er (APC) from his for­mer work­place, A One Lift Truck Ser­vice, at Minch­in­bury.

His for­mer boss, Greg Mor­ris, said the man had a beef with mobile phone tow­ers.

“He used to work for Tel­stra and told us he was going through a med­ical claim for his head injury.

He said some­thing about the radi­a­tion from the tow­ers had caused it,” Mr Mor­ris said.

“He actu­al­ly worked on the tank he stole, doing a lot of wiring and putting the engine in.”

The dra­ma began at 2am when the ex-British Army tank — com­plete with steel tracks and repli­ca gun tur­ret — was tak­en from a hold­ing shed and head­ed straight for its first tar­get: an elec­tric­i­ty sub­sta­tion at Mich­in­bury.

The tank then alleged­ly rammed a police car as it drove from the Mount Druitt Hos­pi­tal car park.

At its max­i­mum speed of 52km/h per hour, it con­tin­ued on through the sub­urbs of Mount Druitt, Dhar­ruk, Emer­ton, Glen­den­ning and Plump­ton with 10 police vehi­cles in pur­suit.

Sev­er­al times police were forced to retreat when the dri­ver alleged­ly swung the tank towards them.

He taunt­ed police by lean­ing his head out the side win­dow to wave at them.

The joyride end­ed at 4am when the vehi­cle stalled as the dri­ver attempt­ed to destroy a sev­enth mobile phone tow­er.

Police used cap­sicum spray­to sub­due the man, who was dragged head first from the tank by offi­cers.

Mr Mor­ris said he bought the tank from the British mil­i­tary.

He restored the vehi­cle, which is val­ued at $1 mil­lion, and he hires it out for wed­dings and for motor shows.

A col­league who would not be named said the man who stole the tank had a “vendet­ta” against phone tow­ers.

“He told us he’d worked for a gov­ern­ment agency where he had to work around the tow­ers and got radi­a­tion poi­son­ing.

“So he planned out a map of where the tow­ers were that he want­ed to destroy.”

Mr Mor­ris said he was “dev­as­tat­ed” at the news.

“I can’t believe it,” he said.

Mr Mor­ris described the man respon­si­ble for the car­nage as a “qui­et, well spo­ken” man.

He left in Decem­ber but Mr Mor­ris saw him often.

“We were mates, he’d call in for a chat and a few beers.’

“The prob­lem he’s got is not with us. It’s just that it’s the tool he need­ed to do it.”

The chase attract­ed a lot of atten­tion with dri­vers fol­low­ing the tank.

“It’s not some­thing you see in Mount Druitt every day,” William Erring­ton, 26, said.

Anoth­er local res­i­dent expressed sim­i­lar dis­be­lief after being wok­en up by her part­ner to chase the tank.

“Mick said we were going to fol­low a tank and I thought yeah a fuel tanker. Then the thing drove past us,” said Oakhurst res­i­dent “Ally”.

Mount Druitt Chief Inspec­tor Guy Hab­ber­ly said the man had not been drink­ing and did not appear to be affect­ed by drugs.

Yes­ter­day John Robert Pat­ter­son, 45, of Dhar­ruk, appeared in Par­ra­mat­ta Court charged with steal­ing the tank, dan­ger­ous dri­ving and mali­cious dam­age.

He did not enter a plea or apply for bail and he was remand­ed to appear in Pen­rith Court tomor­row.

His defence lawyer Ivan Bertoia told the court that in a police inter­view his client “sug­gest­ed he had the author­i­ty to behave in such a man­ner”.

Mag­is­trate Ter­ry Forbes said there was a strong case to be made for the case to be dealt with under the Men­tal Health Act.

Mayo shell site blockaded, later occupied, jailings & solidarity demo

13.07.2007

Local Pro­test­ers Block­ade Shell Con­struc­tion site in Mayo

A num­ber of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers have estab­lished a non-vio­lent block­ade of the road lead­ing to the pro­posed gas refin­ery site at Bel­lan­aboy. Two pro­tes­tors are locked on to an immo­bi­lized vehi­cle, pre­vent­ing access to the site.

Bellanaboy car blockade13.07.2007

Local Pro­test­ers Block­ade Shell Con­struc­tion site in Mayo

A num­ber of Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers have estab­lished a non-vio­lent block­ade of the road lead­ing to the pro­posed gas refin­ery site at Bel­lan­aboy. Two pro­tes­tors are locked on to an immo­bi­lized vehi­cle, pre­vent­ing access to the site.

“It is vital for the preser­va­tion of Erris and the pro­tec­tion of its peo­ple that all work on this destruc­tive and exploita­tive project be stopped imme­di­ate­ly. Despite a con­temptible strat­e­gy by the author­i­ties that either ignores or mali­cious­ly per­se­cutes those oppos­ing the project, res­i­dents remain res­olute in their oppo­si­tion.” says John Mon­aghan

This action comes in the wake of the con­vic­tion of three local res­i­dents on a charge of assault, a charge they vig­or­ous­ly deny. The judges’ ver­dict has been met with sur­prise and cha­grin from the com­mu­ni­ty.

Today Shell to Sea sup­port­ers are clear­ly demon­strat­ing that they will not be deterred by Gar­dai vio­lence or false impris­on­ment

for time­line etc go to http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83416

Occu­pa­tion of refin­ery site

Break­ing news — 10pm

100 peo­ple have just occu­pied the pro­posed refin­ery site in Bal­linaboy!

Peo­ple jumped the main front gates of the refin­ery site and just walked on. Over 100 peo­ple occu­pied the site. The atmos­phere was very relaxed and peace­ful.

Peo­ple chat­ted to the secu­ri­ty staff and chal­lenged them as to why they feel the neces­si­ty to work for Shell.

Peo­ple stayed on site for rough­ly half an hour. They had a walk around, and a good look around. Peo­ple walked right to the top of the site and back down again.

There were no Gar­dai there for the dura­tion of the occu­pa­tion.

Peo­ple have just left the site togeth­er as a block and are going on to have a bon­fire togeth­er and with the fish­er­men that have just been released from prison.

This fol­lows a day of all out action by the peo­ple in Erris. Two peo­ple had locked on this morn­ing to a vehi­cle. This blo­cade, sup­port­ed by road blo­cades done by peo­ple on anoth­er road pre­vent­ed the trucks from work­ing for the vast major­i­ty of the day. The two men that ‘locked on’ have both been charged with numer­ous pub­lic order and road traf­fic offences. They are due to appear in the Dis­trict Court in Castle­bar on Wednes­day.

Shell to Sea cam­paign­ers jailed for police assault

A text mes­sage and short phone call last night revealed that three Shell to Sea pro­tes­tors have been jailed on assault charges against the Gar­da.

The text mes­sage from one at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp said the three men were found guilty of assaults on the police.

One man received three months, anoth­er one month and the last is fac­ing four months in prison.

A forth man is also fac­ing the same charges.

An appeal is set for today to see if they can over turn the charges, but as the mes­sage I received last night said it did not look good.

For fur­ther updates keep your eye on here or on: http://indymedia.ie/mayo

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Jailed anti-Shell Pro­test­ers- Pick­et at Depart­ment of Jus­tice, Dublin

No Jus­tice in Ross­port- the Gar­daí work for Shell
Mayo jail solidarity demo
Sup­port­ers of the cam­paign to have Shell site their refin­ery off­shore and for the Irish govt to secure Irish nat­ur­al resources for the peo­ple showed their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the three Erris fish­er­ment who have been wrong­ly jailed. A large group of about forty pro­test­ers hand­ed in a short let­ter (signed by them all) to the min­is­ter express­ing out­rage at the treat­ment of the three men.

The Gar­daí com­plained that the pres­ence of such as a large group of peo­ple at the entrance of the build­ing had health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions, and tried to order those present to move, but it was poined out the health and safe­ty impli­ca­tions of Shel­l’s scheme for Mayo were a much greater threat to us all.

Gar­da rein­force­ments arrived and tried to intim­i­date the pro­test­ers, who includ­ed some Sinn Féin and Green Par­ty mem­bers (as well as mem­bers of small­er groups and none), but no one paid any atten­tion to them, since they are wide­ly recog­nised as sim­ply being used as mer­cener­ies for Shell now, their author­i­ty is slip­ping away.

Relat­ed Link: http://www.youtube.com/shelltohell