Support the Eco-Prisoners, Easter 2007

Spir­it of Free­dom (East­er 2007)
Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

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

Spir­it of Free­dom (East­er 2007)
Pro­duced by EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

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

Wel­come to the East­er 2007 edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom. First off I’d like to apol­o­gise in the delay in pub­lish­ing this edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom.
A lot of things have been hap­pen­ing recent­ly for ELP’s vol­un­teers and a delay was inevitable. How­ev­er, despite the delay in pub­li­ca­tion ELP has some fan­tas­tic news. For the first time in ages ELP is able to bring some good news! A lot of the ‘Il Sil­vestre’ pris­on­ers have been released! Mar­co Camenisch has had his sen­tence reduced at appeal! Jeff Luers may have his sen­tenced reduced! Rod Coro­n­a­do has been released! Garfield Gab­bard has been released! And long-term pris­on­er Dave Blenk­in­sop has been released!!!
This is all bril­liant news. How­ev­er despite our cel­e­bra­tions, ELP has also seen a num­ber of new pris­on­ers added to our list. So lets cel­e­brate the good news of our friends and then lets sup­port the news pris­on­ers. Also before we end this edi­to­r­i­al we’ve been asked by Joy­an­na Zach­er to remind every­one on ELP’s pol­i­cy towards police infor­mants. We do not sup­port them! Regard­less of how long they are jailed for, we do not sup­port them. Regard­less of who they are, we do not sup­port them. A police infor­mant relin­quish­es their right to be regard­ed as an eco-pris­on­er as soon as they inform. ELP sup­ports eco-pris­on­ers, not police infor­mants. But remem­ber, no mat­ter where you are in the world, sup­port the real eco-pris­on­ers and no com­pro­mise in defence of Moth­er Earth!

COURT REPORTS & LEGAL UPDATES

MARCO CAMENISCH APPEAL NEWS
In mid March 2007 ELP received some news from Switzer­land that at his appeal, Mar­co Camenisch, has had his 17-year prison sen­tence, for alleged­ly killing a Swiss board­er guard, reduced to 8 years. The Appeal Court ruled that the orig­i­nal Judge had not tak­en into account Mar­co’s time spent in prison in Italy for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons, nor had the Judge ful­ly con­sid­ered the out­stand­ing prison sen­tence Mar­co had to serve for destroy­ing elec­tric­i­ty pylons in Switzer­land. Added alto­geth­er (39 years), the prison sen­tence was exces­sive­ly long and so was reduced so now Mar­co is serv­ing an 18-year sen­tence.

JEFF LUERS APPEAL UPDATE
On Valen­tines Day (Feb 14th) the Amer­i­can media announced that the Court of Appeal has declared Jeff ‘Free’ Luers, 22+ years prison sen­tence is too long and sug­gest­ed it should be reduced to between 11+ to 13+ years. ELP will bring you more news as we get it.

ARRESTS IN MEXICO
On the 30th of Novem­ber 2006 two Mex­i­can anar­chists, Oscar San­ta Maria Caro and Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, were arrest­ed for as yet unknown rea­sons. Oscar is a well known ani­mal rights activist who is involved with RATA (Resis­tance Against Ani­mal Tor­ture). Reports are com­ing out of Mex­i­co alleg­ing that both Oscar and Sacra­men­to have been tor­tured whilst inside. There are also reports alleg­ing that their inter­roga­tors have threat­ened to rape female polit­i­cal pris­on­ers if the two men do not con­fess to their alleged crimes. ELP is try­ing to obtain more infor­ma­tion about these arrests and will bring you more news as we get it.

ROD CORONADO UPDATE
In late March, Amer­i­can Earth First! activist, Rod Coro­n­a­do, was released from prison hav­ing served his sen­tence for sab­o­tag­ing a moun­tain lion hunt. ELP has learnt that Rod’s tri­al for “demon­strat­ing the use of a destruc­tive device,” relat­ing to a speech he gave in San Diego in 2003, is sched­uled to begin in June.

FINNISH ‘GREEN SCARE’
ELP has learnt that the author­i­ties in Fin­land appear to be copy­ing Amer­i­can tac­tics and are tar­get­ing known ani­mal rights and envi­ron­men­tal activists. No mat­ter how minor the ‘offence’ the Finnish police seem deter­mined to pros­e­cute. One per­son end­ed up in court for ring­ing the door­bell of an ani­mal abuser whilst on a demo. The activist was fined for “dis­turb­ing home peace”. Anoth­er activist was ques­tioned for ‘crim­i­nal dam­age’ after they alleged­ly spat on a fur shop win­dow! Two more activists were raid­ed and ques­tioned for alleged­ly putting a leaflet through a post box and putting a stick­er on the win­dow of a fur shop. The police accused them of ‘crim­i­nal dam­age’.
ELP’s Finnish friends, who wish to remain anony­mous for obvi­ous rea­sons, say these are just a few exam­ples of the types of police activ­i­ty hap­pen­ing in Fin­land at the moment.
ELP is informed that the police have set up a spe­cial unit to inves­ti­gate ani­mal rights activists and the unit has said intend to get activists involved in the ear­ly stages of activism ‘before it gets more seri­ous’. Trans­la­tion, the police want to intim­i­date peo­ple away from activism.

SERIOUS ORGANISED CRIME!
Every so often ELP brings you sto­ries of ridicu­lous pros­e­cu­tions of non-vio­lent activists under Britain’s new ‘Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime’ leg­is­la­tion. Who can for­get the fines imposed on two peace activists for read­ing out the names of the British war dead, killed in Iraq, whilst stand­ing next to Britain’s main war memo­r­i­al! Sad­ly the courts have now moved beyond just fin­ing peo­ple and have start­ed to hand out prison sen­tences to activists under this new law. In ear­ly March three British ani­mal rights activists were jailed for between 15 months to 4 years for their part in a non-vio­lent cam­paign against Huntin­don Life Sci­ences.
Accord­ing to the BBC, the three were accused of being key fig­ures in a cam­paign against com­pa­nies with links to HLS. They were accused of enter­ing the offices of the com­pa­nies and demand­ing that those com­pa­nies cut their links to HLS. They were also accused of organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions against the com­pa­nies build­ings. Plus they were accused of tak­ing pho­tos of the peo­ple who worked for the com­pa­nies.

MAN ARRESTED IN AMERICA
At the end of March the Amer­i­can media report­ed that a 24-year old man, Grant Barnes, had been arrest­ed accused of set­ting fire to SUVs in Den­ver, CO. The media quot­ed the cops as say­ing incen­di­ary devices were used to dam­age the vehi­cles and one of the vehi­cles had ELF spray paint­ed on it. The police also stat­ed they did not believe that Grant Barnes was a mem­ber of the ELF.

IL SILVESTRE UPDATE
At the end of Feb­ru­ary 2007 the Ital­ian courts ruled that Sil­via Gueri­ni and Fed­eri­co Bonam­i­ci should be released under house arrest. This means that only three Il Sil­vestre mem­bers are cur­rent­ly impris­oned. They are Benedet­ta Galante, Francesco Gioia and Costan­ti­no Ragusa.

ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS

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

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

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

Grant Barnes #1533241, PO Box 1108, Den­ver, CO 80201, USA. On remand accused of set­ting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehi­cles. On one of the vehi­cles the let­ters ELF was spray-paint­ed.

Nathan Block, #1663667, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing admit­ted involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Costan­ti­no Ragusa, Casa Cir­con­dar­i­ale, Via Prati Nuovi 7, 27058 Voghera (PV), Italy. Il Sil­vestre activist serv­ing 7½ years. 1) Five years for pro­mot­ing & par­tic­i­pat­ing in COR direct action. 2) 18-months for bur­gling and fire­bomb­ing a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny. 3) 12-months for organ­is­ing an anti-GM protest. Costani­no is also await­ing tri­al accused of using explo­sives to dam­age an elec­tric­i­ty pylon in protest at nuclear ener­gy.

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

Joy­an­na Zach­er #1662550, Lane Coun­ty Jail, 101 W 5th Ave, Eugene, OR 97401, USA. Await­ing sen­tenc­ing hav­ing admit­ted involve­ment in an arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an arson against an SUV deal­er­ship. Also admit­ted involve­ment in a con­spir­a­cy to car­ry out direct action in Ore­gon.

ANIMAL LIBERATION PRISONERS

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

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

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

Don­ald Cur­rie TN4593, HMP White­moor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs, PE15 OPR, Eng­land. Serv­ing an Inde­ter­mi­nate Sen­tence, of not less than six actu­al years, for car­ry­ing out arsons against tar­gets asso­ci­at­ed the vivi­sec­tion indus­try includ­ing HLS.

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

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

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

Sarah Gis­borne, LT5393, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing 5½ years for con­spir­a­cy to cause crim­i­nal dam­age fol­low­ing the dam­ag­ing of 8 vehi­cles owned by peo­ple linked to Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ence.

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

Joseph Har­ris TN5728, HMP Bulling­don, Patrick Haugh Road, Arn­cott, Nr. Bices­ter, Oxon, OX25 1WD, Eng­land. Serv­ing 2 years for dam­ag­ing the prop­er­ty of peo­ple asso­ci­at­ed with Hunt­ing­don Life Sci­ences. (His orig­i­nal sen­tence was reduced on appeal).

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

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

Trish Portwine, TM7153, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing fif­teen months for her role in loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

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

Andrew Stepan­ian #26399–050, FCI But­ner Medi­um II Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion, PO Box 1500, But­ner, NC 27509 USA. Serv­ing 36 months for help­ing organ­ise the SHAC-USA cam­paign.

Mark Tay­lor TT6636, HMP Bel­marsh, West­ern Way, Thames­mead, Lon­don, SE28 0UB, Eng­land. Serv­ing four years for organ­is­ing loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

Suzanne Tay­lor, TM7154, HMP Cookham Wood, Rochester, Kent, ME1 3LU, Eng­land. Serv­ing two and a half years for help­ing organ­ise loud demon­stra­tions out­side the offices of com­pa­nies with links to HLS.

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.

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.

OTHER ANTI-WAR PRISONERS

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

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

ANTIFA PRISONERS

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

OTHER PRISONERS

Oscar San­ta Maria Caro, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. The exact charges against Oscar are unknown but Oscar is a mem­ber of RATA, a known ani­mal rights group.

Sacra­men­to Delfi­no Cano Her­nan­dez, CERESO, Miahu­at­lan de Por­firio Diaz, Oax­a­ca en Hall B, Cell 5., Mex­i­co. On remand. Co-defen­dant of Oscar San­ta Maria Caro.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eng­lish lan­guage ELP Web­site
www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk

North Amer­i­can ELP Web­site
www.ecoprisoners.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DEDICATION
This Edi­tion of Spir­it of Free­dom is ded­i­cat­ed to Russ­ian antifa activist, Stanislav Korepanov, who died in hos­pi­tal on the 31st of March 2007, hav­ing been attacked a few days ear­li­er by an armed gang of neo-nazis. Stanislav is the sec­ond Russ­ian antifa activist to have been bru­tal­ly attacked in recent months. On the 14th of Jan­u­ary 2007 veg­an ani­mal rights activist, Ivan Elin, was sur­round­ed and attacked by ten neo-nazis in St. Peters­burg after he had tak­en part in a week­ly “Food not bombs” peace ral­ly. Ivan suf­fered 21 stab wounds and was rushed to hos­pi­tal where he is mak­ing his recov­ery. Fol­low­ing on from the knife attack on Ivan, on the 4th of Feb­ru­ary, with a small bomb explod­ed in Vladimirskaya Square of St. Peters­burg, near to where Food Not Bombs organ­ise their week­ly protests. The bomb was hid­den in a kiosk sell­ing flow­ers. Luck­i­ly the bomb only dam­aged the kiosk and did not injure any­one.
This is not the first time neo-nazis have used knives or explo­sives to tar­get Russ­ian activists. On the 22nd of Decem­ber 2006 a num­ber of police were injured whilst try­ing to defuse a device, which set to mur­der antifa activists in Moscow. In August 2006 eleven peo­ple were killed in Moscow when a neo-nazi bomb explod­ed in Cherk­isovs­ki mar­ket­place. The bru­tal mur­der of Stanislav Korepanov and the attack against Ivan are a remind­ed of why fas­cism must nev­er be allowed to go unchal­lenged. ELP wish­es Ivan Elin a speedy recov­ery from his injuries and we con­grat­u­late the Russ­ian ‘Food Not Bombs’ move­ment for not giv­ing into this neo-nazi intim­i­da­tion.
Our thoughts and sor­row are with the fam­i­ly and friends of Stanislav Korepanov who was only 18 years old when he died.

Shut Down Land and Marine — Wrench the Pipeline! Friday 20th April

Shut Down Land and Marine will be the first demo of the Bath Cli­mate Camp, tak­ing place between Thur­day 19th and sun­day 22nd of April. The camp will have protest/workshops/live music/ food and kids activ­i­ties and be run on eco-friend­ly prin­ci­ples. For more info, e‑mail bathclimatecamp@yahoo.co.uk or check out www.myspace.com/bathclimatecamp

Shut Down Land and Marine will be the first demo of the Bath Cli­mate Camp, tak­ing place between Thur­day 19th and sun­day 22nd of April. The camp will have protest/workshops/live music/ food and kids activ­i­ties and be run on eco-friend­ly prin­ci­ples. For more info, e‑mail bathclimatecamp@yahoo.co.uk or check out www.myspace.com/bathclimatecamp

Shut down Land And Marine! — Land and Marine are the main con­struc­tion com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for the gas pipeline smash­ing through the Welsh coun­try­side, includ­ing the Bre­con Bea­cons. We have one of the com­pa­ny’s offices in Bath, and resis­tance to the pipe has been strong in Wales, it’s time to take the fight to their doorstep! We are ask­ing peo­ple to block­ade, make music, wave ban­ners, leaflet or what­ev­er else springs to mind! For more info on the pipeline, vis­it www.risingtide.org.uk/bristol/pipeline

http://www.myspace.com/bathclimatecamp

Aldermaston Blockade

10.04.2007
At least 5 peo­ple were arrest­ed while are attempt­ing to block access to the Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment in Berk­shire this morn­ing in order to dis­rupt a mul­ti­mil­lion pound devel­op­ment project at the site.

Aldermaston Blockade april 0710.04.2007
At least 5 peo­ple were arrest­ed while are attempt­ing to block access to the Alder­mas­ton Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment in Berk­shire this morn­ing in order to dis­rupt a mul­ti­mil­lion pound devel­op­ment project at the site.

Oth­er pro­test­ers are still in the road which has been blocked for about an hour. The pro­test­ers claim that this devel­op­ment is to devel­op new nuclear weapons and shows that the deci­sion to renew Britain’s nuclear weapons was made years before the par­lia­men­tary vote last month.
The pro­test­ers are from the anti-Tri­dent group Tri­dent Ploughshares and the group Block the Builders which oppos­es the devel­op­ment at Alder­mas­ton. They have chained them­selves togeth­er and block­ing the boil­er­house gate at Alder­mas­ton. The Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing mas­sive renew­al includ­ing new com­put­ing and laser facil­i­ties which will enable to sci­en­tists to sim­u­late nuclear explo­sions to improve the design of nuclear war­heads with­out actu­al­ly explod­ing a weapon which would be banned under the Com­pre­hen­sive Test Ban Treaty. The site was giv­en a £5 bil­lion refit after the sign­ing of the Mutu­al Defence Agree­ment with the USA in 2005 which allows the shar­ing of nuclear infor­ma­tion between the USA and Britain.
Web­sites:
Tri­dent Ploughshares http://www.tridentploughshares.org/aldermaston
Block the Builders http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk
Alder­mas­ton Women’s Camp: http://www.aldermaston.net

Climate change activists target power station

10-04-2007: Today a group of peo­ple inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action have dis­rupt­ed the oper­a­tion of Rat­cliffe-on-Soar coal-fired pow­er sta­tion by lock­ing them­selves to machin­ery. Direct Action was tak­en to tar­get the 3rd largest source of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in the UK.

Ratcliffe power station protest1
Ratcliffe power station protest 2
Ratcliffe power station protest 310-04-2007: Today a group of peo­ple inspired by the Camp for Cli­mate Action have dis­rupt­ed the oper­a­tion of Rat­cliffe-on-Soar coal-fired pow­er sta­tion by lock­ing them­selves to machin­ery. Direct Action was tak­en to tar­get the 3rd largest source of car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in the UK.

One of the group said “the threat of cli­mate change is so huge and the gov­ern­ment so com­pla­cent that the peo­ple them­selves are now act­ing in pro­por­tion­ate response to this and tar­get­ing the root caus­es of cli­mate change. It’s not enough to reduce emis­sions indi­vid­u­al­ly – we need to act togeth­er to chal­lenge fos­sil fuel con­sump­tion.”

“Putting pres­sure on indi­vid­u­als to reduce emis­sions when com­pa­nies like E.ON are prof­it­ing from this pol­lut­ing indus­try is obscene and irre­spon­si­ble. We should not be burn­ing coal in the 21st cen­tu­ry.”

Down­load­able press release:

http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk/press/pressrelease5.doc

press@eastsideclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk/

——————————————————————————–

Updates on the sit­u­a­tion:

There were five peo­ple locked on inside the pow­er sta­tion, two locked on to the con­vey­or belt tak­ing coal into the fur­nace and three to the machines that rid­dle the coal, just before the con­vey­or belt.

Both of these lock on points meant that no coal was allowed into the main pow­er sta­tion oper­a­tion. The effect that this had accur­d­ing to the work­ers who were with us is that sev­er­al of the units went off line and the pow­er sta­tion was run­ning at a reduced capac­i­ty. If we had stayed there for anoth­er hour we would have shut down the whole plant.

We also stopped two trains from unload­ing coal and cost E‑on a lot of mon­ey in railtrack/ train time as well as not sell­ing as much elec­tric­i­ty as they had declared and so fail­ing to met con­tracts and there­fore been fined

—————————————

As one of the peo­ple arrest­ed I cant say too much right now but here is what the work­ers were telling us.

At 9:45 when we locked on to the con­vey­er, they said they had less than 6 hours of coal left inside the plant. After 2 hours, pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty was reduced mas­sive­ly. Gen­er­a­tors came offline one by one, due to lack of coal. They had trou­ble putting the lit­tle they had through the machin­ery and not all of the coal was get­ting through. After 2 and a half hours we were removed by police. By that point they were 1 hour from ini­ti­at­ing the shut down pro­ce­dure which would have closed the plant for 48 hours. EON said that Rat­cliffes pro­duc­tion was unaf­fect­ed The rest of the Grid was not dis­rupt­ed and no hos­pi­tals were shut down.

This action was a com­plete­ly ratio­nal and pro­por­tion­ate response to the threat of cli­mate change.
We dont want to incon­ve­nience the pub­lic but these mas­sive sources of emis­sions must be stopped and we need to find anoth­er way if we are to have a hope of sav­ing this plan­et from catastophe.There are so many bet­ter alter­na­tives.

There is no place for coal in the 21st century.The gov­ern­ment must stop build­ing car­bon inten­sive infra­struc­ture and it must shut down the old, if not the peo­ple will. Per­son­al­ly I am very angered by the fact that those in pow­er are not tak­ing this prob­lem seri­ous­ly and think that peo­ple must start mak­ing the changes them­selves.

Its sim­ple to stop the plan­et from dying, we stop burn­ing all fos­sil fuels NOW.

This action goes out to every­one who loves our earth and dares to dream of a future. Empow­er your­self to make a change in the best way you can.

Togeth­er we can do any­thing…

—————————————

There were five peo­ple locked on inside the pow­er sta­tion, two locked on to the con­vey­or belt tak­ing coal into the fur­nace and three to the machines that rid­dle the coal, just before the con­vey­or belt.

Both of these lock on points meant that no coal was allowed into the main pow­er sta­tion oper­a­tion. The effect that this had accur­d­ing to the work­ers who were with us is that sev­er­al of the units went off line and the pow­er sta­tion was run­ning at a reduced capac­i­ty. If we had stayed there for anoth­er hour we would have shut down the whole plant.

We also stopped two trains from unload­ing coal and cost E‑on a lot of mon­ey in railtrack/ train time as well as not sell­ing as much elec­tric­i­ty as they had declared and so fail­ing to met con­tracts and there­fore been fined

Keep the UK GM-Free — picnics & rallies, Sat 14th & Sat 21st

This spring, Ger­man chem­i­cals com­pa­ny, BASF, are tri­alling 3 types of GM pota­toes (mod­i­fied to be blight resis­tant) at two sites:
1) NIAB in Cam­bridgeshire (Nation­al Insti­tute of Agri­cul­tur­al Botany)
2) Hedon vil­lage, just out­side Hull.

Protests are tak­ing place at both sites in the next fort­night. It is impor­tant that we demon­strate to BASF and the gov­ern­ment that we want the UK to remain uncon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by GM crops. Com­mit to com­ing to one of them and get a warm glow in your tum­my.

Stop the SpudsThis spring, Ger­man chem­i­cals com­pa­ny, BASF, are tri­alling 3 types of GM pota­toes (mod­i­fied to be blight resis­tant) at two sites:
1) NIAB in Cam­bridgeshire (Nation­al Insti­tute of Agri­cul­tur­al Botany)
2) Hedon vil­lage, just out­side Hull.

Protests are tak­ing place at both sites in the next fort­night. It is impor­tant that we demon­strate to BASF and the gov­ern­ment that we want the UK to remain uncon­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by GM crops. Com­mit to com­ing to one of them and get a warm glow in your tum­my.

Cam­bridge GM pota­to protest walk, Sat­ur­day 14th April
A walk around the poten­tial tri­al area with food at the end. Meet­ing at the His­ton Bap­tist Church, Sta­tion Road, His­ton. At 11:00am on Sat­ur­day 14th April.

Organ­ised by Cam­bridge GM Con­cern:
gmfreecambridge@lists.riseup.net
www.cambridgeaction.net/gmconcern

**********************************************************

Sat­ur­day 21st April, 1pm, Hull

Nation­al Ral­ly Against GM pota­to tri­als

In response to the attempt to re-intro­duce GM to our island, a nation­al ral­ly has been called by Hedon Against GM and www.mutatoes.org

1pm — Speak­ers, includ­ing Dom Marsh from UK Per­ma­cul­ture Asso­ci­a­tion.
Pete Riley from GM Freeze (uncon­firmed)
Local farm­ers
Music from Seize the Day

2pm — walk, march, dance and cycle to the pro­posed plant­i­ng site

2:30pm — GM-Free Pota­to Pic­nic with live music and deli­cious veg­an food from Veg­gies mobile cater­ing.

3:30pm onwards — Tea, cof­fee, cake and more musi­cal enter­tain­ment at Pre­ston Road Fam­i­ly Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Marfleet, Hull.
Bring — flags, cos­tumes, ban­ners, kites, fris­bees, instru­ments, out­door cloth­ing, kids and your favourite pota­to-based dish.

www.hedonagainstgm.org.uk
www.mutatoes.org
www.myspace.com/gmfreepotatoes

Help need­ed! Please get in touch if you can help in the fol­low­ing ways:
— dis­trib­ute pub­lic­i­ty in your area
— be a trans­port con­tact or co-ordi­na­tor
— pro­vide an endorse­ment for our web­site — many, many peo­ple sup­port this cam­paign, for a vari­ety of rea­sons — what’s yours?
— pro­vide a large num­ber of green caps, black ban­danas, red noses and/or big ears — Mr Pota­to­head cos­tumes 🙂

Down­load fliers and posters from this site:
http://www.mutatoes.org/media.php
Con­tact us — rally@mutatoes.org or via myspace

Climate Camp organising gathering April 21 and 22, Liverpool

Organ­is­ing for Cli­mate Camp 2007 is well under way and it looks like being big­ger, bet­ter and more inspir­ing than last year…so come along to our next gath­er­ing, find out what it’s all about and get involved…doesn’t mat­ter if you haven’t been involved before, every­one’s wel­come. Sat­ur­day will focus on camp-wide and how we net­work the Camp, Sun­day is main­ly work­ing group time. Again, new peo­ple more than wel­come in all work­ing groups.

Organ­is­ing for Cli­mate Camp 2007 is well under way and it looks like being big­ger, bet­ter and more inspir­ing than last year…so come along to our next gath­er­ing, find out what it’s all about and get involved…doesn’t mat­ter if you haven’t been involved before, every­one’s wel­come. Sat­ur­day will focus on camp-wide and how we net­work the Camp, Sun­day is main­ly work­ing group time. Again, new peo­ple more than wel­come in all work­ing groups.

Venue: St Michael’s and Lark Lane Com­mu­ni­ty Ass­co­ci­a­tion, The Old Police Sta­tion, 80 Lark Lane, Liv­er­pool, L17 8UU. The venue is wheel­chair acces­si­ble and street-park­ing is avail­able and free. If arriv­ing by coach or train you take the num­ber 82 bus from the city cen­tre and ask the dri­ver to let you off near Lark Lane, it’s easy to find and peo­ple will be able to direct you.

Acco­mo­da­tion, creche, food and enter­tain­ment on Sat­ur­day night will be pro­vid­ed for the usu­al £10 sug­gest­ed dona­tion. Please bring your own sleep­ing bag and if pos­si­ble bring your own cut­lery and a bowl/plate. If you require acco­mo­da­tion on the Fri­day night please con­tact gatherings@climatecamp.org.uk.

For any­body arriv­ing on Fri­day there is a Crit­i­cal Mass fri­day evening, for more infor­ma­tion send me an email.

Future plan­ning meet­ings:

April 21 and 22: Liv­er­pool
May 19 and 20: Lon­don (loca­tion of camp to be decid­ed here)
June 16 and 17: Man­ches­ter
July — TBC

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

McDonalds vegan protest picnic

On the 30th March Ani­mal Rights cam­paign­ers protest­ed inside the McDon­alds restau­rant in the city cen­tre of Cam­bridge, the pro­test­ers were dressed as cows and ate food that does not con­tain ani­mal prod­ucts. They held a ban­ner and dis­trib­uted leaflets. The event fell with­in Ani­mal Aid’s veg­gie month and aimed to high­light the issues asso­ci­at­ed with the con­sump­tion of meat, eggs, and dairy prod­ucts.

On the 30th March Ani­mal Rights cam­paign­ers protest­ed inside the McDon­alds restau­rant in the city cen­tre of Cam­bridge, the pro­test­ers were dressed as cows and ate food that does not con­tain ani­mal prod­ucts. They held a ban­ner and dis­trib­uted leaflets. The event fell with­in Ani­mal Aid’s veg­gie month and aimed to high­light the issues asso­ci­at­ed with the con­sump­tion of meat, eggs, and dairy prod­ucts.

The pro­test­ers hope to high­light the ben­e­fits of a diet free from ani­mal prod­ucts includ­ing the high­ly top­i­cal issue of child obe­si­ty that is linked to sat­u­rat­ed ani­mal fats. A 17-year-old cam­paign­er from the group said, “McDon­alds and oth­er fast-food out­lets have become syn­ony­mous with unhealthy food, a great way chil­dren and young peo­ple can improve their health is the pro­gres­sion to a bal­anced plant based diet”

The cam­paign­ers also wish to high­light the fact that ani­mal agri­cul­ture is a huge con­tribut­ing fac­tor to cli­mate change. “A report by The Food and Agri­cul­tur­al Organ­i­sa­tion Of the Unit­ed Nations says that ani­mal agri­cul­ture caus­es more green­house gas emis­sions than cars, when the UN is say­ing this, sure­ly its time for envi­ron­men­tal­ists to sit up and take note”

How­ev­er the focus of their cam­paigns is not for­got­ten in all of this, ani­mals, who are kept in ter­ri­ble con­di­tions, in most cas­es on fac­to­ry farms. “Britain is often con­sid­ered a nation of ani­mal lovers, yet we still treat ani­mals in a way we would not deem accept­able for pris­on­ers of war, this is true even if the prod­uct meets so-called ‘eth­i­cal’ stan­dards”.

The group hope peo­ple will think about cut­ting down on their con­sump­tion of ani­mal prod­ucts or cut them out com­plete­ly, free veg­e­tar­i­an starter kits are avail­able from PETA (Peo­ple for the Eth­i­cal Treat­ment of Ani­mals) from http://www.vegetarianstarterkit.co.uk

Peo­ple inter­est­ed in help­ing ani­mals who live in Cam­bridge, may wish to join Ani­mal Rights Cam­bridge, who are open to new mem­bers and meet on the 4th Mon­day in the Month at the Bath House just off Mill Road.

The Ani­mal Rights Cam­bridge web site is http://animalrightscambridge.bravehost.com/

The New Bristle — it’s shit-brown (not pro-Brown)

The Bris­tle col­lec­tive are delight­ed to announce that issue 24 of our bel­liger­ent & bristling mag­a­zine has been pub­lished, and should be in the usu­al out­lets by the end of this week.

Bristle 24The Bris­tle col­lec­tive are delight­ed to announce that issue 24 of our bel­liger­ent & bristling mag­a­zine has been pub­lished, and should be in the usu­al out­lets by the end of this week.

We’ll be cel­e­brat­ing pub­li­ca­tion by host­ing the week­ly veg­an cafe at Kebele social cen­tre ( http://www.kebelecoop.org) on Sun­day 15 April, from 6pm. At 7.30pm we’ll be show­ing the excel­lent film “The day the coun­try died — a his­to­ry of anar­cho-punk 1980–84” dur­ing which you can relive your youth, or find out what your par­ents were up to!

Issue 24 comes in a shit-brown cov­er, because we have a shit gov­ern­ment that con­tin­ues to shit on us all whilst aid­ing & abet­ting the plun­der of the plan­et. Our spe­cial fea­ture this issue is on 10 years of New Labour – we look back to the 10 key pledges of their 1997 man­i­festo and see how they mea­sure up, tak­ing spe­cial note of their impact on Bris­tol.

In addi­tion we’ve got Bristling in Bath, lac­tivism, a look at the Fair­ford tri­als farce, guns in Acadamies, the defence of green spaces, Bristol’s ris­ing tide, news, com­ment, reviews, some dodgy humour, local polit­i­cal art­work, and even a t‑shirt com­pe­ti­tion! In fact you even get an extra four pages for the usu­al price of £1.20.

Bris­tle is the south west’s longest run­ning reg­u­lar, inde­pen­dent, anti-cap­i­tal­ist, think-glob­al-act-local media pub­li­ca­tion. We are a vol­un­teer, non-hier­ar­chi­cal col­lec­tive of activists who believe in the need for alter­na­tive print media – if you like it, come and get involved, we meet bi-week­ly on Sun­days at Kebele social cen­tre, 14 Robert­son Rd, Eas­t­on, BS5 6JY.

Our web­site is being updat­ed over the next few days with a list of out­lets and oth­er info – see http://www.bristle.org.uk

Thanks to all who helped with this issue.
Love & sol­i­dar­i­ty — the bris­tle col­lec­tive
editors@bristle.org.uk

Let’s defend the autonomous space “Les Tanneries” (Dijon, France)

After near­ly 10 years of exis­tence, the squat­ted autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies” (in Dijon, France) is being threat­ened by a pri­vate med­ical com­plex, facil­i­tat­ed by the city coun­cil.

TanneriesAfter near­ly 10 years of exis­tence, the squat­ted autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies” (in Dijon, France) is being threat­ened by a pri­vate med­ical com­plex, facil­i­tat­ed by the city coun­cil.

The excel­lent social cen­tre, which host­ed the cen­tralised part of the PGA con­fer­ence last year as well as dig­i­tal strug­gles and free spaces sec­tions, has a con­cert hall for do-it-your­self bands and mis­cel­la­neous per­for­mances, a hous­ing col­lec­tive and some anar­chist affin­i­ty groups, a hack­lab for devel­op­ing free soft­ware and run­ning alter­na­tive servers, a free-shop, a space for mecanics and a bike-repair work­shop, rehearsal rooms and silk-screen­ing facil­i­ties, a meet­ing space, an organ­ic gar­den, an alter­na­tive media cen­ter, a squat­ters’ helpdesk, a library, diverse eco­log­i­cal con­struc­tions, dozens of col­lec­tives, asso­ci­a­tions, and local and inter­na­tion­al net­works that use the space to organ­ise gigs, info-nights, actions, skill-shares, meet­ings and projects…

Les Tan­ner­ies

Let’s defend the autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies”
— - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - —

Català : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-cat.txt
Deutsch : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-de.txt
Español : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-es.txt
Euskara : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-eu.txt
Français : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-fr.txt
Ital­iano : http://squat.net/tanneries/documents/EADT-C-20070324-it.txt

After near­ly 10 years of exis­tence, the squat­ted autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies” (in Dijon, France) is being threat­ened by a pri­vate med­ical com­plex, facil­i­tat­ed by the city coun­cil.

We have just learnt that Dijon’s city coun­cil had start­ed nego­ci­a­tions to sell our occu­pied social cen­tre and its sur­round­ings to devel­op­pers, and we need to act quick­ly. This is why we have writ­ten the fol­low­ing state­ment, explain­ing why and how we will strug­gle for the very exis­tence of our free space.

After a first protest gath­er­ing and an occu­pa­tion of the city hall meet­ing in Dijon, as well as a num­ber of sup­port e‑mails from around the world, the coun­cil has slight­ly backed up, say­ing they will con­sid­er putting our space aside from the build­ing plans. How­ev­er, there’s no way we can take that for grant­ed; not if we don’t main­tain pres­sure, and
pre­pare to act when­ev­er we face anoth­er alert.

To all those you have been sup­port­ing us in the last few days, we want to say: “thanks for the amaz­ing strenght and sup­port you gave us”. We still incite you all to voice your dis­con­tent to the munic­i­pal­i­ty, by let­ters, tele­phone or e‑mails:

Mairie de Dijon,
M. François Reb­samen, Phone: (+33|0)-380–745-151
place de la Libéra­tion, E‑mail: francois.rebsamen@ville-dijon.fr
21000 Dijon, France.

We need to main­tain the pres­sure, and take the time to cre­ate a wider mobil­i­sa­tion. Thanks again, and be ready!

* * *

With­out any pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, but with the typ­i­cal secre­cy that typ­i­cal­ly accom­pa­nies hot top­ics dur­ing elec­toral peri­ods, the “social­ist” city coun­cil of Dijon is mak­ing deci­sions that could lead to the end of the autonomous space “Les Tan­ner­ies”, a self-man­aged polit­i­cal, social, cul­tur­al cen­tre that was squat­ted in 1997 and since then has become an impor­tant node for anar­chist orga­niz­ing and rad­i­cal activism through­out France and Europe. Need­less to say, we won’t let the coun­cil car­ry out their plans!

We have known since the begin­ning that we would have to main­tain a per­ma­nent vig­i­lence, despite the no-evic­tion agree­ment we obtained from the coun­cil in 2002 after years of fight­ing. In ear­ly March 2007, after hear­ing per­sis­tant rumours about threat­en­ing projects, we got in touch with the coun­cil and asked for expla­na­tions. In spite of repeat­ed
queries by mail and tele­phone, we were denied any answer. Two days ago, we got the con­fir­ma­tion from a trust­wor­thy but unof­fi­cial source, that the city coun­cil had sent a writ­ten pro­pos­al to the “Générale de San­té”, offer­ing them the whole piece of land where our space is locat­ed for the con­struc­tion of a 25-acre-wide pri­vate med­ical com­plex by 2009.

While pub­lic health­care ser­vices are being threat­ened by neo-lib­er­al pri­vatis­ing strate­gies in Europe, will the Dijon city coun­cil encour­age a “two gear” health sys­tem?

Does it want to con­tribute to the monop­oly of Générale de San­té, the biggest euro­pean pri­vate health transna­tion­al (1.741 bil­lion euros of prof­it in 2006, 10% of the transna­tion­al being owned by Viven­di) by offer­ing them land that is close to the city cen­tre, almost in front of the pub­lic hos­pi­tal? The Générale de San­té would thus seize this great oppor­tu­ni­ty to close its near­by hos­pi­tals rather than ren­o­vat­ing them.

Despite its pro­pa­gan­da for “par­tic­i­pa­tive democ­ra­cy”, the city coun­cil did not ask us or any­one else from the neigh­bour­hood before propos­ing the deal which not only threat­ens us, but would also decide upon the future of a whole part of town.

* * *

Why sup­port Les Tan­ner­ies loud and clear?

The coun­cil’s poli­cies are already threat­en­ing the inde­pen­dant the­ater “L’El­do­ra­do”, as well as the squat called “Le Tobog­gan”. By plan­ning to shut down “Les Tan­ner­ies”, the coun­cil will osten­si­bly con­firm that the so-called “social­ist” par­ty wants France to be a police state with­out places of resis­tance, exper­i­men­ta­tion and pop­u­lar cul­ture.

“Les Tan­ner­ies” hosts a con­cert hall for do-it-your­self bands and mis­cel­la­neous per­for­mances, a hous­ing col­lec­tive and some anar­chist affin­i­ty groups, a hack­lab for devel­op­ing free soft­ware and run­ning alter­na­tive servers, a free-shop, a space for mecanics and a bike-repair work­shop, rehearsal rooms and silk-screen­ing facil­i­ties, a meet­ing
space, an organ­ic gar­den, an alter­na­tive media cen­ter, a squat­ters’ helpdesk, a library, diverse eco­log­i­cal con­struc­tions, dozens of col­lec­tives, asso­ci­a­tions, and local and inter­na­tion­al net­works that use the space to organ­ise gigs, info-nights, actions, skill-shares, meet­ings and projects…

While pub­lic cul­tur­al spaces run with the help of huge grants, and pri­vate ones thanks to busi­ness­es and spon­sors, hun­dreds of peo­ple come week­ly to “Les Tan­ner­ies” to cre­ate a tru­ly inde­pen­dent cul­ture and indulge in all kinds of activ­i­ties for free or on a “slid­ing-scale” basis. To pre­serve its free­dom, “Les Tan­ner­ies” has always been run
with­out any kind of sub­sidees nor any employ­ees.

In a coun­try where self-man­aged struc­tures are almost always repressed and there­fore frag­ile, “Les Tan­ner­ies” is one of the very few long last­ing projects of this kind. Hence it has become a resource­ful place and a cru­cial part of an autonomous, activist and counter-cul­tur­al scene in Europe.

“Les Tan­ner­ies” is about putting rad­i­cal social views into prac­tice and about pro­vid­ing tools for peo­ple to expe­ri­ence their ideas. We try to break down the bor­ders between our “per­son­al lives” and the “polit­i­cal world” — an attempt at orga­niz­ing in for­mal hor­i­zon­tal fash­ion, against author­i­tar­i­an and hier­ar­chi­cal struc­tures.

We want to build things our­selves and change our own lives by chal­leng­ing dom­i­na­tion, racism, sex­ism and homo­pho­bia — in the streets, as much as with­in our own walls. Most impor­tant­ly, we want to do it now, rather than wait for some D‑day that might not come.

How­ev­er, “Les Tan­ner­ies” does­n’t want to be a “nice and friend­ly” alter­na­tive that won’t shove estab­lished pow­ers too vio­lent­ly, nor does it want to be some tol­er­at­ed folk­lor­i­cal zoo that would prove the demo­c­ra­t­ic good­will of coun­cil lead­ers. We’re here to strug­gle and change the world, nat­u­ral­ly!

Still, we don’t fan­ta­size about stand­ing on the fringe of soci­ety. Con­trary to the cyn­i­cal main­stream polit­i­cal norm, expe­ri­ences such as ours are show­ing it is pos­si­ble to prac­ti­cal­ly chal­lenge cap­i­tal­ism and author­i­ty with­out elec­toral speech­es. Through­out its exis­tence, “Les Tan­ner­ies” has proved that it is not only real­is­tic, but also rel­e­vant to self-organ­ise with­out insti­tu­tions. We also believe that we’ve demon­strat­ed that our project is not just the deliri­ous utopia of a bunch of kids who will change their minds when they grow old­er.

“Les Tan­ner­ies”, just like all these places stand­ing against the world sur­round­ing them, is unique in its way, and yet bound to the his­to­ry of so many. It sprang out of the dreams, col­lu­sions and affini­ties, encoun­ters and com­bat­iv­i­ty of hun­dreds of peo­ple. Carved with­in its walls are the joys and angers, rages and pas­sions, adven­tures and emo­tions of sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions.

* * *

# Our project can’t be moved or destroyed;
# It must stay in the neigh­bour­hood!

What­ev­er the new urban devel­op­ment plans for the neigh­bour­hood might be, we will strug­gle to pre­serve what we’ve been build­ing here for ten years and to ensure that the project as a whole can car­ry on. It is per­fect­ly pos­si­ble, con­sid­er­ing how much avail­able space there is around “Les Tan­ner­ies”. With a real polit­i­cal will from the City Hall, suit­able solu­tions can be found.

Thanks to every­one for their sup­port, and thanks for the series of pres­sure actions that were done before “Les Tan­ner­ies” got an end to city harass­ment in 2002. Five years lat­er, we’re ready to start fight­ing again to defend this space and build a new net­work of resis­tance based upon the con­tacts, expe­ri­ences and com­plic­i­ties that we’ve made over the years. Not only is “Les Tan­ner­ies” deeply-root­ed local­ly, but it is also part of a larg­er com­mu­ni­ty whose affini­ties know no bor­ders. Be it through sup­port actions around the world, or by com­ing to “Les Tan­ner­ies” to phys­i­cal­ly defend the place against evic­tion, we expect this extend­ed fam­i­ly to mobi­lize with us!

Let’s hope lead­ers will keep in mind the long days and nights of demon­strat­ing and riot­ing that paral­ysed the Dan­ish cap­i­tal in the last weeks, as well as the num­ber of rad­i­cal actions that hap­pened all over Europe in sup­port of our friends in Ung­domshuset. Just like theirs, our strug­gle is a glob­al fight for self-organ­ised spaces and nodes of
sub­ver­sion to car­ry on and extend all over Europe.

While we’re very like­ly to call for sol­i­dar­i­ty actions in the future, we want to start with a warn­ing cam­paign, and incite you to write to Dijon’s city-hall to say that you want “Les Tan­ner­ies” to car­ry on exist­ing where it is. If you want to be informed of sup­port actions and demon­stra­tions, send us your e‑mail or phone num­ber at tanneries@squat.net.

We’ll defend, we’ll resist. Parce qu’on a la rage!

Dijon, March 24th 2007,
Espace auto­géré des Tan­ner­ies,
http://squat.net/tanneries/

‘Spring into Action’ targets Nottingham’s climate criminals

A day of action against Not­ting­ham’s cli­mate crim­i­nals has been called for Tues­day 10th April. It forms part of ‘Spring into Action,’ a week of cli­mate change focused events tak­ing place in venues across the city show­cas­ing prac­ti­cal solu­tions to cli­mate change.

A day of action against Not­ting­ham’s cli­mate crim­i­nals has been called for Tues­day 10th April. It forms part of ‘Spring into Action,’ a week of cli­mate change focused events tak­ing place in venues across the city show­cas­ing prac­ti­cal solu­tions to cli­mate change.

On Tues­day, expe­ri­enced cli­mate change cam­paign­ers and peo­ple inspired by attend­ing this week’s ‘Spring into Action’ events will be protest­ing at the site of Not­ting­ham’s major cli­mate crim­i­nals.

James Slater, organ­is­er ‘Spring into Action’, says ‘Tak­ing action on cli­mate change is about more than just mak­ing changes in your own life. It is about con­fronting the major play­ers in green­house gas pro­duc­tion. Its about resist­ing those who are cur­rent­ly prof­it­ing from the pol­lu­tion of our atmos­phere and the destruc­tion of life on earth.’

Major cli­mate crim­i­nals based in Not­ting­ham that could find them­selves tar­get­ed include:

East Mid­lands Air­port, which has plans to increase its num­ber of pas­sen­gers by three times by 2030, and its freight han­dling by even more than this (1). 2006 was already its busiest year on record (2). The gov­ern­ments cur­rent expan­sion pro­gramme for air­ports could wipe out all the good work it is putting in else­where to reduce car­bon emis­sions (3).

The M1, which is cur­rent­ly being widened to four lanes in both direc­tions along large sec­tions of its route. Expand­ing our road net­work is incom­pat­i­ble with try­ing to reduce car­bon emis­sions. Emis­sions from road trans­port are actu­al­ly increas­ing and cur­rent­ly con­sti­tute 18% of all UK green­house gas emis­sions (4).

Rat­cliffe on Soar Pow­er Sta­tion. In a time where we should be be reduc­ing our car­bon diox­ide emis­sions, we are get­ting more and more of our elec­tric­i­ty from coal, the dirt­i­est form of pow­er. Coal-fired pow­er sta­tions are the biggest C02 emit­ter per unit of elec­tric­i­ty pro­duced. Rat­cliffe on Soar is the sec­ond largest coal­fired pow­er­sta­tion in Britain (5).

East­croft Incin­er­a­tor, which burns most of Not­ting­ham’s waste, includ­ing recy­clable mate­ri­als. A recent local cam­paign suc­cess­ful­ly stopped the incin­er­a­tor from expand­ing, although the own­ers of the incin­er­a­tor have now lodged an appeal. Waste pol­i­cy has impor­tant impacts on cli­mate change, from, at one end, emis­sions sav­ings from waste pre­ven­tion and recy­cling, to pro­duc­tion of CO2 dur­ing incin­er­a­tion. In a recy­cling rate league table released by the Gov­ern­ment, Not­ting­ham City Coun­cil came an embar­rass­ing 339th out of 393 local author­i­ties, with a com­bined recy­cling and com­post­ing rate of just 18.6 per cent for 2004-05 (6).

For more infor­ma­tion on how to get involved come along to the cen­tral venue (JB Spray, Rus­sel St, Rad­ford), watch out for anoth­er announce­ment on Indy­media or call info phone 07765 217118 on Mon­day

Notes:
1) see http://www.eastmidlandsairport.com/cms/54/master-plan-2006.html
2) see http://www.eastmidlandsairport.com/cms/219/2006-airports-busiest-year-ever.html
3) see http://www.planestupid.com/index.php?location=reasons
4) see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_environment/transport_report.pdf+transport+emissions
5) http://www.climatecalm.org/drupal/index.php?q=node/17
6) see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/01/359240.html

http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk