Anti-Highway Protester Faces Eight Year Sentence

Will Parrish in the wick drain stitcher. Jan­u­ary 22nd From June 20th to July 1st, local­ly well-known jour­nal­ist and activist Will Par­rish lived 50 feet above ground in a wick drain &l

Will Parrish in the wick drain stitcher. Jan­u­ary 22nd From June 20th to July 1st, local­ly well-known jour­nal­ist and activist Will Par­rish lived 50 feet above ground in a wick drain “stitch­er” in the north­ern Lit­tle Lake Val­ley (ie, Willits Val­ley) wet­lands, where the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (Cal­Trans) is build­ing an unnec­es­sary and envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive free­way bypass.

By putting his body inside the frame­work of this destruc­tive equip­ment, which is in the process of installing rough­ly 55,000 80-foot drainage tubes into the Lit­tle Lake wet­lands, Will blocked it from oper­at­ing and brought nation­wide atten­tion to the harm Cal­Trans is caus­ing the Lit­tle Lake Val­ley water­shed.  This harm includes destroy­ing the largest North­ern Cal­i­for­nia wet­lands area of any project in over 50 years.

As pun­ish­ment for Will’s more than 11 day stand on behalf of the Valley’s land and peo­ple, Men­do­ci­no Coun­ty Dis­trict Attor­ney David Eyster is charg­ing him with 16 mis­de­meanors (14 counts of “unlaw­ful entry” and two of “resist­ing arrest”), with a max­i­mum eight-year jail sen­tence.  He also wants Will to pay Cal­trans a mind-bog­gling $490,002 in resti­tu­tion. This is an unheard of move by a dis­trict attor­ney in Men­do­ci­no and Hum­boldt Coun­ties, which each have a rich tra­di­tion of strug­gle for social jus­tice and the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment.  If the DA and Cal­trans have their way, Will would spend the rest of his life pay­ing off these absurd penal­ties.

About The Case

When Men­do­ci­no Coun­ty DA David Eyster first filed a com­plaint against Will on July 2nd, the charges con­sist­ed of three infrac­tions cor­re­spond­ing to each of Will’s three non-vio­lent arrests protest­ing the Bypass.  This com­plaint includ­ed a require­ment to pay undis­closed resti­tu­tion fees.

Under an infrac­tion, the defendant’s case is presided over by a judge rather than a jury.  Will was unwill­ing to accept the uncapped resti­tu­tion stip­u­la­tion and was also adamant about his right to receive a jury tri­al, so his attor­ney (Omar Figueroa of Sebastopol) asked that Eyster re-file the charges as mis­de­meanors.  Will under­stood and accept­ed that the infrac­tions would become mis­de­meanors, and would include the pos­si­bil­i­ty of jail time, but was not pre­pared for Eyster’s arbi­trary deci­sion to add thir­teen addi­tion­al counts for mis­de­meanor vio­la­tions.

Notably, Will already endured a form of house arrest in the wick drain stitch­er and was deprived of food, water and med­ical atten­tion by the CHP (at the behest of Cal­Trans). The CHP even arrest­ed six peo­ple who attempt­ed to bring him sup­plies.  Will went for almost six days with no food, sur­vived par­tial­ly on rain water, and was bit­ter­ly cold after being drenched by more than two days of unsea­son­al rain.

Why Will Is Pur­su­ing a Jury Tri­al

This part of the case bears repeat­ing. There is a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that Will is seek­ing a jury tri­al because he wants to lever­age his case for max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty.  This claim has been repeat­ed in numer­ous media accounts of the case.  But it is large­ly untrue.  While Will is indeed inter­est­ed in max­i­mum pub­lic­i­ty for his case, he is exer­cis­ing his Con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a jury tri­al pri­mar­i­ly because of DA Eyster’s dra­con­ian insis­tence that he pay crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion to Cal­trans.

Will believes a jury tri­al pro­vides the best oppor­tu­ni­ty for him to oppose the crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion stip­u­la­tion.

Will adamant­ly oppos­es this harsh crim­i­nal­iza­tion of envi­ron­men­tal activism on prin­ci­pal, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the real crim­i­nals in this case are those who pre­side over Cal­trans’ Willits Bypass con­struc­tion.  Crim­i­nal resti­tu­tion has not been pur­sued against direct action pro­test­ers in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia in recent mem­o­ry.  Thus, the impo­si­tion of resti­tu­tion would also have a chill­ing effect against future activism.  Besides not want­i­ng to be in a posi­tion of pay­ing off Cal­trans for the rest of his life, Will is dead set against see­ing peo­ple who stand on their rights to defend the earth from ille­gal plun­der be per­se­cut­ed for it. He is will­ing to risk a jail sen­tence to oppose this dan­ger­ous prece­dent.

HUNTING TOWERS TOPPLED, BURNED AND BLOWN UP

Jan­u­ary 20, 2014 — Ger­many  The fol­low­ing is a sum­ma­ry of recent inci­dents in Ger­many report­ed on the Anti-Hunt­ing Blog (ani­mal rights activists may not be respon­si­ble for all of these inci­dents):

Jan­u­ary 20, 2014 — Ger­many  The fol­low­ing is a sum­ma­ry of recent inci­dents in Ger­many report­ed on the Anti-Hunt­ing Blog (ani­mal rights activists may not be respon­si­ble for all of these inci­dents):

- A hunt­ing seat/tower was destroyed by fire in Het­ten­shausen (Bavaria) on Jan­u­ary 18.

- Accord­ing to news reports, between Jan­u­ary 6–7 a hunt­ing tow­er at the edge of a nature reserve near Salem (Schleswig-Hol­stein) was knocked over. Two oth­er hunt­ing tow­ers in the same area were dam­aged in Novem­ber and Decem­ber. Police blamed “Mil­i­tant hunt­ing oppo­nents.”

- In ear­ly Jan­u­ary, two hunt­ing tow­ers were demol­ished near Hagen (North Rhine-West­phalia). Local police spec­u­lat­ed that ani­mal rights activists were respon­si­ble.

- On Decem­ber 24, a hunt­ing tow­er was set on fire near the city of Hildesheim (Low­er Sax­ony).

- Police are inves­ti­gat­ing an explo­sion that com­plete­ly destroyed a hunt­ing tow­er in Poll­ha­gen (Low­er Sax­ony) in mid-Decem­ber. The exact cause of the blast has not been deter­mined.

- Late on Decem­ber 14 a hunt­ing tow­er was dam­aged by an explo­sion in Samern (Low­er Sax­ony). pho­to: gn-online.de

- On Novem­ber 14, the inside of a hunt­ing tow­er in Dud­er­stadt (Low­er Sax­ony) was soaked with butyric acid, mak­ing it unus­able.

Moscow, Russia: ELF Torch Excavator and Dozer During New Year Festivities

Dur­ing the night of Decem­ber 31 – Jan­u­ary 1 we torched 2 vehi­cles used in devel­op­ment project in South­ern Moscow. Secu­ri­ty didn’t expect us to show up as they were busy drink­ing them­selves into obliv­ion at the guard­house. So we used 2 jel­ly cans of gaso­line and some rags to destroy unguard­ed machin­ery.

Dur­ing the night of Decem­ber 31 – Jan­u­ary 1 we torched 2 vehi­cles used in devel­op­ment project in South­ern Moscow. Secu­ri­ty didn’t expect us to show up as they were busy drink­ing them­selves into obliv­ion at the guard­house. So we used 2 jel­ly cans of gaso­line and some rags to destroy unguard­ed machin­ery. No harm came from our actions (only harm being made was that to the developer’s purse).

We ded­i­cate this action to anar­chists from Belarus, those who stay impris­oned. Guys, we remem­ber you, we miss you and wait for you to become free again. We ask for ABC Belarus to help us in spread­ing this infor­ma­tion and let­ting our impris­oned com­rades know of our words and deed. We hope the news will help to light­en up the mood and keep you warm and smil­ing in the grey prison real­i­ty.

As for our ecode­fence activism, we are not plan­ning to make a U‑turn. Unlike Mrs. Chiriko­va [self-pro­claimed leader of mass protests dur­ing Khim­ki for­est strug­gle — trans.] we are not look­ing for a com­fort­able chair in local admin­is­tra­tion. So we can afford to do what needs be done. We don’t accept moan­ings like: “Vio­lence is bad, we shouldn’t be torch­ing vehi­cles, we should get more sig­na­tures under peti­tion, so as to be heard by fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.” This reminds us of the fears of a per­son who’s afraid to loose the good­will of pow­ers-that-be. If we allow some­body to com­mit vio­lence against our­selves, it means we’re rais­ing the white flag. It is time to ques­tion the ratio­nale behind con­tin­u­ous with­draw­al under the blows of author­i­ties. It is time to stop hid­ing your inabil­i­ty to act behind phras­es like: “we shouldn’t act, this is vio­lent tac­tics” or “this is too macho-ist” or “this is ille­gal”. If you want to ask for per­mis­sion to protest, you must under­stand that you’re in fact sell­ing your­selves. Only uncon­trol­lable forms of resis­tance can hope to remain free. Any protest coor­di­nat­ed from under lib­er­al umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion is doomed to a fail­ure. Gath­er your strengths, stay free and be wild, god damn it!

Blockade of Mine Site Enters Third Day

mb_wide_maules-20140115000958462076-620x349 14th Jan­u­ary 2014 Activists have block­ad­ed the Maules Creek mine site at Bog­gabri in New South Wales, Aus­tralia, for three days now.

mb_wide_maules-20140115000958462076-620x349 14th Jan­u­ary 2014 Activists have block­ad­ed the Maules Creek mine site at Bog­gabri in New South Wales, Aus­tralia, for three days now.

On Mon­day, 30 pro­tes­tors, includ­ing mem­bers of Abo­rig­i­nal groups and the orga­ni­za­tion Leard For­est Alliance, descend­ed on the site, with some lock­ing them­selves to heavy machines.

Yes­ter­day, 10 more pro­tes­tors joined the group, re-enforc­ing an ad-hoc encamp­ment and lock­ing down to bull­doz­ers.

The Leard For­est is set to be destroyed by the open pit coal mine, and the heavy machines are sup­posed to start clear­ing for­est for Wite­haven Coal’s oper­a­tion. The for­est is impor­tant habi­tat, as well as a cul­tur­al and bur­ial site for Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple in the area.

Activist group the Leard For­est Alliance said the heavy vehi­cles were at the site to begin clear­ing for­est for a road and rail­way line to ser­vice White­haven Coal’s $767 mil­lion open-cut coalmine. The alliance says the mine will destroy Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al and bur­ial sites and valu­able for­est and ani­mals.

Peru: Achuar Indigenous Leader on Prison Hunger Strike

Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 13th, 2014  Achuar indige­nous leader Segun­do Gar­cía San­di began a hunger strike Jan. 7 to demand his free­dom at Huayabam­ba prison in Iqui­tos, Peru. Gar­cía San­di was arrest­ed Dec.

Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 13th, 2014  Achuar indige­nous leader Segun­do Gar­cía San­di began a hunger strike Jan. 7 to demand his free­dom at Huayabam­ba prison in Iqui­tos, Peru. Gar­cía San­di was arrest­ed Dec. 5, on charges of tam­per­ing with an oil pipeline run by Argen­tine com­pa­ny Plus­petrol through his people’s ter­ri­to­ry in the remote north of Lore­to depart­ment. He claims he is being held ille­gal­ly with­out evi­dence, but a habeas cor­pus action filed by his sup­port­ers has met with no response by Peru’s judi­cial author­i­ties.

Gar­cía Sandi’s orga­ni­za­tion, the Río Cor­ri­entes Fed­er­a­tion of Native Com­mu­ni­ties (FECONACO), asserts the arrest is retal­i­a­tion for his demands for envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. FECONACO reports that five Achuar chil­dren died in Decem­ber as a result of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion relat­ed to oil oper­a­tions in the area, and that a state of emer­gency announced by Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Manuel Pul­gar-Vidal in Octo­ber for the Cor­ri­entes Val­ley, call­ing for spe­cial mon­i­tor­ing, is going unen­forced. The Envi­ron­ment Min­istry in Novem­ber took the rare step of fin­ing Plus­petrol $7 mil­lion for con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to the Lore­to rain­for­est. (Servin­di, Jan. 11; La Región, Lore­to, Jan. 8; Mar­iátegui blog, Jan. 7; La Región, Dec. 20; AP, Nov. 27)

Barton Moss — locking on top of lorries (Day 48/13 Jan 2014)

A human block­ade at the end of Moss Lane has left a con­voy of tankers backed up onto the A57.

Pro­tec­tors have swarmed the vehi­cles and climbed on top. Come down to sup­port and stop frack­ing at Bar­ton Moss.

A human block­ade at the end of Moss Lane has left a con­voy of tankers backed up onto the A57.

Pro­tec­tors have swarmed the vehi­cles and climbed on top. Come down to sup­port and stop frack­ing at Bar­ton Moss.

Three pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed at Bar­ton Moss after they climbed two sta­tion­ary lor­ries at the site refus­ing to get down for more than an hour.

Police brought in the Pro­test­er Removal Team to bring the men down, after they were for­mal­ly arrest­ed for obstruc­tion.

The men final­ly came down after offi­cers assem­bled tem­po­rary scaf­fold­ing and lad­ders and ordered the men to remove them­selves from the lor­ries deliv­er­ing to the iGas frack­ing site.

Anti-fracking defendants found not guilty as movement grows

10th Jan 2014 via Cor­po­rate Watch Eleven anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers have been found not guilty after a three day tri­al at Brighton Mag­is­trate’s Court.

10th Jan 2014 via Cor­po­rate Watch Eleven anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers have been found not guilty after a three day tri­al at Brighton Mag­is­trate’s Court.

The defen­dants had been arrest­ed on the 2nd day of the protests against Cuadrilla’s explorato­ry drilling Bal­combe last sum­mer while sit­ting on or around a log which had been dragged out­side the gates to the Cuadrilla site.

The pro­test­ers were approached by what one defen­dant described as “bat­tal­ions” of police and arrest­ed en masse. The arrests were vio­lent, with police using pres­sure point tech­niques as they dragged peo­ple away. One man, who was drink­ing a cup of tea at the time the police approached was arrest­ed for assault for spilling tea on a police offi­cer dur­ing his arrest.

The arrests were part of a con­cert­ed police strat­e­gy to stamp out resis­tance to frack­ing in Bal­combe before it had begun in earnest. Those arrest­ed were giv­en strin­gent bail con­di­tions not to go back to the area close to Cuadrilla’s oper­a­tions. How­ev­er, police bul­ly­ing tac­tics were not suc­cess­ful, despite over 120 arrests dur­ing the 2 months that the Bal­combe Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp was in place. The resis­tance, which includ­ed reg­u­lar block­ades and direct action, sig­nif­i­cant­ly delayed Cuadr­l­la’s work. The com­pa­ny’s plan­ning per­mis­sion expired in Sep­tem­ber 2013 and they left the site on Sep­tem­ber 28th hav­ing dug their well but with­out begin­ning test­ing. It is esti­mat­ed that the polic­ing costs amount­ed to £3.7 mil­lion dur­ing the course of the protests.

The Tri­al

The cam­paign­ers were ini­tial­ly arrest­ed under the pro­vi­sions of arti­cle 241 of the arcane Trade Union and Labour Rela­tions Act, a law brought in by John Major’s Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment to pre­vent trade union­ists pick­et­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with oth­er work­ers or, as the judge put it (with a straight face) “to pro­tect peo­ple’s right to work”. One defen­dant said dur­ing his evi­dence, “I think they were just scrap­ing the bar­rel and could­n’t find a real rea­son to arrest us and had dug up this obscure sec­ondary pick­et­ing law”. The charges were lat­er amend­ed to obstruct­ing the high­way.

Sev­er­al defen­dants said they were shocked at the police tac­tics. One woman described a car­ni­val atmos­phere at the gates of Cuadrilla with chil­dren play­ing ten­nis and hop­scotch in the road before “mil­i­tarised” police wad­ed in to break up the protest and arrest­ed her in front of her daugh­ter.

One demon­stra­tor, who had dragged the log into the road, said he had done so to make the point to Cuadrilla that “we need to have a con­ver­sa­tion about what you’re try­ing to enforce on a com­mu­ni­ty who don’t want this sort of busi­ness going on in their back yard”.

The judge ruled that he could not be sure that the defen­dants had intend­ed to obstruct the high­way and that the fact that the road was closed while it was being resur­faced went in their favour. The court had heard that the police had not giv­en suf­fi­cient warn­ing before mak­ing arrests.

At least anoth­er 19 defen­dants are await­ing tri­al after being arrest­ed dur­ing the Bal­combe protests.

The strug­gle con­tin­ues

Char­lotte Wil­son, a spokesper­son from the Frack Off cam­paign said, on hear­ing the ver­dict: “The frack­ing block­ades at Bal­combe and now Bar­ton Moss near Man­ches­ter, are tes­ta­ment to the lev­el of anger and fear sur­round­ing these devel­op­ments. There are now 70 or more groups resist­ing frack­ing devel­op­ments nation­wide. The indus­try is los­ing. Each new well is met with months of protests and mil­lions in polici­ing costs. The scale of the gov­ern­m­ren­t’s sell-off means that rough­ly 60% of the UK is now avail­able to frack­ing com­pa­nies, huge num­bers of peo­ple are threat­ened and as a result com­mu­ni­ties from all cor­ners of the coun­try are get­ting organ­ised.”

IGas Ener­gy, who describe them­selves as a “lead­ing British oil and gas explor­er and devel­op­er”, are cur­rent­ly try­ing to set up a well to begin explorato­ry drilling in Bar­ton Moss, near Man­ches­ter, in the face of con­cert­ed resis­tance and direct action from anoth­er camp which has been set up for around 45 days. Infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign can be found at the North­ern Gas Gala web­site at  http://northerngasgala.org.uk/.

For more infor­ma­tion about anti-frack­ing move­ments in the UK see www.frack-off.org.

Bath — arson at car showroom

8th of Jan­u­ary — incen­di­ary device on delay left at Kia car show­room, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath. Dam­age to the build­ing facade. A brand new 4‑x-4 and three cars also con­sumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploita­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries who prof­it from chok­ing our world, who also make sta­tus sym­bols for our class ene­mies.

8th of Jan­u­ary — incen­di­ary device on delay left at Kia car show­room, Low­er Bris­tol Road, Bath. Dam­age to the build­ing facade. A brand new 4‑x-4 and three cars also con­sumed by the flames. A direct attack on exploita­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­tries who prof­it from chok­ing our world, who also make sta­tus sym­bols for our class ene­mies. This sec­tion of the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion has them in our sights.

With the cops cleared of the exe­cu­tion of Mark Dug­gan that start­ed the riots of 2011, as good a time as ever to re-ignite the streets.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the ene­my, the 32 year old man arrest­ed for the action has no rela­tion to our group.

Active sol­i­dar­i­ty with:
- the stir­rings of new strug­gle against road build­ing pro­grams in the UK (traces of which we saw in Combe Haven), specif­i­cal­ly with the ones who won’t take the path of lib­er­als and paci­fists next time
- Swiss anar­chist Mar­co Camenish (who is on hunger strike and refus­ing work since the 30th of Decem­ber) and also infor­mal anar­chist pris­on­ers Alfre­do Cospi­to and Nico­la Gai in Italy
- Hen­ry Zegar­run­do (who we recog­nise as a kin­dred spir­it through his let­ters) tar­get­ed by the Boli­vian pros­e­cu­tors, those on the run, and the anar­chist and indige­nous peo­ples still fight­ing the high­way devel­op­ment

Peren­ni­al Resis­tance ELF-FAI

Bris­tol — Tolu­ca — Jakar­ta — Moscow — Buenos Aires — Mel­bourne — keep the fires burn­ing

Balcombe Protectors Acquitted

09 Jan­u­ary 2014 Peo­ple cel­e­brate out­side Brighton Mag­is­trates Court after Bal­combe pro­tec­tors acquit­ted on all charges as a resul

09 Jan­u­ary 2014 Peo­ple cel­e­brate out­side Brighton Mag­is­trates Court after Bal­combe pro­tec­tors acquit­ted on all charges as a result of their coura­geous actions to defend Sus­sex from frack­ing last sum­mer.

Over 120 peo­ple were arrest dur­ing the 2 month block­ade of Cuadrilla’s Bal­combe frack­ing site. More than twen­ty tri­als are still sched­uled over the next few month at the moment.

 

  • 10:00am – Court back on
  • 10:00am – Judge tries to explain Trade Union and Labour Rela­tions (Con­sol­i­da­tion) Act 1992 to pub­lic gallery
  • 10:45am – Judge states pro­ceed­ings could fin­ish today!
  • 11:00am – Defence reads char­ac­ter ref­er­ences. Pros­e­cu­tion doesn’t like them but judge says he will make up his own mind
  • 11:50am – Defence estab­lish­es no warn­ing giv­en before arrests
  • 11:55am – Pro­tec­tor explains how his act involves a bed of nails and the police tried to drag him off it with­out ask­ing him to get up
  • 12:15pm – Bed of nails was placed between log and gate on health and safe­ty grounds
  • 12:25pm – Penul­ti­mate pro­tec­tor describes how he was phys­i­cal­ly assault­ed by the police pri­or to his arrest
  • 12:30pm – Pro­tec­tor describes police using pres­sure points to inflict great pain on him
  • 12:45pm – Bal­combe res­i­dent takes the stand as a wit­ness
  • 12:50pm – Wit­ness con­firms that road was closed
  • 12:55pm – Wit­ness had pic­nic with kids
  • 1:00pm – Wit­ness describes how atmos­phere changed when a bat­tal­ion of police arrived – they were trapped as police start­ed vio­lent­ly arrest­ing peo­ple – her 5 year old son was trau­ma­tised
  • 1:10pm – Pros­e­cu­tion is ask­ing to reopen case and pro­duce new wit­ness – a Cuadrilla drilling super­vi­sor. Defence is object­ing.
  • 1:15pm – Judge hear­ing objec­tions
  • 1:15pm – Judge to allow pros­e­cu­tions new evi­dence. Court ris­es for lunch back at 2pm
  • 2:00pm – Court back in ses­sion
  • 2:10pm – Cuadrilla drilling super­vi­sor in wit­ness box
  • 2:35pm – Cross exam­i­na­tion of Cuadrilla employ­ee com­plet­ed
  • 2:55pm – Final pro­tec­tor takes the stand
  • 3:20pm – Defence case over; Court in recess until 3:30pm
  • 3:30pm – Court recovened
  • 3:35pm – Pros­e­cu­tion sum­ming up
  • 3:40pm – Pros­e­cu­tion claim pro­tec­tors should have just protest­ed e.g. with a plac­ard, and let Cuadrilla get on with frack­ing Sus­sex
  • 3:45pm – Judge about to announce ver­dict
  • 3:45pm – One pro­tec­tor is found not guilty on ridicu­lous assault charge result­ing from police knock­ing
  • 4:00pm – All pro­tec­tors acquit­ted!
  • 4:00pm – Dis­trict Judge found their actions were rea­son­able in the cir­cum­stances and that they act­ed with dig­ni­ty.
  • 4:00pm – Sug­gest­ed that the Police had very bad mem­o­ries with regard to their evi­dence! Big ques­tion was deemed to be lim­its of free­dom of speech.