Peruvian Police Fire on Minas Conga Opponents AGAIN

Police protect equipment to be used for the planned Minas Conga gold mine in Cajamarca, Peru

20th Sep­tem­ber 2013, Two pieces from the ongo­ing strug­gle to stop the Minas Con­ga gold mine in Peru.

Police protect equipment to be used for the planned Minas Conga gold mine in Cajamarca, Peru

20th Sep­tem­ber 2013, Two pieces from the ongo­ing strug­gle to stop the Minas Con­ga gold mine in Peru.

First, from World War 4 Report:

Nation­al Police troops in Peru’s north­ern Caja­mar­ca province on Sept. 17 clashed with res­i­dents of Quishuar Cor­ral ham­let who were con­duct­ing reconas­siance of moun­tain trails on their com­mu­nal lands, which they sus­pect­ed the Yana­cocha min­ing com­pa­ny of ille­gal­ly clos­ing to facil­i­tate expan­sion of its oper­a­tions. Four of the vil­lagers were injured, and two hos­pi­tal­ized. Wit­ness­es said the police troops opened fire with­out warn­ing with rub­ber bul­lets and tear-gas can­nis­ters. (RPP, Sept. 17)

The clash took place as a nation­al Sum­mit of Peo­ples Affect­ed by Min­ing opened in the south­ern city of Are­quipa, attend­ed by over 200 rep­re­sen­ta­tives of campesino com­mu­ni­ties through­out Peru’s sier­ras. Among the head­lin­ing speak­ers was Wil­fre­do Saave­dra, leader of the Caja­mar­ca Envi­ron­men­tal Defense Front, who told a ral­ly gath­ered in the city’s Plaza de Armas: “Enough with our nat­ur­al resources being preyed upon and the envi­ron­ment of the coun­try being con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed!”  (La Repub­li­ca, Sept. 16)

Sec­ond, Upside Down World has pub­lished an arti­cle review­ing the his­to­ry of the fight against the mine, includ­ing an analy­sis of the ways in which Peru’s big min­ing push is intrin­si­cal­ly inter­twined with Peru and Brazil’s con­cur­rent push for more big hydro­elec­tric dams in the Ama­zon basin.

Hambach Forest is occupied again, but under eviction threat

Since the cli­mat- and reclaim the fields camp in ger­many, the Ham­bach For­est ist occu­pied again, by cli­mat activist. There are activists liv­ing at plat­tform­sin the trees since more than 2 weeks.

Since the cli­mat- and reclaim the fields camp in ger­many, the Ham­bach For­est ist occu­pied again, by cli­mat activist. There are activists liv­ing at plat­tform­sin the trees since more than 2 weeks. The Ham­bach For­est is one of the old­est for­est in mid­dle europe, but already more than 4/5 of it is destroyed for open cast min­ing. The open cast min­ing in the Rhein­land (between Colonge and Aachen) is the biggest cli­mat killer in all Europe. The for­est gets destroyed year by year, so that RWE the coal com­pa­ny (wich is the moth­er com­pa­ny of N‑Power) can open cast the land. Also big vil­lages get­ting destroyed for the open cast min­ing. Last year the for­est was occu­pied by cli­mat activist, the wohle spring and sum­mer, and got evict­ed in automne. The evic­tion was the longest evic­tion that hap­pened in ger­many, because of the tun­nel sys­tem (the only god sys­tem is a tun­nel sys­tem!). After the evic­tion activists squat­ted a mead­ow next to the Ham­bach For­est, wich is still occu­pied. In the end of august the cli­mat- and RTF Camp took place close to the Ham­bach For­est. With over 500 Par­tic­i­pants it was the biggest cli­mat camp since 5 years in ger­many. More than 200 peo­ple blocked the Ham­bach coal-rail for half an day. In the end of the cli­mat- andd RTF-Camp activists occu­pied the Ham­bach For­est again. Now it is occu­pied since more than 2 weeks. Police was there on mon­day to inspect the plat­tforms and blockad­ing-tools, and was not realy hap­py. In looks like the evic­tion might come the next days. But maybe they want to wait after the big elec­tions in ger­many this sun­day. So there might still be time to come over! See you in the for­est.

http://hambachforest.blogsport.de/

Here’s a video about the occu­pa­tion:http://vimeo.com/74042113

and about the coal trail block­ade: http://vimeo.com/73938171

and a video about the RTF-action: http://vimeo.com/73514620

 

Underreported Indigenous Struggles

A drilling site run by Fortune Minerals is shut down by Tahltan, Sept 10, 2013. 18th Sep­tem­ber 2013 Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Cry has released

A drilling site run by Fortune Minerals is shut down by Tahltan, Sept 10, 2013. 18th Sep­tem­ber 2013 Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Cry has released Under­re­port­ed Strug­gles #77.

• Two Maya Q’eqchi chil­dren from Monte Oli­vo com­mu­ni­ty, in Alta Ver­a­paz depart­ment, Guatemala, died from bul­let injuries after being shot by a “hit­man” that was report­ed­ly hired by the com­pa­ny Hidro San­ta Rita SA. Accord­ing to Real World Radio, the two chil­dren, aged 11 and 13, were shot dur­ing the attempt­ed mur­der of David Chen, leader of the resis­tance to the company’s hydro­elec­tric project. No one has been arrest­ed from mur­der of the two chil­dren, David Eduar­do Pacay Maas and Hageo Isaac Gui­tz.

• Three Indige­nous Tolu­pan from Yoro dis­trict in Hon­duras, were mur­dered while car­ry­ing out peace­ful actions to pre­vent ille­gal for­est clear­ing and exploita­tion of nat­ur­al resources in their ter­ri­to­ry. Accord­ing to The Broad Move­ment for Dig­ni­ty and Jus­tice (Movimien­to Amplio por la Dig­nidad y Jus­ti­cia, MADJ), the Tolu­pan had been receiv­ing death threats from indi­vid­u­als who were brazen­ly walk­ing around the com­mu­ni­ty ful­ly armed, pro­vok­ing fear in the res­i­dents of the area. The Nation­al Pre­ven­tive Police Force and var­i­ous gov­ern­ment offi­cials, despite being warned of the threats, failed to take any kind of action to pro­tect the Tolu­pan.

• In British Colom­bia, Cana­da, mem­bers of the well-known Klabona Keep­ers served For­tune Min­er­als Lim­it­ed with a “24-hour evic­tion notice” inform­ing the com­pa­ny that it must vacate the Tahltan’s unced­ed tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry. For­tune Min­er­als ignored the dead­line, lead­ing the Tahltan activists to block the road lead­ing to the site of the company’s pro­posed open pit coal mine. The pro­test­ers then pro­ceed­ed to occu­py some of the company’s drills.

• The Black­feet Trib­al Busi­ness Coun­cil unex­pect­ed­ly can­celled pro­posed oil and gas devel­op­ments near Chief Moun­tain . The moun­tain, locat­ed near the Cana­di­an bor­der and on the bound­ary between the Black­feet Indi­an Reser­va­tion and Glac­i­er Nation­al Park, is con­sid­ered sacred by many of the Black­feet peo­ple; how­ev­er, some mem­bers of the Black­feet busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty (like Ron Cross­guns of the Black­feet Oil and Gas Depart­ment), have deri­sive­ly dis­missed any­thing sacred about the Moun­tain.

• The Oglala Lako­ta passed a res­o­lu­tion oppos­ing the pro­posed Otter Creek coal mine and Tongue Riv­er Rail­road in their his­tor­i­cal home­lands of south­east­ern Mon­tana. The Oglala Lako­ta have thus far been exclud­ed from any con­sul­ta­tions despite the fact that the pro­posed mine site is an area of great cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance con­tain­ing count­less bur­ial sites, human remains, bat­tle sites, stone fea­tures and arti­facts. In addi­tion to call­ing for prop­er con­sul­ta­tion, the Oglala Lako­ta have called on all Trib­al Nations who signed the Fort Laramie Treaty to stand with them in oppos­ing the mine and rail­road.

• The Buf­fa­lo Riv­er Dene Nation is mov­ing for­ward with a plan to reclaim a vast area of tra­di­tion­al land that was seized by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment in 1953. As report­ed by the Domin­ion, the area–Spanning 11,700 square kilo­me­tres along the Alber­ta-Saskatchewan border–has been used for the past 60 years as a tac­ti­cal bomb­ing range; how­ev­er, it is now being opened up to oil and gas extrac­tion activ­i­ties and an Enbridge pipeline. The Buf­fa­lo Riv­er Dene, who were evict­ed from the area, have sim­ply had enough.

• The Nahua Peo­ples in the Peru­vian Ama­zon announced that they will refuse to allow a gas con­sor­tium led by Plus­petrol to oper­ate in their ter­ri­to­ry. In a let­ter that was deliv­ered to the Min­istry of Cul­ture in Lima, the Nahua stat­ed that, “Giv­en the repeat­ed bro­ken promis­es by the com­pa­ny Plus­petrol, our peo­ple have decid­ed to pro­hib­it it from oper­at­ing in our ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry in the head­wa­ters of the Riv­er Ser­jali.” Plus­petrol is cur­rent­ly wait­ing for gov­ern­ment per­mis­sion from the Min­istry of Ener­gy and Mines to explore for deposits by drilling 18 wells and con­duct­ing inten­sive seis­mic tests in the head­wa­ters region of the Riv­er Ser­jali, which the Nahua con­sid­er to be their ter­ri­to­ry.

Read all of Under­re­port­ed Strug­gles #77

Trial of anti-road protestor Emily Johns

11th Sep­tem­ber 2013 Tri­al of anti-road pro­tes­tor — and Combe Haven Defend­ers — Emi­ly Johns, arrest­ed dur­ing Oper­a­tion Dis­clo­sure in April: https://combeha

11th Sep­tem­ber 2013 Tri­al of anti-road pro­tes­tor — and Combe Haven Defend­ers — Emi­ly Johns, arrest­ed dur­ing Oper­a­tion Dis­clo­sure in April: https://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/st-leonards-woman-arrested-in-peaceful-search-for-secret-link-road-documents/

 

From 10am, West­min­ster Mag­is­trates Court, 181 Maryle­bone Road Lon­don Lon­don Eng­land NW1 5BR.

Fri­day 11 Octo­ber!  https://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/save-combe-haven-events-calendar/

Sup­port­ers wel­come!

Balcombe frack-off latest

Day 48 (Tues 10th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (3:30pm): Pro­tec­tor cut off, arrest­ed and car­a­van moved. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Day 48 (Tues 10th) Of Com­mu­ni­ty Frack­ing Block­ade In Bal­combe Sus­sex

Update (3:30pm): Pro­tec­tor cut off, arrest­ed and car­a­van moved. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Update (2:00pm): Cuadrilla frack­ing truck blocked by Pro­tec­tor locked onto car­a­van in Bal­combe. Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp is still going strong despite increased police harass­ment.

Update (12:45pm): Ambu­lance takes one Pro­tec­tor to hos­pi­tal with leg injury caused by Police vio­lence

Update (12:15pm): First frack­ing truck of day arrives and is being blocked by Pro­tec­tors.

Update (12:00pm): Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp still hold­ing strong. Sit­u­a­tion pret­ty calm at moment. Lots of peo­ple here to sup­port Bal­combe but do come down to help if you can.

Update (11:00am): One of the three peo­ple arrest­ed for singing out­side Cuadrilla’s frack­ing site is a Bal­combe res­i­dent.

Update (10:30am): Police try­ing to intim­i­date camp but not here in large num­bers at present. Three arrests. More peo­ple would be good. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty if you can.

Update (10am): The day has start­ed qui­et­ly. Despite media report to the con­trary the Coun­cil has no pow­ers to evict the camp and would need to go through a court process to try. Threats by the police to use a Sec­tion 14 CJPOA to evict the camp are clear­ly ille­gal (though obvi­ous­ly that is no guar­an­tee they won’t try) but the camp is hold­ing firm. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty if you can.

Eviction of Ferrarisbos Forest Occupation Wilrijk, Antwerp, Belgium

groNoord logoAt 7am on Tues­day 3rd of Sep­tem­ber indi­vid­u­als occu­py­ing a wrong­ly zoned Far­raris for­est in Wilrijk were wok­en by the sound of chain­saws.

groNoord logoAt 7am on Tues­day 3rd of Sep­tem­ber indi­vid­u­als occu­py­ing a wrong­ly zoned Far­raris for­est in Wilrijk were wok­en by the sound of chain­saws. Break­ing the news to all that the for­est was being evict­ed. The first arrest of an indi­vid­ual in a tent on the ground, fol­lowed swift­ly: the tent was unzipped and the occu­pant ordered out although was not informed of their arrest or their rights. A cher­ry pick­er was used to gain access to the two plat­forms. One indi­vid­ual was lift­ed into the cher­ry pick­er and arrest­ed. Anoth­er indi­vid­ual was locked on, and a cut­ting team was used to break the lock on, remove the per­son and arrest them. A fourth indi­vid­ual, in a bed spi­ral (hang­ing tree­house) the tree was climbed and the indi­vid­ual removed and arrest­ed. The whole process took 2–3hrs, with­in 5hrs the for­est had been cut.

Local sup­port­ers and press were at first not allowed through to out­side the for­est. After some­time they man­aged to make their way through. Some locals chose to sar­cas­ti­cal­ly applaud as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Essers went past. This result­ed in 3 indi­vid­u­als being admin­is­tra­tive­ly arrest­ed*.

Essers is the com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for the cut­ting of this for­est. Want­i­ng to build ware­house there, at present there is no known client for this ware­house as the pre­vi­ous prospec­tive ten­ant pulled out of the con­tract.
With­in Bel­gium there is zon­ing of land — land is des­ig­nat­ed for a par­tic­u­lar use. This is out of date and there­fore not accu­rate. Where for­est (as in this case) is zoned as indus­tri­al land it is very easy to acquire the nec­es­sary per­mits required to fell the for­est.
Fer­raris­bos for­est is land that in 1771 whilst Fer­raris was sur­vey­ing and map­ping Bel­gium was found to be for­est. This means the for­est that was felled 03/09/13 was over 250 years old.
Flan­ders (region with­in Bel­gium) has one of the low­est per­cent­ages of remain­ing wood­land in the EU with 8% of wood­lands remain­ing, 20% is con­sid­ered a “healthy” min­i­mum.
The for­est felled 03/09/13 was an impor­tant breed­ing habi­tat for over 20 bird species includ­ing wood­peck­ers. Also the for­est was the sum­mer home and hunt­ing ground to many bats pos­si­bly includ­ing endan­gered and pro­tect­ed species, and groups of red squir­rels. A Bel­gian Gov­ern­ment Agency advised that if felling was to take place it should hap­pen between the 15th of Sep­tem­ber and the 15th of Octo­ber or dur­ing the spring to ensure min­i­mal dis­rup­tion to the ani­mals liv­ing there.

There was a total of 7 arrests through­out the day, 4 of occu­piers of the for­est and 3 local sup­port­ers. All the arrests were admin­is­tra­tive*.
Of the occu­piers the first was quick­ly released due to hav­ing their pass­port with them. 2 were released after fin­ger­prints and pho­tos were tak­en. The one remain­ing occu­pi­er spoke no dutch and police refused to speak more than lim­it­ed Eng­lish to them, refused to pro­vide food and then informed them they would be tak­en to for­eign deten­tion at some point (between in 5 min­utes and 2 days). After becom­ing dis­tressed the indi­vid­ual gave their name and was then released after being dri­ven to a small street in Antwerp with no mon­ey, no idea of their loca­tion and no means of con­tact­ing any­one.

The 3 locals arrest­ed dur­ing the evic­tion of the for­est all chose to give their IDs result­ing in a short deten­tion for 2 of them. 1 was tak­en to prison, being told this would be for 12 months, after 5 hours they were released and put on tag for 3 months. It is unclear why and how this has hap­pened.

Fur­ther Action
Peo­ple from the Occu­pa­tion of the For­est have asked for sol­i­dar­i­ty demos out­side Bel­gian Embassies against the cut­ting of wrong­ly zoned forests.
Short­ly there will also be fur­ther infor­ma­tion for com­mu­ni­ca­tions block­ades.

*Admin­is­tra­tive Arrest is where an indi­vid­ual is arrest­ed for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, this can last up to 12hrs if the indi­vid­ual choos­es to give their name or has ID on them. The arrest can last up to 24hrs if no name is giv­en.

FlyerVoor_1

http://groenoord.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/kroniek-van-een-aangekondigde-ontbossing/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferraris_map

steungroep.groenoord@gmail.com
www.groenoord.be

28 Days Later / Balcombe anti-fracking protests update days 40–43

One Man Stop — 2nd September — Day 40

Update (14:45am): One pro­tec­tor locked on to frack­ing truck at the gate of Cuadrilla site in Bal­combe.

Update (11:45am): Two pro­tec­tors arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

One Man Stop — 2nd September — Day 40

Update (14:45am): One pro­tec­tor locked on to frack­ing truck at the gate of Cuadrilla site in Bal­combe.

Update (11:45am): Two pro­tec­tors arrest­ed defend­ing Sus­sex from frack­ing.

Update (9:30am): Police try­ing to force frack­ing truck through the com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion block­ade. Come down and sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

Pro­tec­tor Locked On To Frack­ing Tanker Block­ing The Gate Of Cuadrilla Site In Bal­combe — Video

More info and pho­tos here

Day 41 (Tues 3rd) Of Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe Sussex

Pro­tec­tor Locked On To Gate Of Cuadrilla Frack­ing Site In Bal­combe — Video

“I study envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence, I know this is wrong, I know this is mad and it’s just about mon­ey. I’ve cho­sen this action because nobody is lis­ten­ing. I’ve signed peti­tions, I’ve writ­ten to the EA. I’ve been here peace­ful­ly protest­ing for the last 6 weeks or longer. The gov­ern­men­t’s just not lis­ten­ing to its peo­ple. Once they start putting those chem­i­cals down into the water table they can­not get them out. I don’t want to leave this mess for the next gen­er­a­tion and I cer­tain­ly don’t want to say I did­n’t do any­thing to stop it.”

Day 43 — 5th September Of Community Fracking Blockade In Balcombe Sussex

Break­ing: #Bal­combe Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camp now has a tri­pod block­ing the road. Some cars can pass… looks like no trucks for a while… #Great­Gas­Gala #Frack_OFF #Cuadrilla

Day 43 of the Com­mu­ni­ty Block­ade in Bal­combe. This morn­ing one Pro­tec­tor is block­ing frack­ing trucks from enter­ing the Cuadrilla’s site with a tri­pod. The camp in Bal­combe is fight the threat of thou­sands of frack­ing wells spread­ing across Sus­sex and the UK.

Videos

 

Help­ful Infor­ma­tion for groups con­sid­er­ing action

 

News from the anti-MAT struggle in the Girona area of Catalonia

 

 

2nd of Sep­tem­ber, 2013:

News from the anti-MAT strug­gle in the Girona area of Cat­alo­nia

 

 

 

2nd of Sep­tem­ber, 2013:

News from the anti-MAT strug­gle in the Girona area of Cat­alo­nia

 

The active resis­tance camp against the MAT (very high ten­sion elec­tric­i­ty line) tak­ing place near Girona has squat­ted a huge, antique, aban­doned farm­house near the vil­lage of Orriols, in order to give con­ti­nu­ity to the strug­gle against this dead­ly project and the world which needs it. The resis­tance against the MAT has been active for more than a decade and has now reached a cru­cial point see­ing that the con­struc­tion of the line has now start­ed in this area and is going ahead at a furi­ous pace.

 

The police are con­stant­ly harass­ing the squat­ted zone and farm­house. This is the squat’s fifth day and the sec­ond day since the doors were opened to any­one who wish­es to con­tribute to the strug­gle against the MAT and intends to orga­nize col­lec­tive­ly in order to stop it. The lib­er­at­ed space, locat­ed very near to where two pylons are being con­struct­ed, is like sand in the gears and cogs of this machine of death and destruc­tion dri­ven by indus­tri­al­ists and politi­cians and defend­ed by the police and jour­nal­ists.

 

Dur­ing the last week of August the police pres­ence around the camp in Fellines and its activ­i­ties was very strong: peo­ple stopped and iden­ti­fied, provo­ca­tions, num­ber plates writ­ten down, con­stant patrolling along the sur­round­ing roads, protest march­es blocked, a heli­copter fly­ing above the camp and hov­er­ing near it at low alti­tude, pre­sum­ably tak­ing pho­tos, etc. How­ev­er, the harass­ment did not stop the peo­ple who came from all over the sur­round­ing areas, the Span­ish State and oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries, and even spurred them to inten­si­fy the strug­gle, as can be seen with this new squat­ted area which seems to have thrown the police off-bal­ance.

 

On the 1st of Sep­tem­ber it was made pub­lic knowl­edge that the aban­doned Mas Castel­ló farm­house had been squat­ted as a new space of resis­tance and coor­di­na­tion, and soon enough the police arrived in great num­bers, sud­den­ly wak­ing up to the fact that the action had tak­en place right under their noses and despite all their check­points. The bar­ri­cades built along the dirt track lead­ing to the house, the pres­ence of many peo­ple behind them and some oth­er resisters on the roof of the new squat, helped keep the police away, even though they tried to advance show­ing plas­tic bul­let guns, fir­ing a few shots into the air, per­haps bring­ing dogs to the scene, threat­en­ing and shout­ing and throw­ing rocks at the resisters in order to pro­voke them and thus cre­ate the legal sit­u­a­tion nec­es­sary for a speedy evic­tion order. Before night­fall, how­ev­er, the forces of repres­sion with­drew most of their faith­ful sol­diers, only to come back a lit­tle lat­er as a small group accom­pa­ny­ing the own­er of the house, shout­ing threats and try­ing to iden­ti­fy the peo­ple on the roof.

 

The night was qui­et but this morn­ing saw the arrival of many police vans yet again. Some of the bar­ri­cades have been removed by fire­fight­ers and by a trac­tor which was prob­a­bly ordered to do so by the own­er of the house. Some hours lat­er most of the vans filed away and the resisters got back to the tasks nec­es­sary in order to make Mas Castel­ló a meet­ing point for locals and non-locals who will con­tin­ue the strug­gle against this dead­ly megapro­ject.

 

Every­one is invit­ed to come and par­tic­i­pate to help defend the land around Girona. Peo­ple are arriv­ing but greater num­bers are nec­es­sary, so come and show your sup­port!

 

If you are unable to be phys­i­cal­ly present, express your sol­i­dar­i­ty in whichev­er way you see fit, wher­ev­er pos­si­ble and as soon as pos­si­ble.

 

 

Mas Castel­ló resists!

 

 

 

 

Stop the Arms Fair/DSEI

A mas­sive arms fair is planned to take place in the UK in Sep­tem­ber 2013. The arms fair wel­comes:

A mas­sive arms fair is planned to take place in the UK in Sep­tem­ber 2013. The arms fair wel­comes:

The US and UK will seek the next gen­er­a­tion of weapons for their wars, while the arms com­pa­nies aim to set the agen­da for more exor­bi­tant mil­i­tary spend­ing.

The arms fair brings togeth­er 28,000 inter­na­tion­al buy­ers and sell­ers. The deals that begin here fuel the arms trade the world over. Death, injury, fear and repres­sion are export­ed from the arms com­pa­nies on our doorstep.

We can make a difference

When the fair took place in 2011, we chal­lenged the open­ing night arms deal­ers’ recep­tion at the Nation­al Gallery. One year lat­er we put an end to an arms company’s spon­sor­ship of the Nation­al Gallery.

Take action to stop the arms fair

A mas­sive week of action is planned from 7–14 Sep­tem­ber to expose the arms fair and make its busi­ness as dif­fi­cult as pos­si­ble. Sun­day 8th Sep­tem­ber looks set to be the biggest day: Come and cre­ate a mass action against the arms fair with Occu­py vs. the Arms Fair from noon. Check out which actions appeal to you and put the dates in your diary now!

Action AWE Disarmament Camp & Blockade

25th August 2013

Direc­tions and details here.

Update — 2nd Sep­tem­ber — big block­ade

IMG_1294

25th August 2013

Direc­tions and details here.

Update — 2nd Sep­tem­ber — big block­ade

IMG_1294

More pho­tos and videos

Twen­ty-one pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed after blockad­ing a road lead­ing to a site which builds war­heads for nuclear sub­marines.

Anti-nuclear weapons pro­test­ers at Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­men­t’s (AWE) Burgh­field site oppose the renew­al or replace­ment of Tri­dent.

Burgh­field and AWE Alder­mas­ton pro­vide the war­heads for the sub­ma­rine-launched mis­sile sys­tem.

The activists were held on sus­pi­cion of obstruc­tion of a pub­lic high­way.

The UK’s exist­ing four bal­lis­tic mis­sile sub­marines are to be renewed from the late-2020s.

The gov­ern­men­t’s final deci­sion on whether to renew or replace the mis­sile sys­tem, the UK’s nuclear deter­rent, is due in 2016.

‘Pose a dan­ger’

Some of the pro­test­ers at AWE Burgh­field have come from Fin­land, Spain, Scot­land, Argenti­na and Japan to take part.

Police said there were about 20 tents as part of a camp near the West Berk­shire site.

Action AWE, which is co-ordi­nat­ing the protest with Tri­dent Ploughshares, said in a state­ment they were tak­ing part in “non-vio­lent direct action”.

They said nuclear weapons were “immoral, ille­gal under inter­na­tion­al law, dan­ger­ous to main­tain and pose a dan­ger to peace on Earth”.

Ch Insp Lind­sey Finch, deputy local polic­ing com­man­der for New­bury, said: “We will con­tin­ue to work with pro­test­ers to facil­i­tate peace­ful protest and ensure that any crim­i­nal activ­i­ty is dealt with pro­por­tion­ate­ly.”

A spokes­woman for the weapons site said: “AWE on-site secu­ri­ty, the Min­istry of Defence Police and Thames Val­ley Police are cur­rent­ly in atten­dance and will remain for the dura­tion of any protest action.”