Tar Sands Blockaders still in jail, and on hunger strike

Today hunger strik­ers in Hous­ton hit day 20 with­out food and the three activists who locked down inside the Key­stone XL pipe on Dec 3rd are still in jail, fac­ing exor­bi­tant bail.

While jail is oppres­sive, dehu­man­iz­ing, and bor­ing, your mes­sages of love and sup­port will help lift their spir­its. Please send a let­ter today… And start mak­ing your plans to get out to Texas next month for the TSB Mass Action camp, Jan 3rd – 8th.

For mail to Matt and Glen:

Inmate’s Full Name (1 per let­ter: Matt Almonte, or Glen Collins)
C/O Smith Coun­ty Jail
206 E. Elm
Tyler, Texas 75701

*Note: Let­ters can­not exceed 12” by 15”. Return address with full name is required. Be mind­ful that the author­i­ties will like­ly read your let­ter. Keep it pos­i­tive and avoid inflam­ma­to­ry lan­guage – oth­er­wise it might not be deliv­ered. As a gen­er­al rule: if in doubt, leave it out.

To write Isabel:

Isabel Brooks
PO Box 849
Kauf­man, TX 75142

Chainsaws vs Tree Defenders Day 6 (Wed 19 Dec)

Trees to be felled Wednes­day 19 Decem­ber in Sid­ley, Bex­hill, start­ing ear­ly nr TN40 2DD. Tree defend­ers will be going there and also to the dis­used rail­way cut­ting near Adam’s farm in Crowhurst (see maps below). Info: 07926 423 033. Remem­ber to stay calm and peace­ful.

Up till now far it’s all been urban trees being felled. From now on they’ll be hit­ting the coun­try­side prop­er.

Impor­tant note: If you go to either loca­tion then please down­load and read the bust card here and take it with you, whether or not you antic­i­pate being arrest­ed.

The next two maps are down­load­able from this web-site.

 

Australia: activists scale Yallourn power station Cooling Tower in coal protest

19/12/12

19/12/12

Late last week two intre­pid cli­mate change activists scaled one of the cool­ing tow­ers at Yal­lourn coal fired pow­er sta­tion in Vic­to­ri­a’s La Trobe Val­ley. In the end they spent 30 hours on the cool­ing tow­er, the longest pow­er sta­tion occu­pa­tion of it’s kind in Aus­tralia, final­ly com­ing down vol­un­tar­i­ly to be arrest­ed and charged with var­i­ous offences. The protest high­light­ed the enor­mous mul­ti-mil­lion com­pen­sa­tion being giv­en by the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment to pow­er oper­a­tors for the impo­si­tion of the car­bon tax. The brown coal fired pow­er sta­tions in Vic­to­ri­a’s La Trobe val­ley are some of the dirt­i­est most car­bon emis­sions pol­lut­ing pow­er sta­tions in Aus­tralia and the world.

Relat­ed: Quit Coal | Latrobe Val­ley Coal pow­er and Cli­mate change | Fur­ther sub­si­dies for Vic­to­ri­an coal by Vic­to­ri­an and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments | Elec­tric­i­ty Demand and Emis­sions Falling in East­ern Aus­tralia | 

Yal­lourn Pow­er Sta­tion and it’s asso­ci­at­ed brown coal mine have also been beset with prob­lems this year with the major flood­ing of the mine which has reduced the oper­a­tional capac­i­ty of the pow­er sta­tion. The pol­lut­ed water from the mine, filled with heavy met­als such as mer­cury, lead, arsenic, and cad­mi­um in sus­pen­sion, is being pumped direct­ly into the Latrobe Riv­er which flows direct­ly into the Gipp­s­land Lakes, an impor­tant wet­lands area. The pol­lu­tion impacts fish­ing, tourism and farm­ing in the region, and the health of peo­ple in the area down­stream of the mine.

“Yal­lourn is a dan­ger­ous rel­ic that con­tin­u­al­ly pos­es a threat to local com­mu­ni­ties and vital ecosys­tems in the region, whilst mak­ing a huge con­tri­bu­tion to dan­ger­ous changes in our cli­mate. All of this has not stopped the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment from giv­ing Chi­na Light and Pow­er, the own­er of Yal­lourn, $257 mil­lion in hand­outs this finan­cial year dressed up as “com­pen­sa­tion” for the car­bon tax” said Quit Coal spokesper­son and climber Chloe Alden­hoven accord­ing to Quit Coal

The action is the first major protest to chal­lenge the 2009 amend­ed crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture laws. Accord­ing to Quit Coal, the activists were charged with “tres­pass on crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture, affix­ing objects to crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and behav­ing in a reck­less man­ner that could shut­down crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture.”

The laws were amend­ed by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment in an effort to deter protests con­cerned about cat­a­stroph­ic cli­mate change and gov­ern­ment inac­tion, from under­tak­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence and direct action. Penal­ties include fines up to $45,000 plus impris­on­ment.

State Ener­gy and Resources Min­is­ter Michael O’Brien con­demned the pro­tes­tors in a state­ment, say­ing:

“These extrem­ist groups have threat­ened the gen­er­a­tion of elec­tric­i­ty on a 35 degree day, when the demand for ener­gy is typ­i­cal­ly high, and when all Vic­to­ri­ans need a reli­able sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty,” Mr O’Brien said.

“This sad­ly demon­strates the con­tempt that these groups hold for ordi­nary Vic­to­ri­an house­holds, busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties.

“These protest groups don’t care if house­holds, busi­ness­es, farms, hos­pi­tals, schools, and oth­er essen­tial ser­vices lose their pow­er sup­ply,” Mr O’Brien said.

“This action is also incred­i­bly dan­ger­ous for the pro­tes­tors them­selves, and this event will no doubt divert emer­gency ser­vices from oth­er impor­tant duties.

“These extreme envi­ron­men­tal groups have no respect for main­stream Vic­to­ri­ans and we should not be sur­prised if Vic­to­ri­ans have no respect for the views of these groups in the pub­lic debate on our ener­gy future.”

“These peo­ple are act­ing like dan­ger­ous fools. Their views will be dis­missed accord­ing­ly,” Mr O’Brien said.

But the con­ser­v­a­tive Bail­lieu state Gov­ern­ment has repeat­ed­ly failed the Vic­to­ri­an peo­ple by con­sis­tent­ly act­ing in oppo­si­tion to cli­mate action, sup­port­ing and sub­si­dis­ing the States’s brown coal indus­try, reduc­ing the solar Feed-in tar­iff and sti­fling wind farm devel­op­ment through dra­con­ian plan­ning reg­u­la­tions. Vic­to­ria has been going back­wards on cli­mate and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion since Bail­lieu was elect­ed while many Vic­to­ri­ans want the State Gov­ern­ment to take action on cli­mate change.

The recent­ly released CEDEX report shows that elec­tric­i­ty demand is falling and some of the gen­er­at­ing capac­i­ty of the largest pol­lut­ing coal pow­er sta­tions at Hazel­wood, Yal­lourn and Mor­well can be retired. Much more could be done with a pro-active Gov­ern­ment encour­ag­ing wind farm devel­op­ment and large scalle solar pow­er, as well as a more gen­er­ous solar feed-in tar­iff again.

Sources:

Call Out for Action: Kick Vedanta Out of London! 1pm, 11th Jan 2013

Guardian Front Page August 2012

Guardian Front Page August 2012

From our friends at Foil Vedan­ta.

Declare sol­i­dar­i­ty with grass­roots move­ments fight­ing Vedan­ta in India, Africa and else­where!

Kick Vedan­ta out of Lon­don for it’s cor­po­rate crimes, mur­der and destruc­tion. Noise demon­stra­tion and pick­et at Vedan­ta head­quar­ters, 16 Berke­ley Street.

May­fair, W1J 8DZ . Green Park tube.
1 – 3pm. Fri­day 11th Jan­u­ary.

On Fri­day 11th Janu ary the Supreme Court will final­ly announce its his­tor­i­cal deci­sion on whether to allow the min­ing of the threat­ened Niyam­giri moun­tain in Odisha, India1. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly trib­als and farm­ers from a num­ber of grass­roots organ­i­sa­tions2 will hold a ral­ly of defi­ance in Bhawa­ni­pat­na, nea r the moun­tain. They will call for clo­sure of the sink­ing Lan­ji­garh refin­ery and an absolute ban on the so-far-unsuc­cess­ful attempt to mine baux­ite on their sacred hills3.

On 10th of Jan­u­ary activists in New York will ral­ly out­side the Unit­ed Nations Head­quar­ters point­ing out Vedanta’s clear vio­la­tions of the UN Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples, includ­ing right to par­tic­i­pate in deci­sion mak­ing, right to water and cul­tur­al and reli­gious rights. They will call for the Indi­an Gov­ern­ment to put a final stop to this con­test­ed project, and for the state owned Oris­sa Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion to be pulled out of dodgy deals it has made with Vedan­ta in an attempt to force the mine through the courts on Vedanta’s behalf (see their face­book event).

 Here in Lon­don we will draw atten­tion to Vedanta’s nom­i­nal May­fair head­quar­ters from which they gain a cloak of respectabil­i­ty and easy access to cap­i­tal. We will call for Vedan­ta to be de-list­ed from the Lon­don Stock Exchange and thrown out of its cosy posi­tion in the Lon­don cor­po­rate elite for proven human rights and envi­ron­men­tal abus­es, cor­rup­tion and poor cor­po­rate gov­er­nance4.

Please join us and bring drums, pots and pans and any­thing that makes noise!

Our sol­i­dar­i­ty demo on 6th Dec was cov­ered in all the Indi­an papers and our sol­i­dar­i­ty was felt direct­ly. Let us do it again!

See you there! More infor­ma­tion below.

(1) The Supreme Court is due to make a final deci­sion on the chal­lenge posed to the Envi­ron­ment Ministry’s stop to the Niyam­giri mine on 11th Jan­u­ary. In its Decem­ber 6th hear­ing the Supreme Court con­clud­ed that the case rest­ed on whether the rights of the indige­nous Don­gia Kond’s – who live exclu­sive­ly on that moun­tain – could be con­sid­ered ‘inalien­able or com­pen­sato­ry’. The pre­vi­ous rul­ing by Envi­ron­ment and Forests min­is­ter Jairam Ramesh in August 2010 pre­vent­ed Vedan­ta from min­ing the moun­tain due to vio­la­tions of envi­ron­ment and forestry acts. The chal­lenge to this rul­ing has been mount­ed by the Oris­sa Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, a state owned com­pa­ny with 24% shares in the joint ven­ture to mine Niyam­giri with Vedan­ta, beg­ging ques­tions about why a state com­pa­ny is lob­by­ing so hard for a British min­ing com­pa­ny in whom it has only minor­i­ty shares in this small project (see Niyam­giri: A tem­po­rary reprieve).

On 6th Decem­ber, in antic­i­pa­tion of a final Supreme Court rul­ing, more than 5000 trib­als and farm­ers ral­lied on the Niyam­giri moun­tain and around the Lan­ji­garh refin­ery send­ing a mes­sage that they would not tol­er­ate the mine or the refin­ery. In Lon­don Foil Vedan­ta held a noise demo out­side the Indi­an High Com­mis­sion in which a pile of mud was dumped in the entrance. This news was car­ried all over India by major papers and TV and had a sig­nif­i­cant impact (see Lon­don pro­test­ers join 5000 in India to stop mine).

(2) Niyam­giri Surakhya Sami­ti, Sachetana Nagari­ka Man­cha, Loka San­gram Man­cha, Com­mu­nist Par­ty of India and Sama­jwa­di Jan Parishad will coor­di­nate the ral­ly in Odisha on the 11th Jan.

(3) The Lan­ji­gargh refin­ery was built at the base of Niyam­giri and assessed for envi­ron­men­tal and social impact with­out tak­ing into account the inten­tion to mine the hill above for baux­ite to run the plant. How­ev­er, obtain­ing per­mis­sion to mine the moun­tain has been much more dif­fi­cult than Vedan­ta sup­posed and has left them run­ning Lan­ji­garh at a loss, leav­ing Vedan­ta Alu­mini­um with accu­mu­lat­ed debt of $3.65 bil­lion.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012–11-27…)

(4) Vedan­ta was described in Par­lia­ment by Labour MP Lisa Nandy as ‘one of the com­pa­nies that have been found guilty of gross vio­la­tions of human rights’ . Ms Nandy in her speech quot­ed Richard Lam­bert the for­mer Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the CBI: ‘It nev­er occurred to those of us who helped to launch the FTSE 100 index 27 years ago that one day it would be pro­vid­ing a cloak of respectabil­i­ty and lots of pas­sive investors for com­pa­nies that chal­lenge the canons of cor­po­rate gov­er­nance such as Vedan­ta…’. Sim­i­lar­ly City of Lon­don researchers from ‘Trust­ed Sources’ have not­ed Vedanta’s rea­sons for reg­is­ter­ing in Lon­don:

“A Lon­don list­ing allows access to an enor­mous pool of cap­i­tal. If you are in the FTSE Index, track­er funds have got to own you and oth­ers will fol­low.” Both Vedan­ta Resources and Essar Ener­gy are mem­bers of the FTSE 100. London’s rep­u­ta­tion as a mar­ket with high stan­dards of trans­paren­cy and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance is anoth­er draw for Indi­an com­pa­nies. Both Vedan­ta and Essar have faced crit­i­cism on cor­po­rate gov­er­nance grounds in India, and a for­eign list­ing is seen as one way to sig­nal to investors that the com­pa­ny does main­tain high stan­dards.

We are join­ing the calls of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and financiers in point­ing out how the Lon­don list­ing is used for legal immu­ni­ty and to hide Vedanta’s cor­po­rate crimes. We are call­ing for Vedan­ta to be de-list­ed from the Lon­don Stock Exchange and tak­en to court for Human Rights abus­es here in Lon­don.

Combe Valley Sunday update — how to sign up to resist, workshop and news

We are now call­ing for 1,066 peo­ple from around the UK to pub­licly pledge to come and join the ‘Sec­ond Bat­tle of Hast­ings’, and peace­ful­ly resist the con­struc­tion of the road when it begins in Jan­u­ary.

–

We are now call­ing for 1,066 peo­ple from around the UK to pub­licly pledge to come and join the ‘Sec­ond Bat­tle of Hast­ings’, and peace­ful­ly resist the con­struc­tion of the road when it begins in Jan­u­ary.

–

Non­vi­o­lent direct action work­shop (12 Jan)

–

Update at 11.10am: Tree-felling and tree-defend­ing con­tin­ues today (Sun­day 16 Dec). A stretch of trees has already been felled in Bex­hill at the back of the Leisure Cen­tre (TN39 4HS) at the base of Lon­don Rd in Bex­hill.

For report from yes­ter­day, video and maps, see More tree defend­ing today (Sun 16 Dec)!

Join us tomorrow (Saturday 15 Dec) to stop the tree felling!

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pic 2_small
Fol­low­ing-on from today’s suc­cess­ful action to stop the felling of trees in the Val­ley (see below) we will be return­ing to the Val­ley tomor­row (Sat­ur­day 15 Decem­ber) when it is antic­i­pat­ed that the con­trac­tors will try again.

As today, the focus will almost cer­tain­ly be on the trees along the line of the old dis­used rail­way, just east of Adam’s farm (see below).

Please try to come down ear­ly! Meet at 7am at Crowhurst sta­tion (the 6.50am train from Hast­ings [6.53am from St Leonards War­rior Square] gets into Crowhurst at 7.02am). Oth­er­wise, come down lat­er as the more num­bers we have the bet­ter.

Bring water bot­tles, warm cloth­ing, water­proofs, and choco­late. Stay calm & peace­ful. If you want to come down and sup­port oth­ers then please bring food and hot bev­er­ages.

Also, please con­tact us if you either have a car and can help to give peo­ple lifts, or if you can offer accom­mo­da­tion to peo­ple who are trav­el­ling from out­side the imme­di­ate area.

Con­tact num­ber: 07926 423 033

map - disused railway line

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PROTESTORS TAKE TO TREES TO STOP CHAINSAWS
pic 1_small
Anti-road pro­tes­tors from Hast­ings, St Leonards and Bex­hill were joined by oth­ers from East­bourne, Brighton and Lon­don at dawn in the Combe Val­ley today (Fri­day Decem­ber 14) to stop attempts to begin tree-felling for the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road. On a day of heavy rain and high winds, around 30 pro­tes­tors suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent­ed any sig­nif­i­cant work tak­ing place despite the pres­ence in the val­ley of over 100 secu­ri­ty guards, chain­saw oper­a­tives and oth­er con­trac­tors.

The cam­paign­ers ini­tial­ly occu­pied trees at Adams Farm and suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the access track for over 2 hours. The main con­trac­tors’ con­voy from Sid­ley arrived en masse at Upper Wilt­ing Farm mid-morn­ing, and they pro­ceed­ed on foot to attempt tree-cut­ting near Lit­tle Bog Wood. Pro­tes­tors prompt­ly moved into the wood­land to min­gle with the work­ers, mak­ing it impos­si­ble for any felling to occur.

The con­trac­tors then relo­cat­ed by vehi­cle to Adams Farm and were again meet by pro­tes­tors, some still occu­py­ing trees and oth­ers on the ground. There were lengthy peri­ods of inac­tiv­i­ty with the work crews and secu­ri­ty seem­ing unclear what tac­tics to adopt. On only a few occa­sions were chain­saws or strim­mers start­ed but pro­tes­tors imme­di­ate­ly placed them­selves in posi­tions to stop them being used. The con­trac­tors and secu­ri­ty guards retreat­ed to their vans for lunch and at around 12.30 made a deci­sion to aban­don work for the day. Pro­tes­tors remained on alert in the val­ley for a fur­ther 2 hours to ensure no fur­ther attempts were made.

Combe Haven Defenders: urgent action against tree felling for proposed road

14th Decem­ber 2012

URGENT ACTION: TREE FELLING TO BEGIN TOMORROW (FRIDAY 14 DECEMBER)

14th Decem­ber 2012

URGENT ACTION: TREE FELLING TO BEGIN TOMORROW (FRIDAY 14 DECEMBER)

Sev­er­al inde­pen­dent sources have now told us that con­trac­tors are going to begin tree-felling in the Val­ley tomor­row (Fri­day 14 Decem­ber). We had a sim­i­lar alert ear­li­er this week, but our infor­ma­tion this time is much stronger. We believe these reports to be accu­rate and strong­ly encour­age all oppo­nents of the Road to join us in the Val­ley tomor­row morn­ing.

Our ini­tial meet-up time and place will be 7am tomor­row, Fri­day 14 Decem­ber at Crowhurst sta­tion. The 6.43am train from Hast­ings [6.46am from St Leonards War­rior Square] gets into Crowhurst at 6.55am.

If you live in Bex­hill, or you are com­ing from Brighton, there is a meet­ing point at 7am out­side Pel­ham Pub in Sid­ley.

Bring water bot­tles, warm cloth­ing (lots of lay­ers!), choco­late, and water­proofs. Stay calm and peace­ful.

Con­tact num­bers: 07926 423 033/07510501850

Arson against Vinci security company in Malmö (Sweden)

ARSON AGAINST VINCI SECURITY COMPANY IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN.

ARSON AGAINST VINCI SECURITY COMPANY IN MALMÖ, SWEDEN.

On the 8th novem­ber a com­pa­ny car of the secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny skån­sk larmtjänst was set on fire in malmö, swe­den. Skån­sk larmtjänst is a part of the huge con­struc­tion com­pa­ny vin­ci. The attack was car­ried out in sol­i­dar­i­ty with la ZAD, a anti air­port project out­side of nantes, france, where the french state and vin­ci try to build a big air­port.

VINCI DEGAGE!

TEXAS JUDGE HALTS TRANSCANADA OIL PIPELINE WORK

A Texas judge has ordered Tran­sCana­da to tem­porar­i­ly halt work on a pri­vate prop­er­ty where it is build­ing part of an oil pipeline designed to car­ry tar sands oil from Cana­da to the Gulf Coast, the lat­est legal bat­tle to plague a project that has encoun­tered numer­ous obsta­cles nation­wide.

A Texas judge has ordered Tran­sCana­da to tem­porar­i­ly halt work on a pri­vate prop­er­ty where it is build­ing part of an oil pipeline designed to car­ry tar sands oil from Cana­da to the Gulf Coast, the lat­est legal bat­tle to plague a project that has encoun­tered numer­ous obsta­cles nation­wide.

Texas landown­er Michael Bish­op, who is defend­ing him­self in his legal bat­tle against the oil giant, filed his law­suit in the Nacog­doches Coun­ty cour­t­house, argu­ing that Tran­sCana­da lied to Tex­ans when it said it would be using the Key­stone XL pipeline to trans­port crude oil.

Tar sands oil — or dilut­ed bitu­men — does not meet the def­i­n­i­tion as out­lined in Texas and fed­er­al statu­to­ry codes which define crude oil as “liq­uid hydro­car­bons extract­ed from the earth at atmos­pher­ic tem­per­a­tures,” Bish­op said. When tar sands are extract­ed in Alber­ta, Cana­da, the mate­r­i­al is almost a sol­id and “has to be heat­ed and dilut­ed in order to even be trans­mit­ted,” he told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press exclu­sive­ly.

“They lied to the Amer­i­can peo­ple,” Bish­op said.

Texas Coun­ty Court at Law Judge Jack Sinz signed a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order and injunc­tion Fri­day, say­ing there was suf­fi­cient cause to halt work until a hear­ing Dec. 19. The two-week injunc­tion went into effect Tues­day after Bish­op post­ed bond.

Tran­sCana­da spokesman Shawn Howard said lat­er in a state­ment that the judge had agreed to push the hear­ing up to Thurs­day, Dec. 13.

David Dod­son, a spokesman for Tran­sCana­da, has said courts have already ruled that tar sands are a form of crude oil. The com­pa­ny said in a state­ment emailed Tues­day that work on Bishop’s prop­er­ty is under­way and that the injunc­tion will not have an effect on con­struc­tion.

“We are on track to bring this pipeline into oper­a­tion in late 2013,” the state­ment said.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists are con­cerned that if the pipeline leaks or a spill occurs, the heavy tar sands will con­t­a­m­i­nate water and land. The tar sands, they argue, are more dif­fi­cult to clean than reg­u­lar crude, and U.S. pipeline reg­u­la­tions are not suit­ed to trans­port the prod­uct. They also say refin­ing the prod­uct will fur­ther pol­lute the air in the Texas Gulf Coast. The state already leads the nation in green­house gas emis­sions and indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion.

In Feb­ru­ary, anoth­er judge briefly halt­ed work on the pipeline in north­east Texas due to archae­o­log­i­cal arti­facts on the prop­er­ty. The judge lat­er ruled the work could resume. The pipeline is being built, although the landown­er is fight­ing the con­dem­na­tion of her land.

Tran­sCana­da wants to build the pipeline to trans­port tar sands from Alber­ta to the Gulf Coast, but has encoun­tered road­blocks along the way. To cross the U.S.-Canadian bor­der, the com­pa­ny needs a pres­i­den­tial per­mit, which was reject­ed ear­li­er this year by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who sug­gest­ed the com­pa­ny reroute to avoid a sen­si­tive envi­ron­men­tal area in Nebras­ka. The com­pa­ny plans to reroute that por­tion.

In the mean­time, Oba­ma encour­aged the com­pa­ny to pur­sue a short­er por­tion of the pipeline from Okla­homa to Texas, which would help relieve a bot­tle­neck in Cush­ing. Tran­sCana­da received the nec­es­sary per­mits for that south­ern por­tion ear­li­er this year and began con­struc­tion.

But many Texas landown­ers have tak­en to the courts to fight the company’s land con­dem­na­tions in a state that has long wed its for­tunes to oil.

Bish­op owns 20 acres in Dou­glass, a town about 160 miles north of Hous­ton. He used to raise poul­try and goats on the land where he lives with his wife and 16-year-old daugh­ter, he said, but sold the ani­mals about two years ago because of the planned pipeline. Ini­tial­ly, the Viet­nam War vet­er­an said, he fought the company’s attempt to con­demn his land, but set­tled because he could not afford the lawyer’s fees of $10,000.

Bish­op said he set­tled under “duress,” so he bought a law book and decid­ed to defend him­self. Since then, he has filed a law­suit in Austin against the Texas Rail­road Com­mis­sion, the state agency that over­sees pipelines, argu­ing it failed to prop­er­ly inves­ti­gate the pipeline and pro­tect ground­wa­ter, pub­lic health and safe­ty.

Aware that the oil giant could have a bat­tery of lawyers and experts at the hear­ing lat­er this month, Bish­op, a 64-year-old retired chemist cur­rent­ly in med­ical school, said he is deter­mined to fight.

“Bring ‘em on. I’m a Unit­ed States Marine. I’m not afraid of any­one. I’m not afraid of them,” he said. “When I’m done with them, they will know that they’ve been in a fight. I may not win, but I’m going to hurt them.”

Daniel McGowan released from prison!

daniel_mcgowan_11_dec_2012_lga

daniel_mcgowan_11_dec_2012_lga

Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front polit­i­cal pris­on­er and Rock­away native Daniel McGowan was released from the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Man­age­ment Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indi­ana this morn­ing. He was dri­ven by fed­er­al author­i­ties to Indi­anapo­lis Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, where he met up with his wife.

Though the two have been able to vis­it dur­ing Daniel’s impris­on­ment, today marked the first time in years that they could hug, hold hands, or make any phys­i­cal con­tact (save for a few month stint when Daniel was in gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion in Mar­i­on, Illi­nois– between the CMU there and the one in Terre Haute). The two flew back to New York City togeth­er, where they were met by a small group of close friends at the air­port.

From the air­port, Daniel had one hour to make it to the halfway house, where he will be liv­ing for as long as the next six months. Though he has secured employ­ment, it is unclear when he can start work (at the dis­cre­tion of the halfway house, not his new employ­er). Until he has had time to set­tle in, there are more ques­tions than answers.

After being released from the halfway house, Daniel will be under super­vised release for three years.

Regard­less, this is great news and we’re excit­ed to see our com­rade on the oth­er side of the wall.

Please remem­ber that pris­on­er sup­port doesn’t end when a com­rade is released. Through halfway hous­es, super­vised release, parole, or pro­ba­tion, there is usu­al­ly state super­vi­sion beyond the ini­tial sen­tence. Also, prison is trau­mat­ic. And of course there is the stig­ma of being a for­mer pris­on­er that effects near­ly every aspect of one’s life. All of this adds up to the less obvi­ous, but equal­ly nec­es­sary, sup­port need­ed when our loved ones come home.

 

“Green Scare” Defen­dants

The term “Green Scare,” allud­ing to the Red Scare of the 1940s and ’50s, refers to legal and extrale­gal actions tak­en by the U.S. gov­ern­ment against envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights activists. Like the Red Scare, the Green Scare uses new laws and new arms of the state to harsh­ly pun­ish a few indi­vid­u­als in order to repress an entire move­ment.

In Decem­ber 2005, gov­ern­ment agents car­ried out a nation­wide sweep of arrests, charg­ing four­teen indi­vid­u­als with actions claimed by the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front and/or Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Front in the North­west­ern U.S. dat­ing back to the mid-90’s. The actions include a 1997 fire that destroyed a horse slaugh­ter­house in Ore­gon (the plant was not rebuilt), and fires that destroyed pens and chutes at Bureau of Land Man­age­ment wild horse hold­ing com­pounds in Ore­gon, Wyoming and Cal­i­for­nia (hors­es were also freed dur­ing the actions). Despite no injury caused to any liv­ing being, a judge deter­mined that some of the arsons con­sti­tut­ed “ter­ror­ism” under Fed­er­al Sen­tenc­ing Guide­lines.

In Novem­ber 2006, Nathan Block, Daniel McGowan, Jonathan Paul and Joy­an­na Zach­er entered non-coop­er­a­tion plea agree­ments in which they accept­ed respon­si­bil­i­ty for their own roles in envi­ron­men­tal­ly-moti­vat­ed prop­er­ty crimes, but did not agree to pro­vide infor­ma­tion or tes­ti­fy against any­one now or in the future.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, oth­er indi­vid­u­als admit­ted guilt after their arrests and pro­ceed­ed to pro­vide infor­ma­tion to the gov­ern­ment. In order to receive reduced sen­tences, these indi­vid­u­als agreed to coop­er­ate with the state in ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions against the envi­ron­men­tal and ani­mal rights move­ments. Those indi­vid­u­als are not list­ed here.

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Nathan Block

Joy­an­na Zach­er

In May 2012, Joy­an­na Zach­er (“Sadie”) and Nathan Block (“Exile”) were released from prison and will com­plete their sen­tences at a halfway house.

In June 2007, Sadie and Exile were sen­tenced to 7 years and 8 months impris­on­ment each. For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact their sup­port cam­paign: solidaritywithsadieandexile@gmail.com.
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Daniel McGowan
Daniel was released from prison in Decem­ber 2012.

In June 2007, Daniel McGowan was sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison. Learn more about Daniel at the fol­low­ing web­sites: www.SupportDaniel.org, www.facebook.com/supportdanielmcgowan
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Jonathan Paul
Jonathan was released from prison in Jan­u­ary 2011 and com­plet­ed his sen­tence at a halfway house.

Jonathan Paul was sen­tenced to 51 months. He began his sen­tence in Octo­ber 2007. Jonathan said as he report­ed to prison, “This is way big­ger than us, this is for the ani­mals and the plan­et, we will nev­er suf­fer as much as they do.”
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Justin Solondz #98291–011
FCI Loret­to
Fed­er­al Cor­rec­tion­al Insti­tu­tion
P.O. Box 1000
Loret­to, PA 15940
USA

In ear­ly 2009, Justin Solondz was arrest­ed in Chi­na on local charges, more than three years after he was indict­ed on arson and con­spir­a­cy charges relat­ed to actions in the U.S. claimed by the ELF/ALF. In July 2011, Justin was tak­en into fed­er­al custody upon his expul­sion from Chi­na, after com­plet­ing a prison sen­tence. In March 2012, Justin was sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison.