Protests at Irish embassy in London against Shell’s hell in north west Ireland

30.01.2007

At mid­day today, while a sam­ba band played below, a man who wished to be known as “G” climed the Irish embassy. This was in protest over the Irish gov­ern­ments col­lu­sioin with Shel­l’s activ­i­ties in North West Ire­land where they are con­struct­ing a pipeline and refin­ery. Many cam­paign­ers claim this pipeline and refin­ery pose as seri­ous envi­ron­men­tal risk. While there have been wide­spread protests in Ire­land itself many claim that the gov­ern­ment of Ire­land has giv­en Shell sus­pi­cious­ly favourable busi­ness terms on the deal. “G” was arrest­ed for on sus­pi­cion of crim­i­nal dam­age though there was no dam­age vis­i­ble from ground lev­el. For fur­ther details see the cor­po­rate watch web­site.

30.01.2007

At mid­day today, while a sam­ba band played below, a man who wished to be known as “G” climed the Irish embassy. This was in protest over the Irish gov­ern­ments col­lu­sioin with Shel­l’s activ­i­ties in North West Ire­land where they are con­struct­ing a pipeline and refin­ery. Many cam­paign­ers claim this pipeline and refin­ery pose as seri­ous envi­ron­men­tal risk. While there have been wide­spread protests in Ire­land itself many claim that the gov­ern­ment of Ire­land has giv­en Shell sus­pi­cious­ly favourable busi­ness terms on the deal. “G” was arrest­ed for on sus­pi­cion of crim­i­nal dam­age though there was no dam­age vis­i­ble from ground lev­el. For fur­ther details see the cor­po­rate watch web­site.

301007_Irish_Embassy_Shell_Hell — video/x‑ms-wmv 5.4M

Press Release

Today, sup­port­ers for the Anti-Shell Cam­paign took their protest to the Irish Embassy. The action was to tar­get the Irish State; Shell; Sta­toil and Marathon who are attempt­ing to con­struct a dan­ger­ous and exper­i­men­tal onshore raw gas pipeline and refin­ery in Coun­ty Mayo; a beau­ti­ful remote part of North West Ire­land.

There is mas­sive oppo­si­tion to this pro­posed pipeline by the local com­mu­ni­ty, Ire­land and inter­na­tion­al­ly. A cam­paign of direct action against this plan has been ongo­ing since 2005.

The action at the Embassy today is to demon­strate that this pol­lut­ing project will not just affect the area in which it is to be built, but will con­tribute to the ongo­ing organ­ised destruc­tion of the plan­et by Shell. The action is in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the peo­ple direct­ly affect­ed by this unprece­dent­ed raw gas pipeline, which has been con­demned as pos­ing an unac­cept­able risk to health and safe­ty.

The Irish State active­ly encour­ages the Shell led con­sor­tium – Nor­we­gian owned Sta­toil and U.S. owned Marathon — by facil­i­tat­ing stages of the con­struc­tion project, includ­ing the chang­ing of laws to allow the project go ahead. These com­pa­nies are tax exempt, thus there is no finan­cial ben­e­fit to the Irish peo­ple. Shell are also deploy­ing hun­dreds of police, who dai­ly intim­i­date peo­ple and use vio­lence to deter them, espe­cial­ly at recent demon­stra­tions.

The action at the Embassy today is to show the con­cern which many peo­ple share about the cor­rup­tion and com­plic­i­ty of the Irish Dáil, using its pow­er to sell out the inter­ests of the Irish peo­ple, putting per­son­al prof­it before pub­lic inter­est, safe­ty and health.