Season of the Climate Trials

RATCLIFFE ON TRIAL ‘SHOW OF SOLIDARITY’
9am, 22nd Novem­ber
Out­side Not­ting­ham Crown Court

Next Mon­day 20 activists begin their long await­ed tri­al. Accused of con­spir­ing to shut down Rat­cliffe on Soar pow­er sta­tion, they don’t deny this was their inten­tion. How­ev­er they are plead­ing Not Guilty on the grounds that they planned to act to pre­vent loss of life and seri­ous injury caused by cli­mate change.

With the tri­al due to begin Mon­day morn­ing, we are ask­ing sup­port­ers from far and wide to con­gre­gate out­side the Crown Court at 9am for a Show of Sol­i­dar­i­ty before the tri­al gets under­way. You don’t need to bring any­thing but your­selves, and we will be invit­ing you to hold ban­ners read­ing “I’d Stop Emis­sions Too”.

We ask for a calm pres­ence that doesn’t dis­rupt the tri­al. But the more atten­dees the bet­ter. This is the cul­mi­na­tion of an exhaust­ing 18 month process for the defen­dants, who face a max­i­mum sen­tence of three months in prison. A big show of sup­port would make their day.

Get book­ing your trav­el, or organ­ise a mini-bus with your local group. For more infor­ma­tion, email info@ratcliffeontrial.org

See you next Mon­day,
Rat­cliffe on Tri­al cam­paign sup­port group

PS: Join the Face­book Event: http://on.fb.me/92y0Yx

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THE INSTANT INFO BOARD: PRINT IT OUT, STICK IT UP

A few of the Rat­cliffe on Tri­al sup­port­ers have been hard at work over the last few days, putting togeth­er an “instant info board”. This 8‑page doc­u­ment explains, briefly, the var­i­ous dif­fer­ent aspects of the tri­al, the con­text, the neces­si­ty defence and how to help. We’d love it if sup­port­ers around the coun­try could print it out and stick it up in your local social cen­tre, stu­dents union, work­place or any­where else you can think of. Thanks!

Down­load it here:
http://ratcliffeontrial.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/ratcliffeontrial.pdf

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MANCHESTER AIRPORT ON TRIAL

In May 2010, sev­en­teen peo­ple staged a protest/direct action at Man­ches­ter Air­port, tem­porar­i­ly shut­ting it down. They did this to stop some of the 5 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sions that the air­port is respon­si­ble for annu­al­ly and in oppo­si­tion to plans to destroy local homes and bio­di­ver­si­ty spots to expand the World Freight Cen­tre.

Mis­sion:

17 peo­ple are now fac­ing two tri­als as a result of this action. 11 peo­ple will be tried for ‘obstruc­tion of the high­way’ in Dec 2010. The remain­ing 6 will face a tri­al in ear­ly 2011.

Please
‑Email state­ments of sup­port to manchesterairportontrial@gmail.com
‑Like the Face­book page: http://on.fb.me/92b4jo
‑www.manchesterairportontrial.org/

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Update:
On 25 Novem­ber 2010, the Copen­hagen Dis­trict Court found Stine Gry Jonassen and Tan­nie Nyboe guilty in charges of being organ­is­ers and insti­ga­tors of vio­lence and van­dal­ism. The inci­dent took place on 16th of Decem­ber at Bel­la Cen­tre last year dur­ing the cli­mate sum­mit in Copen­hagen. The two women were sen­tenced to four months of pro­ba­tion. One out of three judges dis­agreed with the ver­dict and thought the women were inno­cent of all charges.

Stine Gry and Tan­nie Nyboe both act­ed as spokesper­sons for the Glob­al Net­work “Cli­mate Jus­tice Action” (CJA).

Dur­ing the Cop15 last year, CJA organ­ised sev­er­al non-vio­lent civ­il
dis­obe­di­ence protests, includ­ing the “Reclaim Pow­er — Push for Cli­mate Jus­tice” ral­ly on 16th of Decem­ber. The two women were both the pub­lic faces of the move­ment and they are now found guilty in charges of being organ­is­ers and insti­ga­tors of vio­lence and riots. They are both deeply shocked by the out­come of the tri­al and are now con­sid­er­ing an appeal.

More: http://www.climatecollective.org/post/151

CLIMATE DEFENCE IS NOT AN OFFENCE!