protest | ukwatch.net

5,000 march against the war at Labour Party conference

JamieSW — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:48:37 +0000

5,000 protestors marched to the Labour Party Conference on Saturday demanding an end to the government’s slavish support for Bush’s wars. The march was organised by the Stop the War Coalition and CND and called for all troops to come out of Iraq and Afghanistan and for an end to a foreign policy that risks spreading war.

The demonstration brought together trade unionists, students, pensioners, muslim activists and peace campaigners of all sorts. It was led off by Rose Gentle and other members of Military Families Against the War. As it approached the conference centre the demonstration stopped to hand in a letter of protest to the Prime Minister.
There was then two minutes silence to respect the hundreds of thousands who have been killed as a result of this government’s foreign policy.Then protestors marched right up to the conference centre fence chanting ‘Troops Out’ and ‘No to Nato’ loud enough for every delegate in the conference to hear. Many came out to listen.

The march ended with a rally nearby addressed by Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Woodley, Lindsey German, Rose Gentle, Seumas Milne, Karen Reissman, Andrew Murray, Nahela Ashraf, Kate Hudson, Sabah Jawad and others. They all spoke of the need to continue and expand this remarkable campaign.

NUJ film shows police obstruction of journalists

Ellie Keen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:59:00 +0000

The NUJ has released a short film highlighting some of the problems faced by journalists covering public demonstrations. View it here

The video was released the day after the TUC in Brighton condemned the erosion of civil liberties and media freedoms in Britain. TUC unions unanimously backed a motion, proposed by the National Union of Journalists, which called for a rethink of government policies that put journalists at risk of imprisonment just for doing their job.

Speaking after the TUC vote, NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear said: “Journalism is facing grave threats in an age of intolerance. Whilst on the streets dissent is being criminalized, independent journalism is being increasingly caught in the civil liberties clampdown.”

The nine-minute video, called Press Freedom: Collateral Damage, includes examples of the police obstructing journalists in their work.

Release of the film follows numerous complaints from media workers who have experiences of the police going beyond their powers in attempting to restrict the ability of journalists to do their work. The NUJ’s motion to the TUC was part of a wider campaign for a greater recognition of press freedom by the UK government.

The motion also highlights cases of journalists, such as Robin Ackroyd and Shiv Malik, who have faced the threat of jail because of legal demands to reveal confidential source information.

In his speech to Congress, Jeremy Dear drew attention to the case of Sally Murrer, who is facing criminal prosecution for receiving information from a police source, and highlighted the problems faced by journalists attempting to cover the recent Climate Camp in Kent.

Jeremy said: “The terrorising of journalists isn’t just done by shadowy men in balaclavas, but also by governments and organisations who use the apparatus of the law or state authorities to suppress and distort the information they do not want the public to know and to terrorise the journalists involved through injunctions, threats to imprisonment and financial ruin.

“The use of the Terrorism Act and SOCPA increasingly criminalize not just those who protest but those deemed to be giving the oxygen of publicity to such dissent. Journalists’ material and their sources are increasingly targeted by those who wish to pull a cloak of secrecy over their actions.”

The speech concluded: “This isn’t over-zealous policing this is a co-ordinated and systematic abuse of media freedom – and we must expose it, challenge it and act against those who undermine the rights of photographers, journalists and media workers.

“And we must do so because if whistleblowers and sources fear speaking out, if photographers and journalists cannot probe the dark corners of business, politics or human rights, the ability of the media – already under threat from concentration of ownership and cost-cutting – to hold power to account, to expose wrongdoing, to provide the information on which citizens can make informed decisions about their lives will be seriously compromised.

“The Terrorism Act and SOCPA are not sophisticated security policies – they are the blunt instruments of an intolerant government.

“As if in some Orwellian nightmare the Ministry of Freedom tells us that the price we must pay for peace and liberty at home is not just a war in Iraq – not just the billions spent on war – but, in the wake of the London bombings, is the fingerprinting of council workers and the covert surveillance of M&S workers. It is ID cards and 42-day detention. It is curbs on the right to protest, the civil contingencies act and it is the extension of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, a snoopers’ charter giving access to personal texts, emails and internet use.

“The price is too high. Less liberty does not imply greater security. It never has.

“Our movement has been at the forefront of the great struggles for human and civil rights over the past century. In this age of intolerance new struggles must be waged and we must lead that fight.”

Going Overboard

JamieSW — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:07:14 +0000

AS ROSSPORT ACTIVISTS TAKE ON SHELL IN IRELAND

The protests against Shell’s Corrib gas project in Rossport, Ireland, saw waves of direct action this week. More work has started on the pipeline with a special pipe-laying ship arriving last weekend with just two weeks to do its job. But it’s yet to start – so if protesters can stop or delay it over the next week, the project will be set back a long way and cause massive problems for Shell. Protesters are asking people to come and help them resist at this crucial time…

DANGEROUS WATERS

Yesterday (21st) at 10am, fifteen Shell to Sea activists entered the water at Glengad Beach as dinghies, surfers and swimmers surrounded the machine and stopped work. Three Gardai in a boat began arrests and taking the boats an hour later. With no regard for health or safety, they wrestled with protesters in the water. On at least one occasion they worked together with the Shell security team who grabbed a protester and held him until the Gardai got there.

Then three protesters moved onto a rock in the sea near the dredging operation. At around 11.40am the dredging machine started picking up large amounts of debris from the sea bed and dumping it within inches of the protesters – as the Gardai stood and watched – before then arresting all three.

Mary Jones, who witnessed events said, “It was so dangerous. The huge dredging machine continued working right over those lads’ heads and then the Gardai half drowned them. It’s amazing no one was killed. It’s a crime that the Gardai can work for Shell like that.”

SOLIDARITY CAMP BACK ON

With the gas refinery half built, Shell are now starting work on the accompanying pipeline.
In late July, the company set up a compound on Glengad beach (former site of Rossport Solidarity Camp) to begin preparatory pipeline work. A causeway was constructed and over half a mile of 10 foot high steel fencing was used to cordon off a large part of the beach. Many local people resisted Shell’s occupation of Glengad and destruction of the pristine Broadhaven Bay (a Special Area of Conservation). They were met by a joint team of 40 Gardai and 70 Shell specialist security – 13 were arrested and one hospitalized for several weeks after being injured in Garda custody.

This week, in anticipation of the arrival of the world’s largest pipe laying ship, the Solitaire, a week of action was called. Booked up solidly for the next two years, it is believed to have just two weeks before going off to the next job. Marine & Public Information Notices had announced the Solitaire would arrive in Broadhaven Bay last weekend, but at present it is still docked over 5 hours away in Donegal Bay.

Last Saturday, a team of kayakers – some fresh from the Camp For Climate Action’s Rebel Regatta – began the week of action by reclaiming Glengad beach. To a crowd of cheering onlookers they entered the compound via the water, hanging a banner inside.

On Monday, Rospport Solidarity Camp was reborn and a large marquee and tents were set up in Glengad, just 100 metres from the compound. In a display of things to come, as soon as the marquee was up, Shell’s compound was invaded.

On Tuesday, when the Solitaire still hadn’t arrived in the bay, three kayakers went over to Donegal to meet her there. They paddled 1200 metres out to sea to deliver a letter to the Captain of the ship asking him to reconsider the ships involvement and informing him that if he continued he would meet strong resistance in the waters of Rossport.

NOXIOUS GAS

The story behind this latest stage in the Corrib project is filled with the usual dose of political corruption and intimidation tactics. When Shell first moved into Glengad it appeared that planning consent for the work had not been granted. Later, Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan stated that the authorisation had been given, but the government had made an “oversight” in failing to publicise them. Oversights such as this are a defining feature of the project and exactly what the Green Party minister was so critical of in opposition before he got into office.

This key section of the onshore pipeline at Glengad was granted permission outside of the usual planning process. Eamon Ryan used the Gas Act to exempt this 200 metres of the onshore pipeline from the planning process, which is arguably the most dangerous part of the whole project. Subject to the pipeline’s highest pressures (potentially up to 345 bar, the highest pipeline pressure in a residential area anywhere in the world), it runs from the landfall at Glengad under Dooncarton mountain. Dooncarton mountain is notorious for landslides and the original landfall permission was awarded in 2002 before the devastating 2003 landslide that saw 200,000 M3 of debris washed off Dooncarton, destroying houses, bridges and roads. Despite the obvious dangers, no review has taken place since.

Aside from this, no planning permission exists for the onshore pipeline. The proposed route runs 9km through protected blanket bog habitats, a Special Areas of Conservation, Specially Protected Area (protected habitats under the EU habitats directive), common and farmland. However, activity at Glengad and the arrival of the Solitaire demonstrates that Shell are certain that permission is already in the bag. Perhaps this is because they know the government will be using the Strategic Infrastructure Act to get round any troubling resistance. The act allows chosen planning consents to bypass the local democratic process and be forced through from above. It was surely not just co-incidence that this handy piece of legislation was first proposed by Bertie Ahern after a meeting with Shell where the company expressed concerns at the Irish planning process!

Since Shell occupied Glengad beach, their small army of security have been an ominous presence in the area. The unidentified security (often wearing balaclavas), use video cameras and binoculars to monitor anyone on, or near, the public beach, including children. The company hired by Shell is headed by a former member of the elite Irish Rangers Unit and while the company claim that current members of the defense force are not part of the operation, it is known that other former military personal have been hired.

Meanwhile, Shell has used its usual tactics of divide and rule and bribery to silence resistance from local fishers to the project, overcoming what the company views as one of the final hurdles preventing the Solitaire beginning work in the bay. The local fishers universally expressed concerns over the location of the discharge pipe and its outfall diffuser (certain to pollute both Broadhaven Bay and inshore waters), and disruption to their work during the laying of the pipeline. However, last week, after long negotiations, a significant number of fishers have agreed to keep quiet in return for compensation. On the other hand some remain resolute in their opposition. Fisherman Pat O’Donnell stated that he would continue fishing in the path of the Solitaire. He added that even if a court order was granted, if the state wanted to stop them they would “have to send [him] and the other fishermen to gaol.”

Rossport Solidarity Camp is a hive of activity this week, with new recruits and random boats and water equipment arriving all the time… Actions against the Solitiare will continue for the next few weeks. Sail and rail tickets from anywhere in the UK to the area cost just £35. Pack yer arm-bands and join the fun.

For background see SchNEWS 611, 603, 595

Check out www.corribsos.com for the latest news and videos.

Hoo u gonna coal?

JamieSW — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:39:49 +0000

AS CLIMATE CAMP FOR ACTION GETS STOKED UP AT KINGSNORTH...

It’s another mediocre summer and we’re back at the Camp for Climate Action. First there was Drax, then Heathrow and now the sequel… Climate Camp III has been set on the east coast of Kent three miles or so from Kingsnorth – already home to a power station that pumps out as much carbon dioxide as the 30 least-polluting countries in the world combined – and proposed site of first new UK coal-fired power station for 30 years.

So SchNEWS reporters have joined the great unwashed throng of around a thousand and a half others, made up of yer usual rabble-rousing regulars – including, according to cops, 150 extremists (only 150? Come on black bloc let’s be aving yer!), plus up-for-it students, ageing hippies and Guardian-carrying liberals (the paper did their own bijoux guide to the camp – getting the day of the mass action wrong. Oops).

Having taken the site – a mile outside Hoo St Weburgh on Wednesday last week (July 30), initially there were not enough people to defend it and riot police carried out a number of heavy-handed raids, beating up campaigners and nicking important infrastructure gear like plumbing etc. Whilst some of this is still impounded, ever-resourceful campers have found ways round it and the actual organisation is once again clockwork. One hard-bitten, over-60 was heard to comment: “How come it’s always the anarchists who provide the best organised, most efficient kitchens”. Couldn’t agree more mate – the SchNEWS chef de resistance has given the vegan food a rating of 8/10 this year!

Police tactics have been the main talking point at the camp so far. A rumoured wholly-proportionate 1,400 cops are involved at a cost of £5m, with forces from Wales, Kent itself and the trusty ‘boot ‘em first pay compensation later’ Met. Unlike the hotels which were laid on for cops last year, it looks like they’re slumming it in their very own super tent (a kind of close encounters white dome structure) up on the hill back down past Hoo. Clearly unhappy at being so completely out-manoeuvred once again by camp organisers – setting up camp under their noses – they are venting their frustrations in a number of ways.

For starters everyone on the main route into the camp (on Dux Court Rd) gets searched, coming in as well as out (one to bear in mind for Saturday’s mass action when green/orange/blue/silver blocks will aim to shut Kingsnorth down for the day). Things which have been so far been confiscated include, er, some glue and a bar of soap. As well as wheeling out a War on Terror board game for Murdoch journo types to slaver over, police claim they found a stash of weapons in the woods nearby including a ‘replica’ ninja throwing star (a plastic toy maybe?) and an assortment of knives including a three bladed affair which could allegedley be used against a police horse (lots of vegan horse killers at the camp this year then?)

Other bullshit to come protesters way include the constant buzzing of police helicopters during the day and night – including low flying for the purposes of thermal imaging or intimidation presumably. It looks like top brass are looking to cause as much discomfort to campers as possible, despite paying lip-service with the softly softly police liaison teams. These have tried to get a police caravan on site – which was turned down – and last year’s arrangements of an escorted police beat every couple of hours is not happening. With the stand-off hardening, each night the camp has been awoken two or three times to deal with the threat of a raid with increased numbers pigging out the front and rear access points.

Vehicles have been impounded – included the camp shuttle bus running from Strood to site on one occasion – and most of the supplies have as a result had to be carried in on bikes/wheelbarrows and Shanks pony.

Still, not to be put off, the camp is proving popular with locals around the Medway area, despite the welcoming local paper A-boards (‘Medway invaded by eco-warriors’ and the like). More families, pensioners, and terrible teens have been turning up than did last year at Heathrow.

With Saturday’s shenanighans to come it’s looking like Kingsnorth could be a timely reminder to Brown and co. that we won’t be taking their greenwash lying down. For more info on the mass action and the reasons behind the No New Coal message go to www.climatecamp.org.uk

The truth is, we're fighting for survival

JamieSW — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:47:26 +0000

Up to 4 billion people left without water. Up to 5 billion at risk of flooding. Half a billion left hungry as agricultural yields decline by 15-35% in Africa with entire swaths of the world ceasing food production altogether. More than 80 million exposed to malaria in Africa. The Amazon collapses and 50% of species go extinct. It’s basically the end of the world. And it’s reported in this morning’s Guardian.

There is such a gaping chasm between the matter-of-fact reporting of this nightmarish 4C scenario that government scientists now say we should be planning for, and the total failure of apparently rational people to understand what is happening on the Hoo peninsula this week.

Reports from Kingsnorth, the site of this year’s climate camp, completely fail to scrutinise the pin-striped criminals who are pushing the planet towards the brink. Instead, the Press Association runs stories on apparent conspiracies to attack police with knives without even phoning the accused activists for a reaction to these smears. What other set of people could be accused of conspiracy to commit cop killings without being asked for any reaction? This is a victory for the police and the rightwing media they leak to.

Equally, E.ON UK’s greenwashing PR campaign is run without any question. Every report repeats the myth that the proposed new power station would be a “cleaner coal” plant. No one reports that in fact, this coal plant will pollute as much as more than 30 developing countries combined, that there will be no use of carbon capture and storage (CSS) technology, and that the plant will be so inefficient as to waste half of all the energy it creates. No mention of the fact that Chris Davies, the Lib Dem MEP, who is notoriously pro-CCS coal, has pledged to attend the camp precisely because Kingsnorth won’t be a “cleaner coal” plant.

E.ON UK keeps pumping out the spin that “we need coal to keep the lights on”, even following reports in the Financial Times that independent energy experts, Pöyry, have proven (pdf) that if the UK hit its existing renewables and efficiency targets, no new coal would be required. Even when emails expose close contact between E.ON UK and the business department, they are only reported in the Guardian.

As the prime minister has a last look at a bit of beautiful coastline already succumbing to the sea, the media frenzy focuses on the same old soap opera personality politics. Is so-and-so too remote/young/jaded/damaged to be the next majorette marching us over the cliff? Whoever it is, we know it’ll be one of the same crew who got us into this mess and can’t get us out because the solutions don’t fit the electoral cycle. There is an echo here too of the US media’s response to Iraq. Even now, anyone who opposed the war is on some sort of “radical fringe”, and having supported the war, at least at the time of its inception, is a necessary qualification to be seen as “serious”. With climate change, in order to be “serious” you need to acknowledge that the end of the world is an interesting detail in the broader pattern of economic “progress”, but never succumb to the incredible naivety of the protesters, who fail to realise that the survival of life on earth is a bourgeois luxury which we can ill afford in these times of economic constraint.

The harsh reality is that there is no way we could plan for a 4C rise. No amount of adaptation is going to make that liveable for most of the world’s population, and it’s going to be pretty damn nasty for those lucky few of us living in the north as well. Despite this, we end up with two possible stories – the front page banner “dangerous anarchists threaten chaos”, or, tucked away at the back of the paper, “peaceful protest passes without incident”. And all the time, not even the liberal press is concerned that, even if every single person at the camp arrived with a heavy machine gun, they couldn’t kill half the number of people who will die as a result of the effects of climate change.

Open letter to police on repression at Kingsnorth

JamieSW — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:39:20 +0000

In light of events at this week’s Climate Camp in Kingsnorth, Green MEP for the South East Caroline Lucas has joined forces with Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, and Colin Challen, Labour MP for Morley and Rothwell, to write a letter to the Gold Commander of Kent Police – please see below.

Dr Lucas MEP is also querying Kent police about emerging reports that legal observers are being restricted from observing searches on individuals.

Letter in full:

Dear Mr Allyn Thomas,

RE: Climate camp at Kingsnorth

We are writing to express our concern at the developing situation on this site. There has undoubtedly been a steady escalation of friction between the climate change protesters and police. On one morning, we are informed, riot police with dogs entered the site. During the course of this operation a vehicle was damaged and a number of arrests were made. Twenty protesters apparently required medical attention and a number were taken to the A & E Department of Medway Hospital with suspected head injuries.

In the past few days there have been a series of searches and confiscations. No doubt some of these have been justified under the terms of a general search warrant. Others, such as the confiscation of tents, ground sheets, marker pens, mobile phones and protest banners are difficult to justify on any other basis than an attempt to disrupt the protest itself.

Policing of demonstrations and protests is always necessary. However, growing and confirmed anecdotal evidence suggests that this serious and escalating situation has been caused, at least in part, by a disproportionate police response. Norman Baker MP has reinforced this during his visit to the site itself. Despite undertakings to him by DCI Ian Hall (Kent Police) that only regular, uniformed police officers would be employed on patrol duties within the site, he witnessed, immediately afterwards, a charge by full riot police (Metropolitan) and the inappropriate use of batons on two occasions.

We have severally been in contact with police officers charged with this operation and have received various undertakings including the provision of an inventory of seized material and the reason for its retention. This has not been forthcoming but may well have been overtaken by these serious events.

Climate change must be a wholly legitimate subject of protest and demonstration. If it is met (or is perceived to be met) by an arbitrary, destructive and aggressive police response the consequences will undoubtedly be a continued alienation between police and many decent, law abiding people, particularly the young.

In view of the above we would ask you as a matter of urgency to take personal, immediate and direct action to resolve an increasingly threatening confrontation.

We look forward to your very early response.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas MEP

Norman Baker MP

Colin Challon MP

Pensioners and postal workers rally for Charter

William Benzies — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:35:45 +0000

The scale of the economic crisis, which has seen rising prices and attacks on workers’ living standards, is leading to increased support for the People Before Profit Charter.

The charter puts forward ten demands to improve the lives of working people. Supporters of the charter protested outside the building where Centrica, the owner of British Gas, announced £992 million profits last week.

They demanded a windfall tax on the company. The protest received widespread media coverage, with pictures of it on the front page of the London Paper, and the Morning Star. It even appeared in the Sun.

A number of postal workers signed the charter at a protest on Monday of this week (see page 14) to support of three Bristol CWU trade union activists who are facing victimisation.

Signatories included: Dave Ward, the deputy general secretary (postal) of the CWU communications union; David Wilshire, branch secretary of Bristol CWU; and Paula Franklin, one of three victimised activists.

With the energy giants hiking their fuel prices massively, these are also worrying times for old age pensioners.

There are currently 2.1 million pensioners living in poverty, up from 1.8 million last year. The increasing pressure on their pension will throw many more into poverty.

The plight of pensioners has got increasingly worse since Margaret Thatcher cut the link between pensions and wages in 1980. This means the basic state pension is just £90.70 a week.

Trade unions and campaigners are demanding that the basic pension rate be increased to £124.05 a week.

The charter’s calls for the abolition of taxes on fuel and energy for old people and the poor, and for the link between wages and pensions to be re-established.

This demand is winning support for the charter among pensioners, such as Gordon McLennan, a pensioner activist in Lambeth, south London, and former general secretary of the Communist Party.

Gordon told Socialist Worker, “I agree with the general proposals of the charter, but I am particularly interested in the point about the fight for higher pensions and the abolition of tax on fuel and energy for old people and the poor.

“There are plenty of reasons for pensioners to back the charter. We have the scandal where electricity and gas prices are going up, sometimes at the rate of 40 percent.

“We have a situation where pensioners are being increasingly forced into a corner, both in society and economically.

“There is no response to this from present day politicians. We are being ignored. The local council’s newspaper doesn’t have a word about elderly people in it.

“The government is increasing our winter fuel allowance by £100 when gas and electricity bills are going up by a lot more. Some 300,000 pensioners have dropped into poverty in the last year.

“The kind of feeling that pensioners have about all this must be built up to have a massive impact on 22 October.

“That’s when we will lobby parliament to demand a decent state pension and to celebrate 100 years of the state pension.”

Police bullying at Camp Kingsnorth

JamieSW — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:06:15 +0000

I’ve just returned from a 2-3 day sojourn at the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth — site of a proposed new coal-fired power station – which is now gearing up towards its climax. As usual the headlines focus upon policing and the inevitable ‘discovery’ of a weapons cache, more on which below. But once you make the effort – a word I use advisedly — to get through police lines and into the camp itself the overwhelming impression is of a D.I.Y. heaven: solar panels and a wind turbine being erected, water pipes connected, sanitation systems constructed, media and cinema tents put up, impromptu kitchens, cleaning zones … an al fresco and non-commercial soukh catering to the pleasures and necessities of daily life.

The Camp’s great strength is that theory and practice share a space for a week. Having kicked off with marches and due to finish on Saturday with direct action, in the days between there are workshops galore – a hundred or more – covering the usual themes as well as not a few tailored to specialist tastes: “the world lawn tango championships,” “five-finger direct action training,” and – one cannot but wonder whether practice and theory were united here — “safe sex for activists.” That Arthur Scargill made an appearance was welcome, although it was disappointing to see that he has not yet got it. (In the USA at the outset of World War Two it was union leaders who, against bitter resistance from big business, championed the conversion of auto plants to make planes. In the war upon climate change, just think: the skills of power station engineers; solar, wave and wind; surely a no-brainer.) The high-point was a session (pictured below) at which George Monbiot spoke on the role of the state in mitigating climate chaos — although it was marred when that organ itself, in the shape of riot police, threatened to enter the camp, prompting most of the 250-strong audience to exit theory in a headlong rush to practice.

A degree of division arose with regard to the appropriate tactics for countering the police, but it was a no-win situation. Agreement to allow the police onto site – with their batons and video cameras, their bullying, snooping, sniffing and otherwise canine ways – would have necessitated constant surveillance of the surveillers, a continuous and enervating tug-of-war. The other option, the one taken, was to concentrate forces at the gates, to keep them at bay. With this, the boys in blue-and-dayglow-yellow needed only to build up forces at one gate, deploy riot police to the fore, or engage in any minor feint, in order to panic and disrupt the Camp. Which of course they did. In afternoons, during workshops. At two a.m. — waking all with a cacophony of sirens that sparked a mass exit from tents, followed by the thuds of sleepy running bodies tripping over guy ropes. And then again, after adrenaline levels had subsided and campers had returned to sleep, at the break of dawn.

The question is, why have Her Majesty’s police force decided to subject a crew of campers to such astonishing levels of harassment? What tactics are involved, and at what level were they authorised?

On harassment and intimidation the litany is endless. We observed their tactics, aghast. They must’ve looked up and memorised every petty by-law they could find, in addition to compendia of recent legislation. (Thanks to the cop who dropped his copy of the ‘Pocket Legislation Guide on Policing Protest,’ which gives an overview of legislation that can be used to stifle any form of legitimate protest, we know a bit more about an organisation, the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit, that assisted them in this.) They terminated our shuttlebus service (for ferrying participants from rail station to campsite) and arrested the driver on the grounds that one copper, claiming to have witnessed a passenger give a driver a donation, deemed it to be an unlicensed taxi. They filmed everyone. There were interminable and repeated searches of anyone entering or exiting camp — and these were not the usual cursory pat down. In my case (not an extreme one): in addition to searching all bags and pockets they were uncommonly interested in the linings of my trousers; and they dismantled my mobile phone and took the battery out (“in case there’s a razor blade concealed inside”). From me they took nothing but others were less fortunate. The innumerable items confiscated included: plywood, wheelie bins, a track for wheelchair access, a puncture repair kit, carpet, a board game and part of a windmill. And, of course, childrens’ crayons. (They’re a graffiti hazard, don’t you know?)

Arguably the most visible and unarguably the most audible police presence is the helicopter. Upon arrival, I asked the copper who was searching me – time for such conversations was not rationed — why the chopper was in the air. “It’s because an incident is going on. Don’t worry, it costs a fortune to keep it up there, it’ll only be sent up when there’s something going on.” In fact, it was airborne about one minute in every three; deafening, menacing, watching. Even at night it hovered above us, and would sometimes swoop low – perhaps in case its clatter at normal altitude hadn’t yet woken a few of those below.

So we may return to the question: why apply these tactics? The resources involved, in terms of manpower, equipment and fuel, are colossal. In conversation with a senior police officer, I listened to his point of view. “Don’t get us wrong: we know very well that 99% of the people in the camp are completely non-violent. It’s the other 1% we’re concerned about.” A machete, he claimed, had been found in nearby undergrowth. During my days there, I saw nothing to suggest a potentially violent “1%” – and, unlike the officer, I was observing campers up close. The machete story is a smear. Chances are it is a fiction, or planted, or belonged to a nearby villager. Activists, being ecologically aware, know full well that to approach Kingsnorth does not require hacking paths through jungle. But let’s assume for a moment that he is right. There are around 1,000 people at the Camp. If that same officer were responsible for policing a village of 1,000 people, and was informed that 10 were potentially violent, would he call up a fleet of fully-manned vans from the North Wales Heddlu, alongside similar convoys from the West Mids, South Yorks, the Met, Essex, Kent and all? Rumour has it that 27 forces were involved! Would he call in a helicopter, and riot police? Or would he think “me oh my what an English idyll – a pity, perhaps, about one or two delinquents at closing time on a Friday night, but a token presence should deal with that”?

Perhaps there is a better reason: the police tactic is all about defending Kingsnorth. After all, the Camp’s clearly and openly stated aim is to shut it down. But this explanation has no more traction than does the “violent 1%.” Participants show no sign of going anywhere near Kingsnorth until Saturday, so why police the Camp, which is situated many miles away, all week long? To the possible rejoinder that an absence of police attention would encourage activists to approach the power station sooner than declared, there is an obvious reply. With the same police numbers deployed to harass the Camp, the power station could be thrice encircled: it could be sealed off by land, sea, air and any other conceivable avenue of approach, and with enough spare policepower to boot (no pun intended) that the Heddlu and the Brummies could be sent back home. Just think of all the trouble and tension that could be spared, not to mention police overspend.

The only possible reason for this level of intimidation – apart, perhaps, from an interest in giving riot cops some live training — is that the police force is hell bent on hounding and intimidating the movement against climate chaos. This does not represent a departure from recent trends in policing – as witnessed in London at the anti-Bush protest (with its use of agent provocateurs) and the ‘Circle Line Party.’ Yet it is an escalation.

The question that remains is: who authorised this strategy? Downing Street, one would suppose, but we should be told.

I'd rather be a hypocrite than a cynic like Julie Burchill

JamieSW — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:01:17 +0000

In her new book, Not In My Name, Julie Burchill reserves her grandest fury about hypocrites for environmentalists. We are, she (and her co-author, Chas Newkey-Burden) say, pious, sexless and contemptuous of humankind. We are all are posh and rich, and have found in environmentalism a new excuse for lecturing the poor. We tell other people to live by rules we don’t apply to ourselves.

Like all stereotypes, these claims are lazy, familiar and sometimes true. Burchill knows nothing about environmentalism, and, almost as a point of pride, hasn’t bothered to find out, but when you use grapeshot you are bound to hit someone. Yes, many prominent greens are posh gits like me. The same can be said of journalists, politicians, artists, academics, business leaders … in fact, of just about anyone in public life. But it is always the greens who are singled out.

In truth, while the upper middle classes are, as always, over-represented in the media, the movement cuts across the classes. A recent ICM poll found that more people in social classes D and E thought the government should prioritise the environment over the economy (56%) than in classes A and B (47%).

Environmentalism is the most politically diverse movement in history. Here in the Kingsnorth climate camp, I have met anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, conservatives and, mostly, pragmatists. I remember sitting in a campaign meeting during the Newbury bypass protests and marvelling at the weirdness of our coalition. In the front row sat the local squirearchy: brigadiers in tweeds and enormous moustaches, titled women in twin sets and headscarves. In the middle were local burghers of all shapes and sizes. At the back sat the scuzziest collection of grunge-skunks I have ever laid eyes on. The audience disagreed about every other subject under the sun – if someone had asked us to decide what day of the week it was, the meeting would had descended into fisticuffs – but everyone there recognised that our quality of life depends on the quality of our surroundings.

The environment is inseparable from social justice. Climate change, for example, is primarily about food and water. It threatens the fresh water supplies required to support human life. As continental interiors dry out and the glaciers feeding many of the rivers used for irrigation disappear, climate change presents the greatest of all threats to the future prospects of the poor. The rich will survive for a few decades at least, as they can use their money to insulate themselves from the effects. The poor are being hammered already.

In reality, it is people like Julie Burchill – who is, incidentally, far richer than almost any green I have met – who treats the poor with contempt. So that she can revel in what she calls “reckless romantic modernism”, other people must die. But at least you can’t accuse her of hypocrisy: she cannot fail to live by her moral code, for the simple reason that she doesn’t have one.

Sure, we are hypocrites. Every one of us, almost by definition. Hypocrisy is the gap between your aspirations and your actions. Greens have high aspirations – they want to live more ethically – and they will always fall short. But the alternative to hypocrisy isn’t moral purity (no one manages that), but cynicism. Give me hypocrisy any day.

The stakes could not be higher. Everything hinges on stopping coal

JamieSW — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:56:13 +0000

As soon as I have finished this column I will jump on the train to Kent. Last year Al Gore remarked “I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.”(1) Like hundreds of honorary young people, I am casting my Zimmer frame aside to answer the call.

Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it in the ground or leave the carbon dioxide it produces in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity. The industrial revolution has gone into reverse.

It is not because of polar bears that I will be joining the climate camp outside the coal plant at Kingsnorth. It is not because of butterflies or frogs or penguins or rainforests, much as I love them all. It is because everything I have fought for and that all campaigners for social justice have ever fought for – food, clean water, shelter, security – is jeopardised by climate change. Those who claim to identify a conflict between environmentalism and humanitarianism have either failed to read the science or have refused to understand it.

Our government could lead the world in one of two directions. Roughly one third of our power stations will come to the end of their lives by 2020. It could replace them with low-carbon plants or it could repeat – this time in full knowledge of the consequences – the disastrous decisions of the past. E.on’s application to build a new coal-burning power station at Kingsnorth is the first for many years. At least five other such proposals hang on the outcome(2). Between them they would account for 54 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year(3): as much as the entire economy would produce if the UK, in line with current science, were to cut its emissions by 90%(4).

The government seems determined to make the wrong decision. It has inherited the party’s traditional love for coal, but, being New Labour, now supports the bosses not the workers, and has colluded with them to make the case for a new generation of power stations. It has one justification for this policy: that one day dirty coal will be transformed into clean coal by means of carbon capture and storage (CCS). All that is needed to effect this transformation is a sprinkling of alchemical dust, in the form of the future price of carbon. The market, it claims, will automatically ensure that coal plants bury their carbon dioxide, as this will be cheaper than buying pollution permits.

Last month the House of Commons environmental audit committee examined this proposition and found that it was nonsense(5). It cited studies by the UK Energy Research Centre and Climate Change Capital which estimate that capturing carbon emissions from existing coal plants will cost 70-100 or 90-155 euros per tonne of CO2. Yet the government predicts that the likely price of carbon between 2013 to 2020 will be around 39 euros per tonne. Even E.on believes that it won’t rise above 50 euros. “The gap between the carbon price and the cost of CCS”, the committee finds, “is enormous.” The energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, confessed to the MPs “I hope that the strengthening of carbon markets … will bring forward a sufficiently good price for carbon that it will provide some of the financial incentive for CCS. Will it be enough? I do not know.”

This is the sum of government policy: to cross its fingers and hope the market delivers. If it approves a new coal plant at Kingsnorth, it will do so on the grounds that the power station will be “CCS-ready”. CCS-ready seems to mean nothing more than this: that there’s enough space on the site for a carbon capture plant, should the developer deign one day to build it. The committee warns that this meaningless promise could be used “as a fig leaf to give unabated coal-fired power stations an appearance of environmental acceptability.”(6)

The government has already shown us what it wants to do. In January, Gary Mohammed, a civil servant at the business department, emailed E.on to ask whether he should include CCS as a condition for approving its new coal plant. (This gives a fascinating insight into how government works: companies are asked to write their own rules). E.on replied that the government “has no right to withhold approval for conventional plant”. Six minutes later Mr Mohammed answered thus: “Thanks. I won’t include. Hope to get the set of draft conditions out today or tomorrow.”(7)

There is a simple means by which the government could ensure that our future electricity supplies would not commit the UK to stoking runaway climate change. It would do as California has done, and set, by a certain date, a maximum level for carbon pollution per megawatt-hour of electricity production. This would have to be a low one: perhaps 80kg of CO2. Then, in line with the government’s precious principles (or absence thereof), it could leave the rest to the market. I have now reached the point at which I no longer care whether or not the answer is nuclear. Let it happen, as long as its total emissions are taken into account, we know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried, how much this will cost and who will pay, and there is a legal guarantee that no civil nuclear materials will be used by the military. We can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future must be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be.

But I believe the likely response would be more interesting than this. Several recent studies have shown how, through maximising the diversity of renewable generators and by spreading them as far apart as possible, by using new techniques for balancing demand with supply and clever schemes for storing energy, between 80 and 100% of our electricity could be produced by renewables, without any loss in the reliability of power supplies(8,9,10). Unlike CCS, wind, wave, tidal, solar, hydro and geothermal power are proven technologies. Unlike nuclear power, they can be safely decommissioned as soon as they become redundant.

A policy like this requires both courage and vision. So look at the current cabinet – Brown, Straw, Darling, Hutton, Blears, Kelly, Hoon – and weep. Every man and woman with backbone was purged from this government years ago, leaving those who know how to appease the interests that might threaten them. These people won’t stand up to business, even when the future prospects of mankind are at stake.

If fear is the only thing that moves them, we must present them with a greater threat than the companies planning new coal plants. We must show that this issue has become a political flashpoint; that the public revulsion towards new coal could help to eject them from office. You could do no better than joining us at Kingsnorth this week.

References:

1. Quoted by Nicholas Kristof, 16th August 2007. The Big Melt. New York Times.

2. Longannet & Cockenzie (Scottish Power); Ferrybridge (Scottish and Southern Energy); Fiddler’s Ferry (Scottish and Southern Energy); Tilbury (RWE npower); Blyth (RWE npower).

3. Greenpeace makes this calculation as follows: “10.6 GW [the generation capacity of the six plants] x 7884 hours of generation per year, assuming 90% operational = 83.57 TWH/y. 83.57 TWH/y x 0.65 = 54 mt/CO2/y”. See footnote 23: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/c…

4. The provisional government estimate for the UK’s CO2 emissions in 2007 is 543.7 million tonnes. Defra, July 2008. UK Climate Change Programme. Annual Report to Parliament, July 2008, p9. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/ukccp/pdf/ukccp-ann…

5. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 22nd July 2008 . Carbon capture and
storage. Ninth Report of Session 2007–08. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmenvaud/654/...

6. ibid.

7. You can open the emails on this page:
http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/government-climate-pol…

8. German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Technical Thermodynamics Section Systems Analysis and Technology Assessment, June 2006. Trans-Mediterranean Interconnection for Concentrating Solar Power. Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany. http://www.dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/institut/system/p…

9. Mark Barrett, April 2006. A Renewable Electricity System for the UK: A Response to the 2006 Energy Review. UCL Bartlett School Of Graduate Studies – Complex Built Environment Systems Group. http://www.cbes.ucl.ac.uk/projects/energyreview/Bartlett%20Response%20to…

10. Centre for Alternative Technology, 10th July 2007. ZeroCarbonBritain: an alternative energy strategy. This will be made available at www.zerocarbonbritain.com.

Climate Camp Taken!

Ellie Keen — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:57:20 +0000

From the CC email list

100 people entered and secured an uncultivated field at Deansgate Ridge only 1 km from Kingsnorth Power Station. They erected and climbed tripods to prevent police from moving them and have erected a marquee alongside a banner which reads ‘No New Coal’.

Although the climate camp activists have been upfront and open about most aspects of their plans, the location of the camp had not been revealed until today in order to prevent E.ON and the police from attempting to stop it from happening. The uncultivated field is on a road that runs between Hoo St Werburgh and High Halstow. The Camp for Climate Action intends to return the field in two weeks in as good, if not better, condition than it was found.

Around 20 sheep were in the field when it was occupied. They have been rounded up and are being taken care of with food and water.

The camp, which is due to officially start on Sunday, 3 August, is expected to attract thousands of people coming from all over the UK. The week long camp hosts hundreds of workshops on sustainable living and the politics of climate change. The camp will culminate on Saturday 9 August in a mass direct action to shut down Kingsnorth power station on protest over E.ON’s plans to build the first new coal-fired power station in the UK for 33 years.

“We want to warmly invite people from the local community to come down and see for themselves what the camp is all about,” said Terry Graves, who has already pitched his tent up in the field.

“E.ON and the government believe that you can have endless fossil-fuelled economic growth in a world of finite resources,” said Christina Greensford, who helped to secure the camp. “People from all over the UK are here to create a democratic, low-carbon society in which our long term future on this planet is prioritised over the short term profit margins of the fossil fuel industry.”

“We have a future to protect, and today, in setting up the climate camp, we’ve drawn a line in the sand at Kingsnorth.” said Hannah Abbots. “We will not allow companies like E.ON drag us over the edge of climate catastrophe.”

Location: The camp entrace is on Dux Court Road, off the A228, at the turnoff opposite the turnoff to Hoo St Werburgh. Appox 1 km up Dux Court Road towards High Halstow, past the sports ground on your right, the road bends right and the camp entrance is there at the bend, on the left. This is about 3 km from the entrance to the power-station. [gmap]

Smash School Privatisation

Ellie Keen — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Next Step In The Anti-Academy Campaign

Following last week’s actions against the privatisation of UK education in Wembley, North West London, a new call out by campaigners to re-squat the land and put another obstacle in the way of Blair’s profitable education program, centring the campaign against school privatisation right under the nose of the new Wembley Stadium.

For two years the Wembley Park Sports Ground site has been a constant pain in the butt for the local council, for the private investor, charity Ark, whose founder is multimillionaire French/Swiss financier Arpad “Arki” Busson, and for the UK Brown fronted government.

Now campaigners and activists not associated with the previous campaign are calling on people to converge on the sports ground, re-squat the site and put a halt to this, the latest corporate grab of UK education, sending a clear message to the investors and the government – hands off our schools and our children.

Residents and teachers have continually squatted the land, halting development, since 2006. In recent weeks local teachers, business owners and residents instigated direct action to draw attention to Ark gaining control of the public sports ground, in order to build their next privatised Academy school, one of six they plan to open by September 2008.

The previous campaigners have now been hit with huge costs and fines, are banned from the site for two years and face prison time for even remotely being involved in any further campaign against the Wembley Ark Academy.

The sports ground has been used by local schools and residents at £1 per session for decades, the local schools in the area do not have their own playing fields. The land is also home to protected trees and various wildlife, including colonies of bats.

When private investor Ark takes over they claim the use of the sports ground will be “affordable” and also claim their will be more amenities there for the local community.

But, as parents have been finding out while visiting the site, expecting to see a nice big shiny new school – the school is not built yet. In the meantime, from September 2008 60 pupils, 200 pupils by September 2009, will be temporarily housed while the school is built around them, leaving them in the middle of a construction site, breathing construction dust and put at risk from overhanging cranes and other construction machinery. And all the while, at the expense of people’s safety, private investor Ark will start raking in the profits, straight from the UK taxpayer.

Local residents have been continually lied to on all issues surrounding this development. The main argument by Brent Council and Ark for the need of the school was 200 children would have no school place, thus no education, if the Academy was not built. But Brent Council neglected to inform residents, and Ark themselves, that there were two other sites in the borough where the school was more needed and appropriate land was available.

Brent Council also neglected to tell residents there were other investor options in the school. Residents were only informed of the Ark investor.

Now it has come to light that Brent Council have been stealing children from other local schools, canvassing parents to change schools to the new Academy, thus reducing pupil numbers at the two remaining state schools in the area. As pupil numbers fall at the state schools, so does the funding, leaving those two schools under threat of closure, leaving only the privately-run school open for business.

Brent Council also promised to relocate all the small local businesses affected by the Wembley Academy development program. To date they are still waiting, despite their imminent eviction of current premises on 31 July 2008.

The age old question now sits on the mouths of those directly affected in the area, and more so by all across the country questioning UK school Academisation – if they are lying, deceiving and cheating at this stage, can these people be trusted to run UK schools?

Tony Blair set up the Academy school system in 2000, where private investors were asked to come up with £2 million investment to buy their very own state school. The further running and redevelopment costs of the school would be footed by the UK taxpayer, usually a fee of around £30 million per school. The government argument for this was with state education failing on many levels the only answer to save UK education was begin a process of “Academisation”, in other words, privatisation.

Now the £2 million is not being paid by the investors. Academy schools no longer have to follow the school curriculum. They are failing worse than the remaining state schools. Expulsion rates are sky-rocketing and the private interests are increasingly gaining control of what is being taught in their schools, leaving children’s education in the hands of some of the largest most powerful companies in the world, as well as some religious groups, which, looking at closely, can only be considered fundamentalist.

The Wembley Park Anti-Academy Camp will be open from this Sunday, 27 July 2008. The plan is to maintain a presence on the site and halt all preparations for the school, sending a clear message to local authorities, the national government, and the private investors, you are not welcome in our schools.

Join the campaign. Save our schools from the hands of the corporate elite. Smash School Privatisation. No to education for profit.

Details:
Wembley Park Sports Ground, Bridge road, Wembley, NW9
Nearest tube: Wembley Park (metropolitan and jubilee line)
Turn left out station, walk up to main junction of Bridge Road and Forty Lane, turn left, walk up to left-hand gate where car wash sign is and you’re there.

Buses:
From Mill Hill or Kensal Rise – 302 (get off at Blackbird Hill)
From Golders Green – 83 (get off at Wembley Asda or Wembley Park tube)
From Brent Cross – 182 (get off at Wembley Asda or Wembley Park tube)

Down, Wembley Way

JamieSW — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:22:46 +0000

Campaigners against a new city academy in Wembley (see SchNEWS 639) are keeping up their protest despite the camp they set-up being evicted on Wed 16th July.

On Tuesday, a court hearing against Wembley Tent City in North London served an injunction against one of the protesters, Hank Roberts, and fined him £3,500. Undaunted Hank and others swiftly returned to the camp and moved their tents on to the roof of one of the buildings facing demolition. He was later joined by other protesters resisting the eviction.

City academies were dreamt up by the government as a way of offloading some of that terribly burdening cost of education, and turning it into a money-making scheme for wealthy types wanting to set up their own schools. As they are privately owned they don’t come under the same strict guidelines faced by state schools, allowing them to come up with their own curriculum. And, of course, there is no evidence that they are any more successful than standard state schools.

The Tent City is part of the campaign against the Wembley Park Academy, an American and British educational charity sponsored and run by The Ark, a group of millionaire merchant bankers and hedge fund speculators. It will still require £30 million of taxpayers money as initial funding. If the building gets the go ahead it will see the demolition of a community centre and a sports field used by local children.

On Wednesday, cops turned up to issue an injunction to the protesters with threats of arrest if they were ignored. Displaying their usual over-zealous tendencies, they even threatened to arrest some journalists who had joined the protesters on the roof.

As well as getting a lot of media coverage for their campaign – with journos from the BBC and ITV turning up to have a nose around, Wembley Tent City has also received a great deal of support. A spokesperson for the camp said there were over a hundred supporters on-site after the court case on Tuesday, and there were still about 50 people there when council bailiffs turned up later in the day. Perhaps in light of the strong support, the bailiffs slunk away without removing so much as a tent peg.

Much of the support has come from the neighbourhood, with many recognising the good the campaign is doing for the local community. Bailiffs are expected to remove the last of the protesters on Friday at the just plain unnecessary time of 6:30am, but protesters are quick to point out that this is just the beginning of the campaign and on Friday the High Court will decide whether their court case against the company will be heard.

Find out more about the campaign and how you can get involved at www.tentcityoccupation.co.uk

Eamonn McCann on the Raytheon Victory

Ellie Keen — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:33:58 +0000

On 9 August 2006, nine Northern Irish anti-war activists occupied the Derry offices of Raytheon, one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world, and destroyed its computers.

Their action was sparked by anger at Raytheon’s complicity in Israel’s bombing campaign against Lebanon.

The Raytheon 9 won a massive victory when they were acquitted of charges of criminal damage earlier this month.

Campaigning journalist Eamonn McCann was one of the nine protesters. He spoke to Socialist Worker about the case

There has been considerable controversy about Raytheon ever since the company announced that its factory was coming to Derry in 1999.

Raytheon specialises in producing hi-tech bombs, missiles and battlefield control systems.

It sells arms mainly to the US government. But it is also one of the largest suppliers of the Israeli army.

The immediate cause of our occupation of the Raytheon factory was the bombing of Qana in southern Lebanon on 30 July 2006.

This came at a time when the United Nations secretary general and even the archbishop of Canterbury were calling upon George Bush and Tony Blair to at least pose the idea of a ceasefire. But they adamantly refused.

They wanted Israel to finish crushing Hizbollah and the Lebanese resistance forces.

In the midst of this, a bomb was used to destroy an apartment building in Qana leading to the deaths of 28 people.

We were almost certain that this was a Raytheon bomb. In campaigning against Raytheon we’d acquired a great deal of knowledge about what it was producing and where it was selling it.

We held a meeting of the Derry anti-war coalition and decided to occupy the building. Our intention was not just to protest about what was happening in Lebanon – it was much more practical than that.

We believed that we could in effect decommission the factory, disrupt production and delay the ability of Israel to rain down further death on southern Lebanon.

We were aware that Israel was running short of some of the weapons that Raytheon was delivering and that encouraged us in our belief that we could have some effect on Israel’s ability to wage war.

We smashed Raytheon’s computers and used a fire extinguisher and other equipment to take out their communications hub.

The charges levelled against us were affray and criminal damage. The charge of affray was thrown out because key to the charge is that you severely frighten people by your behaviour.

We demonstrated in court that there was no evidence that we had frightened anybody.

Then we fought the criminal damage charge. Of course, we didn’t deny doing any of the things we were accused of.

In fact we said on the first day that we did all of the things we were accused of and that we would have done more if we could.

I stood up in the witness box and said that we regretted that we couldn’t have done more.

Our defence was not a moral defence – it was a political defence. We didn’t say that this was a protest because we were angry at Israel’s actions. We said that this was a genuine, serious effort to disrupt the supply of arms to Israel.

Our argument was that Israel was committing war crimes and that our action was intended to prevent this larger crime.

If you hear the sound of a child being brutalised in the house next door and you rush in to smash the door down and save the child, should you be charged with breaking and entering? Obviously not.

In the same way we were trying to save people in Lebanon who were being criminally attacked by Israel.

We presented lots of evidence. This included documents from the Norwegian government about why it had withdrawn investment from Raytheon, journalism by Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, and lots more to back up our argument.

We explained what Raytheon’s weapons were and what they were used for.

We were not required to establish as a certainty that these things were happening. We were required to show our belief that these things were happening.

And we showed that we had a genuine belief based on reasonable evidence.

The jury accepted that we believed that Israel was guilty of war crimes and that our action was intended to hamper this. We were vindicated.

I hope the case will lead to a wider campaign over Raytheon. In light of the court’s decision, there is now a case for Raytheon to be investigated to determine whether it is a criminal enterprise.’

For more information on the case go to www.raytheon9.org

Raytheon-9 Acquitted!

Ellie Keen — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A statement by the 9 Raytheon protestors from Derry.

After their acquittal on three charges of criminal damage to the computer equipment and office of Raytheon, the world’s largest supplier of Guided Bomb Units, Colm Bryce and Eamonn McCann spoke to supporters and press outside the court. Colm Bryce began:

The Raytheon 9 have been aquitted today in Belfast for their action in decommissioning the Raytheon offices in Derry in August 2006. The prosecution could produce not a shred of evidence to counter our case that we had acted to prevent the commission of war crimes during the Lebanon war by the Israeli armed forces using weapons supplied by Raytheon.

We remain proud of the action we took and only wish that we could have done more to disrupt the ‘kill chain’ that Raytheon controls.

This victory is welcome, for ourselves and our families, but we wish to dedicate it to the Shaloub and Hasheem families of Qana in Lebanon, who lost 28 of their closest relatives on the 30 July 2006 due to a Raytheon ‘bunker buster’ bomb.

Their unimaginable loss was foremost in our minds when we took the action we did on 9 August, and the injustice that they and the many thousands of victims of war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered, will spur us on to continue to campaign against war and the arms trade that profits from it.

We said from the beginning that we came to this court not as the accused but as the accusers of Raytheon. This court case proved that Raytheon in Derry is an integral part of the global Raytheon company and its military production. This is no longer a secret or in doubt. Raytheon have treated the truth, peaceful protest, local democracy and this court with complete contempt. The most senior executive who appeared said that the charge that Raytheon had ‘aided and abetted’ the commission of crimes against humanity was “not an issue” for him. Raytheon should have that contempt repaid in full and be driven out of Derry and every other place they have settled. They are war criminals, plain and simple. They have no place in our society and shame on all those in positions of power or influence who would hand them public funds, turn a blind eye to their crimes, cover their tracks or make excuses for them.

These crimes continue daily and hourly in the Middle East. It is up to those of us who oppose those wars of domination and occupation to build a movement that matches the enormity of what is being done by Western governments. We hope that this victory gives courage and heart to all those involved in that movement and the many more who need to be for us to achieve our aim of stopping these wars. Until then, the very least we can do, to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the Middle East is to dissociate ourselves from the corrupt governments of the US and Britain. That means opposing the visit to Belfast of the world’s biggest war criminal, George W Bush on 16 June.

We feel totally vindicated by this decision and wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to all of those who gave us support, especially to our families and friends, to the members of the Derry Anti War Coalition and the Irish Anti-War Movement , to our excellent legal teams. Of course, we particularly want to thank the jury who listened intently through three weeks of evidence before ensuring that justice was done today.

Eamonn McCann then addressed supporters and press saying:

The outcome of this case has profound implications.

The jury has accepted that we were reasonable in our belief that: the Israel Defence Forces were guilty of war crimes in Lebanon in the summer of 2006; that the Raytheon company, including its facility in Derry, was aiding and abetting the commission of these crimes; and that the action we took was intended to have, and did have, the effect of hampering or delaying the commission of war crimes.

We have been vindicated.

We reject entirely and with contempt the statement by Raytheon this evening suggesting that the result of the trial gives them concern about the safety of their employees. This is an abject attempt to divert attention from the significance of the outcome. Not a shed of evidence was produced that we presented the slightest danger to Raytheon workers. The charge of affray was thrown out by the court without waiting to hear defence evidence.

Our target has always been Raytheon as a corporate entity and its shareholders and directors who profit from misery and death.

There is now no hiding place for those who have said that they support the presence of Raytheon in Derry on the basis that the company is not involved in Derry in arms-related production. We have established that not only is the Derry plant involved in arms-related production, it is also, through its integration into Raytheon as a whole, involved in war crimes.

We call on all elected representatives in Derry, and on the citizens of Derry, to say now in unequivocal terms that the war criminal Raytheon is not welcome in our city.

We call on the office of the Attorney General and the Crown Prosecution Service, in light of this verdict, to institute an investigation into the activities of Raytheon at its various plants across the UK, with a view to determining whether Raytheon is, as we say it is, a criminal enterprise.

We believe that one day the world will look back on the arms trade as we look back today on the slave trade, and wonder how it came about that such evil could abound in respectable society. If we have advanced by a mere moment the day when the arms trade is put beyond the law, what we have done will have been worthwhile.

We took the action we did in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter of innocents in Qana on July 30th 2006. The people of Qana are our neighbours. Their children are the children of our neighbours. We trashed Raytheon to help protect our neighbours. The court has found that that was not a crime. This what the Raytheon case has been about.

We have not denied or apologised for what we did at the Raytheon plant in the summer of 2006. All of us believe that it was the best thing we ever did in our lives.

Related Link: http://www.raytheon9.org

Demonstration Attacked by Police

Ellie Keen — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

More than 2,500 anti-war protesters descended on parliament yesterday Sunday for an angry protest at the visit of warmongering mass murderer, US president George Bush.

Bush praised British prime minister Gordon Brown for being “tough on terror” and said that the invasion of Iraq – estimated to have killed over a million Iraqi civilians – was “the right thing to do”. The real aim of Bush’s visit became clear on Monday, when Brown announced more British troops for Afghanistan and “further sanctions” on Iran.

No surprise then that so many people were angry that Bush was invited to visit Britain in the first place and were determined to make their voices heard.

Many were shocked at the excessive policing operation that was put in place to stop people from exercising their democratic right to protest. The operation was rumoured to have cost over £1 million.

Police blocked off Whitehall with metal barriers, rows of police vans, horses and lines of riot police, preventing demonstrators from marching to Downing Street. They attacked protesters with batons, causing many injuries and hospitalising some people.

23-year old Peter Simpson was one of the protesters injured by police at the demonstration. “Police were hitting our hands with their truncheons,” he said. “They were standing over us like bullies with their weapons. I was hit on my arm, shoulder and head. Blood was steaming down my face.”

Several demonstrators were arrested after police attacked the protest. Carole Vincent, an anti-war activist from Walthamstow was one of them. She told Socialist Worker, “I was at the front of the protest against the railing and was being pushed forward. A bit of the barrier fell and some people tried to get through to go to Downing Street.

“Once the first barrier had been pushed over I was pushed forward again and had to put my hands out or I would have fallen down. I had to put my hands on the next barrier – and as soon as I did the batons started flying.

“I was hit on my arms and hands. The police were hitting people indiscriminately.

“I heard two senior officers were getting descriptions of people in their earpieces. There were loads of descriptions – they were obviously targeting people to grab and arrest later.

“I was arrested for violent disorder. The police said that I picked up a barrier and threw it at them. I told them that I just chanted with others and then left, but the police grabbed me very tightly and dragged me away.

“I was kept in a cell overnight and had to be given painkillers for the injuries I’d received. My arms and hands are covered in bruises. So many people were injured after being whacked by the police.”

Despite the disgraceful behaviour of the police, the protest had a big impact, with lots of support from passers by and media coverage. The protest was angry and young, with many people demonstrating for the first time.

Nimco Ismail is a health care assistant in London. “This is my first anti-war demonstration,” she told Socialist Worker. “I came after watching a documentary about US involvement in Somalia. We have to make our voices heard – the world has to know what Bush is doing.”

Pau from Watford was another first-time protester. “I believe that war is not the way to get peace,” he said. “It’s important that we’re here as people will be watching around the world.”

People were angry that their right to protest had been squashed at the behest of George Bush. “It’s ironic that our march had been banned on the anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta,” said Jyotrmishra, an anti-war musician from Derby.

“The US is interfering with our civil liberties. Yet if a demonstration was banned in China there would be an outcry.”

“It’s still important to demonstrate against Bush because he needs to be held accountable for what he’s done,” said Sarah from Stanmore. Andrew from Bristol Stop the War Coalition agreed. “I’m completely opposed to everything that Bush stands for,” he told Socialist Worker. “He’s not only unwelcome in Britain – he’s unwelcome on this earth.”

Many pointed out the hypocrisy of the “war on terror”. Lindsey German, convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, was cheered when she said from the platform, “What right does Bush have to preach about democracy when the US is leaving permanent bases in Iraq? What right does Brown have to talk about freedom when he passes laws to detail people without charge for 42 days?”

Protesters were also clear that the campaign against the war would continue until all troops are brought out of Iraq and Afghanistan – and that the movement would fight any attack on Iran.

As Tony Benn, president of the Stop the War Coalition, said, “This is about more than just Bush, Blair and Brown. We will not stop until all the troops are out and Palestine is free.”