World Social Struggles Newswire Archive

During the past three years, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have launched a new campaign against anti-corporate animal rights campaigns across the country. The crackdown has lead to the imprisonment of activists linked to Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) for a total of 50 years and the jailing of Sean Kirtley, who was linked to the Stop Sequani Animal Torture Campaign (SSAT), for four and a half years. The sentences, the charges and the nature of the prosecutions have all been political. Public opposition to the crackdown has been confounded by a media smokescreen thrown up by the press releases churned out by the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), portraying activists as ‘extremists’ and disseminating misinformation. Many of those jailed have not committed any conventional crime but have been targeted by new legislation intended to counter the threat posed to the pharmaceutical industry by effective direct action.

You have the Power to Stop Deportations

You will need Courage, Persistence and Faith

An Anti-Deportation Campaign involves organizing resistance to restrictive immigration legislation, and simply means making the government change their minds regarding an individual case.

The Free Gaza boat the “Spirit of Humanity” departed Cyprus at 7:30am
on Monday, 29 July. Twenty-one human rights and solidarity workers
representing eleven different countries were aboard. The passengers
include Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney. The ship also carries three tons of medical aid,
children’s toys, and rehabilitation and reconstruction kits for twenty
family homes.

Here there are a few pics of the Camp, followed by a personal account of it.

On Saturday 27th June, over 2000 people took part in the Transnational demonstration in the French port city of Calais, called by the Calais No Border Camp 2009. A group of around 500 people left the camp at around 9.30am to march together to the meeting point at the Calais Lighthouse. This group quickly encountered a police line blocking the road, and which effectively became a check point as riot police demanded the demonstrators to be searched as a condition for the march to move forward.

Some people decided to allow the cops to search them, so the march could pass trough the police line and arrive on time to meeting point where local groups and unions were waiting for the campers to arrive. Others refused to do so when it became clear that cops were confiscating scarfs and coats from people's bags. After half and hour or so of a standoff, finally police opened the line when it became obvious that searching everyone would be a logistical nightmare, specially taking into account that there was only one female police cop searching women through.

The march then proceeded to move through a surreal game of cat and mouse with the cops. At every intersection where the demo was trying to move into town towards the Lighthouse, lines of riot police were quickly formed preventing it from moving on. This forced the march to improvise a route in order to not get trapped. This meant that what should have been a half an hour stroll to the Lighthouse, became an almost 3 hours long journey through council estates, back roads, parks, industrial estates and so on.

The campers stood together for the whole time, so they managed to eventually get to the Lighthouse where around 1500 people had been gathering waiting for them to arrive. Then the planned march towards the ferry port finally started, but once again, lines of riot police kept blocking the demonstration at every junction towards the port. That forced the demonstration to take an alternative long route, which ended when it encountered a massive police block at the main road leading to the port. At this point it became clear that it would be impossible to overcome the hundreds of riot police lines with tear gas, water cannons and mobile fences, so the marchers decided to go back to the starting point at the Lighthouse, where a series of speeches by migrants took place explaining the conditions in which they are forced to 'live' in and around Calais.

Here there are some pics of the demo:

An attempted coup has broken out in Honduras in the lead-up to a referendum scheduled for June 28. The referendum is on whether a further vote should be held to decide to re-write the Central American nation's constitution. Read more here:  http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/800/41205

To be published in the bulletin "Divulgando" of the Associacao dos Servidores do PRODERJ, ASCPDERJ, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Notes from a workshop at the Calais Noborder Camp about Resistamce against Detention Centresin which activists talked about the situation in different countries.

Here you can find information on upcomig protests related to the of migration; against borders - for the freedom of movement.

Quick report and videos from the continuing protests in Iran along with an appeal to support political prisoners. Please repost.

Videos can be found here:-  http://hopinewsfromiran.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/protests-continue-in-iran-free-all-political-prisoners/

Pirate Party Makes Bid for German Parliament
Germany's recently enacted legislation against online child pornography has sparked a new movement, Germany's Pirate Party

July Delegation to Venezuela: Human Rights, Food Sovereignty & Social Change

The Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of NY invites you to join us in July for a 10-day trip to Venezuela examining advances in food sovereignty and other initiatives for social change.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s June 19 speech reminded many Iranians of some of the utterances of the shah in the last months of his rule: former president and current chairman of the ‘assembly of experts’ Ali Akbar Rafsanjani cannot be corrupt – he has been the supreme leader’s friend for over 50 years! Everyone in Iran had accepted the results of the elections: it was all the fault of foreign powers and foreign media that some people are now doubting them! Conspiracies are all around us and, just as in colonial times, the British are behind it.

SEE U THERE

ACTION: protest at Iranian Embassy on Friday 26 June 2009, 12:30-1:30pm

Justice for Iranian workers – to include the human rights of all Iranians who have been deprived of their rights.

The anarchist media collective a-films has just published a new short film ("Two Years Under Siege"/10min) from the destroyed Nahr al-Bared Refugee Camp in northern Lebanon.

* Neda Agha-Soltan, Presente! Murdered June 20, 2009

* From Madrid the anarchist group Star, linked to the Iberian Federation of Anarchists Youths (Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Anarquistas-FIJA-), has raised questions whose answers will let us know today and in detail what is doing and saying the known Venezuelan anarchist newspaper.

Pictures from Saturday's British Tamils Forum march in London. Pictures Copyright (C) 2009, Peter Marshall, all rights reserved

In the weekend of july 4th we declare a war on cars. In this weekend there will be a bike festival in Amsterdam. On different locations events, workshops, info stands, fun & games, parties, and direct actions to block and frustrate the traffic will be held. Cars lead to pollution, climate change, deaths and injuries. They are a nuisance, and are dominating the public space.Where the public space is not designed to facilitate the ever consuming shopping frenzy and industry it is designed to please fossil-fuel-traffic.

16th-22nd June

ANIMAL TRANSPORT TRUCK DESTROYED (Italy)
CANARY FREED FROM CAGE (Mexico)
UNGAR FURS LOOKING WORSE THAN USUAL (USA)
GLUED LOCKS AND BROKEN WINDOWS IN ROME (Italy)
"BREAK WITH HLS" PAINTED AT NOVARTIS (Mexico)
MEAT MARKETS, TELMEX PHONES VANDALIZED (Mexico)
SABOTAGE IN MEMORY OF MAURI MORALES (Mexico)