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Paul Mobbs, 3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN.
Email -  mobbsey@gn.apc.org

2nd February, 2003.




**Request for support**

--Please forward freely--


FRIENDS OF THE EARTH INJUNCT
VIRTUAL NETWORKING TOUR IN WALES:

FREE RANGE ACTIVISM WEB SITE
CENSORED BY THEIR INJUNCTION

**Please help lobby over the unjust prohibition**
**on grassroots activists in Wales**


For months members of an organisation -- which for legal reasons I will call
"The Committee" -- in Wales have been organising a tour of Wales to promote
virtual networking as part of grassroots campaigning in Wales. This used a
mobile Linux-based training system (see  http://www.fraw.org.uk/cltc/) to
demonstrate the potential of electronic networking at 10 workshops, in ten
different venues across Wales over two weeks. In the end, we only managed to
do the first in Pontypridd before Friends of the Earth blocked the tour.

There had been some problems with Friends of the Earth in relation to another
organisation -- which I must call "The Company" -- we were associated with
which Friends of the Earth are taking legal action against for infringement
of their trademark rights. However, it appears that Friends of the Earth's
solicitors, because they can't be bothered to have an open dialogue, and
regard these organisations as the same entity. On the first day of the tour,
Monday 27th January, we received a warning of legal action over the
commencement of the tour. We declined to accept their terms as we did not
consider the name of "The Committee" was in any way infringing Friends of the
Earth's trademark rights. On Tuesday 28th, we received an injunction
preventing the use of a name, or 'anything colorably similar'. At that stage,
we had to abandon the whole two week tour.

What has happened is that Friends of the Earth have injuncted one
organisation, for something it was not organising, to stop the actions of
another, separate organisation. In our view this is wholly incorrect, but for
the time being we must accept the terms of the injunction until we can
contest them in court. However, in a recent letter it would appear that
Friends of the Earth may have understood their mistake, and are now claiming
that they did not intend this outcome.

In accordance with the injunction, content of the Free Range Activism Website
has now been amended. The website of "The Committee" has been taken down, but
I have decided to censor it and repost it as part of my own web pages. For
further information see:

General information:  http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html

"Committee" site:  http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/injunction.html

Previous detailed statement:  http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/statement.html


As with my previous postings of January 30th, I am asking for people to lobby
friends of the Earth to stop this senseless legal action. Please contact
Friends of the Earth personally via:

Post: Sam Clarke, Chair of the Board, Friends of the Earth,
26-28 Underwood Street, London N1 7JQ.

Email: Friends of the Earth staff involved,  philm@foe.co.uk,
 charless@foe.co.uk,  julianr@foe.co.uk

Phone: Donald Ritchie, 020 7566 1675 (during office hours)



Thanks for the help.


P.


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"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email -  mobbsey@gn.apc.org
website -  http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey.html
public key -  http://www.fraw.org.uk/keylist.html

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