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British peace activist to be jailed on Monday?

Dan Viesnik | 30.01.2010 17:39 | Anti-militarism

On Monday (1st February) I am due to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court in London for refusing to pay a fine of £50 and £465 in costs resulting from a peaceful symbolic sit-down protest in July 2007 outside the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire - Britain's nuclear warhead manufacturing and research facility - during the Footprints for Peace International Walk towards a Nuclear-Free Future from Dublin to London.

At the Blair at the Iraq inquiry demo, 29 Jan 2010 - pic by C. Wood
At the Blair at the Iraq inquiry demo, 29 Jan 2010 - pic by C. Wood

Sit-down protest at AWE Aldermaston, 27 July 2007 - pic by M. Atkinson
Sit-down protest at AWE Aldermaston, 27 July 2007 - pic by M. Atkinson


I expect I may be handed a prison sentence of up to 28 days (or "community payback"?) as I do not intend to pay the fine or costs. I have never been to prison before. Any support inside and outside the court building (from 1.30pm) would be welcome. Bring banners!

Address: Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court (Courtroom 95), 51 Holloway Road, London N7 8JA (Map:  http://tinyurl.com/yeq8q9t - nearest tube: Highbury and Islington)

You can read a press release from the original action here:
 http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/08/363054.shtml

You can read a report of my trial at Newbury Magistrates' Court in March 2008 here:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/03/393416.html

You can read extracts from my letter to the court of 7 December 2009, explaining why I won't cough up, below.


*Cheap plug for Aldermaston Big Blockade, February 15th*

Just over two weeks to go! This should be a cracking day. Get yourselves down there and block the nukes, or cheer on ya mates!

More details:

 http://www.peacenews.info/issues/2516/25161507.html

 http://blockawe.blogspot.com

 http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1577


*Cheap plug for Footprints for Peace Walks*

After three long anti-nuclear walks in Europe over the past three years, from Dublin to London in 2007, from London to Geneva in 2008 and from Geneva to Brussels in 2009, this year Footprints for Peace will walk from the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee to the United Nations in New York, starting on 11 February and arriving on 1 May, in time for the five-yearly Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

More details of the NPT walk can be found here:
 http://footprintsforpeace.tripod.com/E10/NPT/npt_walk.htm

A walk in Scotland is also planned in the summer:
 http://footprints.footprintsforpeace.net/scotland/scotland_peace_walk.htm

Peace,
Dan Viesnik


Letter to Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court, 7 December 2009:


Dear Sir / Madam,

I write in regard to outstanding penalties totalling £515 (imposed on 7 March, 2008) which have been transferred to London North West and North Courts from West Berkshire Magistrates' Court. I have been advised by the Administration Team of the Central Accounting Office, HMCS London in their letter of 18 November 2009 to communicate with this Court directly.

As previously stated in writing to the respective fines offices, I have given the matter plenty of consideration and have thus arrived at the decision that as a matter of conscience I shall not pay the outstanding sum, either as a lump sum or by instalment. My wholly unnecessary, disproportionate and unjust prosecution, conviction and penalty for "obstructing the highway" arose from my participation in an entirely peaceful symbolic sit-down protest in opposition to what I consider to be the illegal, immoral and criminally irresponsible maintenance and development of weapons of mass murder and destruction, namely Trident nuclear warheads, and supporting infrastructure at the Aldermaston atomic death factory (also known as Atomic Weapons Establishment) in West Berkshire. The event in question took place on 27 July, 2007 as I walked nearly 900 miles from Dublin to London via Belfast and Glasgow for a nuclear-free future with an international group called Footprints for Peace. I was doing nothing more that day than peacefully carrying out my moral duty to protect humanity and life on planet Earth from the grave threat of nuclear annihilation and radiation exposure. My strength of feeling on this issue is such that I am prepared to face imprisonment rather than pay the fine, despite never having experienced prison before. I initiated a case-stated appeal to the High Court against my conviction, but eventually withdrew for reasons that do not concern this Court. In my experience the courts in general appear to be deaf to arguments of morality, conscience and common sense, especially in politically-sensitive cases such as this, with the result that true justice is often sacrificed in favour of appeasing the Establishment.

------------

Thanking you kindly in advance for your patience and understanding. I anticipate that I shall soon be brought before the Court at which time I may be committed to prison, so I shall prepare myself mentally for such an eventuality. Please use the above address for any further correspondence.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Daniel Viesnik


Images are CopyLeft and may be reproduced free of charge for non-commercial use. Please credit any use.

Dan Viesnik
- e-mail: vd2012-imc [at] yahoo.co.uk

Additions

Dan is free!

06.02.2010 08:27

...as of yesterday (Friday). Thanks for the messages of support.

See you at Aldermaston on 15th February!
htto://blockawe.blogspot.com

Dan Viesnik
mail e-mail: vd2012-imc [at] yahoo.co.uk


Comments

Hide the following 14 comments

Any way we can help?

30.01.2010 18:49

If we are unable to be there vocally, is there anything else that we can do?

Financial?

Letter writing?

That was just shite mate............ I hope you get a sympathetic beak who chucks it out.

Good on ya

Jeff


Prison Support

30.01.2010 21:03

If you do end up going to prison (and it's not guaranteed - friends of mine have been spared prison even when they insist they're definitelynot going to pay up) would you be able to get someone to find out your prison number and the prison address and post it on here (if that's OK). I will be out of the country when you're in court, but will be able to write to you if you do end up inside. With friends inside prison at the moment, I know how important it is to support prisoners.

Also, if you're vegan, check out the VPSG (Vegan Prisoners Support Group)

Good luck! E

(oh, also, the law changed in recent years to say that even if you spend time in prison for not paying fines, you still owe the money when you get out, as opposed to going to prison being a replacement for the fine... that's what I've heard. Does anyone have any more info on this?)

Eli


I know that guy on the second foto ...

30.01.2010 21:17

... the guy on the right:

it's him:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi

i wonder if the cops ask him for his details.

suprised


Good Luck!

30.01.2010 22:19

Good Luck Dan.

Thanks for doing this. It's important to be prepared, but you never know with the courts...
Hope you get a friendly magistrate anyway.

Will be thinking of you...
Virginia

Virginia Moffatt
mail e-mail: Virginia.Moffatt@ntlworld.com


Response to comments

31.01.2010 09:08

Thanks very much for the messages of support.

Jeff wrote: "If we are unable to be there vocally, is there anything else that we can do?"

- Yes, you can go to the Aldermaston Blockade on 15th February to show the strength of public opposition to Britain's illegal, immoral and criminally wasteful existing Trident nuclear weapons programme and £97 billion planned replacement, including the billions currently being spent upgrading the nuclear warhead facilities at Aldermaston. There is transport to the blockade from around the country:
 http://blockawe.blogspot.com

To Eli: If I am jailed on Monday, hopefully one of my supporters will find out my prison number and prison address and post it on here.

"suprised" wrote: "I know that guy on the second foto ...

... the guy on the right:

it's him:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi"

- An easy mistake to make: it's Bernie Meyer, "the American Gandhi", from Olympia, Washington. He walked from Faslane to London dressed like that and was arrested at the same time as me and the two sisters.

"i wonder if the cops ask him for his details." - Yes, but I don't think he had to give his DNA and fingerprints, so they were unable to establish if he was in fact the REAL Gandhiji.

Dan Viesnik
mail e-mail: vd2012-imc [at] yahoo.co.uk


fines etc

31.01.2010 14:07

Hmm, I don't think the law has changed, but my memory of it has got fuzzy too!

Eli, I think you are wrong. You don't have to pay fines, compensation or costs, but they will try to make you. However, only fines and costs get wiped out by spending time in prison; compensation you can go to prison for, but when you get out you still have to pay.

If you have told them where you work or that you are on benefits then they will deduct it at source even if you say you don't want to pay. If you say I won't pay, they still might make you come back another time. You have to really insist that you aren't ever going to pay, on grounds of conscience, before they will consider sending you down. Sometimes for small amounts they just make you sit in the back of the court for the day (really!), or spend the day in the cells there. Otherwise, you'll get sent to prison.

I don't know if the amounts have gone up, but as a guideline people used to say under £200 was a sentence of a week, under £500 2 weeks, under £1,000 4 weeks. But you'll serve only half the time you are sentenced for.

There used to be a trick if you were likely to be given a week, was that you'd hand yourself in at the fines court for wilful refusal to pay your fine on a Thursday, but they'd have to let you out the next day as they couldn't release at weekends; then that changed to they could release you on a Saturday; I don't know if it's changed again.

When I did it, I found prison interesting, though was glad to be able to walk further when I got out!

I hope it's OK for you.

(PS I've never understood why usually you copyright your photos or want crediting)

old legal nerd


Thanks for the legal info, old legal nerd.

31.01.2010 14:29

Regarding Copyrighting: This is primarily to ensure that commercial users will compensate the artist. Why should they get free use of the images and then make a profit out of them, passing them off as their own?

Regarding crediting of images, etc: It is surely not unreasonable for the author of a document or image to ask to be acknowledged.

Dan Viesnik
mail e-mail: vd2012-imc [at] yahoo.co.uk


crediting

31.01.2010 17:47

It's not unreasonable, no, but I guess I just don't understand, even after years of putting ideas, words, leaflets, images and designs out there into the campaigning realm, for people to use, abuse, recycle, nick, whatever....

I belong to the idea that all this and more is not so much created by me, unique, never before or again to be, but just something I've put together, that might be great, probably draws on many others ideas/work consciously or unconsciously, but that in no way is owned by me, nor should be. I also don't feel the need for the credit, nor that ideas or creations are linked to me.

And what I've never understood is why photos or drawings should be any different than words and ideas?

old legal nerd


Dan is in jail!!

01.02.2010 18:57

I've just heard that Dan was sentenced to 14 days. He has gone to Pentonville.
I'll put his number up when I find it out.

Write to him at:

HMP Pentonville
Caledonian Road
London
N7 8TT

Jane
- Homepage: http://tridentploughshares.org


lets all pray to Jesus.....

01.02.2010 19:33

that lots of folks don't relinquish their DNA and prints for some hopeless, pointless, state adored, non violent peacefull action that bares no fruit or ever has in the generations trident ploughshares actions have been taking place.... Amen

continuity ploughshares


Ever Hopeful

01.02.2010 21:53

Lets hope (pray even, but not everyone in Trident Ploughshares is religious) that lots of people get down to Aldermaston on February 15th and like Dan put themselves in the way of preparations for more WMDs.
I am quite sure that the State doesn't like it. They would prefer that bomb-making could go on in the leafy lanes of Berkshire without any attention.
I'm sure it has an effect. Maybe there are more effective thinks to do - but I'm sure that making cynical remarks on indymedia is NOT one of them!

If you want to drop Dan a card heres his address for the next week.

Dan Viesnik
prisoner number GR9434

HMP Pentonville
Caledonian Road
London
N7 8TT

For info about the Aldermaston Blockade see www.tridentploughshares.org

Jane
- Homepage: http://www.tridentploughshares.org


Response to continuity dude

05.02.2010 16:13

Continuity dude you display an ignorance that is outstanding. Cynicism remains the 5th. column of the establishment, but your is of such excaptional low quality.

Dostoevsky observed "you can judge the quality of a society by the quality of its prisons"
(have always been impressed how John Cusack, playing an FBI agent, snuck that quote into the action flick "Con Air"!).
You can also judge the quality of a movement by how it takes care/expresses solidarity with its prisoners.

My experience of Trident Ploughshares is that it takes good care of folks that are busted, face trial and endure prison.
How has "Stop the War" followed up on those who were dragged through the courts for opposition to the British invasion of Iraq?, how well supported were those arrested and jaile (1-6 years) for activities on J18 back in the day? relevant questions......

Other qualites of Trident Ploughshares beside busting out of youth subculture, with great intergeneratinal participation, is that it is a movement that has kept nuclear weapons on the map. Long after similar anti-nuke weapon movements in the western world collapsed with the end of the Cold War (when the likely potential nuke battlefields were no longer Europe and North America) Trident Ploughshares resurrected the issue in Britain in the late '90's with an emphasis on nvda and direct democracy as the basis of its organising. Originally titled Trident Plougshares 2000 it has long gone past its use by date.

If relinquishing your DNA or paying any price associated with resistance is your priority, then its best you stay at home, draw the blinds and internally migrate. For those of us commited to resistance it means expressing solidarity with our prisoners.

Ciaron


Stick to your bad hollywood movies Mate

06.02.2010 14:34


I am all for direct action and have been involved in activism in this country and others for over twenty years and prisoner support in many countries over that period but my point is what exactly has trident ploughshares ever achieved except attracting lots of people who willingly give up their DNA and go through the court process for no purpose. I understand that you enjoy getting arrested at different spots around the world with your nvda attitude and thats your peroggative but I feel that encouraging people to pointless nvda demos so that they surrender their details is selfish to a point where it seems that there is collusion with the state.

I believe the only violence comes from the state and a proper response is needed to that.

No Gods,
No Masters
No state

ps STWC have done more damage to the antiwar movement than anything else

continuity


2nd reply to Continuity dude

07.02.2010 21:40

The STWC reference was in re;ation to the absence of prison support for anti-war resistance in britain. From memory the J18 follow up (compared to numbers mobilised on the day) wasn't great when a number of peiople got 1-6 years. Trident Ploughshares has a healthy record at supporting its prisoners.

It has been Trident Ploughshares nvda and affinity group structure that has kept British nuclear weapons on the radar....actions have included the more hi rsik disabling of the nuclear convoy vehicle in 2000 and computers into the loch etc. The lower risk mass actions have engaged the public mind in an open way that has made the ridding of British weapons from Scotland a majority position up there.

Take Trident Ploughshares out of the equation over the last decade and in what kind of state wouold the anti-nuclear weapons movement in Britain be if it had been left to CND or the covert subculture you spring from? Preety piss poor you'd have to agree.

I've spent two years in prisons and been through multiple court processes....it's up to you what you want to make of them....opportunities for solidarity and resistance community building or the state isolating and defeating you or others.

I've been held down in custody and had my DNA extracted, but decades before DNA they were kicking in our doors in the early hours. I think you're overating the development of DNA.....the only counter is solidarity and community. Or yes stay at home and draw the blinds....but that's no guarantee either.

Ciaron