MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU

As Brighton Gears Up For Smash EDO Mayday Mayhem!

Things are hotting up ahead of Brighton’s promised Mayday Mayhem this long weekend - in fact it’s forecast for sun, sun, sun down in the City-by-the-Sea for ‘Bank Holiday’ Monday.

Eagerly grabbing onto the coat-tails of the media’s new-found obsession with police brutality, the Smash EDO campaign seems to have Brighton in a bit of a stir. Local rag the Evening Anus has had two EDO related front pages this week and Sussex Police have been reduced to pleading on Indymedia for organisers to come forward. The Telegraph sounded an alarmist note on Saturday with “Repeat of G20 violence feared as protesters plan to bring Brighton to a standstill.”

EDO have broken their five-year silence in an effort to undermine the campaign. According to Paul Hills, EDO’s M.D. “I strongly object to the use of emotive language such as calling us an ‘arms factory’ and a ‘bomb factory’. It’s very annoying and it’s simply not true.” In fact according to the suddenly talkative Paul, “We make things that ensure the safe carriage and release of weapons from aircraft.” Hmm. Here at SchNEWS we were puzzled about what was safe about the release of weapons from great heights on to populated areas...





The Latest info on May Day from Smash EDO

The meeting point will not be released until very shortly before the demo starts. For location and updates call the Mayday! Mayday! infoline 07506705509. A few more infoline numbers might be added in case they are needed so keep checking www.smashedo.org.uk/mayday-09.htm

If you want a text message giving you the meet point text 'update' to 07983084019 or email it to smashedo@riseup.net

Local Groups Coming to Mayday

These groups are arranging transport from around the country. Contact them if you’d like to travel with someone from your local area:

* Hereford - hereford@afed.org.uk
* Sheffield - sheffield@af-north.org
* Bath - bathactivistnet@yahoo.com
* Cardiff - cardiffanarchists@riseup.net
* London – see www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/428512.html

Accommodation

If you need accommodation for either Mayday or the Anti-Militarist Gathering email us at smashedo@riseup.net or call 07706 689722 (limited spaces available)

Fitwatch

The Forward Intelligence Team will, we’re sure, be at Mayday! To find out about FIT and how to sabotage their surveillance see www.fitwatch.blogspot.com Remember you’re under no obligation to comply with their filming.

Critical Mass

Critical Mass will be meeting at 11am at Brighton Station before the main Street Party... Bikes Not Bombs, Bring sound systems!

Smash EDO Radio

Broadcasting throughout the day on 101.4fm giving you vital info and a soundtrack to the street party. If you’ve got a radio or sound system with a tuner, blast out the broadcast.

Bike-ride from London

There will be a cycle caravan leaving from Brixton on Sunday (3rd), riding to Brighton for the demo. Meet 9am outside Ritzy Cinema, Brixton leaving at 9.30am. See www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/428512.html

Kids Block

There'll be a kid's block on the day, with parents and kids looking out for each other - email rubychard@riseup.net

Callout for Bands and DJs

If you are in a band or can DJ contact smashedo@riseup.net

Legal Support

If you or someone you know are arrested or assaulted by police and need legal support 07522024454. For emotional support call 07962 406940

Press Enquiries

Tel 07754 135290 or email smashedopress@riseup.net For latest press release see www.smashedo.org.uk/pressreleases.htm





Anti-Militarist Gathering

May 2nd-3rd is the Anti Militarist Network gathering in Brighton. This will be a chance for local anti-arms trade/anti-militarist groups to exchange ideas and to plan our response to the 2009 DSEI arms fair and the NATO summit in Edinburgh in November.

For more info see here http://antimilitaristnetwork.noflag.org.uk or call 07983084019

CRAP ARREST OF THE WEEK

For taking off-fence...

A Worthing woman was recently visited by cops when her neighbour’s flimsy bamboo screen blew down during heavy wind in the night. The neighbour complained to the police that the woman had deliberately sabotaged the fence. The police turned up and told the woman she would have to turn up to the police station and be arrested at a later date.

Luckily she was clued up and managed to persuade the police that she could in fact attend the police station on a voluntary basis – and therefore not have to go through the whole hassle of fingerprints, DNA and photo being taken and being on the police record as a potential vandal for the rest of her life.

She said “Everyone I spoke to said there must be some mistake, they can’t do that. But they can.” No further action was taken against the woman. (For the full story see www.eco-action.org/porkbolter)

TEENAGE KICKS

The obviously financially desperate Royal Bank of Scotland are seeking compensation of £40,000 for damage caused at the G20 protests (See SchNEWS 671). Their claim emerged at the trial of a seventeen-year-old girl who had pleaded guilty to damaging a computer keyboard and monitor.

The fact that RBS wanted £40,000 without any receipts (bit like MP’s expenses?!) - and from a penniless teenager - was leapt on by the defence lawyer saying: “In my view, this is wholly unjustified” - pointing out that the damage she caused in no way amounted to £40,000, more like 0.5% of that. She was given an eight month referral order. Maybe RBS should go to Fred the Shred (See SchNEWS 670) for compensation for ruining the bank and the economy...

END OF THE ROAD

The Camp Bling/Save Priory Park campaign in Essex have won! After a decade-long campaign, and a protest camp at the site since 2005, the £25 million Priory Crescent road widening scheme in Southend-on-Sea has been cancelled. Camp Bling – named after the Saxon king buried in the woodland threatened by the roadworks – will ‘decommission’ itself during the summer, aiming to restore the site back to how they found it. 

Despite the best efforts of Southend Tory council leader Nigel Holdcroft, who pursued the road project in the face of almost unanimous local opposition, this week the government announced were only going to fund the £5 million Cuckoo Corner roundabout, leaving the full scheme dead in the water.

The camp is still there now, and welcomes visitors. Help will be needed during the summer to tat down and restore the site. BLINGTASTIC!

* Site mob 07866 967601, www.campbling.org

GORKY SPARK

On 21st April Russian anti-fascist Aleksi Olesinov was jailed for one year for inciting a fight in a club – despite video evidence to the contrary. This stitch up by the Russian state was met strongly by Russian Anti-fascists who took the the streets behind a banner with the catchy slogan: “More there will be repression - more rage there will be in our resistance - we do not want peace without social justice - freedom to Aleksei Olesinov!” They marched to the prison where Aleksi was held and back into town where police attacked them leading to 80 being nicked.

That night a Moscow police station was also burned down in solidarity with Aleksi – for entertainment purposes only, watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE-4-6xt158

* For more info (in Russian) - http://free-olesinov.livejournal.com See also www.antifa.org.uk

MEXICAN PAY-OFF

The Metropolitan Police have admitted that they arrest and assault peaceful protesters. In October 2006 there was a peaceful protest outside the Mexican Embassy in response to the murder of US Indymedia journalist, Brad Will, who was covering the uprising in Oaxaca (See SchNEWS 567).

In true Met style the police decided to intimidate, harass and arrest protesters. But five of those arrested stuck it to the Met by suing the police, resulting in a total of £85,000 compensation and a letter of apology saying, “it is accepted that your arrest was unlawful and that any force used on you during your arrest was therefore an assault and battery.”

TROUPES OUT

An Israeli Army dance troupe has been forced to cancel its performance at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London after campaigners threatened to stage protests. The Zionist Federation had organised an Israel at 61 event featuring a performance by a uniformed troupe of singing IDF soldiers. Organisers claimed it was in the spirit of ‘It ain’t half hot Mum’.

* Well temperatures certainly rose at the thought of a Butcher-Shop Quartet performing at the Bloomsbury Theatre and they were forced to move to an undisclosed location in North London with a ZF spokesman saying “We don’t want it spoilt by a group of people who transfer from a climate camp celebration to an animal rights protest to a dance troupe protest”.

To check out the spirit of this popular 70s sitcom see www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkWjwrQvHWQ

SCHNEWS IN BRIEF

* Arms manufacturer BAE was targeted on Monday (27th) in a day of action organised by No Borders. While No Borders London activists picketed BAE’s London HQ, members of Break the Siege! blockaded the Middleton factory in Manchester.
www.nobordersmanchester.blogspot.com

* In Ireland, protesters opposed to the Shell Corrib Gas Project resumed actions against Shell’s Glengrad site last Sunday (26th), refusing to be intimidated following last week’s severe beating of protester Willie Corduff at the hands of Shell hired thugs (see SchNEWS 673). www.shelltosea.com

* After successfully resisting two evictions in one day last week (See SchNEWS 673), Birmingham squatters lost the Beechwood Hotel in the early hours of last Friday morning as bailiffs piled in. See http://justicenotcrisis.wordpress.com

* Following on from SchNEWS 672, Oaxacan activist David Venegas has been declared innocent in a trial after he was fitted up with drugs. He had already beaten charges ranging from sedition to arson, and was declared innocent of all charges with the judge accepting his defence that the Oaxacan police planted drugs on him. http://narcosphere.narconews.com

* May 1st - Convicts Party at The Bank of England - We are a nation who are guilty until proven innocent. Turn yourself in at The Bank Of England, dressed in your best stripes. Sneak some contraband (Sound Systems, Moonshine, Cake, Kettles, Party Games) past the guard... Meet 5pm, Bank of England, London www.spacehijackers.org

* May 4th - Strangers into Citizens, a campaign supporting the integration of immigrants into UK society, is holding a London National Rally. The campaign calls for amnesties for migrants who have been in the UK for a long periods of time, many who are escaping danger and can’t return to their home countries. 11.30am at Tothill Street, marching to Trafalgar Square. With Asian Dub Foundation live. www.strangersintocitizens.org.uk

* For the full PARTY & PROTEST listings updated weekly see www.schnews.org.uk/pap

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

Flush with the lion’s share of the $1.1trillion pledged by G20 to combat the the economic crisis (SchNEWS 671), the IMF and the World Bank met in Washington last week for their annual get together. The meeting sparked three days of protest by activists less than convinced that the IMF - with its history of disastrous economic interventions - could be trusted to do anything but exacerbate the crisis.

Protests began on Friday (24th) with a ‘Run on the Bank’ as activists staged a five kilometre ‘fun’ run from Malcolm X Park to the World Bank HQ. Activities continued on the Saturday with a ‘Peoples Economic Forum’ held against the backdrop of street protests which, although small scale, were met with large scale violence from the police.

Amid the pepper spray and baton beatings there were a number of arrests with one detainee claiming police threatened to insert things up his rear end using ‘peanut butter and motor oil as lube’. Before the main protests began two banks were vandalised and had their windows smashed causing an estimated $110,000 of damage and leading to six arrests. Further, smaller protests took place on Sunday and passed without incident. 

WELL HUNG

As more radioactive material rumbles its way out of Germany by rail, protesters show more inventive and daring ways to blockade the trains. French activist Cecile Lecomte seized a small window of opportunity on Monday (27th) to hold up a Urenco train carrying 1,250 tonnes of depleted uranium through built up Germany by abseiling down into its path. Following a series of similar actions, the exploits of Lecomte and fellow activists have caused enough recent commotion to warrant the permanent carriage of police-appointed climbing specialists on all trains to cut the activists down from their path on non-electrified sections of the railway.

Going on information given to journalists from the federal police, the toxic cargo was heading for Duisberg and then onto France taking a direct path through the densely populated areas of Ruhr and the Rhineland - unbeknown of course to local inhabitants. It is speculated that it was destined for storage at Pierrelatte nuclear centre, where radioactivity was recently discovered in the nearby ground water. This action took place the day after the 23rd anniversary of Chernobyl disaster, the world’s worst ever civil nuclear accident.

* Pictures of the abseiling at www.anti-atom-aktuell.de/fotos/2009-04-27_uranzugstopp-haeger

FISH OUT OF WATER

Talking to the mainstream media is always something to be done at your own peril. Take the example of Nicola Fisher, recently at the centre of a media storm after appearing as the ‘star’ in a Youtube clip showing her getting battered by a baton wielding cop at the G20 protests.

Cue a descending horde of tabloid bloodsuckers looking to chew her up and spit her out. She makes the elementary mistake of thinking that ‘telling all’ to one paper exclusively would get her message out and make the rest of the circus go away. Of course all it did was leave the other papers to make it all up themselves which they duly did with abandon in order to attack her credibility. She was soon variously labelled as one of the dog-on-a-string brigade, a heroin addict, a benefit scrounge and retarded, to name but some, as well it being suggested that she’d sold her story for £50,000.

SchNEWS’s mailbag was bulging this week as we received a letter from Nicola herself desperate to deny all the slurs and explain how misrepresented she’d been, saying “I am amazed that our national ‘news’ papers are allowed to print such rubbish, when it is ridiculously, provably untrue.” Unfortunately its taken a rough ride for Nicola to wake up and smell the Murdoch (&Co) flavoured coffee!

AND FINALLY