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| 10th
February 1995
| Issue 9 SchNEWSPOLLOKS!A tale of our times. Read the following and guess who now faces a three month prison sentence and/or a £3,000 fine... Our story is set in Pollok Park, Glasgow, Europe's largest city centre green space, 1018 acres of woodland, fields and riverside habitats and home to a variety of wildlife. Set inside this is Pollok Free State - a living, working daily defiance of the Criminal Justice Act and the M77 motorway which will slice straight through the heart of the park. Suddenly... one Spring Sunday along tromps Scottish Office minister and Conservative MP Allan Stewart, his son and four mates armed with loaded air-rifles. Mr Stewart tears down one banner and picks up a pickaxe facing protestors saying "Useful weapon a pickaxe; there's a lot you can do with a pickaxe". He resigned on Wednesday so as not to "cause any embarrassment to the Government", while his son and another are up on firearm charges. Of course, being an MP, he isn't up in court for "threatening and abusive behaviour". (see CRAP ARRESTS OF THE WEEK). The next day ... visiting protestors at Pollok, "appalled" at what is happening to the park, sat up a Wimpey crane for the next sixty hours. When they came down all nine were arrested for "aggravated trespass" now a criminal offence under the Criminal InJustice Act. Two of the crane sitters are now on their second charge (after being arrested at the M65 the day the Act became law.) Peter has been bailed on condition that he "does not enter any building or construction sight (sic)". He remarked: "Does this include being in a room while someone's making the bed?" He added: "Stewart's got s horrible pair of lambchops." WORK HAS STARTED, with tree-felling at Newton Mearns; activists have locked onto, and confiscated (!) chainsaws, as evidence of breaches of EC law. Work is being held up, but more people are needed NOW. There are now three camps on the M77 route. The kamikazie car convoy 'To Pollok With Love" set off from Oxford yesterday and will be calling in at Birmingham, Stoke, Lancaster, Preston and to their final resting place at Glasgow's No M77 protest camp. The cars - decorated along the route - will end up set in four feet of concrete to create a CarHenge in the path of the proposed road. Read the Love diary next week. FEB 12th BBC2 10pm 'The Road' Documentary on Solsbury Hill Road Alert tel: 01635 521 770 fax. 521 660 e-mail: roadalert@gn.apc.org ATTENTION PARTY HEADSSections 63-66 of the CJA against raves became law last week. We have heard rumours of five systems seized in Manchester (two turbos worth £40,000 each) and London. Stories also coming in of police with dogs stopping parties in Wales. If you know any of these perpetrators of "repetitive beats" call Advance Party on 081 450 6929 or United Systems on 081 959 7525. Shoreham continues at what cost?"police fighting with the people outside my bedroom window" Chelsea, Aged 6 As exposed in last weeks SchNEWS nice-man Christopher Barret-Jolly (boss of Phoenix Aviation the firm that likes to say Yes to live animal exports) now has his home under round the clock police protection and two minders whither he goes.. Shoreham has, once again, kicked off. Here's the view of local resident Chelsea, aged 6: "please can you stop sending the animals in the boat because everyone's getting upset and my sister cries and I'm getting cross and sad because they're frightened and the policeman fighting with the people outside my bedroom window" Last Sunday was a busy one for the North East Freedom Network. About 100 people first marched to the construction site at Cradlewell (I hope they had permission) stopping traffic on the way. Later they all met up again at Hexham MP Peter Atkinson. house. Some strolled round the garden, while 15 decided to get a better view and climbed on his roof. Atkinson is the MP who recently stopped the anti-animal export legislation. Two police cars arrived at his house but said they were happy to leave the demonstrators there - which shows Atkinson must be a really popular man.... Two Kent Hunt Sabs up for ag. trespass in Maidstone last week were flned £100 + £200 with £60 costs each. The prosecuting officer admitted he'd quoted the section of the Act relating to illegal rave parties, because he had been incorrectly briefed. Both intend to appeal. A British Field Spokesperson said he hoped the verdict would force sabs to change their tactics. I think not. The DiY conference circuit reaches Glasgow tomorrow and 'somewhere in the midlands' next weekend. Beginning at Crookesmere Middle school, squatted last month, it was held at Yr Enfys, Cardiff last week. See diary for details. Sorry we printed the wrong phone no. for Small World. It's 071 272 5255. UNDERCURRENTS "the alternative news video" is still available. £5.50 unwaged/£9.50 waged inc. post from 46 Rymers Lane, Oxford, OX4 3LB. ARRESTOMETERCRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT CRAP ARRESTS OFTHE WEEK1 For throwing orange-peel 2 For sitting on your own garden wall (Those ever vigilant Met. Police told a man watching the Shoreham fiasco to get off his own garden wail. He told them to fuck off and was then bundled over and arrested and then. eh, oh, sorry it was your er house.) 3 For criminal damage to a tape measure. (Three for this one - cost of tape £4.40.) 4 All arrests under the CJA. IF YOU'VE GOT ANY CRAP ARRESTS PLEASE SHARE THEM WITH SCHNEWS.
Twyford DownFor those who have never heard about the battle for Twyford Down here is an idiots guide to how some of Britain's most beautiful countryside was destroyed... Twyford Down is in Hampshire, near Winchester, and where the hills of the South Downs end. It is one of the most protected landscapes in England, containing 3 Sites of Special Scientific Interest, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and 3 Scheduled Ancient Monuments, all supposedly protected by law. Unfortunately for the Down, it was also where the last stage of the M3 motorway from London to Southampton was planned. The campaign to save the Down lasted for over 20 years, while alternative routes to the road were proposed and rejected by the Department of Transport. Work finally began on the water meadows in February 1992, and the bulldozers were met with massive resistance from all sorts of people. Young Earth First! activists were joined by70 year old life-long Tory voters, along with a man who walked in front of an earth mover holding his 2 year old child. This mixture of protestors continued throughout the campaign, despite attempts by the media and authorities to brand all demonstrators as rent-a-mob troublemakers. Protests continued in the summer, and gradually became focused around a camp on the top of the Down, on the ancient trackways that were formed by the passage of people and animals over the centuries, known as the Dongas. More and more people joined the camp, and regularly disrupted work on the site, until by October, just their presence on the Down was costing the main contractors Tarmac, around £20,000 per week in delays. In the face of growing resistance to the road the state decide to use its full force against what had now become the Dongas Tribe. In the early morning of 9th December 1992, while half of the Dongas were in court fighting an eviction order, the combined forces of over 200 police and private security guards moved in and surrounded the Dongas with razor wire before trashing the area. Protestors were physically and sexually assaulted by the Group 4 guards, with at least 3 requiring hospital treatment. One woman was strangled unconscious by a policeman, and had to wait45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. These appalling scenes - the first time private security has ever been used against peaceful road protestors - were shown on national TV and shocked the nation; later becoming known as Yellow Wednesday after the yellow jackets that Group 4 guards wore. Even some of the security guards were obviously appalled by what happened, as 22 resigned soon afterwards. The Dongas tribe moved on to a new camp, but stayed in the area, and the campaign continued. Although all of the landscape had been destroyed, the fight was far from over, as they still had to dig a cutting 100ft deep, 400 wide, and over a mile long. So protestors switched their tactics to charging on to what were now building sites, and peacefully disrupting the work. Group 4 were still around guarding the sites, so many people were still assaulted and arrested when the police turned up. The campaign grew with every demonstration, with one of the biggest being the Bailey Bridge action in May 1993, when over 200 people burst through lines of police, security, and razor wire to occupy a temporary bridge for the bulldozers that was due to be laid over the existing road. 300 police reinforcements in riot gear had to be called to remove the protestors which took most of the night. Over 50 people were arrested (the biggest mass arrest of the campaign) and charged with obstruction of the police, which has now been proved in court to be illegal, and Hampshire police could find themselves paying up to £500,000 in compensation to those wrongfully arrested (some have already received up to £8500 and a public apology). The state, faced with this unprecedented massive civil disobedience against a road scheme resorted to yet more draconian measures of oppression. The Department of Transport got the contractors to issue a High Court injunction (normally only used in civil disputes against violent individuals) against 76 named protestors to prevent them from entering the site or disrupting the work. This meant that if they entered any of the building sites at Twyford, they risked going to prison for up to 6 months. The way they got people's names for the injunction was often ludicrous and sometimes illegal. One man who was only at one demonstration for an hour, when there wasn't even any work happening on site, found himself on the injunction, and people who held up banners with the names of animals threatened by the road, found that those animals were on the injunction too! Hampshire Police also sent a fax to the contractors with the names of people who had been arrested, or just written complaints to them about the behaviour of the security. Because some of those arrested were never even charged, their names should have been confidential, and so the police were acting illegally in passing them on. To defy this outrageous attack on their civil liberties, many of those on the injunction decided to break it in a mass trespass in July 1993. Soon afterwards 7 of the injunction breakers were sent to prison for 2 weeks (although one woman got out after 2 days when she apologised to the judge), even though the judge said they were decent people and involved in an "honourable tradition". This only gave the campaign massive publicity, and the Twyford 6 became national heroes, receiving visits from Chris Smith (Labour Environment Spokesman) and the old Environment Commissioner for the EC who opposed the road from the start. Protests continued, with the last big one being a mass trespass on July 2nd 1994, when over 1000 people invaded the building site to protest about the upcoming Criminal Justice Act. Unfortunately the road was completed in late 1994, and is now open, so the Down is lost forever, but Twyford became a milestone in not only the anti-roads movement, but also for protests in general. The road caused national outrage, and protests never seen before in this country. It meant that the Government would find it extremely difficult to carry on bulldozing the countryside, and numerous road schemes had to be shelved for fear of more mass protests - over £7 billion has been slashed from the Government's planned £23 billion road building for the next 20 years. Oxleas Woods in London, which was due to have a new road bulldozed through it, was saved for environmental reasons - the first time a road has been stopped for this reason, and plans for widening the M25 look increasingly unlikely. The campaign to save Twyford also encouraged others across the country to protest against road schemes in their area; such as Solsbury Hill near Bath, and the M11 Link road in East London. However, in what seems like a last petty gesture of defiance, the DOT has got the contractors to pursue a civil case against the 76 injunctees, to try and sue them for the £1 .9 million it is estimated to have cost them in delays and paying for security. The fact that most people on the injunction have nowhere near anything like that money has not deterred the DOT. The case could drag on for years and cost far more to reclaim the damages than the actual amount. So people are having to fight this case or find themselves liable for a bill of £1.9m. What is perhaps most worrying about the Twyford campaign, is that all the instruments of oppression that the state used against protestors, were used before the Criminal Justice Bill came into law, and so it could all become much worse now that it is law. The CJA has made it a criminal offence to do virtually all of what the Twford campaigners did, and so is a direct attack on our right to peaceful protest. What has become clear in recent mass protests, though, is that the government cannot stop this widespread outrage against the destruction of our countryside, and it will continue for as long as necessary. NO MORE ROADS! PARTY & PROTESTSAT 11th NATIONAL ANTI CJA DEMO IN BIRMINGHAM. Assemble Victoria Square 12pm 021 449 5452 followed by all nighter with Zion Train, Ten Depi, acid + deep house, spacious dub, chillout space and cinema £7 conc./£8 *** get all loved up in the face of the cja with smokescreen/go tropo/diy (tel 081450 6929 after 8pm on the day) *** Scottish Alliance anti-CJA Conference @ Strathclyde Uni 041 552 1179 *** Loughborough CJA Demo, 12 noon, Southfields Park 01509 266560 *** 16th No M11 Link Anniversary of Wanstonia Eviction 081 558 2638 *** 17th - Mother Earth walk for a Nuclear Free World arrives in Britain, following an action at Gap De Le Hague Reprossessiug Plant. From Portsmouth to Twyford 071 738 6721 *** 17/18/19th FEB - DIY/CJA Midland Conference. Bring banners, paint, music, energy, ideas, vision, computer kit, information and your self! Remember it's DiY! (call Freedom Network 07l 7386721 after Feb 14th for venue) *** 18th FEB - Nant Gwynant, nr Beddgelcrt, Snowdonia one-day festy in aid of anti-A55 campaign (to cross Anglesey). Bands, food, camping, barns etc u3 0248 602896 *** Isle of Wight CJA Demo 01983 565280 *** 19th FEB- Mass Trespass at Windsor Castle (coaches from Brighton at St Peter's Church 9.30am). Meet 12 noon, Windsor BR station *** 1st APR - NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION. Brighton Demo/Cardiff actions SchNEWS LIVE! @ New Kensington, Kensington Gardens, Brighton & Rainbow Church, Kentish Town, London Every Friday 5.45pm |
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