Saving Iceland

The Sidney Morning Herald
August 6, 2007

US environmental campaigner Erin Brockovich has joined West Australian residents to examine the merits of a court case against mining giant Alcoa.

About 160 Yarloop residents have complained of respiratory problems, skin irritation, sore throats and eyes, extreme fatigue, mental dysfunction, stomach upset, blood noses, cancers and organ failure in the last 11 years.

They claim emissions from Alcoa’s Wagerup refinery are causing the ill effects. Read More

START ART – Laugavegi 12b, Reykjavik

Over a dozen major Icelandic artists have donated their work for an exhibition and auction in Start Art, Artists House in support of this weekend’s Saving Iceland conference.
The exhibition is open 3-5 July at 3pm-7pm, both days, and concludes with an auction of the artworks on Thursday 5 July at 5pm. The works and the artists will be introduced an hour before the bidding begins. Birna Þórðardóttir will act as auctioneer.

The following artists have donated their works:

Áslaug Thorlacius, Birgir Andrésson, Eggert Pétursson, Erling Klingenberg, Eygló Harðardóttir, Gaga Skorrdal, Haraldur Jónsson, Helgi Þorgils Friðjónsson, Kristinn G. Harðarson, Kristinn E. Hrafnsson, Kristín Reynisdóttir, Magdalena Kjartansdóttir, Magnús Pálsson, Ólafur Lárusson, Ragnhildur Stefánsdóttir, Sigrid Valtingojer og Þórdís Alda Sigurðardóttir.

This is a golden opportunity to acquire a beautiful work of art at the same time that you can support a democratic debate about an issue that concerns all of us – children of Earth.

Iceland Review
31 July 2007

Icelandic investment company Geysir Green Energy has acquired one fifth of the shares in the Canadian geothermal company Western GeoPower Corporation. Geysir Green Energy, which specializes in investments in the geothermal energy sector, paid ISK 600 million (USD 9.79 million) for the 40 million shares it bought.

Ásgeir Margeirsson, CEO of Geysir Green Energy, will become a member of the board of WGP. In an interview with Fréttabladid daily, he declared that the acquisition was a part of Geysir’s strategy to become an influential player in the American energy sector. WGP is constructing a geothermal plant in Sonoma County in California. The capital that Geysir has provided will be used to complete the construction.

Geysir Green Energy is owned by FL Group, Glitnir Bank and VGK-Hönnun. It is the biggest shareholder in the energy company Enex which has also undertaken projects in the US. “Therefore, we have a twofold connection to the US energy market,” says Margeirsson.

31 July 2007

Twenty three year old British Saving Iceland activist Miriam R. has been arrested by the Icelandic police. She was protesting against the Icelandic government’s support for heavy industry, in particular Rio Tinto Alcan’s Straumsvik smelter in South-West Iceland. Reports suggest she is still being held by the police. (1)

Dr. Derek Wall, Green Party Principal Speaker, said: “Although Rio Tinto have been making the headlines for their recent purchase of the Canadian aluminium group Alcan for 38.1bn dollars (18.7bn pounds), it is the environmental degradation and damage that goes hand in hand with most of their projects that should be drawing the spotlight.

“Iceland is the largest remaining wilderness in Europe. Activists such as Mirian R., most of whom belong to the Saving Iceland campaign group, are protesting against plans to turn it into the heavy industry capital of Europe – with companies such as Rio Tinto reaping in the profits. Read More

7 August 2007

Today lovers of nature almost danced on the graves of ALCOA, ALCAN, Century and Elkem when a mysterious power “thump” in the national grid managed to knock out power to all their factories!

At around 3pm today a power surge which originated from around the Hvalfjordur region (where Century and Elkem run their aluminium-cancer and alloys factories), created such a surge that all power to the west, north and east of Iceland was brought down, even Reykjavik’s for a split second. Energy was not restored to the heavy industry factories for a number of hours. Unfortunately, whilst we were counting the minutes these factories were offline, we are told that the pots of molten aluminium did not cool down enough to destroy them entirely.
Read More

 

 

30 July 2007

The Earth Liberation Front sent Saving Iceland the following statement:

“In the early hours of 30/07/07, saboteurs struck at Smurfit Kappa, a plastics factory owned by Rio Tinto Alcan in Chelmsford, Essex. The gates were locked shut, office doors and loading bays were sabotaged with glue and a message left painted on the wall. Vehicles belonging to Rio Tinto were also sabotaged…”
Read More

Saving Iceland
31 July 2007

Today Saving Iceland received 89 beautiful postcards from the US.

We take this opportunity to thank all the people supporting our campaign with their love, energy and solidarity. Our campaign lives out of the work from every individual participating.

We suspect that the overflooding of our mailbox was commited by the Church of Stop Shopping.

Solidarity is a weapon.
Read More

Iceland Review
07/26/2007

The aluminum company Alcan in Iceland has decided to sue activists who, on behalf of the campaign group Saving Iceland, broke into Alcan’s premises in Straumsvík, near Hafnarfjördur, on Tuesday and chained themselves to machines.

“To get the kids out, the company’s equipment had to be damaged,” Alcan’s finance director, Sigurdur Thór Ásgeirsson, told Morgunbladid. “They had chained themselves to a gate, rails and machines, and because the chains were around their necks we didn’t dare saw them off.”

Ásgeirsson added the smelter’s operations had been delayed because of the protests.

Alcan’s lawyers were asked to review the case yesterday and in the following days it will be decided how many protesters will be sued and on which charges. Thirteen individuals, most of them foreign citizens, were arrested on Tuesday, and about 20 protesters in total participated in Saving Iceland’s actions on Alcan’s premises.

The 13 protestors who were arrested have now been released. According to police, the case is still under investigation and the individuals may be facing deportation.

According to law, foreign citizens can be deported if they have been convicted for a crime or served a sentence in another country, if the crime they were convicted of would result in imprisonment in Iceland for more than three months.

Updated July 28 July

The Icelandic Police have stepped up their repression of Saving Iceland activists whilst their 2007 Summer protest camp finishes. [1] One activist has been refused the right to appeal her prison sentence and is currently in solitary confinement. Fifteen have had their passports stolen by the Police, who refuse to give any firm reasons as to why or when they will be returned. Five people were arrested for putting up political street art, including the owner of the building that was to be painted. Nine police vehicles turned up at a party in which many SI activists were attending and entered the building without warrant.

After being arrested in the vicinity of the Rio Tinto-Alcan aluminium smelter in Straumsvik on the 24th of July [2], one activist had her sentence from the 2006 protest camp laid on her. Instead she was given the choice to either immediately pay 100,000 ISK or serve eight days in prison. She was refused her right to appeal, which would have given her a month to choose her options. She chose to go to prison instead of paying her fine. Now she is in Hegningarhusid, an all male prison, and therefore in solitary confinement.

Saving Iceland demands that:
*The activist currently in prison is either moved to a womens prison with a full apology or released immediately for lack of state resources.
*All stolen passports must be released immediately, according to international law.
*An end to the criminalisation and state harassment of environmental activists.

“Why, if there were no spaces in a women’s prison, and if she should have been given her time of appeal, has she been rushed off into a mens prison, leaving her isolated and in solitary confinement? This is illegal and feels like a political decision designed to unfairly treat political activists.” says Saving Iceland’s Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson. Read More

Saving Iceland
24 July 2007
UPDATED 27 July

The Icelandic government and ALCOA are beginning to line up political prisoners with their repression of protests against the heavy industry policy.

A twenty three year old British Saving Iceland activist who was arrested today on the action against Rio Tinto-Alcan, has been imprisoned for eight days.

Apparently the activist was told by the Icelandic police that she was to pay a 100.000 kronur (£840) fine for her involvement in protests against ALCOA in the east of Iceland in the summer of 2006, or face prison. She chose the latter.

The third S. I. protestor to be imprisoned is an Icelandic 21 year old. (The first S.I. activist imprisoned was Paul Gill in 2005.) He is to sit in jail for 18 days, in August for protesting against the then still illegal ALCOA smelter in Reydarfjordur.

Other foreign protesters are now having their passports held at ransom by the police for fines based on accusations for obstructing the police, but no actual charges. According to a high ranking policeman this is the first time that the Icelandic police do this. It seems to be the routine with the Icelandic police that they repeatedly break their own laws in the almost certain hope they won’t be caught out. This is yet another sign of the corruption that results from the close ties between the State and the judicial system in Iceland.

Here at Saving Iceland we seem to remember that passports are the property of the States that they are issued by.

Thus, the Icelandic police may actually be breaching international law by blackmailing foreign citizens who are just exercising their democratic right to protest peacefully against the corrupt heavy industry policy that this new government continues to maintain.

In March this year the Left-Green party in Iceland called for an independent investigation into the conduct of the Icelandic police against Saving Iceland protesters in the the years of 2005 and 2006. At the same time the Left-Green party also expressed serious concern about the conduct of the police in the coming summer of 2007. Clearly not without reason.

It is high time that the autocratic and frequently violent methods of the Icelandic police against peaceful protesters come under serious scrutiny.