Jul 28 2007

State Harassment of Saving Iceland Activists

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Gi' uncle a kiss.... Police harrassmentUpdated 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

Jul 27 2007

S.I. Activists Imprisoned and Blackmailed by the Icelandic State

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Police station banners

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.

Jul 26 2007

Locals of Hafnarfjordur Protest Against Mayor’s Betrayal of ALCAN Referendum

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local banner hafnarfj

Hafnarfjordur
26 July 2007

Locals in Hafnarfjordur protested on Thursday against the Council’s attempts to betray the results of the local referendum in March about the enlargement of the ALCAN smelter which is situated in nearby Straumsvik.

In spite of a massive PR campaign paid for by ALCAN (including an illegal gathering by ALCAN of personal data about individuals in Hafnarfjordur) the majority of the inhabitants rejected the enlargement.

After the referendum both ALCAN and the Mayor of Hafnarfjordur, Ludvik Geirsson, issued a series of contradictory statements claiming that the results of the referendum were not legally binding.

Later they surfaced with the idea that the referendum only applied to a planning permission of a certain spot by the existing factory and that nothing could stop it being built on a landfill on the other side of the factory. (1)

The locals dropped two different banners. One stating that ‘NO MEANS NO – ENLARGEMENT IS CRIMINAL’ and the other saying ‘NIETSCHE KILLED GOD – LUDVIK KILLED DEMOCRACY’.

Saving Iceland wish to congratulate the inhabitants of Hafnarfjordur for their continuing opposition to the evil that has now metamorphised into Rito Tinto-ALCAN.

1.- See: ALCAN and Mayor decide: To Hell with Democracy in Hafnarfjördur!

See also: Celebration as Hafnarfjörður rejects Alcan expansion!

local banner hafnarfj2

local banner hafnarfj

Jul 26 2007
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Saving Iceland Blockades Hellisheidi Power Station

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RAX - HellisheidarvirkjunSaving Iceland blockaded two roads to Hellisheidi Power Station at 7am this morning. The activists locked on to different vehicles and one climbed a crane on the worksite and unfurled a gigantic banner: “STOP PRODUCING ENERGY FOR WEAPONS”


Jul 24 2007

Anti-Coega Contacts

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Anti-Coega Contacts:

Earthlife South Africa

Alcan’t at Coega

Jul 24 2007
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Saving Iceland Blockades Rio Tinto-Alcan Smelter in Hafnarfjordur

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Landsvirkjun Involved in Coal & Nuclear Powered RioTinto-Alcan Smelter in Africa
Hafnafjordur_blockade_240707_5HAFNAFJORDUR – Saving Iceland has closed access to RioTinto’s Straumsvik smelter in South-West Iceland. About 20 protestors have locked their arms in metal tubes and climbed onto cranes on the smelter site. Saving Iceland opposes plans for a new RioTinto-Alcan smelter in Keilisnes or Thorlakshöfn, expansion of the existing smelter, and a new coal and nuclear powered smelter in South Africa.

“Protests against Alcan have been successful. Of course the people of Hafnafjordur have stopped the expansion of Straumsvik and recently, in Kaskipur, Northeast India, Alcan had to give up it’s participation in a bauxite mine because of protests against their human rights violations and environmental devestation. Alcan has been accused of cultural genocide in Kashipur, 1 because mining and dams have already displaced 150.000 mainly tribal people there 2. Norsk Hydro left the project when police tortured and opened fire on protestors, and then Alcan moved in,” says Saving Iceland’s Jaap Krater.

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Jul 22 2007

‘The Age of Global Protest’ by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson

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Interview with Lerato Maregele and Attilah Springer
Grapevine.is, Issue 10, 13 July, 2007

Attilah Springer is a journalist and an activist. She is a part of the Rights Action Group in Trinidad and Tobago, which has fought a long battle against Alcoa over aluminium smelters in Trinidad and Tobago. She recently spoke at a conference for Saving Iceland where she documented the progress of the struggle against the aluminium industry in her country. She is currently staying at the International Summer of Dissent protest camp, organised by Saving Iceland. A Grapevine journalist sat down to speak with Atillah at their beautiful campsite in Mosfellsdalur, joined by Lerato Maria Maregele, an activist from South Africa who has been organising protests against Alcan in her own country. Read More

Jul 22 2007
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Elkem’s Icelandic Alloys Year Round “Human Errors”

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Elkem

The Icelandic media reports today that Icelandic Alloys (Elkem) “accidentally” released a huge cloud of pollution from their plant at Grundartangi in Hvalfjordur. Apparently the accident was due to human error. The media quote Thordur Magnusson, an Elkem spokesman, saying that this human error “…recurs several times a week.”

Sigurbjorn Hjaltason, Chairman of the local Kjosarhreppur parish, confirms that Elkem usually produce the emissions during nights, when suitable, throughout the year. This is so that people will be less likely to become aware of the pollution they have to breath.

Similar nocturnal habits of ALCAN – Rio Tinto and Century – Rusal have been reported for years by the people of Hafnarfjordur and Hvalfjordur.

ALCAN – Rio Tinto, Century and Elkem seem to share the same conveniently systematic “human errors.”

Are we perhaps to expect that soon the PR departments of these three companies will be offering the population of South-West Iceland free sleeping pills to help them through their dark nights of heavy industry?

Jul 21 2007

Slanderous Athygli Get a Well Deserved Hit

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Athygli

‘Iceland is bleeding’
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Athygli, the public relations company of the National Power Company (Landsvirkjun) woke up this morning to find that during the night a splash of paint had been directed at their offices. A spokesman of the company said the words ‘Iceland Bleeds’ had been written on the house and that he suspected that Saving Iceland was behind this because his company was on a certain “deathlist” on www.savingiceland.org. We can only assume that he means ‘The Nature Killers’ section on this website.

Why would Athygli be on the list of companies responsible for the murder of Icelandic nature? Read More

Jul 21 2007

Narmada Activists Block Minister’s Car

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The farmers-labourers, fishworkers on the Satyagraha blocked the road when the district Minister Vijay Shah tried to pass the Satyagraha centre in Taloon, to protest against the callous attitude and corrupt ways of the Government of M.P. The people affected and to be affected by Sardar Sarovar were upset that the Minister did not agree to enter the Satyagraha and have a dialogue on the issue of life and death. But they also felt jubilant; realizing that the Minister was indeed scared to step on his own government land, now occupied by the people of the valley. Police misbehaving and pushing the women, cleared the way after about half-an-hour for the minister.
Before the incident, farmers, whose motor-pumps are drowned in the reservoir waters due to release of water from Omkareshwar dam, without any warning, took out a motor cycle rally and giving a memorandum to the Minister, demanded that the water levels should be brought down by 22 meters to open up the motor-pumps, or the losses should be fully compensated. The Minister could only say that he would consult the Chief Minister, ordering the MPEB officials orally that they should write off the electricity bills of those who have lost their pumps.
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