Saving Iceland

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.

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!

Landsvirkjun Involved in Coal & Nuclear Powered RioTinto-Alcan Smelter in Africa
HAFNAFJORDUR – 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.

• UPDATE: Rio Tinto-ALCAN to Sue Saving Iceland

Read More

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

‘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

Press Release – July 20th, 2007 – Icelandic below – Follows from earlier release today – Photo Report – Photo / Video footage available from 8578625.

Today 25 protestors from Saving Iceland went into Orkuveitu Reykjavíkur (Reykjavik Energy, O.R.) and hung up a banner inside stating: ‘Vopnaveita Reykjavíkur?’ (‘Reykjavik Arms-dealers?’). The banner was not hung outside as planned earlier because of weather conditions. Protestors stayed in the building from 15.15 until 16.00 hrs.

Páll Erland speaking on behalf of O.R. states that they offered strawberries to protestors and welcomed Saving Iceland to put up the banner. While Erland might be happy to discuss strawberries with their visitors, they certainly did not give permission to hang up a banner indicating that they sell energy to companies known to be involved in arms production and serious human rights violations (as documented in our earlier press release)
Saving Iceland has now contacted O.R., requesting they put up the banner and discuss publicly with us the ethics of selling energy to corporate criminals such as Century-RUSAL and Alcan-RioTinto.
Read More

“STOP PRODUCING ENERGY FOR WAR”

REYKJAVIK – Saving Iceland’s clown army has this afternoon entered the head office of Orkuveita Reykjavíkur (OR, Reykjavik Energy) on Baejarhals 1. Simultaneously, protestors climbed onto the roof of the building unfolding a banner stating ‘Vopnaveita Reykjavíkur’ (Reykjavik arms-dealers). Saving Iceland demands that O.R. stop selling energy to the aluminium corporations Century and ALCAN-RioTinto. 30% of aluminium produced goes to the military and arms-industry (1).

Currently, O.R. are expanding the Hellisheidi geothermal plant at Hengill. “The goal of enlarging Hellisheidarvrikjun is to meet industries demands of energy,” states the Environmental Impact Assessment, particularly the Century expansion at Grundartangi and possible new ALCAN and Century plants at Straumsvik and Helguvik (2, 3).
Read More