Solidarity with Heathrow 13 activists.

Among thirteen defendants threatened with incarceration are two members of our One Big Union. Fellow Workers  Ella Gilbert from Norwich and Bec Sanderson from Machynlleth. We express our solidarity and admiration for their courage.

An injury to one is an injury to all!

More information at Plane Stupid .

#Heathrow13 Trial Verdict – Press Release

Runway Occupation on Trial – Verdicts

Monday, January 20th, 2016, London – Today in Willesden Magistrates Court, the thirteen Plane Stupid activists who occupied Heathrow’s north runway for six hours on the 13th of July last year were all convicted of aggravated trespass and being airside without lawful authority. The Judge has asked them all to return in 3 weeks on the 24th February for sentencing and has advised all defendants to prepare for immediate custodial sentences.

The thirteen defendants released the following statement, in response to their convictions:

“Today’s judgement demonstrates that the legal system does not yet recognise that climate defence is not an offence. We took action because we saw that it was sorely needed. When the democratic, legislative and processes have failed, it takes the actions of ordinary people to change them.”

“We are very grateful for all the messages of support and solidarity we have received from all over the world, and are immensely proud of the action we took to combat emissions from aviation. Climate change and air pollution from Heathrow are killing people now, and the government’s response is to spend millions making the problem bigger. As long as airport expansion is on the agenda, Plane Stupid will be here. We’re in it for the long haul.“

Most of the defence’s witness evidence was not heard in court, and none of the witnesses were allowed to appear in court. John McDonnell was not heard in full due to the Judge having already accepted the points he was addressing, and therefore ruling the statement irrelevant.

Her ruling on John McDonnell’s evidence is available here –

http://planestupid.com/blogs/2016/01/20/judge-wrights-ruling-john-mcdonnells-witness-statement

And John McDonnell’s full statement is available here –

http://planestupid.com/blogs/2016/01/20/witness-statement-john-mcdonnell-mp

Statements from three local residents from the Heathrow area were read out, detailing the debilitating and life-threatening medical conditions they were suffering from as a consequence of living near to the airport.

Character references for the defendants were also read out in court, from a variety of public figures including High Court Judge Peter Jackson and a long list of barristers and solicitors.

Alice Bowes-Larkin, one of the UK’s leading climate scientists, and a specialist in the climate impacts of aviation, submitted a statement which was read to the court. It mentioned that Heathrow “is the airport with the highest CO2 contribution in the world in terms of combined international and domestic flights” and “this puts Heathrow expansion at odds with the UK Government’s commitment to avoiding a ‘well below’ 2’C target, unless a major programme of efficiency and biofuel development are delivered in tandem.”

Sian Berry, the Green Party’s candidate for the London mayoral elections, came to court to support the defendants, despite her evidence having been ruled as inadmissible by the judge. Her statement is available here –

http://planestupid.com/blogs/2016/01/20/sian-berry-statement

George Monbiot’s statement was also ruled inadmissible, and is available here –

http://planestupid.com/blogs/2016/01/20/george-monbiot-statement

Writing on how the activists will be seen in the future, he said:

“They will be regarded not as outlaws and subversives, but as democratic heroes. Succeeding generations, struggling with the impacts that our government’s failures to take action on climate change bequeathed them, are likely to be amazed that they could have been seen in any other light.”

In all, of the ten defence witnesses, only four had their evidence allowed, and none were permitted to appear in court.

The runway occupation, under the banner of anti-aviation expansion group Plane Stupid and the first on a Heathrow runway, lasted six hours and delayed or cancelled dozens of flights. The activists, who are all pleading not guilty, are accused of aggravated trespass and trespassing airside without authority.

The defendants are Sheila Menon, 43, of Hackney, east London, Rebecca Holly Sanderson, 27, of Machynlleth, Powys; Richard Steven Hawkins, 32, and Kara Lauren Moses, 31, both of Heol y Doll, Machynlleth; Ella Gilbert, 23, of Finsbury Park, north London; Melanie Strickland, 32, of Waltham Forest, north-east London; Danielle Louise Paffard, 28, of Peckham, south-east London; Graham Edward James Thompson, 42, of Hackney, north-east London; Cameron Joseph Kaye, 23, Edward Thacker, 26, Alistair Craig Tamlit, 27, and Sam Sender, 23, all of West Drayton, west London; and Robert Anthony Basto, 67, of Reigate, Surrey.

ENDS

Crabgrass: internet organising tool from Riseup.

Presenting we.riseup.net

For the last eight years, we have been developing a web application called “Crabgrass,” running at https://we.riseup.net. For many people, this site has been quite useful, with tens of thousands of active users. However, we have never announced this service publicly, until now. We finally feel that the code is mature enough that we want to climb every mountain top and scream at the top of our collective lungs “Crabgrass is here!” Or maybe we should just tell all our Riseup users about it in a newsletter? Yeah, probably that last one.

What is Crabgrass?

In a nutshell, Crabgrass is a simple way for groups to edit shared wiki pages. Crabgrass, however, has a few features that make it unique in the world of collaborative web applications. In particular, Crabgrass is designed to allow people to privately collaborate within a group and with other groups. Uniquely, Crabgrass allows for powerful searches, including full text searching, across the entire universe of things you have access to.

At Riseup, we believe that all technology encodes systems of power. In the long run, the only way for us to use technology for good is to create or deploy technology that reflects the way we want to connect with each other, and not the way that the surveillance economy wants us to. Crabgrass was designed by and for people practicing bottom-up, democratic organizing.

Crabgrass has been our collective’s communication tool for internal organizing for the last eight years. We use it for everything: we have many internal committees set up, we document all our minutes and research, we upload files and images, we use it for group discussions for big issues we need to mull over, and we use polls and voting in order to find consensus and make decisions. There is no way our distracted brains would be able to keep track of everything otherwise. Riseup would not exist without it!

Why Pigeon thinks you all should use Crabgrass

The collective member who primarily writes these newsletters, Feral Rock Pigeon, has this to say about Crabgrass: “I am the least technical of all the Riseup members, and I find myself constantly muddling through this technological world. I am required to use the Google stuff (drive, docs, etc.) for some non-Riseup work, and I am always lost navigating through the fog. Ugh. In contrast, I started using Crabgrass a long time ago, never got any training in it, and have always been able to track and see everything I needed in logical way.”

There you have it! We did not pay her anything for this endorsement!

Help us improve crabgrass

Lots of people are using we.riseup.net  to organize in their collectives and movements. That’s exactly what it is meant for–self organization of social movements. Crabgrass is driven by people who care about it becoming a better tool for themselves, their groups and everyone.

Maybe you’ve chopped vegetables or washed teargas from peoples eyes at a protest. Maybe you’ve helped setup a barricade or tidied up the space it was meant to protect. Let’s apply the same spirit of self-directed mutual help to the improvement of this collective space. If you have 15 minutes please join us in building the platform we all want in order to build the world we want.

See https://github.com/riseuplabs/crabgrass-core

And a big shout out to aliaksandrb who for the past couple months arose from the ether to send daily bug and feature patches that have already gone live. AMAZING. If you are a developer, it’s a great time to get involved.

Some warnings

We recognize that Crabgrass has some bugs, and we are actively working to fix those. We are excited about this new release, but recognize that it is not perfect, and we will continue to iron out problems, as well as adding new functionality. We know that many people want calendaring functionality, and etherpad/ethercalc integration.

Also, please realize that putting something in Crabgrass does not inherently mean it is secure. If somebody with access to a page makes it public, then that page is public to any human or robot on the internet. So, as with any communication tool, it is important that you talk about your security protocols, and have some understanding of how the tool works. Understand who has access to a page, and that those with certain access can share the information (inadvertently or not) with others, by directly sharing the page, inviting others to the group, or having their account compromised.

Crabgrass does not feature end-to-end encryption: like with email, the Riseup collective has access to all the information on Crabgrass. There is currently no good way to support client-side encryption for a web application in a manner that prevents the provider from gaining access to the data. Nevertheless, we do plan to support some limited forms of client-side encryption in the future.

Keep it alive!

We have devoted thousands of hours to developing Crabgrass and maintaining the service. If you use it, please help us cover the costs of keeping it going. As always, please donate

14-15 Nov: Caring, survival & justice – international conference London

From English Collective of Prostitutes

Dear friends,
We will be participating in this International Conference on women on 14-15 November 2015, and invite you to join us.

SATURDAY 9-5pm

Session 1: Reproducing the human race – valuing mothers and all carers
Session 2: Caring under austerity, climate change, occupation and war SUNDAY 9-5pm
Session 3: Women’s justice work against sexism, racism and every discrimination
Session 4: A living wage for caring and the struggle for pay equity

We will be reclaiming the indispensable contribution of mothers and all carers to reproducing the human race, as well as the justice work women do to defend ourselves and loved ones from every violence and discrimination. What are the obstacles to caring, and how can the petition for a Living Wage for Mothers and other Carers be an effective tool for building the movement internationally – to prioritise survival and pay equity?
The conference will be opened by Selma James (Sex, Race and Class – the Perspective of Winning). Details of the content and the speakers will be circulated nearer to the time. We are hoping that our network in Canada, Greece, Haiti, India, Ireland, Italy, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Spain, Tanzania, Turkey, US, Venezuela and elsewhere will be able to attend.

Venue: To be confirmed
Access: full wheelchair access ● please book in advance for childcare
We look forward to hearing from you. Please let us know if you are planning to attend. If you coming from abroad, we will be glad to help with visas.
Invest in caring not killing.
Global Women’s Strike (GWS), Women of Colour GWS
and Payday (a network of men who work with the GWS)

Green Unionism workshop at Bristol Anarchist Bookfair 25th April 2015.

Dorset IWW will be conducting a workshop on the IWW Environmental Unionist Caucus at Bristol Anarchist Bookfair, 16:00 to 17:00 25th April 2015. at Trinity Centre, Trinity Rd, Bristol BS2 0NW. Facebook event the full programme will be on line shortly.