Haimen, China - Police fire tear gas at Chinese seaside town protesters demanding release of detainees

( / Associated Press ) - Villagers gather to protest Friday Dec. 23, 2011 in Haimen, China. Riot police in the southern Chinese coastal town fired tear gas at protesters Friday on the fourth day of unrest over a planned power plant expansion, according to a demonstrator’s account and TV footage. A crowd of protesters were locked in a standoff with police near the entrance to a highway in the town of Haimen, demanding authorities release an unknown number of demonstrators, a man surnamed Lin.

Haimen’s protesters are demanding a halt to the planned expansion of a coal-fired power plant which they say has contributed to what they say is a rise in cancer cases and heavy pollution in the seas, a serious problem for a town where many make their living from fishing.
The protests started Tuesday when thousands of people besieged a Haimen government office and blocked a highway. When riot police used tear gas in an attempt to disperse them, demonstrators hurled rocks, water bottles and bricks in return. Clashes broke out, injuring an unknown number of protesters and police, residents say.
In response to the protests, the local government said Tuesday that it would temporarily suspend the power plant project, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
But protesters say they have not heard directly from authorities on the matter and say several protesters in their teens or early 20s had been detained.
It was not immediately clear how many people have been taken into police custody, but Xinhua said Thursday that five people had been detained by Wednesday for vandalism during the protests.This is the third time police have used tear gas to disperse protesters in Haimen this week.
Hong Kong’s Cable TV showed footage of tear gas clouds being blown toward protesters, scattering the crowd of hundreds of people. Riot police with helmets and shields had formed a blockade at the entrance to the highway.

Portugal - Army defends motorway tolls

informa-azione

Source: ANSAmed

MADRID, Dec. 19 - The Portuguese government has had to deploy the army along the A22 motorway in the Algarve, to avoid continuous acts of vandalism against toll booths registered after the entry in force of the toll on 8 December.

Agents of the Intervention Unit of the Republican National Guard patrol a dozen automatic payment booths set up along the 130 km of the A22 24 hours a day. In particular, the area of greatest risk located near the town of Boliqueime, 70 km from the border with Ayamonte (Huelva), where last week a few cameras to read license plates were destroyed by being shot at or by arson. The army patrols, according to what the Iberian media report today, are equipped with bulletproof vests, after an official of the company that manages the Algarve motorway was wounded recently by a rifle shot as he approached one of the electronic barriers which vandals had set on fire.
Fri, 23/12/2011 - 12:03

Namu, Belgium - The Tax Office attacked

suie e cendres

"In the night of 18 to 19, the buildings of the tax offices in Namur, not far from the rue du 4ieme Genie, were attacked. About ten windows were smashed."

24/12/2011

Bruges, Belgium - Failed escape with helicopter

suie e cendres

BRUGES - Beginning of November, an planned escape from the prison of Bruges was inhibited by the police. A company offering helicopter flights in Knokke-Heist averted the police of a "suspicious reservation". The morning before the actual flight, police carried out a house search at the place of the person who reserved the flight, and found weapons and a check list on how to hijack the helicopter. They also discovered two getaway cars.

13/12/2011

Athens, Greece - Solidarity with Christos Stratigopoulos - Crisis means war

translated from informa-azione

Social and class war

The State and capital, seeking to impose social peace in these days of war in which we are living, repress social struggles, accuse and imprison those who fight.

Anarchist Christos Stratigopoulos is in prison for having claimed responsibility for a robbery in a bank in Trikala, Greece in October 2009. From July 2011 he should have been allowed a temporary release (from prison) and been released a few months later.

But the cops and judges have extended his imprisonment by trying to attribute another robbery to him, at a bank in Cephalonia in July 2009.
With false accusations, the State is trying to set up another case of repression against revolutionaries in Christos's case.
The accusers, with false evidence and so-called witnesses and imaginative policemen, have tried to destroy him physically and socially.
Foreseeing our massive participation in all forms of social struggle that evolve into social class conflict, this solid State tactic seeks to impose fear through the exemplary imprisonment of anyone who struggles.
Dionysios Manolatos, a resident of Cephalonia, either pushed to consciously become a snitch or to try to gain some personal benefit, has become a false witness for the police.
The young cop Sokratis Markatos, keen to climb the hierarchy in his job, has falsified evidence and handed it to the local press so as to receive medals and free himself from this impenetrable case.

THEY DON'T SCARE US, THEY MAKE US FURIOUS

SOLIDARITY IS OUR WEAPON.

NONE OF OUR COMRADES HOSTAGE OF THE STATE

THE CRIMINALS ARE THE BANKERS AND CAPITALISTS.

FREEDOM TO CHRISTOS STRATIGOPOULOS

Assembly of Solidarity to Imprisoned and Accused Fighters

Wukan, China - 20,000 in open revolt against government land grabs and killing

various sources

"For the first time on record, the Chinese Communist party has lost all control, with the population of 20,000 in this southern fishing village of Wukan, Guangdong now in open revolt." (Telegraph) Enraged over government land grabs, villagers have now overrun local authorities and driven police out. They remain barricaded within their village, roadblocks set up by both police and villagers preventing food and water
...For months, the 20,000 villagers who live in Wukan, near the city of Shanwei in the Guangdong province, have protested first against having nearly $154 million worth of their land seized and sold off by the local government, and then at the brutal tactics used by police to regain control.Back in September, villagers rioted, chasing out the local party secretary and drawing a harsh response from local riot police. The crackdown that followed resulted in the alleged death of a child. If that wasn't enough to further enrage locals, some of the seized land was was the site of a local cemetery. ...Locals said the land sold was collectively owned by the residents. They were unaware of the sale until construction work began on the land. Their outrage was also fuelled by the fact that some of the land was used for the graves of the village people’s ancestors.
4,500 villagers marched less than a month ago promising to escalate the situation if the government failed to solve the land problem.
The situation began to heat up again last Friday, when authorities arrested five of the villagers' 13 self-appointed representatives negotiating a solution. Another confrontation between villagers and riot police took place on Sunday at barricades set up by villagers to keep police out.
Then on Monday things really came to a head when one of the arrested representatives, Xue Jinbo died in police custody of a reported "heart attack." His family claims he was murdered.there are now no police, or government officials.

China's internet censors have blocked searches relating to the village of Wukan.

Villagers say that they have enough supplies to hold out for only 10 more days.

Wukan has been encircled by the police cordon since Sunday, after a failed attempt by 1,000 armed police to capture the village. No food or water is allowed in, and no villagers allowed out, some food is being smuggled in from the next village on motorbikes.

Portland,Oregon, US - Man foils Taser attack with 'Star Wars' light saber

notes from oregonlive

14/12/2011 -  When police tried to arrest a man in a toy store, he carried on swinging a "Star Wars" light saber he was holding. One cop tried to use his Taser on the man but it didn't work. Another used his Taser and made contact, but the man knocked one of the wires away with the light saber. Police arrested him after grabbing him and pinning him to the ground.He was sent for mental reports.

Trento, Italy - 12 DECEMBER - A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER

informa-azione

Text of a poster put up recently in Trento

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER

December 12, 1969, Milan - Piazza Fontana bombing, 14 killed and 88 injured. It 's the debut of the "strategy of tension". While there is growing awareness that this is a State massacre, the judiciary arrest anarchists Pietro Valpreda and Giuseppe Pinelli. On December 15, Pinelli was murdered and thrown from the third floor of police headquarters in Milan at the hands of the squad of executioner Luigi Calabresi.
December 12, 2011, Bologna - First day of the trial for the "Outlaw" inquiry. Five comrades were arrested April 6 in Bologna, seven more are affected by heavy restrictions, 26 in all charged with "criminal association with subversive purposes", the documentation space Fuoriluogo is devastated and impounded. On trial are years of struggle far from any institutional compatibility and animated by a sincere contempt for the order of this world, against the CIE [detention camps] and prisons, State racism and boss exploitation, the militarisation of the cities and the reappearance of neo-fascist groups, technological domination and the attack on the living.
December 12, 2011, Florence - Final stage of the trial in which 19 anarchists are accused of "subversive association with terrorist aims" (the infamous 270bis). Here, as in Bologna, the specific crimes alleged are small things: blocks, occupations, defacing, unauthorized demonstrations, incitement to commit a crime. Here too, the investigators are trying to make a clumsy distinction between "leaders" and "subjects". In the dock we find the bonds of life and struggle of those who choose to break with social peace and the security-frenzy, determined to upset the dreams (and profits) of the bosses of the city.

December 12, 2011, Trento - First hearing of the trial of nine workers accused of defacing and threats. On May 24 the court of Bassano acquits the bosses of Tricom – Galvanica di Tezza sul Brenta, responsible for the death of 14 workers as a result of exposure to hexavalent chromium, nickel and other nuisances. Outside the court the sentence was greeted with slogans and the throwing of eggs. Justice remains a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes, the court has zealously carried out the task for which it was created: to legitimize the profit of the bosses and suppress the struggles of the exploited.

TODAY AS IN THE PAST, THE TERRORISTS ARE THOSE WHO EXPLOIT AND POISON, WHO REPRESS AND BOMBARD: THE TERRORISTS ARE THE BOSSES AND THE STATE!

WE CHOSE WHAT SIDE WE WERE ON A LONG TIME AGO: ACCOMPLICES OF THOSE WHO STRUGGLE AGAINST A WORLD OF WAR, PROFIT AND CONTROL, ALONGSIDE THOSE WHO DO NOT BOW THEIR HEADS IN THE FACE OF THE REPRISALS OF THE STATE.

SOLIDARITY TO THE COMRADES OF BOLOGNA AND FLORENCE, TO THE WORKERS TRICOM AND THEIR FAMILIES

The comrades of Trento

Chilpancingo, Mexico - Two students killed during protest

globalvoices 
Two students, Jorge Alexis Herrera Pino and Gabriel Echeverría de Jesús, were killed on December 12, 2011 during a protest held by students of the rural school Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, Chilpancingo, the capital of the state of Guerrero. The protest blocked the highway “Autopista del Sol” which leads to the tourist area of Acapulco.
La Jornada de Guerrero
Everything started with a smoke curtain, provoked by the tear gas bombs that came out of the hands of the federal police. [..] After that came the first gust of bullets form the federal police, who were authorized to proceed via radio. The second gust, which was longer, came from different hands: ministerial police opened fire against the students from the right lane (of the highway from north to south) […] It didn't take long for the federal police to aim at the same target. […] On the other side, Ayotzinapa's side, the rural students with a daily budget for food of 3.50 dollars, responded with sticks and stones. The domestic bombs that they had weren't used because they didn't have time to load them with gas from the 2 gas stations on of each side of the highway. Some, trying to defend themselves, had time to light up the bottles they got from the service station. The police then threw some fragmentation grenades at the students, that by then were seeking refuge in the space between the buses and concrete walls that divide the highway. There were five grenades in total and none detonated, but they provoked panic […]. The only ones not moving were two students, both 22 years old

We are the 1%

finimondo.org

We've seen you. We've heard you. You're everywhere. We know who you are. You are the 99% protesting against the excesses of capitalism and the wrongs of the State. You are the 99% who want electoral reform, social alternatives, economic subsidies and political measures. You are the 99% terrified of losing their future, of no longer being able to live as you have done till now: a job, a salary, a mortgage, a pension. Live and let live, at least. Have a career, at best. That is what you are asking for.

Waiting for a happy ending that never arrives, you cannot tolerate that some do not share your daydream resignation. From Madrid to Athens, from Rome to Portland, you are ready to stop, denounce and beat up the angry ones do not see the institutions as guarantors of freedom but the cause of misery and oppression. You only appreciate revenge in fiction films; when the mask is off you prefer submission. Faced with a hideous rotten society you fight in favour of a civil, measured, educated protest. A protest that remains at your level: on its knees.

Now we know who the 1% that you hate so much are. With your cordons, your stewards, your accusations, you have shown everybody who your real enemy is. It is certainly not the ruling class, whom you address with respect. It's us. We, who do not have a State to defend or improve. We, who do not have a market to protect or exploit. We, who do not want to exercise or suffer authority. We, for whom life is not reducible to a card to clock in with or a bank account to be safeguarded. We, for whom the crisis was not born with the recent speculations in the Stock Exchange or the incompetence of those sitting in Parliament today, but from living in this very social order in all its aspects. We, for whom every day is precarious in this world that we did not ask for, in which we have never seen ourselves, which suffocates us.

We want nothing to do with your 99%. With your claims for a moderate capitalism and a well-run State. With your political gait that reduces power and privilege to the dimensions of a credit card. With your urban camping like nostalgic Boy Scouts. With the identification of your opponent, the source of the "injustice", becoming more and more nuanced, intangible and out of reach. With your arms ever more outstretched to politicians, industrialists and guardians, and always more vigorous against the rebels. With your weaker and weaker actions that have become just a cozy interlude for the status quo. No, we don't want your reforms, your collaborationism, your alienating jobs, your left claims reheated so many times that they make us throw up.

We know what the real causes of the suffering we experience are: the thirst for power, the worship of money, but also the obedience they demand and receive. These causes continue in the daily lives of human beings, in the actions, gestures and relationships that intertwine in a society where we feel strangers everywhere. And these causes - which must be rejected, deserted and demolished - have been welcomed in your movement. We never felt at home in 99% of our modern life spent lining up to beg for crumbs, and yet you insist on defending 99% of the problem. We'll take our chances elsewhere. Through the hopes, dreams and actions that have earned your condemnation.

Carry on crossing the ocean of universal indignation. Raise your sails passing the ropes to bureaucrats and policemen. Share space and air with the scum that have made life on this planet unlivable. Go straight to a new tomorrow, with the hold full of the shit yesterday. We won't come aboard your ship, if anything we'll get off it. And we will stay on our rafts that you despise so much because they are small and light.

But be careful. A vessel that sails with our enemies on board is too good a chance to miss. Laughing? You're not afraid of us because we don't have the strength to come aboard? You've got it wrong. We are not interested in your gold, we do not want to conquer you. We want to make you go down with your entire cargo of death. To do so, we do not need a majestic fleet, just a fire ship. Small and light.

Banda Aceh, Indonesia - Over 60 punks arrested and their heads shaved. They have been imprisoned for 10 days in a 'moral rehabilitation' camp

AFP
Indonesian sharia police are "morally rehabilitating" more than 60 young punk rock fans in Aceh province on Sumatra island, saying the youths are tarnishing the province's image.
Since being arrested at a punk rock concert in the provincial capital Banda Aceh on Saturday night, 59 male and five female punk rock fans have been forced to have their hair cut, bathe in a lake, change clothes and pray.

Hundreds of Indonesian punk fans came from around the country to attend the concert, organised to raise money for orphans.
Police stormed the venue and arrested fans sporting mohawks, tattoos, tight jeans and chains, who were on Tuesday taken to a nearby town to undergo a 10-day "moral rehabilitation" camp run by police.
Police said the objective was to deter the youths from "deviant" behaviour.A local rights activist Evi Narti Zain said the arrests breached human rights.
"What the police have done is totally bizarre. Being a punk is just a lifestyle. They exist all over the world and they don't break any rules or harm other people," she said.
Hasan denied the accusation, claiming the rehabilitation programme was merely an "orientation into normal Indonesian society".
Aceh, on the northernmost tip of Sumatra island, adopted partial sharia law in 2001 as part of a special autonomy package aimed at quelling separatist sentiment.
Only Muslims can be charged under sharia law, although the non-Muslim community is expected to follow some laws out of respect.
Nearly 90% of Indonesia's 240 million people are Muslims, but the vast majority practise a moderate form of Islam.
see
http://325.nostate.net/?p=3686

Athens, Greece - riot police attacked with petrol bombs outside the Culture Ministry in Exarcheia district

athensnews
13 December 2011 - Youths attacked riot police with petrol bombs outside the Culture Ministry, in Athens' volatile Exarcheia district.

The overnight attack occurred shortly after Monday night's stand-off at Korydallos prison in western Athens, involving suspected members of the armed anarchist group Conspiracy of Fire Cells.

No one was hurt in the incident outside the ministry.

Athens, Greece - Escape attempt from Koridallos prison by Panagiotis Vlastos and three comrades of the CCF

Press release about what happened in Korydallos, Greece, on December 12 2011

translated from informa-azione

Warning! This summary of events is based, in large part, of news and reports from the media. The news of some prison guards taken hostage by the prisoners, an action that lasted several hours, was yesterday and still is on the front pages of the media. A version, or rather, the different versions of the facts presented by TV and newspapers have so many contradictory details that are not worth mentioning. The statements of the prisoners have been transmitted in a fragmented way, we hope later to reproduce them in their entirety. The situation in the Greek prisons is however explosive, and the facts of yesterday may have an unexpected continuation ...

Yesterday, Monday, Dec. 12, shortly after 18.00 a group of four (or five) prisoners attempted to escape from Korydallos prison. They are Panagiotis Vlastos, defined by the press as "one of the most dangerous criminals in the country" (arrested in 1998 after a shootout with the police and accused of a series of robberies, murders, kidnapping of a shipowner, etc..) and members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire: the Mihalis brothers and Giorgos Nikolopoulos, Christos Tsakalos and Giorgos Polydoros (some media reports have also mentioned Theofilos Mavropoulos).

But finding themselves trapped in the vicinity of the visiting room, with the help of a gun and some knives they took 3 guards as hostages. At that time there were about 25 family members of prisoners in the visiting room, including some family members of anarchist prisoners, such as the mother and cousin of Stella Adoniou and the parents of Kostas Sakkas. All of them were trapped, most likely because the jailers in the meantime had closed all the entrances. Nevertheless, newspapers have been writing articles titled "Members of the cells have taken the family hostage."

Following negotiations began that lasted several hours. The prisoners refused to talk to the police and claimed to speak only with those in charge of the Ministry of Justice and the prison authorities and in the presence of a lawyer of their choice. Obviously, the whole area surrounding the prison was immediately surrounded by hundreds of riot police forces and the anti-terrorist Unit. It should be noted that family members refused to leave the room, fearing that when they left the riot police would raid to slaughter the rebels. Some of the prisoners were able to communicate with the outside by telephone, but their statements were largely censored by the media. However, Mihalis Nikolopoulos was able to talk about the degrading conditions of confinement in general, lack of permits, the brutality of the jailers, i.e. the problems that all prisoners suffer. He also said: "Nothing will happen to the families. The only ones who can do damage here are the cops, so they should move away. "
Christos Tsakalos said: "Today we tried to do something. To gain our freedom and the continuation of urban warfare. We lost a battle, but we have not lost the war and continue to fight to win. We are an organization that fights for the ideals of a free life without any authority. "

At 23.20 the prisoners "freed" the guards and handed over the revolver and 3 knives. The family members, after being released from the prison, were taken to police headquarters in Piraeus, where they tried to convince them to file a complaint against the prisoners, but they refused.

Dison, Andrimont, Belgium - Fire in hangar of Solar-Tech

suit et cendres

DISON - Fire erupted around 22h45 in the hangar of the company Solar-Tech. Solar Tech constructs photovoltaïc panels and wind mills. 6 fire engines came, it took them several hours to put out the fire. Damage to the hangar is said to be limited.

Brussels, Belgium - Action against Vinci, the nuclear and its world

suit et cendres

"Here like elsewhere, some sand in the rails of daily routine...
In the night of Thursday to Friday, the office of Vinci Park in Ixelles (Brussels) was attacked.
The cables of the surveillance cameras were cut, the locks filled with glue and a chain was attached to block the entrance. Posters were pasted on the windows of the office with this text:" (text in french on http://bxl.indymedia.org/articles/3351)

Vinci is a company that constructs worldwide nuclear power plants, prisons, airports, High Speed lines etc.

Calais, France - Moorings of inflatable igloo of 'snow village' cut, letting it blow away

cette semaine

Sunday, 04.12.2011, 05:10 - La Voix du Nord
Deprived of its moorings, cut by pranksters, the igloo of the snow village flew away. 
On the night of Friday to Saturday, in the Place d'Armes, pranksters had some fun ... breaking the ropes connecting the inflatable igloo of the snow village to concrete blocks. The joke had unfortunate consequences because in the evening, a few gusts blowing in Calais gave the revelers a chance to witness an amazing spectacle. The igloo 18 feet in diameter and 8 metres high, was blown away, crashing a few dozen metres away on parked cars. "Customers in the cafes in the Place d'Armes came out, reports a Sangattois who watched the scene, they saw the igloo land on the cars. Someone called the managers of the snow village and people came to deflate, remove and fold the structure." The operations required about an hour's work. It will take until next week for the children's igloo, torn in several places, to be repaired and re-installed.

Lisbon, Portugal - A general strike not like the previous ones

from Diario de Noticias and other mainstream media

 

«The government tried to undramatize the general strike, but it made the social and political tension grow. There were scuffles at the doors of the parliament – with 7 arrested and 2 injured -, several tension points between flying pickets and police forces, even molotov cocktails thrown at tax offices. The strike didn’t reach the open conflict of Athens, but it wasn’t the usual non-violent protest. […] Now, UGT and CGTP (the trade unions confederations) demand negotiations. […]

 

Flying pickets removed by riot cops of the PSP, train lines unblocked only after the intervention of GNR, molotov cocktails thrown at three tax offices, high tension close to the parliament with the protesters removing the police barriers, seven arrested and two injured. The third general strike wasn’t like the previous ones. And it ended up raising the social and political tension – instead of calming it down.[…] The incidents deserved general reproval. The trade unions confederations condemned them, and the Minister of the Interior (Miguel Macedo) enhanced their good behavior during the whole day.»

On the day of the strike and the following days the websites of several institutions, including those of the PSP and police trade unions, banks, tax offices and the secret services were attacked by hackers “in solidarity with the protests”.