CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
blank 3/18
see direct action for more radical
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10 25
Mehdi Hasan is live on Substack now: "'Ask the Editor': On Israel and Its Illegal Detention of Greta Thunberg and the Flotilla Activists"
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:{What Is Happening at the Venezuelan Embassy Is an Outrage:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:
Medea Benjamin - May 7, 2019 - Local Peace Economy
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/05/07/what-is-happening-at-the-venezuelan-embassy-is-an-outrage/
Right here in Washington, D.C., an unprecedented showdown is unfolding. Venezuelan supporters of self-declared interim president Juan Guaido have been trying to take over the Venezuelan Embassy. This goes against international law, the wishes of the government in control in Venezuela, and the dogged determination of a group of U.S. citizens called the Embassy Protection Collective, who have been living in the embassy since April 15.
A takeover of the embassy of a sovereign nation whose government holds power and is recognized by the United Nations would be illegal according to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which says that diplomatic premises are inviolable and the receiving State must protect the premises against any “intrusion, disturbance of the peace or impairment of its dignity.”
This has nothing to do with whether one likes Nicolás Maduro or considers the Venezuelan elections fair. My Saudi friends in Washington, D.C., hate Mohammad bin Salman—a man who has never been elected by anyone—but the U.S. government would never let them take over the Saudi Embassy. Chinese dissidents say that “winners” of Chinese rigged elections—with only the Communist Party allowed to exist—should not be recognized by the rest of the world, but they would never get access to the Chinese Embassies. Likewise for dissidents from Egypt, Honduras, Syria, Zambia, Congo, Romania, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.—all countries with highly questionable elections, to put it mildly.
The inflammatory act of handing over the Venezuelan Embassy to Guaidó supporters would also have the potential to dramatically escalate the conflict between the United States and Venezuela. If the Trump administration were to allow this, the Maduro government would likely reciprocate by taking over the U.S. Embassy. This could be just what war hawks John Bolton and Elliott Abrams are looking for as a justification for a U.S. military intervention.
Determined to avoid another war, a group of U.S. peace activists sought and received permission from the legitimate Venezuelan government to form an Embassy Protection Collective. Since April 15, a group has been living in the embassy, sleeping on couches and floors, while outside supporters have been providing supplies and joining them for meals and educational events.
At first the Venezuelan diplomats were still working in the building, but the State Department ordered them to leave the country by April 25. Since then, we have been alone, holding the embassy so that a diplomatic solution can be worked out similar to the situation with Iran, where the U.S. Interests Section in Tehran has been operating under the Swiss Embassyand the Iranian Interests Section in Washington, D.C., is operating under the Pakistani Embassy.
On May 1, however, our peaceful presence was violently besieged by angry Guaidó supporters. Designed to coincide with Guaidó’s call for a May 1 uprising, his U.S. representative Carlos Vecchio showed up for a press conference and quickly left, leaving behind an unruly, violent mob. This group has been surrounding the embassy since then, creating mayhem and not allowing food, medicines or supplies to the people inside.
Even more shocking, the Secret Service, which is tasked with guarding embassies, has allowed this to happen. They have had a constant presence at the embassy since May 1 but have stood by as this group damages the building and threatens the peace activists inside and outside. They have allowed the opposition to bang on the doors with sledgehammers to try to break in, post signs all over the property against the wishes of the legal owners, physically attack people trying to get food inside, and destroy and steal the property of the Embassy Protection Collective (food, placards, signs, canopy). In violation of the city’s noise ordinance, the mob has been blasting sirens all day long at decibels so high that even the Secret Service police have been wearing earplugs. They block the sidewalks and all public passages. They have set up 10 canopies and 3 tents to surround the entire building. When we tried to set up a canopy, we were attacked by Guaidó supporters, but it was our member, Tighe Barry, who was arrested and accused of pushing a Secret Service officer.
The Secret Service has a public statement saying that no individuals, medicine or food have been prevented from entering the building. We ask anyone who believes this to go to the embassy and try to deliver a package to the people inside.Even packages sent by the U.S. Postal Service are not allowed in.Every entrance is blocked by opponents, and the Secret Service does nothing to stop them. On the contrary, supporters who have tried to bring food have been arrested. This was the case of CODEPINK organizer Ariel Gold. When she found all entrances blocked, she threw bread into an empty ramp outside a door and was arrested for “throwing missiles.” When we tied a package to a rope to send food up through a window,three of us were physically assaulted, and despite clear video evidence, the police refused to arrest our attacker.
Our people inside are without sufficient food and other critical supplies. They are not allowed to freely exit and enter the building. They sleep at night with a terrible sense of insecurity, worried that the angry mob will break in and attack. But we remain resolute, those of us on the inside and those of us supporting them on the outside, and we demand that our government respect U.S. and international law. The Secret Service must protect the embassy and the people who are lawfully on embassy property until the two governments come to an agreement about their premises. At that time, the Embassy Protection Collective will happily dissolve and leave the embassy, happy because we can go back to our lives but happy, most of all, because we will have helped to give John Bolton and Elliott Abrams one less reason to drag our nation into another war.
Medea Benjamin is the co-director of CODEPINK and a member of the Embassy Protection Collective.
Source: Independent Media Institute
This article was produced by :{Local Peace Economy:(style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:, a project of the Independent Media Institute
THE jrnl science 4/15/19 DN supports student strikes?
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extinction rebellion tries to shut down London in 5 places 4/19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_Rebellion
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https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/7/activists_nationwide_aim_to_disrupt_geo
for-profit prison company GEO Group has threatened to sue the human rights group Dream Defenders, which is planning a national day of action today to protest the private prison company. GEO Group is Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s single biggest contractor, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars to run private immigrant prisons. The Dream Defenders are planning to disrupt GEO Group operations in cities across the United States today, including in Florida, Arizona, California and New York City. For more we speak with Rachel Gilmer, co-director of the Florida-based Dream Defenders. The organization was recently served a cease-and-desist letter by attorneys representing the for-profit detention company GEO Group. They have launched a campaign website, GEOcages.com.
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https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/pipeline-protest-necessity-defense-tar-sands/
AN ACTIVIST IN Montana was sentenced on Tuesday in a case that has become both a touchstone for industry-friendly legislators pushing to increase penalties for pipeline protest and a measure of the U.S. legal system’s ability to recognize the emergency presented by climate change.
On October 11, 2016, while the Dakota Access pipeline protests were in full force, climate activists approached above-ground valve sites on five tar sands pipelines in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington state. After calling the pipeline companies to give warning, they turned the valve wheels in a coordinated attempt to stop the flow of tar sands oil.
Tuesday’s sentencing hearing tested a Montana court’s willingness to apply the severe penalties already available for use against pipeline protesters. For halting the flow of oil through Enbridge’s Express pipeline for several hours,Leonard Higgins, a 66-year-old retired information technology manager for the state of Oregon, faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine for charges of misdemeanor trespass and felony criminal mischief. Higgins was sentenced to three years’ probation and $3,755 in restitution to the pipeline company.
“I’m relieved and actually a bit bewildered. It’s unexpected to me. I came very much prepared and expecting to do some jail time at least,” Higgins told The Intercept. “This is a case where both in terms of the severity of the charges and the large amount of claimed damages, I think they were using it to chill the possibility that others might do similar protest.”
Enbridge had initially claimed more than $200,000 in losses, a figure later reduced to $25,630, including $16,000 worth of replacement chains to secure valves along the pipeline against future tampering.
“The courts and the juries are not hammering individuals in the way these corporations would like to see, so they attempt to use the restitution process to grossly inflate their damage numbers with hope that threatening the citizen with $200,000 might chill others from committing similar acts,” said Lauren Regan, Higgins’s attorney.
“Enbridge respects the court’s decision,” said company spokesperson Michael Barnes. “It is our intention to donate any court-ordered payment in this case to local area first responders. … We believe it’s important to support the people who every day focus on the safety and wellbeing of the community and the environment.”
Although the sentence is lenient in light of the possible penalties Higgins faced, it does not represent a full win for the activists. Higgins’s legal team had hoped Judge Daniel Boucher would allow them to argue that, given the severity of the climate threat, he had no choice but to act — a strategy known as anecessity defense. But Boucher said that since Higgins appeared to fear harm to his children and grandchildren, rather than an imminent threat to his own life, the defense could not apply. In his denial, Boucher wrote, “The energy policy of the United States is not on trial, nor will this court allow Higgins to attempt to put it on trial.”
Since a goal of the valve action was to set legal precedent for future climate protesters, Higgins’s legal team plans to appeal the denial, demanding a retrial. The move would not open the door to a more severe sentence. Judges assigned to valve turner cases in North Dakota and Washington also rejected the necessity defense, and the activists’ legal teams are also appealing.
The valve turners’ best chance lies in Minnesota, where a judge has made the unusual decision to allow the necessity defense to be used at trial. Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein are facing felonies in the state for shutting down Enbridge Lines 4 and 67. Steve Liptay, who filmed their actions, and Ben Joldersma, who provided additional support, also face charges. The four activists have to prove that “the harm that would have resulted from obeying the law would have significantly exceeded the harm actually caused by breaking the law, there was no legal alternative to breaking the law, the defendant was in danger of imminent physical harm, and there was a direct causal connection between breaking the law and preventing the harm.” Enbridge is appealing the judge’s decision.
Higgins said that if he had any regret about his effort to disrupt the Montana pipeline, it would be that he failed to anticipate that those filming would face charges alongside those turning the valves. Reed Ingalls, a 23-year-old student at Evergreen College, who livestreamed Higgins’s action, still faces trespassing and criminal mischief charges. “I wish we had not been so naïve as to think the journalists and folks doing the livestreaming would be protected by the First Amendment and would not be arrested,” Higgins said. Sam Jessup, a 32-year-old carpenter from Vermont, recently received a suspended two-year sentence, to be served as probation, for livestreaming the valve action on the Keystone pipeline in North Dakota.
“The act itself was out of a sense of desperation that we don’t have time for incremental change,” Higgins told The Intercept. “It’s possible we already squandered the chance we had. We’re walking right along the edge of the cliff.”
WHILE THE VALVE turners have asked the justice system to recognize their actions as a rational response to a climate emergency, legislators, law enforcement, and oil and gas industry operatives have used the shutdowns as justification to frame environmental activists as terrorists.
The valve turners were recently mentioned in a letter sent by legislators to Jeff Sessions, asking if pipeline activists could be charged under terrorism laws. Meanwhile, the American Legislative Exchange Council cited the valve turners in urging states to pass the “Criminal Infrastructure Protection Act,” a new model bill that would create harsher penalties for attempts, even if unsuccessful, to inhibit the operation of infrastructure like pipelines. Laws similar to the model have been introduced in Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, and Wyoming.
It’s a theme that surfaced in another valve turner’s case in North Dakota. Michael Foster, a 53-year-old mental health counselor and father of two from Seattle, was sentenced to one year imprisonment and two years of probation, for halting the flow of oil through the Keystone pipeline for eight hours. He had faced a maximum sentence of more than 26 years.
In his closing statement, prosecutor Jonathan Byers compared Foster to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who justified murdering three people and injuring 24 with a rambling 35,000-word manifesto. “He thought that the industrialization of the U.S. and of modern society was going to create a disaster, so, because of his belief in his cause, he decided to do some of these things. It actually resulted in people’s death,” Byers said.
Byers then moved into a bizarre reflection on Sharia, or Islamic law. “Will we allow people who have a belief in Sharia law to allow people to commit honor killings because they believe that it will save them — is that what our society is going to be that we’re going to redraw the line to allow killing of even your own children?” he asked. Sharia says nothing about honor killings and does not endorse murder. In the U.S., it’s commonly invoked to stoke fears of immigrants and Muslims.
The valve turners, of course, neither murdered nor physically harmed anyone. And their motivations largely came from climate data. In Foster’s case, the judge declined a defense request to allow climate scientist James Hansen to testify. Hansen, director of the Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions program at Columbia University, wrote an influential New York Times op-ed in 2012 stating that if Canada’s tar sands were fully exploited, “It will be game over for the planet.”
Hansen’s prepared testimony had described some of the analysis that the valve turners argue made their actions justifiable. “We are indeed in an emergency situation — even though the most severe climatic consequences have only just begun to be visited on human and natural systems,” he noted.
“If fossil fuel emissions are not systematically and rapidly abated, then young persons and future generations will confront what reasonably only can be described as, at best, an inhospitable future,” Hansen wrote. “That future may be marked by rising seas, coastal city functionality loss, mass migrations, resource wars, food shortages, heat waves, mega-storms, soil depletion and desiccation, freshwater shortage, public health system collapse, and the extinction of increasing numbers of species.”
Foster and Higgins, each interviewed before their sentencing, said that over years of climate activism, they had become disillusioned with government institutions’ inability to adequately address climate change. Both got involved in climate organizing late in life, Foster in his 40s and Higgins in his 50s. They each became involved in an array of climate organizing activities around the Pacific Northwest, from lobbying legislators to cut carbon emissions to providing volunteer support for a lawsuit that a group of kids brought against the state of Washington for failure to sufficiently protect them from the threat of climate change.
But although many of the campaigns saw big wins — the children’s lawsuit forced Washington to move more quickly on its greenhouse gas emissions reductions, for example — Foster could see they were not translating into the energy transition scientists were calling for. “I watched the system refuse to change,” he said. “There was no institution that was responsive to the emergency.”
Higgins said he increasingly saw a special responsibility for people like him to participate in civil disobedience. “Our niche is that we are privileged, middle-class, older white people who we look at as having the biggest obligation. We’ve benefited the most, and we will continue to be protected from the worst effects until the very end when it will probably be too late,” he said.
A May 2017 report co-written by the Department of Homeland Security and several state intelligence fusion centers, obtained by The Intercept via a public information request, invoked the valve turners’ actions as an example of the kind of tactics law enforcement and emergency management officials might expect to see “environmental extremists” carry out across the U.S. in the coming year.
“It’s fascinating to me that the Department of Justice and the executive branch’s lawyers and other people want to get involved and try and paint us as organized crime or domestic terrorists bent on destroying national security,” Foster said. Climate change “will certainly destroy our national security if it’s allowed to continue operating.”
But Foster didn’t deny that part of the point was to inspire people. “We hoped that other people would take similar actions all over the place,” he said. “I have to say, after over a year since our action, it’s starting to feel it was a failure, because it’s still the biggest coordinated action in our history and we don’t have time.”
Foster is currently incarcerated at the Missouri River Correctional Facility, a minimum-security prison known as the “farm.” Its most desirable and private living quarters are located inside a portable unit that once housed workers in a “man camp” in the Bakken oil patch, a center of the U.S. fossil fuels boom.
The day before his sentencing hearing last month, Foster told The Intercept, “For this one moment, maybe I’m standing on the right side of history. If there’s going to be future historians, and they’re going to be writing anything, chances are it’s because we succeeded.”
https://www.opb.org/news/article/washington-valve-turner-activist-sentenced-to-prison/
Washington climate activist is the first “valve turner” to go to prison for shutting off the flow of oil from Canada’s tar sands region into the U.S.
In October 2016, five activists got fed up with the usual ways to fight climate change. They decided to take direct action and coordinated a protest by shutting off oil pipelines carrying tar sands oil into the U.S.
The “valve turners” coordinated efforts to shut off pipelines in Washington, Montana, Minnesota and North Dakota.
Now, one of those activists is going to prison for the protest. Seattle residentMichael Foster was sentenced to three years in prison— with two of those years deferred — for his role in shutting off TransCanada’s Keystone pipelinein North Dakota.
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3/18 guy got $3700 fine but no jail?
15% shut down S capacity? co wanted big damages
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Peaceful "kayaktivists" from Greenpeace Norway boarded a Statoil-contracted rig set to drill two Arctic wells this year.
Two people boarded the rig at the Skipavik yard on Norway's west coast Thursday morning and have requested a meeting with the rig's captain.
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