http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Downtown+street+protest+ends+with+arrests+injuries/6866584/story.html
By John Chan
US Coast Guard ice-breaker in the Beaufort Sea. The USCG has vowed to create a barrier between environmentalists and Shell Oil, who will begin drilling exploratory wells in sensitive Arctic waters this summer. (USCG)In documents just obtained byCryptome, the USCG says that "request for the temporary safety zone was made by Shell Exploration & Production Company due to safety concerns for both the personnel aboard the Noble Discoverer and the environment."
Jamie James (centre) and others, who claim they were abused while marching in solidarity with Quebec students on Wednesday, protest in front of B.C. Provincial Court Friday.
Photograph by: Jason Payne, PNG , Vancouver Sun
A pot-clanging protest turned into a physical confrontation this week, as police arrested demonstrators expressing solidarity with striking Quebec students.
Roughly two dozen protesters banging pots and pans - echoing recent Montreal street rallies - gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Wednesday evening, where two arrests prompted a march to the Vancouver jail at Main and Cordova streets as well as further altercations, arrests and charges.
Video taken by a Vancouver Media Co-op member shows demonstrators walking back and forth across the Downtown Eastside intersection, leading to the arrest of a woman after a standoff with irritated drivers and police.
Sascha Wiley-Shaw, a 29-year-old public school teacher, said she was injured in the process and showed bruising on her shoulder, knee and foot with a sprained wrist wrapped in a bandage.
"I was thrown violently down to the cement floor of the loading bay of the Vancouver jail," she said Friday at a sidewalk press conference in front of the Provincial Court of B.C., her voice quivering.
"What I learned on Wednesday night is that in the city of Vancouver, it's currently not safe to exercise your fundamental freedoms to expression, assembly and association."
She said officers told her she was being arrested for spitting at a car while blocking the intersection, which she denies doing. She was released Wednesday evening with a $100 ticket for loitering, a bylaw infraction.
Wiley-Shaw said her faith in law enforcement has been shaken.
"I think I'm going to be living with a level of fear and stress and trauma as a result of this for doing absolutely nothing unlawful. I'm just so shocked and disgusted by the treatment we received," she said, later breaking into tears.
In all, two women and five men were arrested throughout the evening. Two, including Wiley-Shaw, were released without criminal charge, while the other five face charges ranging from assault of an officer to obstruction of justice.
The edited six-part YouTube video shows a largely low-key demonstration outside the art gallery and the jail marked by moments of intense altercation with police, including swearing, jostling and arrests.
Protesters sported red squares on their clothing and banged pots and pans .
They were mimicking demonstrators in Quebec, where students protesting planned tuition hikes and a bill limiting public assembly have taken to the streets for months.
Vancouver police spokesman Const. Lindsey Houghton said Wiley-Shaw is being investigated for criminal offences, along with those who have been formally charged.
"The protesters were very aggressive to drivers, spitting on people's cars and physically hitting people's cars," he said. "I think that goes beyond peaceful assembly."
Houghton said police regularly facilitate protests, but have to juggle that duty with responsibilities to the wider public.
"They [should] recognize that after their 20 or 30 minutes are up, they're either going to move on or they're going to return to the sidewalk, and people appreciate that."
Danielle Williams, who took part in the demonstration, said she saw evidence of "kettling" - where police surround protesters to corral them into a given area - and other tactics used in Montreal for crowd control.
"Cops kept penning us in, circling the protesters in," she said.
"Incredibly intimidating. We were given instruction that this was for our safety."
Houghton confirmed one Vancouver police officer recently went to Montreal for crowdcontrol training.
"This is nothing new. We have police officers that go across Canada, the United States and even internationally to learn best practices," he said. "Police officers travel to learn from other police officers."
The incident follows one last Friday when police arrested five demonstrators after spotting four "black bloc-type activists, carrying their signature black flags" in a protest group on Burrard Street. A black bloc is a protest tactic where demonstrators conceal their body in dark clothing and ski masks to resist identification and show solidarity.
"The problem is when civil disobedience crosses over into what is uncivil behaviour," Houghton said.
"We think we have a duty to everybody and we have to balance ... freedom of assembly with the rights of other people who want to go about their business without fear of intimidation."
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/chin-j30.shtml
Police lock down Chinese factory town to suppress protests
By John Chan
30 June 2012
A determined protest by rural migrant workers in Guangdong Province that began on June 26 has underscored the rising tensions between the region’s multi-millioned workforce and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime.
The unrest erupted after a brawl in the township of Shaxi in Zhongshan city between a local 13-year-old school student and a 15-year old teenager of migrant background. Shaxi, which specialises in making casual clothes, is one of the numerous industrial towns in the Pearl River Delta, also known as the “world’s factory.”
The migrant youth was eventually detained by security guards who reportedly beat him severely injuring his face, before handing him to the police. A protest by his parents and their friends over the youth’s treatment became a rallying point for the pent-up anger against widespread official discrimination against migrant workers.
The initial demonstration involved a few hundred workers in front of the local police station, but rapidly escalated after police tried to disperse the crowd with batons. The news spread like wildfire. Thousands more rallied in support, including many from neighbouring cities such as Guangzhou and Fusan.
Liu Tianjin, a Shaxi factory worker, told Agence France-Presse: “The riots started noon [on Monday], but escalated late last night, several thousand people were protesting. There were lots of riot police outside last night, and there are still many outside now. I can tell you more than 30 people were injured.”
On Tuesday morning, about 10,000 workers surrounded the township government, facing off against 1,000 police. That night the authorities suddenly moved to disperse the protests by ordering the police to charge against the protestors (click here for video).
Police sealed off the town and the Shaxi and Zhongshan media issued warnings to the public to stay away from the town, as well as urging locals to remain indoors. Shops, schools and banks were all shut.
According to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao Daily, tens of thousands of migrant workers, including from neighbouring cities, showed up to support the protests. Workers attacked police cars and police outposts as well as shops. A bus station was set on fire. The police indiscriminately attacked anyone in the street and local hospitals filled with the injured (see photos).
The newspaper, citing unnamed sources, reported that the central government in Beijing had authorised the police and troops to shoot workers if the unrest escalated. It deployed 10,000 police in Zhongshan, including large reinforcements from nearby cities to prevent any protest in the main city.
Chinese authorities have tried to downplay the incident. State-owned television broadcast the comments of the injured boy’s father who insisted that his son had suffered only minor injuries, not death as widely rumoured. He said that he did not know any of the protestors. To justify the police violence, the state media claimed that organised crime gangs were behind the protests.
The sudden eruption of protests is a product of systematic discrimination against migrant workers who are not given formal residential status in the city. They are treated as second class citizens without access to services and are subject to constant police harassment. In towns like Shaxi, where migrant workers outnumber locals, the government is not responsible for their education or healthcare. The official policy encourages local prejudice against “migrants”, including by the police who often blame them for rising crime rates.
What happened in Shaxi is part of broader labour unrest in the same province. Last June, similar protests erupted involving thousands of migrant workers in the jean manufacturing centre of Zengcheng. Since November there has been a wave of strikes in the province against wage cuts and attacks on working conditions.
Last weekend police violently broke up a factory occupation by 800 workers at Lituo Civilian Explosive Equipment in Shaoguan city, also in Guangdong. The former state-owned enterprise produces industrial explosives and detonators. Workers had been on strike since early May to protest against management plundering money belonging to workers when the company was sold last year. On June 22, workers blocked a road and sealed off the gate, preventing the managers from leaving. The government deployed hundreds of riot police who attacked workers with tear gas and arrested several (see photo).
The underlying cause of the growing labour unrest is the sharp downturn in exports due to the worsening economic crisis in Europe and the lack of demand from the US. Guangdong’s economy, which used to be the driving force for China as a whole, is now in deep trouble. Its exports and imports grew by only 5 percent in the first five months of the year compared to the same period last year—2.7 percentage points below the national average. Fixed asset investment has risen by just 9 percent in the same period—down by 9.9 percentage points from last year.
Cheng Jianshan of Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences told the China News Service on June 27 that the province’s “troika” (exports, investment and consumption) was losing steam: “The contraction in foreign trade is undermining investor confidence, leading to weakness in fixed capital investment, which in turn, affects consumer confidence and industrial added value.”
Guangdong Communist Party chief Wang Yang last year promised workers a “happy Guangdong” after a series of violent protests, including in Zengcheng and also by villagers in Wukan who waged a protracted struggle against corrupt land sales.
However, facing falling profits, sweatshop owners are seeking to impose new burdens on workers through wage cuts and demands for higher productivity. The Guangdong government was expected to increase the official minimum wage earlier in the year. But under pressure from the Hong Kong manufacturers’ lobby which employs millions of workers in the province, the government postponed the increases, provoking a wave of strikes.
On June 18, the 3,000-strong workforce at the Japanese-owned Citizen watch plant in Guangzhou went on strike demanding a pay increase. Their basic wage was just 1,100 yuan a month—the official minimum in Huadu district where the factory is located. After a 200-yuan deduction for social security, workers complained that they simply did not have enough to live on.
Workers at another Japanese electronics plant in Guangzhou were offered a pay rise from 1,350 yuan to 1,500 yuan a month on 1 June, but 1,000 went out on strike on June 14 saying the increase was not enough to make ends meet.
The brutal police-state measures used against migrant workers this week in Zhongshan are rooted in the Chinese regime’s fear that any ongoing protest could trigger far broader action by the highly concentrated working class in Guangdong and China’s other industrial heartlands.
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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/06/29-2
US Coast Guard Creates 'Protest-Free Zone' in Alaska Oil Drilling Zone
The United States Coast Guard will establish and enforce "a 500-meter safety zone" around the Shell Oil Company's drilling vessel Noble Discoverer as it drills exploratory offshore wells in the sensitive Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska beginning this July.
US Coast Guard ice-breaker in the Beaufort Sea. The USCG has vowed to create a barrier between environmentalists and Shell Oil, who will begin drilling exploratory wells in sensitive Arctic waters this summer. (USCG)In documents just obtained byCryptome, the USCG says that "request for the temporary safety zone was made by Shell Exploration & Production Company due to safety concerns for both the personnel aboard the Noble Discoverer and the environment."
The 'buffer zone' would apply to all vessels, but the 'special rules' are clearly designed to make it more difficult for those trying to protest against the Shell's oil drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas this summer. "For any group or individual intending to conduct lawful demonstrations in the vicinity of theNoble Discoverer," reads the USCG memo, "These demonstrations must be conducted outside the safety zone."
"We have been warned there will be severe penalties but I now serve notice on Shell that we are at the point where, if needs be, we will break the injunctions and pay the price of that."
-Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace
-Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace
Earlier this year a federal judge specifically forbade the environmental group Greenpeace from coming within a 1,000 meters of Shell's drilling vessel while stationed in Puget Sound in Washington state.
While acknowledging the negative impact on the "environment and indigenous people" a mid-ocean collision caused by environmental activists attempting to block or board the ship could have in the Arctic, the USCG report made no mention of what impact a massive oil spill in the area would have on the same.
Though public comments on the rule were accepted by the USCG, only three comments were submitted and no public hearings were held on the issue. In a separate Department of Homeland Security document, also posted by Cryptome, the USCG was allowed to skip public comment because "immediate action [was] necessary to protect the public from the threat to navigational safety posed by" the tactics of environmental activists.
Reporting by the Courthouse News Service clarifies that the Puget Sound safety zones created by the USCG are separate from those established by the federal judge in Alaska earlier this year, which specifically prohibit Greenpeace from coming within 500 to 1,000 meters of the ships when they are within 12 miles of shore. The Coast Guard stressed that it is not required to enforce that injunction and that its rules apply to all vessels whether or not they are acting on behalf of Greenpeace.
During recent comments made at the Rio+20 Earth Summit, Greenpeace director Kumi Naidoo, who was arrested last year for scaling a drilling ship in the Arctic waters off Greenland, said that his organization would be not discouraged or intimidated by such injunctions.
"We have been warned there will be severe penalties but I now serve notice on Shell that we are at the point where, if needs be, we will break the injunctions and pay the price of that," he said.
Arguing the danger of allowing Arctic drilling was too high to ignore, Naidoo said his group would intensify its efforts, not soften them. "It is only when decent men and women said 'enough is enough' and 'no more' and were prepared to put their lives on the line and go to prison if necessary, and that is where we are. We have to intensify civil disobedience."
* * *
Shell Oil Company's drilling vessel Noble Discoverer will begin drilling exploratory offshore wells in the sensitive Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska in July
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18658190
London 2012: East London residents march over missiles
East London residents opposed to plans to site surface-to-air missiles on roofs for added security during the Olympics, are to march through Bow.
Six sites have been picked for surface-to-air missiles, some in residential spots, including Bow and Leytonstone.
Campaigners say 1,000 people have signed a petition in protest.
The Ministry of Defence said the safety of the Games was paramount and a "broad range of community engagement" had taken place.
Air threat
The sites, chosen from an original list of 100, include the Lexington Building in Tower Hamlets and the Fred Wigg Tower in Waltham Forest, east London.
The four other London sites identified as suitable for Rapier missiles are Blackheath Common; Oxleas Wood, Eltham; William Girling Reservoir, Enfield and Barn Hill in Epping Forest.
The proposals have yet to be confirmed.
Campaigner Chris Nineham said: "We don't believe they will add anything to security. If they are going to be used they will explode over some of the most densely populated areas in London."
He added: "I simply don't believe that since 9/11 a security system hasn't been put in place to protect Canary Wharf and east London.
"If fighter jets are sent from another country I hope they will be taken out before they get to London."
When a major security exercise took place in April standing joint commander General Sir Nick Parker explained there must be a plan which could deal with "the unlikely but very serious threat" that might exist to the Olympic Park.
He explained: "It's an air threat, really categorised in two ways, the sort of 9/11 threat everyone knows about, and also for the lower, slower type of target which might pop up closer to the Olympic Park, which we would need to intervene."
Residents of Fred Wigg Tower, Leytonstone, have launched legal proceedings in the hope of preventing the installation of missiles on their building's roof during the Olympics.
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