Archive for the ‘Press Releases’ Category

“It was usually around July you could go up there and sit and it was like the annual bear gathering up there… The whole area was full of laurels. The bears had tunnels through them, it was so thick…What’s going on today you know with the Brushy Fork of course, that whole area has just about been stripped out now, and that’s all been taken away.” Ed Wiley on Coal River Mountain

MARFORK, W.Va. – Protestors associated with Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice have locked to and shut down a brhighwall miner on Coal River Mountain today. Colin Flood, 22, and Katie Huszcza, 21, are locked to the mining equipment on Massey Energy’s Bee Tree Surface Mine, near to the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment (maps: zoomed out, up-close).  Their banner states “Save Coal River Mountain” alongside images of ginseng, a morel, a deer and a black bear, the West Virginia state animal.

Activists lay a banner reading “Save Coal River Mountain” in front of the highwall miner.

The human rights activists locked down in order to bring attention to the many local resources that will be lost if blasting on Coal River Mountain continues. This destruction led the four protesters, including 22-year-old Jimmy Tobias and 20-year-old Sophie Kern, both of whom acted as direct support, to take part in the action. “These mountains are home to some of the most biologically diverse temperate forests in the world and contain a variety of precious flora and fauna including edible and medicinal plants that can save lives, a wide array of extremely nutritious mushrooms, old growth forest and an abundance of deer and trout,” Huszcza said, “Coal River Mountain is priceless.”

Local resident Ed Wiley laments the loss of wildlife caused by the construction of the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, built in what was once some of the densest, oldest forest on the mountain.

“You could look off through the woods there and see a big Mamma bear with three or four cubs,” he says “But now they go on in there and remove the timber, and then start removing the overburden, and Momma bears with their cubs don’t come out of their dens until about the end of May, so they’re getting buried alive.”

The highwall miner and activists are approached by two bulldozers bringing parts needed for mining.

“When the timber is gone, when the topsoil is gone, when the air and water are destroyed, the less than 4 percent of our nation’s energy needs that mountaintop removal provides will be small consolation,” said Flood, one of the four protestors, “The coal companies and land companies are blasting this land, ruining its rivers and poisoning its people for the sake of flat screen TVs, pick-up trucks and profit margins.”

The activists are spotlighting dangers associated with the massive Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, which is permitted to contain 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal waste and estimates put the current level at seven billion gallons.  Brushy Fork’s foundation is built on a honeycomb of abandoned underground mines. If the foundation were to collapse, as in Martin Co., Ky., the slurry would engulf communities as far as 14 miles away, according to Marfork Coal Co.’s emergency warning plan regarding the impoundment.

“The Brushy Fork sludge dam places the downstream communities in imminent danger. The threat of being inundated by a wall of toxic sludge is always present.  Blasting next to this dam increases this risk at the same time that it destroys the opportunity for renewable wind energy,” said Vernon Haltom, co-director of Coal River Mountain Watch, in reference to the Coal River Wind Project.

“The protesters expect a long fight before blasting on Coal River Mountain stops and they remain committed to that fight,” said Tobias, one of the members of the support team. “This is a fight for the heart of Appalachia and the soul of America,” he said. “Land and freedom have always gone hand in hand. When you strip bare the land, you strip bare freedom. We won’t stop until the land is safe in the hands of those in the community who care for it.”

“It [the destruction of wilderness] makes mountaintop removal an act of treason,” Flood said.

Climate Ground Zero’s action campaign, begun in February of last year, has kept up a sustained series of direct actions since that time, continuing decades-long resistance to strip mining in Appalachia.

18 May 2010

The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona challenging Arizona’s new law requiring police to demand “papers” from people they stop who they suspect are not authorized to be in the U.S. The extreme law, the coalition charged, invites the racial profiling of people of color, violates the First Amendment and interferes with federal law.

The coalition filing the lawsuit includes the ACLU, MALDEF, National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), ACLU of Arizona, National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) – a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice.

“Arizona’s law is quintessentially un-American: we are not a ’show me your papers’ country, nor one that believes in subjecting people to harassment, investigation and arrest simply because others may perceive them as foreign,” said Omar Jadwat, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “This law violates the Constitution and interferes with federal law, and we are confident that we will prevent it from ever taking effect.”

The lawsuit charges that the Arizona law unlawfully interferes with federal power and authority over immigration matters in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution; invites racial profiling against people of color by law enforcement in violation of the equal protection guarantee and prohibition on unreasonable seizures under the 14th and Fourth Amendments; and infringes on the free speech rights of day laborers and others in Arizona.

“This discriminatory law pushes Arizona into a spiral of fear, increased crime and costly litigation,” said Victor Viramontes, MALDEF Senior National Counsel. “We expect that this misguided law will be enjoined before it takes effect.”

One of the individuals the coalition is representing in the case, Jim Shee, is a U.S.-born 70-year-old American citizen of Spanish and Chinese descent. Shee asserts that he will be vulnerable to racial profiling under the law, and that, although the law has not yet gone into effect, he has already been stopped twice by local law enforcement officers in Arizona and asked to produce his “papers.”

Another plaintiff, Jesus Cuauhtemoc Villa, is a resident of the state of New Mexico who is currently attending Arizona State University. The state of New Mexico does not require proof of U.S. citizenship or immigration status to obtain a driver’s license. Villa does not have a U.S. passport and does not want to risk losing his birth certificate by carrying it with him. He worries about traveling in Arizona without a valid form of identification that would prove his citizenship to police if he is pulled over. If he cannot supply proof upon demand, Arizona law enforcement is required to arrest and detain him.

Several prominent law enforcement groups, including the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, oppose the law because it diverts limited resources from law enforcement’s primary responsibility of providing protection and promoting public safety in the community and undermines trust and cooperation between local police and immigrant communities.

“This ill-conceived law sends a clear message to communities of color that the authorities are not to be trusted, making them less likely to come forward as victims of or witnesses to crime,” said Linton Joaquin, General Counsel of NILC. “Arizona’s authorities should not allow public safety to take a back seat to racial profiling.”

“African-Americans know all too well the insidious effects of racial profiling,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and Chief Executive Officer of the NAACP. “The government should be preventing police from investigating and detaining people based on color and accent, not mandating it. Laws that encourage discrimination have no place in this country anywhere for anyone.”

“This extreme law puts Arizona completely out of step with American values of fairness and equality,” said Julie Su, Litigation Director of the APALC. “In a state where U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were interned during World War II, it is deeply troubling that a law that would mandate lower-class treatment of people of color, immigrants and others seen to be outsiders would pass in 2010.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of labor, domestic violence, day laborer, human services and social justice organizations, including Friendly House, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), SEIU Local 5, United Food and Commercial Workers International (UFCW), Arizona South Asians for Safe Families (ASAFSF), Southside Presbyterian Church, Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Asian Chamber of Commerce of Arizona, Border Action Network, Tonatierra Community Development Institute, Muslim American Society, Japanese American Citizens League, Valle del Sol, Inc., Coalicion De Derechos Humanos, and individual named plaintiffs who will be subject to harassment or arrest under the law and a class of similarly situated persons.

“Day laborers have repeatedly defended their First Amendment rights in federal courts and successfully established their undeniable right to seek work in public areas,” said Pablo Alvarado, Executive Director of NDLON. “Arizona’s effort to criminalize day laborers and migrants is an affront to the Constitution and threatens to disrupt national unity, and we are confident that federal courts will intervene to ensure the protection of our bedrock civil rights.”

Even prior to the passage of the statute, local enforcement of federal immigration law has already caused rampant racial profiling of Latinos in Arizona, most notably in Maricopa County. The ACLU, MALDEF and other members of the coalition have several pending lawsuits against government officials in Arizona because of civil rights abuses of U.S. citizens and immigrants.

Organizations and attorneys on the case, Friendly House et al. v. Whiting et al., include:

• ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project: Jadwat, Lucas Guttentag, Cecillia Wang, Tanaz Moghadam and Harini P. Raghupathi;
• MALDEF: Viramontes, Tom Saenz, Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon, Nina Perales, Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, Gladys Limon and Nicholas Espiritu;
• NILC: Joaquin, Karen C. Tumlin, Nora A. Preciado, Melissa S. Keaney, Vivek Mittal and Ghazal Tajmiri;
• ACLU Foundation of Arizona: Dan Pochoda and Annie Lai;
• APALC: Su, Ronald Lee, Yungsuhn Park, Connie Choi and Carmina Ocampo;
• NDLON: Chris Newman and Lisa Kung;
• NAACP: Laura Blackburne;
• Munger Tolles & Olson LLP: Bradley S. Phillips, Paul J. Watford, Elizabeth J. Neubauer,Joseph J. Ybarra, Susan T. Boyd and Yuval Miller; and
• Roush, Mccracken, Guerrero, Miller & Ortega: Daniel R. Ortega, Jr.

The complaint can be found at: www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights-racial-justice/friendly-house-et-al-v-whiting-complaint

More information about the Arizona law, including an ACLU video and slide show, can be found at: www.aclu.org/what-happens-arizona-stops-arizona

SOURCE American Civil Liberties Union

18 May 2010

The ECEAE (European Coalition to End Animal Experiments), a coalition of animal protection groups across the EU, is accusing European ministers of seriously misleading the public over a new law about animal experiments. The current law, Directive 86/609, is being revised.

    The Council of Ministers has made several inaccurate claims:

    - Animal experiments will have to be replaced wherever possible, with
      numbers and suffering reduced to a minimum. In fact, this is nothing
      new - it is already the law. Worse, the new law would allow animals to
      be used even where there is an adequate replacement if the replacement
      is not listed in European legislation. Based on EU statistics, this
      would account for around 78% of all experiments (including for basic
      research).

    - Use of primates will be subject to tight restrictions. This is untrue.
      Although there are restrictions on the use of great apes, researchers
      will be able to use other primates even for minor human ailments, and
      in basic research without any special protection at all.

    - Only the offspring of primates bred in captivity or sourced from
      self-sustaining colonies can be used. This is untrue; merely a long-
      term aspiration, contingent on researchers' supply needs.

    - Claims that the new directive is a step towards the ultimate goal of
      achieving the full replacement of experiments on animals when
      scientifically possible are disingenuous. The Council position contains
      no mechanisms for achieving this goal. Ministers have rejected the use
      of targets and frequent reviews to reflect public opinion and evolving
      science.

Despite all the rhetoric, the truth is that animals will continue to be experimented on, in large numbers, for reasons which have nothing to do with finding cures for diseases – such as the “safety” testing of non-essential products and curiosity-driven research.

ECEAE Chief Executive, Michelle Thew: “The rhetoric just does not match the reality. There is a huge gap between the impression given by the EC of what will happen and the reality for the millions of animals who will continue to suffer and die in European laboratories. We are extremely disappointed that an opportunity to improve animal welfare and place greater restrictions on animal experimentation has so far been lost. The battle will now go back to the European Parliament.”

Contact: Sarah Kite at sarah.kite@buav.org or +44-(0)207-700-4888

http://www.eceae.org/

SOURCE ECEAE (European Coalition to End Animal Experiments)