An American and an Australian activist have been cleared of planning violent demos at COP15.

Danish prosecutors have suffered a serious defeat in the wake of the COP15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen last December after a court has cleared an Australian and an American activist of planning violent demonstrations during the summit.

The Copenhagen Municipal Court judge found that prosecution evidence was not strong enough to warrant the accusations and set the two free to the general applause of some 30 supporters.

The charges against the two, a 27-year-old American man and a 34-year-old Australian woman, included planning several violent demonstrations against, among others, the Danish confederation of industries DI, Dansk Energi, Shell, Maersk and Forum.

The two, who have previously been in custody for three weeks, have consistently denied all charges.

According to the charges the two had planned their violent demonstrations but were prevented from carrying them out when police detained them in mid-December, before the COP15 summit reached its climax.
 

Community Protests Police Terror

On Saturday, August 28, activists and concerned community members marched through the streets of Denver to protest murders and beatings of unarmed persons by Denver and Aurora police officers. About 150 marchers gathered at 2 pm, at the corner of 20th Street and Little Raven, where Mark Ashford was brutalized. The march followed a route that visited the scene of police violence against Shawn Johnson and Michael DeHerrera at Fifteenth and Larimer Streets, and finally ending at the Van Cise Simonet Detention Center, where Marvin Booker, a homeless street preacher arrested on a misdemeanor charge, was beaten, tased, and crushed to death by deputies on July 9, 2010, as he tried to retrieve his shoes, before being taken to another area of the jail.

There were several protests shortly after Mr. Booker's death. This larger event, organized by All Nations Alliance and West Denver and Aurora Copwatch, was the first since the usually complacent court termed Mr. Booker's death a homicide. The deputies involved in the death have been put on paid leave—hardly a punishment--and Safety Manager Ron Peria has resigned. However, outraged community members are calling for full prosecution of the case, with murder charges against the officers. They are also demanding the release of a video-tape that captured the murder of Mr. Booker.

Join West Denver Copwatch, Aurora Copwatch, the hood, the barrio, the community, and concerned folks for a tour of police brutality.

Denver Law Enforcement has been brutal for years, however the situation has reached a pinnacle.

We will be marching to the sites of the most recent incidents of brutality

The march will be begin at 20th St and Little Raven where Mark Ashford was brutalized.

It will continue to 15th street and Larimer where Shawn Johnson and Michael DeHerrera were viciously assaulted.

The march will end at the Van Cise Justice Center where Marvin Booker was murdered by the hands of Denver deputies, and the rally will ensue.

Be there to demand JUSTICE, TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, OVERSIGHT, and an END TO POLICE BRUTALITY

Where: Gather at 20th and Little Raven

When: Saturday August 28, 2010 @ 2:00pm, Step off @ 2:30pm

Bring your love and your rage

Contact info: westdenvercopwatch@riseup.net
720.878.3658
 

by anonymous for Colorado Indymedia

August 20th, 2010 - Denver, CO

The police in Denver are rabid. Folks are saying the cops and the city are "circling their wagons" after multiple high-profile brutality incidents were caught on video. By the actions of the Denver Sheriff's Department and Denver Safety Manager Ron Perea, it would be hard to say those folks are wrong. At the new detention center, fully equipped with state of the art surveillance, a small but lively 54 year old black houseless street preacher brought in on a minor drug charge is beaten, choked out, and tased before succumbing to death over a pair of shoes; the Sheriff's Department and the District Attorney do everything they can to suppress the release of the video in the name of a "pending investigation." His killers, five guards, continue to work in the facility despite a Denver Corner ruling of homicide this week. More rallies are planned.

Marvin Booker was a street pastor tased and beaten to death in the new Denver jail. His family, including his father and brothers have just arrived in Denver to get answers around his brutal murder.

The family, along with his attorneys, are demanding entrance into the jail to relive and attempt to put to rest the horrific tragedy that occurred by the hands of the Denver Sheriff’s department.

Join the Family for a press conference and to Demand Justice for Marvin Booker

When: Tomorrow, August 11th @ 10:00 am

Where: Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center, located at 490 W.Colfax Ave

Plans are in the works for a Southwest Bio-Regional Earth First! Rendezvous and Organizers’ Conference, August 20-22, in the beautiful San Luis Valley of Colorado. The rendezvous site is near the town of Saguache, in the Rio Grande National Forest. Exact site location and directions will be released some time in early August.

We’re seeking teachers and trainers to help facilitate workshops in direct action, civil disobedience, forest defense, eco-defense, and more…

We must build the skill sets and face to face relationships of trust and affinity necessary to effectively defend our bio-regions and land bases.

The size and organization of this event will in many ways reflect our current state as a force to be reckoned with in the Southwest, which is to say that this will be a small gathering with less structure and organization than other rendezvous in bio-regions where the EF! presence is more established and experienced.

Though an informal communal kitchen will be formed, please come prepared for self-sufficiency and inclement weather. Water for filtration or other purification is available on site.

Contact southwestearthfirst@riseup.net for more info or to get involved.
 

More: http://southwestearthfirst.wordp...

A Banner reading All Cops R Murderers Justice 4 Marvin Booker was hung about 3 p.m. in the afternoon on Highway 287 and the Emma St. overpass.  Justice for Marvin Booker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The second annual Wild Roots Feral Futures, a small, free, and informal eco-defense & earth skills gathering on the shores of the Piedra River in the San Juan National Forest of Southwest Colorado—which we consider occupied Ute territories—took place from June 19th through 26th, 2010. Many attendees arrived days before the official start of the gathering, and others stayed on after the official end to help break down and clean up. Nestled in one of the largest and last remaining stands of old growth Ponderosa Pine, amongst the meadows of many-colored wild-flowers and the natural hot springs along the Piedra River, on the edge of Colorado's largest Wilderness area, folks from coast to coast converged to share skills, stories, music, adventures, and much more...

For my part as a locally-based event organizer, the tasks and lessons of co-organizing such an event proved to be quite challenging, not to mention draining (to the point that it's taken me weeks of r&r to even get around to writing this report-back, sorry!). Pre-event organizing—which mostly consisted of promotion online and around town—wasn't as taxing, but once in the woods, I found very little time to participate in the many amazing activities and workshops, and spent much of my time filling roles no one else had stepped up and volunteered for. Naturally, tasks like digging or burying latrines, or graveyard welcoming/security shifts, are quite often difficult to get folks to volunteer for, but towards the end, it became very difficult to get anyone to sign up for any of the shifts whatsoever, and a handful of people ended up carrying a disproportionately large amount of responsibility (many thanks to all those who did volunteer, and extra special thanks to those of you who did something multiple times when others wouldn't step up!).

http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2...

Since the closing of Unity Infoshop several years ago, Denver has lacked a specifically anti-authoritatian community space. While several spaces exist that help to strengthen a local anarchist movement, specifically anarchist spaces do not exist in the Denver metro area.

With the opening of the 27 Social Centre this May, the humble foundations for a new anarchist and anti-capitalist community space have been laid. Now, in an attempt to really develop this space into one that can help strengthen and even expand local struggles against domination, a small crew of folks are organizing for an infoshop and lending library to be housed in the 27.

We're calling for collaboration from any folks that are interested in helping ensure that quality anarchist literature, books, and other forms of culture and education are available in a large quantity through a local infoshop project. We will be hosting an open meeting at the 27 Social Centre (2727 W. 27th Ave Unit D) on Wednesday July 14th at 6pm.

Please join us to help vision and organize for this new project!

If you aren't interested in helping organize, but want to help out, any donations of books, magazines, periodicals, or other materials would be greatly appreciated and vital to the existence of this project.

In love and solidarity!
Some Denver Folx.
 

On June 30, 2010, as I sat at the coffeehouse where I often go to use the Internet, I decided to search my own name via the Google search engine, to see where some of my articles, videos, music and other items may have been reposted, reproduced, linked and/or embedded online. I'm a songwriter and performer and I post my music on YouTube where I have a channel, and much to my dismay I found one of my more controversial songs, which I wrote in 2008 but did not record until 2010, embedded on a white supremacist social networking site for the National Socialist Movement (NSM) called "White American Revolution."

In order to deny them the opportunity to make either myself or the City of Denver, Colorado, a target, as well as to prevent them from using it as some form of propaganda, I chose to disallow embedding of the song, which is called "White Flight" and is about neo-liberal urban gentrification in general. After disabling the embedding option, quite literally only one day later, I received a hateful and threatening message in my voicemail on my cell phone. I attached the .mov file with the audio to the story and the following link is to a YouTube video with the audio recording of the voicemail message I received on July 1st, 2010, around 10 P.M. or so at night (the message contains language that may be considered disturbing and offensive, listener discretion is advised):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d...

Here is a link to the video containing the song "White Flight." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B...

The Wild Roots/Feral Futures gathering took place nestled in the rugged San Juan National Forest of southwestern Colorado, stretching from the first quarter moon on Saturday, June 19th, through the Summer Solstice on the 21st, to the full moon on Saturday the 26th, although many camped out days prior and stayed past the “official” end of the gathering. Billed as “a rewilding gathering of rebel tribes and Earth warriors”, Feral Futures essentially an opportunity to unplug from the consumerist, urban milieu in which most of us live and struggle from day to day, and instead visualize and practice living in communal simplicity, freed from Civilization's technology and social hierarchy and in connection with the rhythms of Nature.

UPDATE JULY 09 2012: Some public records requests were made about this investigation and have been posted to http://colorado.indymedia.org/no...

On Jun 17, Colorado Indymedia was contacted by Special Agent Adam Kowalski of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)/Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As part of an "ongoing investigation" by Federal Protective Services, they attempted to seize the Colorado Indymedia server, believing that we kept logs (such as IP address access logs) that could identity users on our site. Our servers are graciously hosted at Denver Open Media who was approached by Kowalski. Kowalski claimed he had a court order but refused to leave a copy at Denver Open Media. He was told to contact the system administrators in order to obtain the logs as Denver Open Media does not have the ability to consent to a seizure or search of our property.

As of this date, we do not have a copy of the court order if it even exists. It's likely that this was just a bluff as it's well-established that cops, the FBI, and other law enforcement can lie in order to illicit consent and lying about court orders is no exception.

We told the FBI that "Colorado Indymedia does not retain this [identifying] information because we strongly believe in the First Amendment right to free, anonymous speech. Frequently communities outside of our society's mainstream feel more comfortable expressing their views in an anonymous setting. Like all Independent Media Centers, Colorado Indymedia exists to serve these communities, and thus strives to maintain the anonymity of its users."

by Tom Gomez

David Miljares came to the US from Mexico in the early 1980’s. He hoped to find streets paved with gold; instead he found work as a migrant laborer. Sometimes Miljares says he earned as much as $40 a day picking crops in the broiling sun. Often though, he earned far less. A whole day’s work in a pesticide laden field sometimes brought only $20. Once Miljares claims he spent two weeks cleaning land in eastern Oregon with dozens of other undocumented workers and didn’t get paid at all. Eventually Miljares turned to crime and became a thief. At the age of 25 he was given a 28 years sentence for multiple counts of residential burglary and illegally re-entering the US. Now 41 and in prison for the past 16 years, Miljares is one of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants incarcerated in US prisons.

Unlike Miljares however, many, if not most of the undocumented immigrants in the criminal justice system, are in prison for no more than using false documents to work and drive, lying to police about their immigration status, or illegally re-entering the US; often having been deported usually to be reunited with wives and children. Others however are in prison for serious crimes, and will be here for a long time. No one believes that criminal aliens like David Miljares serving time for serious felony charges should be set free. But the cost of housing undocumented immigrants in US prisons is prohibitively high. Should he serve his full sentence the government will have spent $840,000 on Miljares alone. Few undocumented immigrants justify such expense.

As I write this there is a crowd gathered in front of the Colorado State Capitol building in Denver holding a demonstration in protest of the massacre of civilians committed by the Israeli military on Monday, May 31, 2010, aboard the Mavi Marmara as it sailed in international waters en route to Gaza to deliver much needed humanitarian aid in defiance of the Israeli State's illegal blockade, which has claimed countless Palestinian lives. 

The protest is being held in solidarity with massive protests around the world over this heinous crime committed by the Israeli military. The crowd is relatively large and the press was present from television news outlets. The signs are large and visible along with Palestinian and American flags. 

The number of people killed aboard the Mavi Marmara is still not confirmed, last I heard it was around 20 or more, and most recent reports from eye-witness/activists who have returned to Turkey and Greece say the Israeli military opened fire on the Freedom Flotilla prior to their soldiers' boarding the Mavi Marmara, according to a report yesterday by the Guardian/UK ("Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists," published Tuesday June 1, 2010, by Dorian Jones from Istanbul, Turkey, and Helena Smith in London.)

The demonstration gathered on Lincoln and Colfax at 5:30 P.M. and will likely run until dark, so if anyone reading can join the crowd there is still time. Thank you to everyone attending and expressing solidarity with the victims of the flotilla massacre and the people of Gaza still under siege after more than a year of Israel's illegal blockade. 

Around 6:00 p.m., MST, on Monday, May 31, two people were stabbed outside Wendy's on Colfax Ave. and Emerson Street in Denver, Colorado.

The two victims were on their way to attend the Insane Clown Posse (I.C.P.) concert at the Fillmore Auditorium next door, at Colfax and Clarkson, when a fight broke out that ended with two people stabbed and one person fleeing the seen, who was later taken into custody by Denver Police. The witnesses, a group of young women, adolescent ages, who were not attending the concert but came downtown to look at the many artistic face-paint designs displayed traditionally now by fans of I.C.P., often known as "Juggalos" and "Jugalettes." They explained that two men started yelling at one another, then some unidentified person hit another person with a rock over the head just shortly before a man pulled out a knife and stabbed another man. Then, according to local corporate media reports, the person attempted to flee the seen and was chased by another man, presumably a friend or acquaintance of the first victim. The alleged perpetrator then stabbed this individual as well. The young women began explaining that I.C.P. fans are "not peaceful people." They speculated the stabbing was part of some kind of "I.C.P. gang" issue, however, another man who was not only a witness but allegedly spoke to the victims' friends, when I asked the young women to elaborate, the man interrupted and explained that the incident had absolutely nothing to do with 'Juggalos' per se. He explained that the fight that broke out was actually a domestic dispute - two men fighting over a woman with whom they both allegedly had relations. This, naturally, would therefore have nothing to do with the band I.C.P., a very controversial hip hop group whose fans have been tagged as gang members and placed on gang lists by police around the United States. 

On May 7th three GJ Police Officers were placed on administrative leave following allegations that police slashed tents, bike tires, and other things at a well-established houseless camp. Over three weeks later the police remain on leave as the investigation dragged on. But on Saterday May 29th GJPD dropped eleven brand-new tents to The Bad Water Flats Collective house where member of Housing First! No More Deaths! could then distro the tent to the victims. We view this as an admission of guilt and we expect further consequences in the future.

Loca Media Round-Up (so far)

NBC 11:   http://www.nbc11news.com/localne...

Daily Sentinel:  http://www.gjsentinel.com/breaking/articles/police-give-tents-to-transients-as-part-of-misconduct-probe

CBS 5:    http://www.krextv.com//index.php/site/article/grand_junction_police_give_new_tents_to_homeless/rex779192/

Over the weekend of the 15th of May, an ICE field office in Loveland, Colorado was attacked.  Every window and door was shattered, totaling around twelve panes in all. 

The unmarked facility is one of many such hidden ICE buildings in the U.S. that attempt to operate in secrecy.  One tactic used by ICE to maintain this secrecy is to take people from their homes in the middle of the night to be "processed" before taken to privately-owned ICE prisons. 

By operating in secrecy, ICE is able to maintain this particular sub-station within a shopping and residential district without revealing the repression used to create and sustain borders.

This action was taken in the climate typified by SB1070 in Arizona and local anti-immigrant sentiment.  However, the ICE office would have been targeted regardless of legislation.

Resistance and attacks against manifestations of borders, prison and power will continue as long as families are separated and people are imprisoned, deported, and harassed.

As others have said-

NO DEPORTATIONS!!! NO BORDERS!!

Solidarity means attack.

Greetings from the Ute territories of occupied Turtle Island, known (for now) as the American Southwest.

The Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers collective has been hard at work preparing for this year's event, which is shaping up to be one wild time! Many things have come together, many things continue to do so, and many thing still need to. At this time, less than one month before the gathering, we felt it was worthwhile to update you all on some of the recent developments surrounding the event, as well as provide various other random notes, thoughts, and observations. Please re-post and forward far and wide.

Discussion/ride share board:

New discussion board (INCLUDING RIDE SHARE BOARD!) at http://feralfutures.proboards.com/

Site Location:

The exact location and directions to Wild Roots Feral Futures, taking place in the San Juan mountains of Southwest Colorado (in National Forest), will be announced some time in early June. The site is along a river and features old growth Ponderosa Pines, natural hot springs, and much more. Close-by towns to shoot for would include Pagosa Springs, Bayfield, and Durango, Colorado. For more information, email the organizers at feralfutures@riseup.net.

Organizer's Meetings:

Semi-public meetings for folks interested in getting involved are taking place on a weekly basis in Durango, Colorado, every Wednesday. Contact the organizers at feralfutures@riseup.net for more information.

High Country Earth First! Bioregional Rendezvous & Organizer's Conference, June 24th & 25th at WRFF:

Please forward widely.

Support New Mexico Indigenous Leaders in Protesting the Expansion of Uranium Mining and the Nuclear Cycle of Destruction!

Demand a Clean Up of This Toxic Legacy and Respect for Sacred Lands

Wednesday, May 26, Noon

Grand Hyatt Hotel

1750 Welton Street, Denver, Colorado

On May 25-27 a delegation of Navajo community leaders will come to Denver to protest US Government support for expanding the nuclear industry that has already had a devastating impact on Native American and Chicano communities in New Mexico.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Mining Association will host a “Uranium Recovery” conference designed to make it easier for mining companies to move forward with a new era of uranium mining.

When the uranium boom ended over thirty years ago, mining companies skipped town and left New Mexico with a devastating legacy of sick communities—including high rates of cancers, respiratory diseases, reproductive disorders and miscarriages. They also left contaminated water, soil, and air. There are still hundreds of abandoned uranium mines in New Mexico, largely located on Navajo land and Pueblo lands, and state and federal agencies are only now beginning to inventory those mines and begin the cleanup process.