Reel News UK Tour

We started the first Reel News Tour yesterday in Brighton and will be continuing on from Wednesday in Newcastle, Thursday in Glasgow, Saturday in Nottingham and Sunday we return yet again to the Foundry in London.

The films include coverage of the 2008 Climate Camp, expose more in the UK Academy school takeover, and recent updates on the County Mayo conflict against the Shell corporation's Irish Corrib Gas Project.

For more details see the Reel News website.


Issue 15 of Reel News is out now. It covers the 2008 Climate Camp, including the 15-minute film Covering Climate Camp, which looks at the police repression of journalists trying to cover the week in Kent. It also contains Press Freedom: Collateral Damage that was released several weeks back on Current TV.

Please support Reel News to keep our coverage going on the issues important to you.

All material on this blog - stills, video and print is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@googlemail.com

Maura Harrington Halts Hunger Strike

Yesterday at 3pm Maura Harrington ended her 11 day hunger strike outside the Shell Glengad pipeline landfall site in County Mayo, Ireland.

Ship tracking sites on the Internet confirmed the pipe-laying ship Solitaire had left Irish waters and was heading for dock in Glasgow for repairs after it was accidentally damaged before it could commence work last week.

Despite being very weak from her hunger strike, Maura held a press conference and was greeted by friends in some very emotional scenes.

Expecting trouble, the Garda called in an extra two van-loads of police, yet no ambulance was called, nor was a doctor on hand to check Maura's health. An earlier health check that week said she was in good health, this coming as no surprise to anyone that knew Maura.

Friday had been an intense day, with two locals being arrested at their homes at 7am, one of those being Pat "Chief" O-Donnell, who according to locals is arrested at least once a week over the last few months. The charges are more often than not dropped and the reason for detaining him and others seems to be nothing more than time wasting, yet again another tactic of the "no arrest - no martyr" policy here in County Mayo.

The UK Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday under headline "Can A Hunger Strike Stop Shell?"

BBC Political correspondent Andrew Marr once stated if a news headline ends in a question mark the answer is usually no. But in this instance it would seem the answer is a resounding yes, despite the Shell press release making no quote on Maura's hunger strike, claiming the removal of the Solitaire was for repairs and repairs only.

As well as film director Ken Loach speaking out against Shell's operations in County Mayo, yesterday the Guardian reported Erin Brockovich had began a verbal assault on the largest and most profitable oil and gas company in the world.

The film Policing The Pollution: "Don't Mention The Water", exposing Shell's pollution of the local water supply in Erris, County Mayo was released on Current TV in November 2007 and further released on Reel News in January 2008.

I also investigated and produced the Channel 4 report released in June 2007.

Please support Reel News to keep our coverage going on the issues important to you.

All material on this blog - stills, video and print is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@googlemail.com

Shell Announces Solitaire To Leave Ireland

At around 1pm this afternoon Shell released a statement to announce the pipe-laying ship Solitaire would return to the UK for repairs.


The statement came as ex-head teacher and Shell To Sea campaigner Maura Harrington entered her tenth day of hunger strike.


The previous day protestors occupied the rooftop of the Corrib Gas Project offices in Belmullet. Two of the three rooftop occupiers were not arrested, but merely detained at Belmullet police station a while, as names and addresses were confirmed. This policing yet again confirms the policy of no arrest in the area, that has continued for nearly two years, following superintendent Gannon's "no martyr" statement in November 2006.


Around Glengad in County Mayo, the site of the pipeline landfall and Maura Harrington’s hunger strike, the response was mixed. Campaigners and residents were at first overjoyed, but added they would believe it when they saw it leave Irish waters, as Shell had continually lied to them over the six-year campaign.

One local remined others today that only yesterday the campaigners were being blamed for a bomb being left on the doorstep of Shell headquarters in Dublin.

Maura Harrington said she would only believe the Shell statement when she got a UK postcard from the ship.

Policing The Pollution: "Don't Mention The Water" was also released on Reel News in January 2008.

Please support Reel News to keep our coverage going on the issues important to you.

All material on this blog - stills, video and print is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@googlemail.com

County Mayo At War With Shell Over Corrib Project

Thursday 18 September: Ex head teacher and Shell To Sea activist Maura Harrington entered her tenth day of hunger strike this morning in County Mayo, Ireland.


She has stated she will remain on hunger strike until the pipe-laying vessel Solitaire leaves Irish waters. The Solitaire, the largest pipe-laying ship in the world, was hired by Shell for the controversial and much delayed Corrib Gas Project. Work was halted on the first day due to accidental damage.


On Monday night, 15 September, as the protests against the project reached a new level and Maura entered her ninth day on hunger strike, Shell reported a suspect device was left on the doorstep of the Shell E & P Ireland offices in Dublin.


Shell's press release and subsequent reports immediately pointed the blame towards those opposed to the Corrib Gas Project. Residents and local campaigners denied they would resort to terrorism, stating their only device used was "the truth".


My return to County Mayo, coincides with the submission of the film Policing The Pollution to the Rory Peck Trust Awards.


Policing The Pollution was also released on Reel News in January 2008.

Please support Reel News to keep our coverage going on the issues important to you.

All material on this blog - stills, video and print, unless otherwise stated - is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@googlemail.com

Press Freedom: "Collateral Damage"

On Monday 9 September 2008 NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear delivered a slamming attack on the erosion of UK civil liberties and press freedom at the Brighton TUC conference. The BBC video of the speech is here (59 minutes in).

Photo courtesy of Marc Vallée/marcvallee.co.uk (c) Marc Vallée, 2008

Today saw the Internet release of the NUJ film Press Freedom: "Collateral Damage", hosted by Current TV.


The film highlights the increasing issues around press freedom in the UK, that has seen photographers and other journalists harrassed, intimidated,assaulted and put under surveillance by the London Metropolitan Police Forward Intelligence Team (FIT Squad).


One of the fundamental rules of a free and democratic society is a free press. If the press is no longer free to operate and document, the country is no longer democratic or free.


Press Freedom: Collateral Damage is the first part in an ongoing project, leading to a feature documentary expected to be released in Autumn 2009.


As well as copies of the film being available from the NUJ, Press Freedom: Collateral Damage will be available on the next release of Reel News, due out at the end of September.

Please support Reel News to keep our coverage going on the issues important to you.

All material on this blog - stills, video and print, unless otherwise stated - is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@googlemail.com

Carnival Against Vivisection

Saturday 6 September: Ledbury in Herefordshire is home to the Sequani Medical Research Laboratory and the centre of a civil rights case involving a recently jailed activist. At 12pm animal rights and civil rights protestors gathered for the Carnival Against Vivisection.

Fearing the worst, West Mercia police, with a little assistance from the London Forward Intelligence Team (FIT Squad), imposed Section 14 of the 1986 Public Order Act, restricting the protest to a grass verge opposite Ledbury train station between the hours of 12pm to 5pm, allowing only 15 people to demonstrate outside the laboratory at one time and denying any further protest after 5pm. The march of 150 protestors through Ledbury was allowed, but only with heavy police presence, including police dogs and helicopter.

Initially the protest tried to march on Sequani, but was halted by a wall of officers and several people were arrested.

The case of Sean Kirtley brings further to light the question of how far civil liberties in the UK have slipped. Kirtley, a dedicated animal rights activist was imprisoned for over four years under the controversial SOCPA legislation after an 18-week trial found him guilty of conspiring to interfere with the animal research laboratory.

According to Kirtley and his supporters, he did nothing more than write letters to Sequani, run a campaign website and organise peaceful protests.

The Independent newspaper reported the judge who convicted him was a fan of blood sports.

Upon his release from prison Kirtley stands to face a five-year anti-social behaviour order, which could halt any further involvement in political activity and impose curfews and restrictions of movement.

All material on this blog - stills, video and print - is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

Smash School Privatisation: The Battle For Wembley Sports Ground

Monday 4 August 2008: It was 5am when I arrived at the Wembley Park Sports Ground on Forty Avenue and Bridge Road, the site of a two year long struggle to save one of the remaining cheap, and often free, sports field and other facilities for the local children and broader community.


The tireless campaign by local teachers and residents under the title Tent City Occupation ended on Friday 18 July, as Brent NUT and ATL Secretary Hank Roberts locked himself by the neck to the sports ground banquet hall rooftop flagpole and defied the county court eviction order imposed earlier in the week, along with costs of £3,750 ($6,652).

But unbeknown to Brent Council, the fight to save the sports ground and make a stand against the privatisation of UK state education - under the confusing name of Academy, or Academisation, as the English language yet again invented another word to keep up with rapid changes in social and economic structure - unbeknown to all, including Tent City Occupation, a group of young international protestors had other ideas for the site.

One week after Roberts was removed from the roof and banned from the site for two years, the Grass Roots Alliance for Social Sports (G.R.A.S.S) took root and re-squatted the land.


But on that first Monday morning in August it started to get nasty. The court eviction order used to evict the G.R.A.S.S protestors was only valid against the businesses and the Tent City Occupation, yet council officials refused any discussion on this, instead turning to brute force to evict anyone in their way.

Brent Council officials argued that it was an all-encompassing eviction order, therefore they had the right to evict everyone, including the press trying to cover the incident. Local press photographer Stuart Emmerson was assaulted by a council official in the process.


A Brent spokesperson denied that anyone was assaulted, but looking back over the video evidence, when protestor Emma was pulled by three bailiffs from the tree where she was locked by the neck she was strangled for an instant and later hurled across the pavement, or when another protestor was led out in a neck and arm lock, that would seem, to this investigative video journalist, to be an excessive use of force, especially when no one was resisting.


Assault is an interesting word, as it depends on who you ask what is "assault". A council bailiff, or a police officer might disagree, but a lawyer looking at this video may well think differently.


The four squatters in the house on the property were also evicted by the bailiffs that morning. John and Katie, who lived in the squat due to the poverty trap of not being able to afford the rising costs of property rental in the increasingly gentrified area of Wembley, claimed at no time had they been informed by Brent Council to vacate the property. The first thing they knew about their eviction was a bailiff with an attack dog kicking in their door at seven in the morning.

Again, the Brent Council spokesperson said the previous eviction order covered everyone, including the "illegal squatters".

No matter what one thinks of squatters, the law of the land is there for a reason, and there are laws, rules, regulations and a process to follow when evicting squatters. When a council chooses to ignore those laws and pursue its own agenda there has been a serious collapse in democratic policy.

If a council is willing to ignore the law for one section of its community it should come as no surprise when they ignore the law in other areas.

Photo courtesy of Stuart Emmerson. (c) Stuart Emmerson 2008.

Wembley Park Sports Ground is now in locked down. CCTV and guard dog warning signs adorn the surrounding fences. Security officers patrol the site day and night. Temporary accommodation is sprouting up and the rear end of the playing fields has been torn up by construction vehicles, as has the area where the original Tent City Occupation pitched their tents.

A Brent Council spokesperson stated the site would re-open to the public "once there is no longer a health and safety risk".

The spokesperson then went on to add, "We hope to make the sports ground available for wider community use, out of school hours. The school can’t operate at a loss when offering its facilities, but it would offer affordable prices for groups to continue using the site for sport."

These statements seem to go back on what Brent Council Project Manager Robert Lanwarne said back in May this year.

Lanwarne stated: "Brent Council and Ark are committed to making the facility available to the community." There was no mention of "out of school hours". So the community accessibility has already diminished, which is the opposite of Lanwarne's claim the facilities would be "enhanced".

Lanwarne also stated the development will be around the "perimeter of the site", yet the video shows the temporary accommodation already encroaching into parts of the sports field.

It would seem, as has been the case throughout all my coverage of this campaign against school privatisation, the local authority has a chronic case of "doublethink" and "newspeak".

For now, the community has lost a valuable space for the young and old, in a time when even Government studies into youth crime and gang culture stated firmly the main cause of this and poor education is poverty and lack of community facilities.

Maybe Brent Council should listen to the recent warnings from Lambeth Council that taking away valuable community space can only lead to a worsening social problem.

Below is the video of GRASS: The Battle For Wembley Sports Ground.




Reel News has been covering the academisation of the UK education system since the beginning.

Save Our Schools 22-minute film available on Reel News issue 13
Stop them Privatising Our Schools available on Reel News issue 12
Wembley Occupation available on Reel News issue 10

Please support Reel News to keep our coverage going on the issues important to you.

All material on this blog - stills, video and print - is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive four-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@googlemail.com