Climate Camp’s legal team refuse to participate in undercover review

May 20, 2011

The Camp for Climate Action Legal Team was recently invited to take part in a ‘Have Your Say’ event on Tuesday 24^th May, as part of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary’s ongoing review into the police’s domestic extremism units. The review was launched in response to January’s serial revelations about undercover police officers deployed within a range of protest groups.

Today, we have written to HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and declined their invitation.

Climate Camp has certainly had its fair share of dealings with undercover police. It has been well documented how police infiltrators Lynn Watson and Mark Kennedy helped to execute the first camp near Drax power station in 2006. They went on to play roles in many of Climate Camp’s subsequent actions.

One thing is abundantly clear. Despite the millions of pounds that we now know was poured into undercover operations against us, they failed to stop the growing climate justice movement. While the likes of Kennedy and Watson watched every little thing we did, we were successful in stopping the third runway from being built at Heathrow and we threw the government’s plans for new coal fired power stations into disarray.

Even when they occasionally undermined our activities, our resilience was undisputable. In April 2009 the undercover unit responsible for Mark Kennedy secured the arrest of 113 climate activists on the eve of a planned shutdown of Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. However, not only did the controversial pre-emptive arrest fail to lead to a single safe conviction, but six months later the climate movement returned to the very same power station - this time bringing over 1000 people.

Yet, this does not stop us from strongly condemning the police’s actions in deploying undercover officers against those who wish to take political action. Their actions have caused gross infringements on countless people’s right to privacy and freedom of expression. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest they repeatedly acted illegally.

Sadly, we hold little faith in this review’s ability to change anything.

The scope of this inquiry is far too limited.  Its terms of reference, which failed to be made public from the outset, focus on internal issues of police management and administration. There is no scope for questioning the ethical and moral issues that emerged from this year’s revelations, particularly given that we are being offered just a single 2-hour consultation session towards the end of the review process.

Furthermore, the scandal of police infiltrators requires the actions and decisions of senior police officers to be investigated, not just the behaviour of the undercover operatives themselves. We do not therefore believe that HMIC, predominantly staffed by senior police officers, is a sufficiently independent body to be conducting the review.

The Climate Camp Legal Team has always sought to hold the police to account when they act disproportionately and unlawfully, as was demonstrated at our recent high court victory regarding ‘kettling’. The issue of undercover policing is no different, but we will only participate in a process when we believe there is hope of gaining meaningful answers.

A defendant speaks as campaigners remain defiant after Manchester Airport protest sentencing

February 25, 2011

Defendant Dave Cullen reflects on the two day trial of the six climate protesters who breached airside security at Manchester Airport in May 2011, forming a human chain around the wheel of an aircraft. The defendants pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated trespass, arguing that they acted to prevent death and serious injury by stopping emissions.

It’s been a long & strange experience. I feel really privileged to have spent a most of two days listening to experts at the top of their field talk about their specialist areas of knowledge. It was surreal to hear them outline in stark terms the huge threat that is climate change, and the overwhelming need to take action right now, and then to look around at the staid courtroom and the calm faces. My immediate thought was often: “What are we doing sitting around listening to this? Why aren’t we out there chaining ourselves to large pieces of carbon infrastructure”.

I think it’s fair to say that although the experience of sitting in court was a sometimes little like being at school in front of a grumpy headmaster, we’ve all come out of it more convinced than ever that we had to take action, and that we can’t go back home and wait for the established political structures to sort their act out. Time after time, the court was told that climate change is killing people right now, and that our window for doing something about it is rapidly shrinking.

We heard that the Climate Change and Health Council, comprised of high profile public health professionals such as the editor of the British Medical Journal, are so concerned about the threat from climate change that they have a policy of supporting those involved in non-violent direct action. We heard from retired professors and MPs who are so concerned about this issue that they recognise that direct action is a logical response to the situation. With endorsements like that, who cares what the district judge in Trafford Magistrates Court thinks?

It was really clear from the Judges summing up that he really failed to understand or engage with the issues before the court. In fact from what he said I’m not sure he really understood all of the legal issues, but there you go. For the court to acquit us, he would have to sign up to premise that any reasonable person faced with the reality of climate change and knowing what we know, would feel obliged to break into Manchester Airport and lock themselves around the wheel of a plane. That was never likely to happen, but I’m really glad to have stood up in court and said why I felt it necessary to take action on climate change, and to give more prominence to the issues.

There are so many points and comments I will remember: Professor Kevin Anderson saying that, aside from setting fire to a large pool of kerosene in your back garden, flying was the most carbon intensive activity that anyone can engage in. Hearing Pete Johnson, whose house will be demolished by Manchester Airport’s expansion plans, detailing how he felt he had been thwarted by politicians with vested interests. Standing up myself and telling the council for the prosecution that the only debate on climate change was between people who knew what they were talking about and those who didn’t.

The main thing that came out in our evidence was that Manchester Airport’s expansion plans have been shown to be invalid, based on outdated national policy which has been superseded by the 2008 Climate Change Act and a 2010 High Court ruling. This was never challenged in the court, and the judge even accepted to the extent that he wanted to dismiss our case because we would have had such a good case in a judicial review of the expansion plans. Actually, that avenue was closed to us because of the potential costs, and because the legal odds would have been stacked against us.

What was really clear was that the Manchester City Council’s expansion plans lack any grounding in either law or common sense. Despite the backwards attitude of the judge, and the irrelevant bickering about whether our actions actually prevented emissions or not, we won the moral argument, and came out of the court even more determined to draw attention to the pointless shortsighted nature of what is happening. Our case stated clearly that our society, wedded to short-term economic growth without regard for environmental or social consequences, cannot continue the way it is. This was never challenged, because it is incontestable. I know that almost everyone who sat through that court hearing recognises this more than ever, and that the time for action is now.

Judicial Review of G20 policing: court report

January 20, 2011

Anyone who was there on April 1st 2009 outside the European Climate Exchange will not quickly forget the policing of that day and not have two unanswered questions.  Why did the police decide to kettle the Climate Camp anyway?  And why did the police use such a massive amount of force?

I spent today at the Royal Courts of Justice with lawyers representing some Climate Campers who have launched a Judicial Review about the actions of the police on April 1st.

They are arguing that the police should not have kettled us, when they did kettle us they should not have kept us all in the kettle until they decided to ‘disperse’ us, that the level of force used by the police was not appropriate, and that the camp should not have been ‘dispersed’ in the night, amongst other things.

Today was the ‘directions hearing’, where our lawyers presented arguments to the Court about what evidence the police had to give us and crucially, if Chief Superintendent Johnson, the key police decision-maker for the police action taken at the Camp, could be cross examined about his decisions.

At the end of a long morning, the Judge said that Chief Superintendent Johnson would be required to attend Court and depending on what the Judge on the day says, he may well have to take the stand and answer questions from our lawyers.

In my personal opinion, I would love to see him squirm trying to justify his decisions that lead to police behaving so brutally that day.  Our lawyers seemed pretty happy with the outcome (cross-examination in Judicial Reviews is very rare so this is quite an achievement), so hopefully that means we are set up well for the rest of the case.

The next thing to happen is the actual hearing, which should be scheduled the Spring and should take three days.  We would appreciate it if a few people came and showed their support, so there will be something in the Climate Camp newsletter with the time and place nearer the time.

The legal team would like to thank the people for their donations which made this case possible.

Superglue 3

January 09, 2011

On the 23rd of August 2010 we superglued ourselves to The Royal Bank of Scotland in Nicolson Street in Edinburgh. Meanwhile a group of our friends regaled customers and staff with a musical explanation of why RBS’s will lead to climate catastrophe. The action was part of a day of action called by the Camp for Climate action

The responses were varied. Some people were supportive, some were angry at RBS because of their role in the financial crisis, some joked about this being like a Fringe performance. Others simply wanted to use the bank. Our tone was always polite and friendly. After some time the bank decided to close, presumably not wishing their customers to be fully informed of the bank’s destructive practices.

Despite the clearly ‘fluffy’ nature of action and clear evidence that RBS complicity in climate crimes, we have been charged with Breach of the Peace and will appear before the courts in January. This site exists to keep our friends and supporters up to date with their trials and tribulations and bumpy legal journey.

For more see http://www.superglue3.org/

Great imagery from this year’s Climate Camp

September 16, 2010

Divinenephron has shared some great photographs from this year’s Climate Camp at RBS in Edinburgh.

Enjoy!

Weekly Round-up: 14th September 2010

September 14, 2010

The Weekly Round-up is back in action after this year’s camp and it’s packed full of really important call outs from across the UK.

Defend Huntingdon Lane

First up, we blogged about the great achievements of the Defend Huntingdon Lane camp in a previous blog post but it appears that British Coal are ramping up activity and preparing to start evicting the Camp.

To make sure this doesn’t happen there’s a call out for support – both in the form of people to get up to the camp and help with defense and providing much needed resources and supplies.

For latest news and specific requests head over to the blog.

Crude Awakening

Meanwhile the fight against environmental destruction being waged by Big Oil is stepping up a pace. Crude Awakening has issued a call out to activists to start planning for a day of mass action in central London on October 16^th:

Floods in Pakistan, drought in Russia, huge glaciers breaking up in Greenland…

Our climate system is rapidly sliding into crisis, as oil companies destroy people’s lives and the environment to keep sucking up their profits.

Oil saturates every aspect of our lives. Oil profits lubricate the financial markets and its sponsorship clings like a bad smell to our cultural institutions.

It flows through pipelines to the pumps, airports and factories of our cities. The failure of the UN COP15 process showed us – if there was ever any doubt – that government and industry can’t tackle climate change. It’s up to us and it’s time to up the ante.

As a movement, our actions against coal and aviation have made a real difference. Now oil’s time is up.

Together, on October 16, let’s give the oil industry a Crude Awakening.

Meet in central London. Be ready to move. Be ready to stay and stand your ground. Be creative. Be prepared. Be there.

Find out more, get involved and sign up for text alerts at www.crudeawakening.org.uk

Part of the CJA global week of action for climate justice

Supported by: Space Hijackers, Climate Camp, Plane Stupid, Rising Tide, Liberate Tate, Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, UK Tar Sands Network

Hope to see you on streets

You can also follow the Crude Awakening build-up on Facebook and Twitter.

Finally, great news from Scotland where last Sunday 12th September a group of autonomous individuals successfully occupied a new site in Happendon Wood, South Lanarkshire.

Coal Action Scotland are inviting people to join The Happendon Wood Action Camp (THWAC) to help defend it from destruction by Scottish Coal and to take action in solidarity with communities in the area resisting the expansion of the coal industry in the Douglas Valley.

You can find out more about the camp here and there’s a full blog post about the camp right here on the Climate Camp blog.

Till next week

Happendon Wood Occupied! New Direct Action Camp Against Scottish Coal

September 13, 2010

Early evening on Sunday 12th September a group of autonomous individuals successfully occupied a new site in Happendon Wood, South Lanarkshire! Coal Action Scotland are inviting people to join The Happendon Wood Action Camp (THWAC) to help defend the wood from destruction by Scottish Coal, and to take action in solidarity with communities in the area resisting the expansion of the coal industry in the Douglas Valley.

40 people have occupied areas within Happendon Wood, South Lanarkshire (1) to defend it from destruction by Scottish Coal, part of the Scottish Resources Group. They have begun to build shelters and defences on the site, with large banners hung from trees at the front of the site that say: “Defending the Douglas Valley” and “No Opencast Here”. The Happendon Wood Action Camp has come out of a long-term struggle by the local community and Coal Action Scotland (2) to halt coal expansion in the Douglas Valley which is already one of the most heavily mined areas in Europe.

The Scottish Resources Group have applied for planning permission for a mixed use development (3) on this land (which is in an area of Great Landscape Value) in the Douglas Valley, but they intend to opencast the area first. The South Lanarkshire minerals plan highlights areas within the new development as having recoverable coal deposits that can be excavated during the current local plan. Scottish Coal actually wouldn’t be allowed to build on the land without open casting it first, otherwise this would be “sterilising the nations asset” and therefore illegal. (4)

Scottish Coal have not yet publicly declared their interests in opencasting Happendon Wood but many members of the local community have expressed deep concerns that they will be blighted with yet another opencast coal mine. In a recent meeting about the development, MSP for Clydesdale Karen Gillon told local residents that she did not doubt that they would remove the coal, in spite of the fact that the area that SRG wish to develop takes in the opencast workings at Poniel, which are currently due to be restored. Local resident and Douglas and Glespin Community Council Chairperson Lindsay Addison is enraged by the behaviour of Scottish Coal in South Lanarkshire:

“We have serious concerns that this is an excuse for another opencast. We do not want this development, let alone another mine. We will fight it all the way and support the efforts of the wider community in its opposition to new coal in the Douglas Valley.”

SRG’s application for planning permission for this development is ongoing; the decision by the council will likely be made in the coming months. Questions have been raised about the close relationship between Scottish Coal and South Lanarkshire Council (SLC) resulting in SLC issuing each member of the Douglas and Glespin Community Council legal notices stating that proceedings against them are to begin at Lanark Sheriff Court over alleged libel claims. This move is seen by the community as an attack on their freedom of speech. (5)

Notes to Editors:

1. Location: In South Lanarkshire, about 30 miles south of Glasgow, Happendon Wood is an area just off the B7078, surrounding the Dewers warehouse site and Poniel Opencast workings. To reach the site, driving south along the B7078 from Lesmahagow (running alongside the M74), take the first left after Happendon Services onto the C-road; the site front is on your left after about half a mile. A map is available at http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?page_id=1974#Where

2. Working with and supporting communities across Scotland, the Coal Action Scotland collective exists to challenge the advancement of coal as an energy source by informing people about the dangers posed by new coal, promoting alternatives, working with those involved, and directly challenging new coal exploitation from source to point of use. Mainshill Solidarity Camp was set up just along the road from Happendon Woods last year where people stayed for over seven months, ending in a five day eviction and a total of 45 arrests. See: http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/

3. This application is Poniel / Happendon Mixed Use Development application from the Scottish Resources Group (Scottish Coal). It is for “Mixed use development comprising industrial and storage and distribution warehousing, business units/office accommodation, hotel with conference and commercial leisure facilities, retail/restaurant floorspace, landscaping, open space and associated infrastructure (planning permission in principle)”, but it is expected that once they get permission for this they will actually be bound to opencast the area for coal. The planning reference for the application is: CL/10/0180.

4. The Coal Authority issue licences to coal companies. The following was discovered in correspondence between them and Scottish Coal:
‘Where development is proposed over areas of coal and past coal workings at shallow depth, The Coal Authority is of the opinion that applicants should consider wherever possible removing the remnant shallow coal. This will enable the land to be stabilised and treated by a more sustainable method; rather than by attempting to grout fill any voids and consequently unnecessarily sterilising the nation’s asset.’

5. For articles and quotations on the legal threats to the Community Council see:
http://www.lanarkgazette.co.uk/news/South-Lanarkshire-Council-copyright-…
http://coalactionscotland.org.uk/?p=1966
http://www.jonathanmitchell.info/2010/09/02/whats-wrong-with-south-lanar…

Why I superglued myself to the Royal Bank of Scotland

September 03, 2010

First published in The Scotsman on 31 August 2010

Scotland is a country deeply associated with standing up for the underdog and challenging injustice. This is reflected in steps to become a Fairtrade nation, to build closer links with Malawi, to invest in renewable energy and to cut C02 by 42 percent by 2020. When I lived in Edinburgh, I worked alongside Scots to make these projects a reality.

Yet all of this ongoing work stands to be undone by a bank that carries Scotland’s name in its title – the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Royal Bank of Scotland finances Tar Sands extraction – the most destructive fossil fuels project in the world. Alberta, Canada, may seem far from Scotland’s shores, but it is there that RBS money is enabling forests to be razed, rivers to be polluted and local communities to be suppressed. The refining process is at least 3 times as energy intensive as that for conventional oil. And all this at a time when the planet stands at the brink of climate catastrophe, in need of a great transition that will necessarily mean leaving the oil in the ground. Environmental damage won’t only affect Canada. Nor will it only affect people in poor countries – 300, 000 of whom already die each year due to climate change. It will affect all of us.

What is more, the Royal Bank of Scotland is doing this with money that belongs to us, UK tax payers. After the bailout, the public owns 84 percent of RBS. It is time that we had a say in how they spend our money.

Sadly the government does not agree. When a consortium of NGOs including the World Development Movement, Platform, and People and Planet took the Treasury to court last year, a High Court Judge blocked judicial review, effectively saying that the  Treasury can legally ignore climate change and human rights in RBS’ investments.

It was because of these considerations that just over a week ago, I, and two friends, super-glued ourselves to the door of a Royal Bank of Scotland branch, so that we could speak to every customer coming in and out of the bank about what their money, and our money, was being spent on. Pinned to my front was a sign reading ‘You would be horrified if you knew where RBS invests your money’.  The action was part of a day of action called by the Climate Camp, situated opposite RBS’ global headquarters at Gogarburn.

The responses were varied. Some people were supportive for environmental reasons, some were angry at RBS because of their role in the financial crisis, some joked about this being like a Fringe performance or a variation on the Dashing White Sergeant. Others simply wanted to use the bank. Our tone was always polite and friendly. After some time the bank decided to close, presumably not wishing their customers to be fully informed of the bank’s destructive practices. Sometime later we were arrested for breach of the peace – a charge that includes causing alarm. If customers were indeed alarmed at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s use of their money then it is the bank that should stand trial rather than those of us attempting to inform the world of their practices.

30 hours later, once released from police custody and reading through the newspapers, it was me who was alarmed. Police PR officers, politicians and leader writers appeared to have rounded on the camp.

Particular focus in media reports was given to a police press release alleging that activists spilt ‘an oil like substance on a main road’, even though, as the Climate Camp media team pointed out, ‘there were no pictures of the spill; no traffic reports showing disruption; no bystanders or drivers complaining; no banner and no word from any climate activist on any website saying they did it’. A complaint has been lodged with the PCC. Unfortunately this nevertheless became the tar with which the entire camp was brushed.

Protesters were being accused of being mindless, irresponsible vandals rather than the deep thinking people seeking to prevent the havoc of climate change I know them to be. The charge of irresponsibility particularly grated. Isn’t the willingness to risk one’s liberty to protect the planet, the very definition of a responsible citizen?

Many of those who camped opposite the Gogarburn headquarters of the RBS were Scots. Many were not. Every UK citizen has a stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland. We are all being hurt by the cuts born of the economic crisis. And we all stand to be affected by climate change. That means it is up to all of us to stand up to RBS, when its practices go against the very values for which Scotland is admired.

Camp for Climate Action 2010 – What’s Hot and What’s Not

August 31, 2010

Please note: This hot/not list is compiled by an arbitrary, self-selected group of random taste-mongers rather than any sort of official camp representative body. As such, it is intended as a light-hearted, subjective interpretation of what the camp was about. No knicker twisting, please.

HOT

• Location, location, location – In their backyard – best campsite yet – within a molassapult’s throw of the RBS HQ. Beautiful location and wonderful narrative of us and them. At one point at the national gathering at Lewes when RBS was decided on as the target, someone googled the HQ location and read out a lush description of the waterways and leafy surroundings. And everyone went ‘wahey!’ Wahey indeed.

• The molassapult – a giant three-person catapult – Great for smearing oil-like substances high up on the walls of corporate bad guys. And very much in keeping with the medieval siege motifs. Although someone from the media team got asked in a radio interview ‘what did we hope to achieve by flinging faeces on the side of the building’s walls?’

• Molasses in general – It has quickly become a de rigeur objet in the tool box of any climate agitator. Used to great effect in the Trojan pig dumped on the doorstop of arctic-defilers, Cairn Energy, and great to see their reach and impact amplified through the medium of fire-extinguishers.

• The Sunday Herald expose of RBS fossil fuel investments – Front page, three full pages inside, some great camp quotes and a thorough piece that was all about the ishoos. Great stuff.

• De-awrestling – Dearresting your mates is always sizzlingly hot. This year there seemed to be an extra dash of wrestling involved. Well done to the Hulk Hogans and Hoganettes out there who made this possible.

• Difficult discussions dealt with in a respectful and politically mature fashion – The plenary to discuss the disruption of the tar sands workshop started off feeling like it could have been an utter disaster of entrenched positions and ill-feeling, but in the end felt like it was resolved with a lot of understanding and respectful communication.

• The rhino and the siege tower –Why we don’t know, but they were hot. This medieval madness sapped a lot of energy on the day of action, but at least it seems to have provided a lot of hysterically-tinged mirth to an awful lot of people. And dealing with a slowly inching forward, rhino-fronted siege tower was obviously something that had not cropped up in any of the police training manuals.

• Rousers – Technically the whipping-up of a crowd from nowhere, using a sound system, coupled with the distribution of anonymising white biohazard suits. Used to great effect on the oh-so-near mass break-in to RBS HQ the day before the mass action day.

• Not a single shout of ‘Cops on Site’. Joyous.

• “Kent police paid for this” stickers – A light-hearted reference to the inspiring, on-going work by the legal team. What is even scorchingly hotter, is all the people who have received cash for illegal stop and searches at Kingsnorth, who are donating the money to cover the legal costs of people with ongoing, action-related court cases.

NOT HOT

• Cops in jeans – Creepily respectful, lurking in the woods, all evangelical smileyness with their ‘police liason’ jackets and desire ‘not to invade your personal space’. Totes ick.

• Severin Carell – The Guardian Scotland correspondent who was on a one-man mission to make out that poor RBS had been grossly misrepresented and is actually a bastion of renewables finance. People from the Rainforest Action Network did some number crunching to expose the lies that Sevie uncritically regurgitated.

• Lack of cosey dry spaces on site – On the one or two soggier days, it felt like ‘trench-cheeks’ was setting in. It was good to pare down the site structures a bit, but can we have somewhere warm and cosey to recover?

• Critiques of Climate Camp having ‘gone mainstream’. They clearly never saw the day of action, or the rouser the day before.

• 10.30 pm power curfew on the night after the mass action. Many needed to let off steam. Many did so in the shape of a Guns n’ Roses induced moshpit.

• Police lies about the ‘oil slick’ on the road – At Heathrow it was the supposed plans to make bomb threats, at Kingsnorth it was the ‘discovery’ of the weapons cache in the woods. The mystery oil slick that no one actually seems to have seen, nor have any details about, is the latest attempt to discredit the camp. A pity the media seemed to jump all over it too. People are on it with making the necessary challenges and enquiries about this very fishy business.

• EDL twitter stalkers – Lord knows why the Guardian wants to give them a platform.

Letter to the Lothian & Borders Police

August 30, 2010

Climate Camp wishes to file a formal complaint against the Lothian & Borders Gold Command of Operation Octave.

We believe that the Lothian & Borders Police have acted in contravention of the committment in their Policing Charter (1) to ‘treat each member of our community with courtesy, fairness and impartiality whether you are a victim of crime, accused of a crime or seeking our assistance’ with regards to the press strategy around the environmental protests at the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters, 19-25 August. Moreover, we believe they did not act with integrity and impartiality, as recommended by the Scottish Police Service’s Code of Ethical Practice (2). The Code of Ethical Practice states that the interactions between the police and the media shall be guided by protocols and procedures- we question the effectiveness of these procedures, and therefore request that they be publicly disclosed and reviewed.

This complaint is brought with particular reference to the allegation that ‘substance similar to diesel or vegetable oil was poured’ by ‘protesters’ onto the A8 and A720 on 23 August 2010.

On Monday 23 August, the Lothian & Borders Police Press Office at Fettes issued two press releases (3) which accused the ‘protesters’ of spilling an oil-like substance on the A720 and the A8. A descriptive account of the alleged oil slick was followed by a condemnation of protesters for this ‘extremely reckless and dangerous act’ in a quotation from a police spokesperson. This condemnation was echoed in verbal statements to the press.(4)

No evidence was given in either of the press releases to justify this link and  the Lothian & Borders Police have still not demonstrated that this incident was related to the activities of protesters. However, the Lothian & Borders Police saw fit to publically condemn ‘protesters’ without evidence, suspects, arrests or a trial.

This press strategy has both criminalised people attending the Climate Camp at Gogarburn based on conjecture, and irresponsibly publicised these allegations to the press. This has amounted to a smear campaign against Climate Camp on the grounds of an unsubstantiated implication that ‘many members of the public (were put) at risk’ by ‘protesters’. The lack of due process and evidence behind these public accusations represents a violation of the responsibility of the police to behave with fairness, integrity and impartiality toward the public.

The inappropriate conduct of Lothian & Border Police in these press releases and in statements to the press has caused reputation damage and distress to both the Climate Camp and to those attending the camp by implicating the organisation in activity which endangers the public. This has been further amplified by the press coverage generated by the Lothian & Borders Police’s press releases. A selection of press stories which reported on the police’s association of the alleged oil spill with climate activists can be found below (5).

Climate Camp therefore demands an apology from the Lothian and Borders Police Gold Command of Operation Octave regarding the public condemnation of ‘protesters’ linked with the Camp for Climate Action for the alleged incident on the A8 and A720 in press releases and press statements on the 23 August 2010, pre-empting any arrest, charge or conviction.

We further are requesting full disclosure of any information regarding this incident and its connection with protesters, including draft police press releases, gold command logs, silver command logs, bronze command logs, police notebooks/PDAs of officers at the scene, communication between Lothian and Borders Police (including the police press office) and City of Edinburgh council, communication between Lothian and Borders Police (including the police press office) and Lothian buses and any lab reports conducted on the oil-like substance. We will be submitting a Freedom of Information request to this effect under the Freedom of Information Act.

We look forward to your response,