Posts Tagged ‘Bristol’
Bristol: Far-right nationalists gathering raided and shutdown by Antifa black bloc ‘dressed like special forces’ with guns (UK)
Thursday, February 9th, 2017
On Saturday 7th January at around 3pm a far-right nationalist meeting was taking place in Almondsbury Sports and Social Centre, attended by white supremacists and neo-nazis. The event called by fascist group ‘Bristol Forum’ was attempting to bring together racists and bigots in a safe space for their views. This meeting was raided by a black bloc of anti-fascists who allegedly fired air guns, smashed windows, threw chairs and used fire extinguishers to attack the fascist scum inside the building. Desperate and terrified nationalist bigots were apparently in fear for their lives, with just 3 of them claimed to be suffering injuries, as the fascists barricaded themselves inside the building like the cowardly scum they are. Fascist-nationalist Adrian Romilly from Portsmouth who attended the meeting with another fascist friend gave an interview with the local right-wing paper Bristol Post, likening the antifa black bloc to a “special forces unit”, giving great publicity to the “impression they’d done this sort of thing before and their silence, dress and general ‘professionalism’ added to the sense of menace”. Describing how the attack started he was quoted as saying “… there was a sound like a rifle shot and the first window glass splintered, shards of glass scattering over the place where the speaker had been sitting moments before”, “This was followed by a series of sharp cracks as a succession of windows were broken by a fire extinguisher and by chairs brought up from a lower floor.”
It seems the successful raid was only made public in early February as a police faithful citizens appeal for information swung into place due to the investigation resulting in so far no arrests and presumably almost zero information as to the identities of the Antifa “special forces unit”, despite CCTV recordings being studied.
In Bristol last year in March fascists attacked an anti-racist mainstream event attended by 100 people and members of the Labour Party, Green Party and the local Mosque. The 10 or so fascists were beaten up and ejected from the area.
The struggle against fascism will always need to be autonomous, extraparliamentary and street-based. Hatred, racism and bigotry has to be confronted physically, and absolutely no quarter given for fascist and neo-nazi groups to spread. Hunt and attack.
Tags: Adrian Romilly, Anti-Fascist, Antifa, Bristol, Bristol Forum (Fascist group), Neo-Nazis, Racism, UK
Posted in Anti-Fascist
Immigration raid disrupted in Bristol (UK)
Tuesday, November 8th, 2016
A couple of weeks ago the Home Office once again sent their uniformed bullies into Easton. This time things did not go smoothly for them.
Early evening on a weekday in mid-October: word spread that ‘immigration enforcement’ vans had been spotted near an off-license in the backstreets of Easton, Bristol. People soon started to gather. Some had heard what was happening, others were passing by and stopped to watch.
Several of the ‘enforcement’ thugs were inside the off-license, and a couple of people went inside briefly, presumably to make sure everyone inside knew their rights. Before long someone from inside was marched out and put in the van. The small crowd followed, heckling and shaming the racist quasi-cops as they went.
Then the van drove off, leaving two of the ‘enforcement’ bods behind in the offie. People stuck around to see what they were up to next. As they loitered we overheard them on the phone sounding mildly rattled.
Then they made a silly mistake – they came back again with the same van to pick up these stragglers. By now the crowd of people wanting to challenge them was just a bit bigger, and a bit more confident – enough to make the difference between heckling and resistance.
Finding their van blocked on several sides, while louder chants filled the air, they panicked and turned down a one-way street – the wrong way! As they realised their mistake and came to a halt, they were quickly surrounded and blocked. One of their tyres started to lose some air, albeit very slowly.
A standoff ensued: those inside the van sitting tight waiting for the police to rescue them, those outside unable to find a way to free the person imprisoned inside. Someone was holding up useful phone numbers next to the window, but who knows if they had a pen, let alone their phone?
Eventually, a group of cops turned up, on foot, running and somewhat out of breath. Apparently the rush hour chaos on the main roads had combined with the various one-way backstreets of the area to make life a bit stressful for them.
Bizarrely, their first demand (to someone standing in the road nearby) was: “Who are you with?”. Cue a certain amount of confusion, causing even more grumpiness on their parts.
After a certain amount of shoving and threatening arrest, they pushed us out of the road. The van drove off, in spite of the low tyre, with its kidnapped captive still inside. Not what we might have hoped for, but at least we made it difficult for them – and began to prove to ourselves that it is possible to stop them.
Tags: Bristol, Easton, Immigration Raids, Racism, UK, UKBA
Posted in No Borders
‘Pub Quiz #5 – We are all on a no-fly list, are you?’ – Anarcho-nihilist flyposter zine by anti-social hooligans in Bristol (Dark Matter Publications)
Sunday, October 9th, 2016
As part of Dark Matter Publications and in line with the nihilist ethos of the project we present this latest zine by some anti-social hooligans in Bristol. It’s made up of cut-n-paste flyposters that have been spread around the city and the originals are collected here for the first time. These are not professional posters of the official movement, but dirty DIY amateur efforts about topics as diverse as police repression, eco-action, surveillance and consumerism. This is what happens when fevered twisted minds get hold of stationary and scissors. Being mainly flyposters, the zine contains pretty much no prolonged verbal diarrhea, long-winded sectarian tripe or boring pontifications posing as critical theory or whatever.
Anti-social hooligans
Tags: Bristol, Dark Matter Publications, PDF, Pub Quiz #5, UK, Zine
Posted in Library
Bristol: Vandalism of various prison workers property by Eco-anarchist vandals – FAI/IRF (UK)
Tuesday, September 13th, 2016
This is dedicated to all the very young ones, youths with no direction yet, the kids that punch out at everything. Those that hate being told what to do and hate authority, who’ve fell foul of the law, who don’t even consider anarchy. Rebels without a cause. A prison gate is a border, it is a part of the class system, crime, scarcity and resource war. They need people to control and use in private prison labour. The prisons are exploding.
HMP Bristol, Horfield – 2 cars of screws are scratched up and tyres punctured, one a black sportscar – P6 SHT.
Horfield, Bristol – 12 Oak Road, house of screw has ‘bars’ sprayed on the windows and “screw” scrawled on the house in spraypaint.
Done in the International Week of Solidarity to Anarchist Prisoners, 23-30 August.
Solidarity to the anarchists in Italy arrested in Operation Scripta Manent and to all those in the prison uprising in America, 9 September.
Eco-anarchist vandals – FAI/IRF
Tags: Bristol, Eco-anarchist vandals - FAI/IRF, HMP Bristol, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, International Week for Anarchist Prisoners, Operation Scripta Manent, Prison Labour Strike, Sabotage, UK, Vandalism
Posted in Direct Action
Bristol: Vandalism of four car-transporters (UK)
Friday, August 12th, 2016
In the early hours of 6th August at Easton-in-Gordano Services, whilst the truck drivers were inactive in their cabs, 10-15 cars on four car-transporters were spray-painted causing their greedy earth-destroying companies loss of time and money infinitely larger than that we expended doing this opportunist crime.
Solidarity to all the imprisoned comrades and those on the run. Towards the international week of solidarity to anarchist prisoners – 23rd-30th August.
Eco-anarchist vandals – FAI/IRF
Tags: Bristol, Eco-anarchist vandals - FAI/IRF, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, International Week for Anarchist Prisoners, Sabotage, UK
Posted in Direct Action
Phoenix Project: Incendiary attack against police vehicle depot by Rain Cell – FAI/IRF (UK)
Friday, July 1st, 2016
Phoenix Project 2016 #2 [#1]
We take responsibility for an incendiary attack on 28.6.16 against police vehicles stored at their depot located at Poplar Way East, Avonmouth, Bristol. The depot also stores crowd control barricade units, CCTV vans, staff support and military vehicles occasionally.
We dedicate the action to the imprisoned members of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire and Aggeliki Spyropoulou, as well as to those in the attempted escape case.
This action is for the imprisoned comrades in UK, Greece, Chile, Russia, Poland, France, Czech Republic, France, Spain, Italy and around the world.
War to the ‘Smart Cities’ and the prison-society.
Long live anarchy and the wild.
Rain Cell – FAI/IRF
Tags: Aggeliki Spyropoulou, Arson, Avonmouth, Bristol, CCF Escape case, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, International Solidarity, Phoenix Project, Rain Cell - FAI / IRF, Sabotage, UK
Posted in Direct Action
Bristol, Britain’s Flagship ‘Smart City’ (UK)
Thursday, June 9th, 2016
“We’re creating an environment where in a year or two, not five, the whole world will look at Bristol for the future of smart cities.”
– Dimitra Simeonidou, High Performance Networks Lab, Bristol University
The city of Bristol, south west U.K., has begun a multi-million pound experiment to create the ‘smart-city’ of the future, which would cement Bristol as a global leader in the telecommunications world. The wider area of Avon (mainly the ‘post-industrial’ estates of Bristol and Bath) already hosts the largest digital technology sector in the British Isles outside of London, and receives funding from the government as such.
City authorities and allied technological entrepreneurs are working to kit out Bristol with a city-wide ‘digital fabric’ of the very latest in sensor and connectivity technology, to make it the world’s first open ‘programmable city’. A high-speed fibre-optic network (making use of disused cable ducting owned by the council) is being combined with a new ‘city operating system’ that will power an experimental network. In the coming spring of 2016, 1,500 sensor-equipped lampposts are being launched around the city; the vast majority of Bristol will be covered in a Radio Frequency (RF) mesh. This is predicted to revolutionise the way that emergency response, traffic management and other municipal services are handled, and track certain vehicle locations, with eventual alleged trickle-down ‘benefits’ such as informing residents of parking spaces and air pollution (ahem, from those parking spaces) in an increasingly mechanised and technified environment. (more…)
Tags: Analysis, Anti-technology, Bristol, Bristol Is Open, Bristol University, CityOS, Dimitra Simeonidou, High Performance Networks Lab, IBM, Internet of Things, NEC, Paul Wilson (MD Bristol Is Open), Return Fire, Smart Cities, Technological Singularity, Toshiba, UK
Posted in Social Control
Fight the Nazis in Bristol – 4 June (UK)
Monday, May 30th, 2016
Tags: Antifa, Bristol, Demo, Neo-Nazis, UK
Posted in Anti-Fascist
Sabotage of coal rail transport line in Avon Gorge (UK)
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2016
Attacking UK’s coal transport system – Severing the lines that feed the machine
Severing the lines that feed the machine is not impossible. When people take up civil uprising in the UK, if people are able to shove their obligations to one side to open up an avenue, they mainly have the ability and possibility to be able to grasp their will for something new. The war is not over when those moments stop, it sparks up in little raptures here and there, showing that we are not crushed, things can be brought to a grinding halt again, even for a split second.
It just takes a few bright spirits and we see it clear, when the smug confidence of authorities is knocked, a few pins get hit out and things can be seen in a different light. Out of synch and off balance, everything no longer appears structurally sound, life feels more up for grabs.
The new horizon peaked through our cloudy day, Sunday 6th March, and we hope this uncomplicated act of sabotage we have undertaken exposes the vulnerability of their complex matrix.
We took a risk assessment and as night just started to close in we entered the 1st railway tunnel, we cut both lines with a portable disc cutter, we didn’t imagine de-railing a locomotive but wrecking disruption and economic damage (time is money). We entered a 2nd and did a further two cuts, marking them all with pink paint, and leaving a banner as a warning. (more…)
Tags: Anti-Coal, Avon Gorge, Avonmouth, Bristol, Sabotage, UK
Posted in Eco Struggle
Dealing with “counter-terror” cops at the airport (UK)
Tuesday, January 12th, 2016
via RabbleLDN, also see – “Schedule 7″ – Important Advice for Anarchists Travelling To/From the UK.
Bristol Anarchist Chases Away Counter-Terror Police
Today at Stansted Airport, plainclothes police officers pulled aside a travelling anarchist (Tim from Bristol) and seemingly sought to coerce him into becoming an informant with a combination of intimidation, veiled threats, and offers of free alcohol. But when he started recording the officers on his mp3 player they quickly terminated the exchange and made a sharp exit.
He believes he was targeted by counter terror police because of his Anarchism, stating: “Anarchism is about ordinary people standing up to the rich and powerful – exactly what the police are there to prevent. These people claim to be protecting us, but they spend most of their time blacklisting trade unionists, spying on activists and harassing ethnic minorities.”
Here’s his full account of what happened today:
“As I was leaving the EU e-passport gate about 1pm today, I was approached by a man who came out from behind the desk to the left. He was a similar height to me, with short light brown hair/beard, and a light northern English accent. He said “Hi Tim, I’d like to have a word with you. I think you know what this is about”. I got my phone out and called a friend as soon as he started speaking. I told him I had a phone call which I needed to take. A man who had approached in the mean-time from the right, wearing a grey suit-jacket, asked me to turn my phone off. I repeated that I had to take the call. When my friend picked up I asked them to call my solicitor. (more…)
Tags: Bristol, Fuck the Police, Police Bastards, Repression, Schedule 7, UK
Posted in Social Control
Anarchist vandalism at the home of John Hirst, the chief executive of Destination Bristol (UK)
Wednesday, November 18th, 2015
John Hirst, the chief executive of Destination Bristol, the former manager of the Galleries shopping mall has a job that is about distraction through consumption. While many of us are stuck elbowing each other out the way to get the elusive best deal, buying stuff we don’t really need and sinking deeper into debt in a vain attempt to feel like we’re doing ok, John and his business class are doing very nicely. They get expensive cars and exotic holidays and we get bailiffs and debt recovery. One thing we do share is a planet on the brink of ecological collapse due to destructive mass consumerism championed and toasted by people like John. He claims he cycles 100 miles each week and is keen to show off how he does his bit for charities, but presides over the accelerating privatisation and corporate control of our city, the encroaching concretisation of green spaces like Castle Park and ever more CCTV surveillance of our every move. No dogs, no skaters, no street drinking, no street stalls, no demonstrations… the list goes on and quickly ends up as no unlicenced anything. Nothing without permission and nothing without payment.
John may be all smiles about making good business for Bristol but as always the wealth creation is only good for a few; the winners, like John. For most of us, the losers, it means getting trampled on by the needs of the rich and forced to work harder to pay so much more for everything. There’s a lot of us but we’re not all defeated and although we don’t dress as sharply as Lord John, we too can get things done.
On the night of Sunday 15th November we visited his posh (easily over half a million £!) house in quiet, suburban Downend to give some rewards of capitalism. As a reminder of all the shit jobs and environmental mess and as a contribution to the upcoming international day of action against consumerism, we left animal waste and coat hangers all over John’s garden and cars. Punctured tyres and spraypaint on his sports Jaguar and her Range Rover showed our contempt for his easy money and how John and his friends make their wealth at everyone else’s expense. Now we’re wondering if King Georgie red trousers [clownish leftie Mayor of Bristol] has a 24/7 bodyguard…
Tags: Bristol, Destination Bristol, Downend, John Hirst, UK, Vandalism
Posted in Direct Action
Bristol: Direct action against estate agents – CJA trashed (UK)
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015
Award giving in recognition of services to landlords and their rights.
We proudly presented bricks through windows of CJA estate agents in Southville on the night of 31st August. All windows smashed and the international squatter symbol painted on their wall. Because despite the ban on squatting houses everyone should have a decent home.
CJA have showed real resilience and single mindedness to make a stand for maximum profit regardless of the tough conditions faced by tenants everywhere. In a letter to Bristol landlords in March this year they encouraged landlords to hike their rents and cynically take advantage of the housing crisis. Because the crisis is for landlords and property developers another business opportunity. They then arrogantly ignored a campaign by a local community union to hold them to account. So we found another way to encourage them to see the costs of their actions. Thousands of us are trapped in overcrowded, over priced and chronically undermaintained and decaying rented houses. We constantly struggle to pay the rent under the ever present threat of eviction and homelessness. Gentrification and colonisation of our areas pushes rents ever higher and forces us further out. This is social cleansing and it is a very profitable business. For greedy landlords and estate agents like CJA, decent, affordable homes don’t come into their sums. It’s all about investment opportunities and ruthless profiteering. Meanwhile, there is a huge increase in homelessness and the hostels are full to bursting. We don’t have to take this.
Let’s fight for a world without landlords, where people’s homes are not for the profit of the rich.
Tags: Bristol, Housing, Sabotage, Southville, Squatting, UK
Posted in Direct Action
Bristol: Banner drop for prisoners (UK)
Friday, May 8th, 2015
325 receives and transmits:
Our greetings go out to Em, who just turned 34 behind bars after laying traps for
police cars.
One banner read:
‘Happy Birthday to Anarchist Prisoner Emma Sheppard! – Down with all cages!’
We know what a boot looks like,
When seen from underneath,
We know the philosophy of boots…
Soon we will invade like weeds,
Everywhere but slowly;
The captive plants will rebel
With us, fences will topple,
Brick walls will ripple and fall
There will be no more boots
Meanwhile we eat dirt
and sleep; we are waiting
under your feet.
When we say attack
You will hear nothing
At first
– Margaret Atwood “Song of the Worms”
The other banner:
‘Capital is ‘Green’ as Nuclear is ‘Safe’ – Against Industrial Society – Hands Off
Billy, Silvia, and Costas.’
In reference to 3 anarchist ecologists who the Italian state want to re-try over an
unsuccessful action in Switzerland, and the capitalist marketing ploy of Bristol as
the European Green Capital.
Both banners were hung over the M32 during the morning rush hour on Thursday 30th April.
Recently word has reached us of international police collaboration in the UK
targeting action or publication groups allegedly connected to a thwarted plan to
liberate guerrillas from dungeons in Greece. Solidarity to the underground who, from
Scotland to Bristol to London, head out with hackles raised and spray-paint, rocks
or slingshots in their pockets and blazing hearts never extinguished. A wink of
complicity for those that defiantly acted for freedom and who got away.
State repression is a hurdle for any liberation tendency. Here in England
anarchists, outlaws, and would be fighters with the Kurdish resistance to ISIS (see
the case of Shilan Ozcelik) can all attest to that. We call attention to the common
thirst for freedom in all these cases. May struggle continue in every form that is
necessary. Regardless of the outcome of the election pantomime we are ungovernable.
– Anarchists in Solidarity
Tags: Banner drop, Bristol, Costantino Ragusa, Emma Sheppard, Luca Bernasconi, Shilan Ozcelik, Silvia Guerin, UK
Posted in Prison Struggle
Bristol: Slingshot attack on construction company Balfour Beatty and Evening Post newspaper (UK)
Saturday, March 28th, 2015
Over the night of March 15th and 16th, slingshots were fired at Balfour Beatty on Carter Road, Bishopsworth and The Post building close to Old Market, breaking several windows on each.
Balfour Beatty would never let something stupid like the environment stand in the way of ‘progress’, constructing the route for the controversial metrobus that will eventually cart people to and from their daily boredom. Whilst the media makes millions from a world of misery whilst constantly manipulating public opinion.
Note: The Evening Post building was attacked previously in 2011 and one anarchist comrade remains hunted for the attack. The newspaper is the usual scum-outlet of reactionary crap.
Tags: Balfour Beatty, Bristol, Fuck the Mainstream Media, Sabotage, UK
Posted in Direct Action
Taglia e mandato di cattura per un compagno anarchico – Reward and arrest warrant for anarchist comrade (UK)
Saturday, December 6th, 2014
REPRESSIONE IN UK
3 dicembre 2014-Dai mass-media britannici si legge del mandato di cattura, con taglia di 10.000 sterline per chiunque offra informazioni su di un compagno anarchico, già libero/latitante da 3 anni in seguito alla repressione seguita all’esplosione di guerriglia urbana del 2011 a Bristol ed ad una serie di attacchi, anonimi e firmati ELF, FAI.
I media fanno riferimento a più di cento attacchi avvenuti nel Regno Unito negli ultimi negli ultimi tre anni che hanno prodotto più di 20 milioni di sterline di danni,a vari obiettivi tra cui tralicci per le telecomunicazioni, banche, auto di lusso ed un centro di addestramento della polizia integralmente distrutto durante un attacco, tra cui l’ultimo in solidarietà a Nikos Romanos avvenuto pochi giorni fa.
Il compagno ricercato, Huw Norfolk, è accusato di alcuni di questi attacchi.
Di seguito un suo scritto dalla latitanza, tratto da Since the Bristol Riots
Noi siamo i “ragazzi perduti”, arrabbiati e disillusi da false promesse, la “gioventù incontrollabile” nsoddisfatta del misero futuro che ci viene offerto, i “componenti inutili” che rifiutano o sono in ogni caso esclusi dalla schiavitù salariata o gli “elementi di rottura” che combattono per distruggerla dall’interno, la “minoranza di guastatori” degli schemi della normalità obbediente-gerarchica-razzista-patriarcale, “gli incappucciati” in rivolta costante contro tutto questo ed oltre. Siamo i vostri figli, e quelli della vostra società.
Ed oggi è venuto il tempo per i componenti di quella società di decidere se saranno la mano che cerca di fermarci,o la mano che accende la propria cospirazione per l’auto-determinazione.
Huw ‘Badger’ Norfolk
Solo un’ altro in fuga.
Ottobre 2011
–
REPRESSION IN UK
December 3, 2014 – According to the British mass-media, there is an arrest warrant, with a size of £10,000 to anyone offering information about an anarchist comrade, already free / fugitive for three years following the repression that followed the explosion of urban warfare 2011 in Bristol and a series of attacks, anonymous and signed ELF, FAI.
The media refer to more than one hundred attacks that occurred in the UK in the last three years, that have produced more than £20 million of damage, at various targets including pylons for telecommunications, banks, luxury cars and a center of police training completely destroyed during an attack, including the latest in solidarity with Nikos Romanos, which occurred a few days ago.
The comrade sought, Huw Norfolk, is accused of some of these attacks.
The following pamphlet was written by persons unknown: Since the Bristol Riots
“We are the “lost kids” angry and disappointed by false promises, the “uncontrollable youth” unsatisfied with the paltry futures offered to us, the “useless components” who reject or are excluded anyway from wage-slavery or the “disruptive elements” who fight to destroy it from within, the “minority of trouble-makers” within the constructs of obedient-hierarchical-racist-patriarchal normality, the “hooded rioters” within the constant revolt against all that and more. We are your children, and those of your society. And it is time today for the components of that society to decide if they will be the hand trying to stop us, or the hand lighting their own conspiracy for self-determination.”
Huw ‘Badger’ Norfolk
just another fugitive.
October 2011
–
More from ABC Bristol:
http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/statement-against-police-harassment/
http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/defendant-solidarity/police-harassment/
http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/action-report-back-at-ya-police-harassment/
ABC Hurricane:
Tags: ABC Bristol, Bristol, Croce Nera Anarchica - Italia, Earth Liberation Front, Fuck the Law, Fuck the Mainstream Media, Fuck the Police, Huw 'Badger' Norfolk, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), Nikos Romanos, Repression, UK
Posted in Social Control