Solidarity Action in New Orleans (LA, USA) to Support Jailed Irish Farmers

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Wednesday July 06, 2005 23:55

by Anne Rolfes - Louisiana Bucket Brigade

anne at labucketbrigade dot org

(504) 914 – 3164

shell Oil rocked by Global Protests

Solidarity Action in New Orleans to support jailed Irish farmers. Blockades, arrrests stop shell activities worldwide. Louisiana action also in support of Sakhalin Islands protest (Russia) against shell disrupting salmon breeding grounds. Louisiana residents are also aware of shell's impact on the Mississipi and the threat to fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico.

WHAT: Five Irish farmers, known as the Rossport Five, have been sent to
jail for obstructing construction of a shell pipeline on their land. As
Ireland is wracked by the showdown between the farmers and the
corporation, community members in the Sakhalin Islands – the Russian Far East -
have forced shell to suspend work on a controversial oil and gas
pipeline that the communities fear would destroy salmon breeding grounds.

Louisiana residents will hold a solidarity action for these communities
in New Orleans in front of shell’s headquarters. A contingent of
environmental, public health and human rights advocates has just returned
from the shell shareholder meetings in Amsterdam and London, where shell’s
neighbors from all over the world – including Africa, Brazil, the
Philippines, Louisiana, Texas, and Ireland – converged to pressure shell to
stop its global pollution.

WHY: Royal Dutch shell’s operations in Louisiana have caused harm to
communities along the Mississippi River, specifically in Norco, Louisiana
where the company finally bought out residents’ contaminated
properties. Although residents were moved away from the pollution, the impact on
their health remains. Now shell’s liquefied natural gas operations are
threatening Louisiana fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico.

The assault on Louisiana’s environment is not isolated but is repeated
in communities around the world. Louisiana citizens are tomorrow
standing up to shell in solidarity with the Rossport Five and the Sakhalin
Island protesters.

WHERE: One shell Square, 701 Poydras Street at Baronne, downtown New
Orleans

WHEN: 12 PM (high noon), Thursday, July 7th