News Archives

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AW@L SHUTS DOWN LOCAL SHELL STATION FOR FOSSIL FOOLS DAY
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April 1, 2008

 

[read press release]

 

FEBRUARY

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GRASSY NARROWS CAMPAIGN UPDATE

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February 28, 2008

Grassy Narrows Campaign Scores a Major Victory:
Less than a month after the International Day of Action against OfficeMax/Grand&Toy, Boise Inc., their largest paper supplier, announced that it will suspend purchasing from clear cuts in Grassy Narrows by June. More...

 

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AW@L Members Joined Voices in Toronto
to Say "NO!" to the
Security and Prosperity Partnership
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February 16, 2008

 

JANUARY

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AW@L joins RAN chapters across the continent to deliver message to Grand & Toy and
Office Max
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SEE VIDEO FOOTAGE OF TODAY'S EVENTS AT THERECORD.COM

January 30, 2008

Today, members of AW@L conducted actions against Grand & Toy in both Waterloo and Toronto. Grand & Toy purchases paper made from wood pulp obtained through clear-cut logging in the Whiskey Jack Forest of Northwest Ontario. The Grassy Narrows First Nation, one of more than 600 Indigenous communities located in Canada's vast Boreal forest, assert rights over a region, including the Whiskey Jack, as its traditional and has long objected to clear-cut logging there. The Canadian constitution affirms Treaty commitments to First Nations which safeguards their traditional territories for customary uses. In January 2007, the Grassy Narrows community called for a moratorium on all industrial activity on its traditional territory without its free, prior and informed consent.

In Toronto, despite heavy resistance from police, AW@L activists managed to gain entrance to Grand & Toy's corporate headquarters in. Once inside, several activists--all WLU students--chained themselves together and displayed a banner, blocking the main entrance to the building. The banner delivered a strong message to Grand & Toy: Respect Native Rights Now, No Logging Without Consent.

In Waterloo [see video footage], a second team of AW@L activists demonstrated at the Grand & Toy regional Sales Office on Colby Drive. There, on the front lawn of the Sales Office, students-activists from WLU along with participants from UW and the community at large set up a large tepee surrounded by tree stumps. The demonstration symbolically sent the message to Grand & Toy that the unsustainable logging that feeds their paper supply is destroying Indigenous communities, specifically the Grassy Narrows First Nation. The actions were part of an International day of action, organized by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) that saw actions in over 30 cities across North America.

For more info on the campaign, the day of action, Grassy Narrows First Nation, and Grand & Toy's destructive practices, visit www.freegrassy.org

To see photos from other actions across the continent, visit RAN's flickr site!

 

 

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AW@L Participates in International Day of Action for Grassy Narrows, Indigenous Rights
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Above is a photo from a June, 2007 action at Queen's Park in Toronto, conducted by RAN, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), AW@L and members of the Grassy Narrows
and KI First Nations.

January 30, 2008

Today, AW@L members will participate in an international day of action organized by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) against Office Max and its Canadian subsidiary Grand & Toy. The office supply company sells paper that comes from
clear-cuts on Grassy Narrows’ territory against the will of the community. Grand & Toy is complicit in gross violations of Indigenous human rights and international treaty law. This is one of over 30 actions taking place across the continent on today’s day of action.

This is part of an ongoing campaign organized by RAN designed to end destructive logging on Grassy Narrows’ territory and to assert the rights of all First Nation to self-determination for Indigenous Peoples.

For more info visit: www.freegrassy.org

Come back to this site Wednesday evening for our own pictures and updates!

- press resources -

 

 

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AW@L and members of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada deliver Martin Luther King Day message to Liberal Caucus in Kitchener
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January 21, 2008

To celebrate MLK Day, members of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada were joined by members of AW@L as they descended upon the Liberal Caucus retreat at the Kitchener Holiday Inn at Weber and Fairview. After Marching to the hotel from Fairview Mall, five members of AW@L dressed in bright orange jumpsuits and black hoods marched into the Liberal’s Press Room, led by the campaign’s coordinator Matthew Behrens.  Inside, the AW@L activists lined the stage holding (cardboard cut out) prison bars marked with the names of the five men being tried under Bill C3.

Behrens spoke from center stage; addressing the Liberals and the media, decrying security certificates, indefinite detention, secret trials and two-tier justice. He asked that the Liberal Party affirm its commitment to Human Rights by voting against Bill C3. 

After presenting the party with a plaque quoting MLK, Behrens and the five Laurier students exited the hotel.  They were later able to meet with local MP Andrew Telegdi who vowed to continue his own staunch opposition to the bill.

There are five men currently subject to security certificates, all of them are fighting deportation to torture. Their names are Adil Charkaoui, Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohamed Harkat, Hassan Almrei, and Mohammed Majoub—who is still being held at the “Guantanamo North” facility in Kingston.

For more info visit http://www.homesnotbombs.ca/secrettrials.htm

 

DECEMBER

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AW@L Supports US War Resisters
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"On Thursday at 3:34 p.m. The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration met and put to motion a recommendation that the government immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and that the government should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against such individuals."

Help raise awareness and show parliament that there are citizens who want to see this motion pass through the House and the Senate!

Demonstration in Support of US War Resisters
Kitchener City Hall
Saturday, December 15, 2007
2:00-4:30pm

Come out and show your support!

 

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AW@L Supports HALT and Six Nations
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Since December 3rd, members of AW@L have been making early morning drives to Cayuga to participate in an ongoing direct action aiming to shut down the Edwards Street Landfill at Brooks Road and Highway 3. Recently, native activists from Six Nations joined Haldimand Against Landfill Transfers (HALT) to help block trucks filled with urban and institutional waste from around the Toronto area from dumping in the Edwards Landfill; a site that local homeowners and community members having been trying to close for years, which is in desperate need of clean up—there is concern that toxic chemicals are leaching into the groundwater, and into the Grand River Watershed, and which is on "disputed" Six Nation's land. Trucks have been blocked since November 16, and on December 2nd a court ordered injunction was ordered to have protesters removed. Student activists from AW@L have recognized the special nature of the grassroots alliance between HALT and Six Nations, and see this as a precedent setting struggle in the search for environmental sustainability and social justice in Canada. See the Hamilton Spectator for background information on this issue.

 

NOVEMBER

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Slingshot! Organizers Fundraising Initiative
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Are you tired of the same old organizers full of events and holidays that don't affect you? are you looking for an organizer to give you guidance and knowledge in you day to day endeavors? Crammed full of useful information the slingshot organizers prove to be much more!:radical groups around the globe, menstrual calendar, info on police repression, extra note pages, plus much more. They come in 37 different colours!! and two different sizes!

Slingshot is a quarterly, independent, radical newspaper published in the Berkeley, California area since 1988 by the Slingshot Collective. They also publish the annual Slingshot Organizer radical calendar planner. They are an all volunteer, non-profit, tax exempt project of the Long Haul.

If you have not pre-ordered, watch for the extras to be on sale in the WLU Concourse on December 12 & 13 from 11am-5pm! They will also be on sale January 11, 2008. For style info, visit their website. Prices are $7 for the small version, and $14 for large. If you have any questions, e-mail us!

 

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AW@L Launches New Campaign
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AW@L has launched a campaign against Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons. The campaign is built to convince Scotiabank to end its investment in Gencorp, a leading offender in the realm DU weapon production. Our campaign will combine direct action with more traditional forms of public pressure to show Scotiabank that Canadians will not stand for corporate bankers investing their money in weapons of mass destruction. This campaign in part of AW@L's larger focus on the Arms Industry and MIC, and fits into RAN's Global Finance Campaign.

More info and links will coming soon!

 

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Members of AW@L Attend SOA
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November 17, 2007

Members of AW@L travelled to Georgia to join thousands of others in protest against the School of the Americas.

The School of the Americas (SOA), in 2001 renamed the 'Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation,' is a combat training school for Latin
American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers
in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological
warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates
have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people.
Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers,
religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of
the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured,
raped, assassinated, 'disappeared,' massacred, and forced into refuge by
those trained at the **School** of **Assassins**.

For more information on
the SOA please visit www.soaw.org

More about the trip coming soon! Visit AW@L's Press Coverage page for media.

 

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AW@L Members Join RAN at Powershift,
Shut Down Citibank in Washignton, DC
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November 2-5, 2007

Members of AW@L attended the major environmental conference, Powershift, attended by over 5000 students from across North America at College Park, MD. The conference drew together student leaders in a first-of-its-kind conference to strategically organize around climate change and other environmental issues. At the end of the conference, AW@L members joined with other "grassroots chapters" of the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) in an action at Citibank in downtown Washington as part of RAN's Global Finance campaign. Citibank is a major funder of destructive coal mining across the United States, and on November 5, over three hundred students and other young activists shut down the Citibank in downtown Washington with the message, "Coal is Over, Fund the Future!'"

 

OCTOBER

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March and Rally for the
Pan-Canadian Day of Action Against the War in Afghanistan
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October 27, 2007.

AW@L has declared the rally against the war a success. After much dialogue, the rally took place with the support of the local veterans association, the school, and the city, and was held at the main entrance way of the University, the Underpass on University Avenue. Participating in a National day against the war in conjunction with an American national day of action against the war in Iraq, nearly a hundred students and community members marched from the corner of Erb and Caroline to the University at a location directly across from the recently erected memorial at Veteran's Green. Once there, the crowd was entertained by the "Raging Grannies" and "radical cheerleaders" and heard speeches from the President of the local Veteran's Association, member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and the KW Humanist Movement as well as professors and AW@L members.

 

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Members of AW@L Attend No War No Warming Intervention in Washington, DC
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October 22, 2007

Four members of AW@L travelled to Washington, DC this weekend to attend training and workshop sessions for the No War No Warming campaign, and to participate in the mass intervention of nonviolent civil disobedience on Capitol Hill.

Unfortunately, our members were unexpectedly detained by District of Columbia Police.
[read more...]

 

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Anti-War Rally and Non-Violent Direct Action A
Huge Success!!
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October 5, 2007

Friday morning, student activists from AW@L ‘shut down’ Colt Canada, a major corporate war profiteer located on Wilson Avenue in Kitchener.

The rally send the message that Canada’s occupation of Afghanistan is no more legitimate than the American war in Iraq--the target for Friday’s action is a perfect example of how the Canadian war industry is inseparable from the American project of global military dominance.

The message “shut down the war machine” was prominently displayed from the roof of the gun factory. One key aspect of the message is that Canada and Ontario should “fight climate change, not oil wars.”

The whole action and rally was an explicitly peaceful and non-violent protest.

A big thanks goes out to all those that came out, it was a fabulous day and it went extremely well!