Finland, Pyhäjoki : Reclaim the Cape Anti-nuclear action [ENG]

Received April 24th:

”Somebody’s mom got peppersprayed and detained” – Reclaim the Cape action week starts with a piece of genuine police dialogue (see video)

All sorts of opposers of the Fennovoima-Rosatom nuke plant project have now gathered to the Hanhikivi peninsula in Pyhäjoki, Finland, nicely close to the Mordor itself. The action week (22/4-1/5) took an early start, with participants starting to show up a good couple of weeks before the official starting day, causing the construction site and nearby region to get riddled with actions and occurrences of an ELF-ish nature.

It’s not ethnic profiling, it’s just randomness
Naturally, all this has attracted the attention of the police. Local newspapers have been presenting nicely constructed propaganda pieces of police representatives going blah-blah-blah on how they wish to ”have a dialogue” with the action week folks.

Thus, well before the start of the action week, the police have done their best in attempting to stop bicyclists, pedestrians and drivers, to have a dialogue of ID check’s and blood tests in an attempt of trying to find someone who could be accused of drunk driving – or whatever their idea is, nobody really fully knows. (Maybe they just love to waste that tax payer’s money almost as efficiently as the nuke construction itself?)

All of this would be more hilarious than inconvenient – we mean, it’s not that difficult of not stopping with that bike or hopping into the woods when a shady van stops next to you – if they would not prioritize the ethnic profiling so high. Individuals with white caucasian features have been succesful in refusing to identify themselves, getting detained for 24 hours and still walking out without giving fingerprints or ID. Logic is different with someone slightly less white. The one international person who refused to identify themselves and got locked up for three full days, threatened with detention center trip and free flight back – well, whatever they would’ve decided as home – was of a little less white caucasian sort.

This, of course, is not police carrying out ethnic profiling: it’s an entirely random coincidence. We’re positively sure.

How about pepper spraying that mother there?
On the morning of 22/4 a some bunch of ten people had planned a bit of an opening ceremony for the action week. Chosen form was to have a go at the construction site with classical methods of non-violent civil disobedience. Whether this group were to use tripods, lock-ons or superglue to join hands in a sticky manner – that we do not know. But we do know, that the group sort of never got to start that ceremony.

One particularly vulnerable spot of the Fennovoima-Rosatom is its traffic. There’s only one road sturdy enough to take the heavy vehicles and landfil deliveries. Thus, this very bunch of people were also aiming to join hands in order to block this entry.

When closing in on the road, the bunch met with a police patrol who could not mentally handle a sight of classical non-violent demonstrators choreographing in. ”Two or three were emptying pepper spray cans at a speed of light, while one decided to just run in circles holding the handle of his gun. A complete case of lost marbles. If this is the way they react to a bunch of hippies, what do they do if meeting an actual heavy weight criminal?”, giggled one participant.

In the process of searching for their marbles, the police managed to pepperspray and detain a mom participating in the action with her daughter. (Citizens, remain calm: nation is being kept safe.)

Taser and a necklock – now, that’s an idea
Sadly, this is not the first case of lost marbles. On 14.4. three international comrades blocked two diggers from working by locking onto them. One of them used a d-lock, attaching themselves from their neck onto the hydraulic pipes of the machine’s arm. After the person refused to move their hands from the d-lock in an attempt to stop the police from cutting it, bluebells decided to taser them – three times. In a row.

Yes, dialogue is a fashionable word. While instructing the action week participants to protect themselves from cases of dialogue taking place, by wearing appropriate eye protection and clothes that keep the dialogue from harming the skin, we’d like to make one thing clear.

If police wishes to perform a dialogue based on violence, they might need to reckon one simple rule of human interaction: ”monkey see, monkey do”. As protest campers, it’s not our position to put out anything that could be interpreted as a threat of any sort.

But to some pacifism is a chosen tactic, not a heartfelt ideology.

(source: https://en-contrainfo.espiv.net/)