Cheap and powerful
Texting can put important or urgent information directly into your supporters’ hands. Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) are the latest campaign group to venture into mass texting of supporters – here’s how and why they do it (cheaply).
In addition to Facebook, Twitter and their Wordpress blog, CHD has relied heavily on texting to keep people updated.
Over 90% of…
SIPRI - Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
This site contains online books along with lectures and conferences available (all in PDF format) and a lot of information to wade through. It is worth bearing in mind that this website is mainly aimed at academic research. There are however less monolithic texts on the website in the form of “what's new?” which provides news updates not generally found in the…
http://www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/blockadingforbeginers.pdf Amazingly comprehensive guide to carrying out blockades, with advice on everything from what to wear to building obstruction devices. Also contains useful tips on how to organise your action and liaising with the police and the media. Some of the legal guidance is specific to the UK. http://www.…
The British government's Home Office " Research, Development and Statistics Directorate" produce a publication called Research Findings. It covers many topics pertinent to policy-related research and has periodically provided information on the world prison population.
The man responsible for producing these particular briefings - Roy Walmsley - has since gone on to work with the international centre for prison studies, at King's College in London (see details of…
Here we have tried to compile basic facts about each of the countries this issue focuses on. We have specifically included information about issues such as military service, the arms trade, refugees and human rights, all of which should be of particular interest to our readers.
NE Asian religionsNorth-East Asia is rich in spiritual currents, with Buddhist, Christian, Taosit, Confucian and shamanic traditions.
Confucianism Outside of the region little is known about…The following is a brief listing of helpful publications, books, websites and radio stations that are alternative sources of media, or offer a means of communication that leaves the mainstream. The list covers independent media sources from around the world.
Websites The Association for Progressive CommunicationsThe Association for Progressive Communications, or APC, is an international organisation that is dedicated to helping groups learn to use information technologies to…
The Prison Activist Resource Centre is an online prisoner support site. While predominantly US- oriented the site is available in English and Spanish, and does offer information about internationally- relevant resources.
These are divided into categories such as “prisoner support”, “activist groups” and “prison law” (US). One of the great things about this site is that it has a rather fantastic and massive bibliography, divided into sections such as “women”, “history”, “black activism”, “…
David Anderson, Sensible Justice: Alternatives to Prisons (New Press, 1998. ISBN 1565843894, 182pp). Sensible Justice explores creative solutions for the US prisons “problem”. It also makes an important contribution developing an effective national crime strategy. Mary Bosworth, Engendering resistance: Agency and Power in Women's power (Ashgate Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1840147393) . This book contributes a different perspective to women's studies, criminology and prison studies…
Anti-racism
http://www.united.non-profit.nl/pages/info18.htm
Accessed via the website of UNITED, a network of 550 European antiracist groups, this online guide contains a few detailed paragraphs on several aspects of working with the media, from drafting a press release to establishing your own magazine or radio station. Much of the information is relevant to other kinds of campaign groups. Also available in leaflet form,…
The global, Co-operative Commonweal a long desired dream is now becoming a practical reality: it is a vision of global peace and security, through practical, local and co-active co-operation.
Over the past seven years, this dream has been turning into real, tangible action. Here, I hope to share these developments and give some pointers to the next steps.
These developments got under way in 1995, when The International Co-operative Alliance (the ICA) met to refresh the…
This is not in any way intended to be a definitive statement - more a pointer to some of the more significant developments in the theory and practice of community.
6 th Century BCE: Pythagoras founds Homakoeion, a vegetarian commune based on intellectualism, mysticism and equality of the sexes. Also, followers of Buddha in India join together in ashrams to live in a productive, spiritual manner.
2 nd Century CE: Essenes communes, based on the morality of the Hebrew Bible, flourish in…
Fiction
George Orwell, 1984 (New American Library Classics, 1990. ISBN 0451524934, 268pp).
Orwell's prophetic view of the future of the world is a chilling dystopia in which totalitarian control and conformity prevail.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (Harperperennial Library, 1998. ISBN 0060929871, 268pp)
In exchange for crime being virtually non-existent in Huxley's imaginary utopian world, there is an absence of personal freedom.
Margaret Atwood,The Hand-maid'…
A collaboration between the Law School of King's College at the University of London and Roy Walmsley, has produced an excellent website for the International Centre for Prison Studies.
The site provides the most recent statistical information about the world’s prison population, using clickable maps of the world, organised by region. It also provides specific information about 200 countries, with statistical information on gender, young prisoners, and foreign prisoners, for each…
Street campaigning has become a visual event enabling people to get high media coverage with innovative ideas and actions.
The visual images too often are the police charging in full riot gear or protesters being carried away. Certainly the press in Europe runs these pictures time and time again. Seldom do we see the peaceful side of any protest, it just does not make good copy.
For this reason I suggest to you that the picture we need to generate must therefore be new and…
Plans for protest at DSEi this year are large-scale and thorough. Training and skills share provision for activists taking part in the protests is similarly ambitious, with a sizeable collective of NonViolent Direct Action (NVDA) trainers offering a programme of workshops both before and during the event.
This article explains who these trainers are, what we're planning to offer, and why we hope that we'll be making a useful contribution to efforts to Disarm DSEi.
Who are the…
