Aug 2023 – The Free

New hungerstrike by Thai woman Activist jailed for Facebook joke against King

thefreeonline on 31st Aug 2023 by Prachatai. Photo from ไข่แมวชีส

Warunee is the latest activist jailed hungerstriker accused of insulting The King, .

Statement from Warunee.. แถลงการณ์จากวารุณี : ฟางเส้นสุดท้าย ก่อนตัดสินใจอดอาหารประท้วง ย้ำภายใน 3 วันหากยังไม่ได้ประกันจะยกระดับ ‘อดน้ำ’ ด้วย

Warunee was aged 30 and from Phitsanulok when she was arrested on 2 December 2021, accused of lese majeste.

Her charge stemmed from a Facebook post that included a picture of King Vajiralongkorn changing the seasonal “clothing” of the Emerald Buddha. At the time, the king had briefly returned from Europe for this ceremony.

It is alleged that the picture was edited so that the Buddha was wearing a dress.

Warunee was alleged to have posted an edited photo that had the Buddha is wearing a ball gown with a Yorkshire terrier sitting next to the base of the Buddha, with the message “Emerald Buddha x Sirivannavari Bangkok.”

Prachatai provides an update on Warunee (last name withheld) or Nam-Warunee, a Facebook user detained pending appeal on a lese majeste charge, who has begun “a hunger strike in protest after being repeatedly denied bail.”

Warunee was arrested at her Phitsanulok home following a complaint filed by Nopadol Prompasit, one of the bullies associated with the Thailand Help Centre for Cyberbullying Victims, an online ultra-royalist group of thugs.

Nopadol complained “that the edited image insulted and made fun of the King, and that the post was rude and inappropriate and could affect national security, as well as insulting the religion.”

The police tagged along with the ultra-royalists and cruelly charged Warunee under Article 112, Article 14 of the Computer Crimes Act, and Article 206 for insulting an object of religious worship.

CMU students convicted over art installation29 Aug 2023 Prachatai…Two students from Chiang Mai University (CMU) have been found guilty of royal defamation and violation of the 1979 Flag Act for an art installation piece exhibited at an event in March 2021.

Prosecutors made the outlandish claim that “the image [she posted] might lead to a misunderstanding that the King was putting a dress on the Emerald Buddha and that a dog was sitting next to the Buddha during the ceremony [and that this] false information [was] damaging to national security.” Prosecutors apparently consider most Thais are stupid.

Warunee denied all charges.

The police confiscated her phone and laptop. Warunee was detained overnight at the Thung Song Hong Police Station before being taken to court on 3 December. Her lawyer requested bail citing her bipolar disorder that needs continuous treatment. She was later granted bail using a 100,000-baht security.

She was convicted on 28 June 2023 and sentenced to 3 years in prison, reduced “to 1 year and 6 months because she confessed to committing an offence against the King, who should not have been violated in a manner affecting other people’s feeling.”

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights report that Warunee told her lawyer on 21 August 2023 “that she is going on a hunger strike to protest her detention and will not be eating solid foods. She will still be drinking milk, but if she is not granted bail within three days, she will be going on a dry fast and will refuse medical treatment.” She “also told the lawyer that she has signed a document refusing medical treatment.”

Warunee is described as “very stressed” and has lost weight from about 37 to 33 kg. This means a fast is dangerous.

She reportedly told her lawyer that a hunger strike is the only way to communicate how Article 112 “hurts ordinary people.” Warunee said “that being denied bail on 17 August was the last straw for her.

She said she can no longer put up with being bullied by the court and that there is nothing else she can do but to jeopardize her own health in protest.”

She added: “If the Court is not going to let me go nicely, I will find a way out myself … physically intact or covered in a sheet of white cloth…”.

After her conviction, a bail application was made. Warunee has now been denied bail 5 times and has been in detention for 60 days.”

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Hamilton: Reflections on Ongoing Hunger Strike in the Barton Jail

Report on an ongoing hunger strike in Hamilton, Ontario and how people are organizing to support. Originally posted to North Shore Counter-Info…. Read Full Article

Paramilitary Park Rangers Attack Climate Activists Blockading Burning Man ‘Eco-Farce’

Radical self-reliance”group hosts 80K strong Rave in Desert attended by Private Jets..

/from thefreeonline on 28 Aug, 2023 by Censored News

Burning Man Produces More Greenhouse Gas Than A Small Country..

Park rangers in a white pickup truck rammed a makeshift barrier to which members of the climate campaign group Seven Circles had chained themselves following a standoff with angry drivers trying to enter the festival.

The rangers emerged from their trucks with sirens blaring and guns drawn, ordering the activists onto the ground and manhandling several into handcuffs after they failed to comply quickly enough.

In a video of the incident posted to social media, one demonstrator can be heard shrieking and sobbing “we’re nonviolent!” while another makes a half-hearted attempt to evade capture by denying involvement with the protest.

The rangers can be heard informing the demonstrators they are “trespassing on tribal land.” Several were reportedly taken into custody. The roadblock, located between the tiny town of Gerlach and Burning Man’s temporary purpose-built metropolis Black Rock City, prevented cars from passing in either direction on a road already notorious for traffic during the opening days of the festival. The event brings 80,000 people to the Black Rock Desert for a week of dancing, themed camps, events, and by some accounts, copious drug use.

In a video shot earlier on Sunday, the protesters dare angry drivers to “call the cops” as the festivalgoers’ efforts to fold up the barrier are stymied by activists chaining themselves to it.

Seven Circles claimed the protest was meant to draw attention to “capitalism’s inability to address climate’s ecological breakdown” and the “popularization of Burning Man among affluent people who do not live the stated values of Burning Man, resulting in the commodification of the event.”

The festival’s goals of being carbon-negative by 2030 are not sufficient, the group said in a statement on Sunday.

However, the event’s most affluent guests often enter via private jet rather than driving the long, hot road through the desert, landing at an airfield set up specifically to accommodate these high-rollers.

Dedicated to the spirit of “radical self-reliance,” the Burning Man Project bans the use of currency inside festival gates and requires attendees to bring whatever they need for the week. The festival’s “leave no trace” rule requires attendees to take all their trash out of the desert with them when the party is over, an edict which is not always followed.

Trash collected at Burning Man Festival

In January, the festival organization sued the federal Bureau of Land Management for allegedly violating environmental laws by approving a massive geothermal energy project less than a mile from Gerlach.

The company behind the project countered by touting geothermal’s green-energy bona fides and attacking Burning Man for the “copious amounts of fossil fuels” its annual gathering consumes

Tents, alcohol, food: towns complain of trash left by Burning Man..

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Intro to Regenesis: How to Feed the World and Stop Devouring the Planet

For the first time ever, we have the opportunity to transform not only our food system but our entire relationship to the living world.

/from thefreeonline on 26th Aug 2023 by George Monbiot and Frederick Guy [PDF] [EPUB] Regenesis HERE:

Solein – Precision Fermentation- – Protein out of thin air.…

This post is an introduction to the revolutionary book Regenesis . No pdf yet but its available on Kindle at US$ 4.99

Farming is the world’s greatest cause of environmental destruction—and the one we are least prepared to talk about.

We criticize urban sprawl, but farming sprawls across thirty times as much land.

We have plowed, fenced, and grazed great tracts of the planet, felling forests, killing wildlife, and poisoning rivers and oceans to feed ourselves. Yet millions still go hungry and the price of food is rising faster than ever.

Now the food system itself is beginning to falter. But, as George Monbiot shows us in this brilliant, bracingly original new book, we can resolve the biggest of our dilemmas and feed the world without devouring the planet.

Regenesis review: Farming is killing the planet but we can stop it…

Regenesis is a breathtaking vision of a new future for food and for humanity. Drawing on astonishing advances in soil ecology, Monbiot reveals how our changing understanding of the world beneath our feet could allow us to grow more food with less farming.

He meets the people who are unlocking these methods, from the fruit and vegetable grower revolutionizing our understanding of fertility; through breeders of perennial grains, liberating the land from plows and poisons; to the scientists pioneering new ways to grow protein and fat.

Together, they show how the tiniest life forms could help us make peace with the planet, restore its living systems, and replace the age of extinction with an age of regenesis.

see Full Discussion HERE Reflections on George Monbiot’s Regenesis | Frederick Guy

……Of the cases Monbiot considers in Regenesis, three stand out because he seems to think they represent models that work, or will work. These three could be seen as his proposal, his three-legged stool to support a sustainable food supply.

One of these is a vegetable farm in England, run by a man named Tolly;

Second is a facility producing proteins in a fermentation process in a vat in Finland; Solein | Protein out of thin air.

Third are perennial varieties of rice and wheat (those we’ve eaten heretofore, which is to say since the Neolithic, are all annuals), grasses which set down deep roots and have friendlier relationships with soil, water, pests and variable weather.