Shell to Sea - Remember Saro-Wiwa Protest at Glasnevin Shell Station 6.00PM

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Friday November 03, 2006 01:52 by Shell to Sea dublinshelltosea at gmail dot com c/0 134 phibsborough Road Dublin 7 0871323369

6PM at Shell Glasnevin, opposite Glasnevin Cemetry

Shell has sold it's forecourts to TOPAZ, but all the petrol sold is from Shell and the sign outside is still Shell.

Protesters will gather at 6PM to show solidarity with the people of Mayo and remember Ken Saro Wiwa, the anti-Shell activist who, with eight comrades, was executed by the Shell backed Nigerian dictatorship in 1995.

Ken Saro Wiwa October 10, 1941 – November 10, 1995

Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 8 were leaders of MOSOP, the Movement for Survival of the Ogoni People. Since Shell entered Ogoniland in 1958, severe environmental devastation has occurred, blighting the land.

As outspoken environmental and human rights activists, Ken Saro-Wiwa,Daniel Gbokoo, Dr. Barinen Klobel, John Kpuinen, Baribor Bera, Saturday Dobee, Felix Nuate, Nordu Eawoh, and Paul Levura declared that Shell was not welcome in Ogoniland.

On November 10, 1995, they were hanged after a trial by a special military tribunal (whose decisions cannot be appealed) in the murder of four other Ogoni activists. The defendants' lawyers were harassed and denied access to their clients.

Although none of them were near the town where the murders occurred, they were convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that many heads of state (including US President Clinton) strongly condemned for a stunning lack of evidence, unmasked partiality towards the prosecution and the haste of the trial.

The Prime Minister of Britain called the hanging "judicial murder".

The executions were carried out a mere eight days after the decision. Aftwer the execution two prosecution witnesses admitted that Shell and the military bribed them to testify against Ken Saro-Wiwa with promises of money and jobs at Shell.

Ken's final words before his execution were: "The struggle continues!"