The legal system is loaded against people fighting King Coal in Appalachia. Over the past year, we’ve seen excessive “cash-only” bails for non-violent activists in jail and excessive fines once their legal matters are settled.

Now two of the three activists arrested last week at the Marfork Coal Company’s offices are fighting back against their excessive bails ($5000 for two and $7500 for the third activist, Mike Roselle).

These folks are putting their health and safety on the line in resisting big coal and the corrupt legal systems. Please donate to help Climate Ground Zero fight King Coal in southern West Virginia.

BEAVER, W.Va.—Tom Smyth, and Joe Hamsher, from Charleston, W.Va., began a hunger strike in jail today in protest of the absurdity of their $5,000, cash-only bonds compared to that of violent criminals. Smyth and Hamsher went to jail last Thursday when they chained themselves to office furniture in Massey’s Marfork Mining Co., office in response to mounting permit violations and the continued blasting on Coal River Mountain. They also presented a citizen’s arrest warrant to Marfork president Christopher Blanchard, on charges of attempting to injure by poison, malicious or unlawful assault or assault of a child near a school, and wanton endangerment. More »

Here in Riau, Indonesia, signs of the struggle to save the last of Sumatra’s forest is everywhere. Daily, the papers cover stories of timber and oil palm companies destroying forests, engaging in corruption, driving land conflicts, sponsoring violence, and marginalizing indigenous peoples.

Today, on the way to a meeting with the local NGO Elang, I passed villagers from the Kampar Peninsula, a carbon-rich and biodiverse ecoystem that is under attack by Sinar Mas’ oil palm operations and their timber division Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), on a hunger strike.

In front of the provincial parliament building, a group of men and women from the village of Kijang Kejo have set up a plastic tarp and banner, announcing to Riau’s elected officials that they will not eat until the oil palm plantation PT Arindo Tri Sejahtera, who stole their land and then paid thugs to kill three of their family members, is brought to justice.

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