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RiF activists storm European Patents Office
kev - 10.04.2002 18:15
On Tuesday, as part of the Resistance is Fertile! season of action to coincide with the COP 6 convention on Biodiversity in Den Haag, about 50 activists stormed the European Patents Office to denounce the practice of patenting life.
At 12:30 on Tuesday, around 50 activists from around the world occupied the offices of the European Patents Office in Rijswijk, near the Hague as part of the Resistance is Fertile season of action to accompany the UN COP 6 Convention on Biodiversity. The protesters, including a twelve-piece samba band, barged their way past slack-jawed security to make their presence felt in the massive canteen where many hundreds of office workers from the two buildings that make up the EPO were having their lunch. There was a mass distribution of the Earth Crimes (a ´spoof´ newspaper written to accompany conference readable online at  http://squat.net/cia/gp) to the people eating lunch. Leaflets were also given out that explained the main message of the action - that patenting life is unacceptable.
Patents on life can result in :
´Biopiracy´: what many see as the theft of their genetic resources by private companies from industrialised countries. This includes the exploitation of the genetic resources of indigenous peoples and the knowledge of their uses.
Farmers´ rights being destroyed: presently (North American) farmers are being sued by multinationals for having patented seeds on their land, despite the fact that often they got there by contamination in the first place. This will soon be commonplace around the world, both North and South.
While the literature was being distributed, unbeknownst to the EPO security, a small but determined climbing team was taking advantage of the distraction to start a long arduous climb up 8 floors of the building, carrying a 16 meter square banner with them. At this point the samba band was enthusiastically going for it in the main foyer, and a variety of colourful, ´No patents on life!´ stickers were being stuck in many nooks and crannies. There were 4 speakers from NGOs taking part in the conference who had come along to take part in the action, including a woman from the ETC group, a man from Action Aid and an indigenous Peruvian person. Unfortunately (and somewhat predictably) the mega-phone was not quite working, and at some point despite the fact that the activists seemed to have the upper hand of the situation and weren´t threatened with immediate arrest, a decision was made to voluntarily leave the building and listen to the speakers outside where they would be more audible.
After listening to the speakers, and while enjoying the hot beverages and soup provided by the ever-on-it action kitchen crew Rampenplan, the focus was on the progress of the climbers inching up the side of the building. At one stage in their ascent, they had had to cope with an extremely precarious situation involving a fool-hardy security guard who had opened a window and was attempting to obstruct their climb upwards. After a minor tussle, they kept onwards and upwards. However, when they finally made it to the storey where they were going to drop the banner, more unidentified security guards re-appeared from another window and after initially attempting to cut the banner, they started cutting at some of the equipment of one of the climbers. It was here that the situation started to really get out of hand, with the climbers being on the outside of the building and eight floors up, and the equipment keeping them safe being attacked by a security guard whose rage seemed to be affecting his better judgement. One of the climbers descibed the situation as frighteningly escalating in physical and emotional intensity on both sides, before they started talking to each other a bit more reasonably. At this point, the climbers decided that their safety had been too greatly compromised and decided to abandon the banner drop and return to safety.
Back on the ground, the police had made it known to the activists assembled outside the building that they could not stay there indefinitely or they would be arrested. After discussing the various options, it was consensually decided that they wouldn´t leave before the climbers had been returned unharmed and unarrested, and when a camera that had been confiscated would be returned (which had been broken when it was). After the 45 minute occupation inside, and the hour or so spent outside, the climbers were re-united with the main group, and the samba band lead the way to the nearest tram stop.
 Website: http://resistanceisfertile.org
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| supplements | | | 20 floors! | anna - 12.04.2002 18:32
they climbed 20 floors (not 8)!!
you can now see how it would have looked, had the banner been dropped, at www.resistanceisfertile.org
a.
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