By 2023, 196 people will have died trying to protect the environment. And in the Northern Hemisphere, more and more people will be imprisoned.
Protest against arrest of 21 ‘Just Stop Oil’ activists in London Photo: Vuk Valcic/Reuters
Berlin Taz | As the impacts of climate change grow, many people around the world are protesting the indifference of governments and big business. While freedom of expression, association, and assembly are indeed protected under international law, protesting the environment and climate is becoming increasingly dangerous.
According to a report by the NGO Global Witness, 196 environmental activists were killed worldwide in 2023 alone, 85% of them in Latin America. The wealthy countries of the North love to blame developing countries and the treatment of environmental activists, but they also have some catching up to do when it comes to freedom of expression, although to a different degree. In the North, as the environmental group Climate Rights International (CRI) has criticized, peaceful climate protesters are being subjected to harsher punishments.
In the report, the organization documents crackdowns on nonviolent climate protests in Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, based on, among other things, newspaper articles, court files, academic materials and conversations with experts and defendants.
The results show that the countries surveyed are imposing increasingly harsh prison sentences for climate protests. By doing so, the group concludes, governments are breaching their legal obligations to protect the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association. To illustrate, her report presents numerous examples of disproportionately long prison sentences for peaceful climate protests in all the countries surveyed.
5 years in prison after blocking the road
The UK government followed up its emphasis on the long tradition and importance of peaceful protest at the UN Human Rights Council in May and July this year by imposing unprecedented prison sentences for non-violent protests. Climate activists from the Just Stop Oil group were sentenced to four and five years in prison for causing a public disturbance on London’s M25 ring road.
In some cases, activists have reportedly been prevented from discussing their motivations in court. For example, in the M25 trial, the judge reportedly refused to allow the defendants to explain their motivations. In another case, two activists accused of blocking a road in London were sentenced to seven weeks in prison for contempt of court after citing the climate crisis as a reason for their actions.
“Governments need to view climate activists as allies in the fight against climate change, not criminals,” said Brad Adams, CRI’s executive director.
