"Subversion, Illicit Association, Terrorism, Tax Evasion" - Specious Charges For Activists Flourish
As wildfires and extreme temperatures rage across the planet, sea temperature records tumble and polar glaciers disappear, the scale and speed of the climate crisis is impossible to ignore. Scientific experts are unanimous that there needs to be an urgent clampdown on fossil fuel production, a major boost in renewable energy and support for communities to rapidly move towards a fairer, healthier and sustainable low-carbon future. Many governments, however, seem to have different priorities. According to climate experts, senior figures at the UN and grassroots advocates contacted by the Guardian, some political leaders and law enforcement agencies around the world are instead launching a fierce crackdown on people trying to peacefully raise the alarm.
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The Guardian has also found striking similarities in the way governments from Canada and the US to Guatemala and Chile, from India and Tanzania to the UK, Europe and Australia, are cracking down on activists trying to protect the planet.
The legal contexts vary, but the charges – such as subversion, illicit association, terrorism and tax evasion – are often vague and time-consuming to disprove, while a growing number of countries, including the US and UK, have passed controversial anti-protest laws ostensibly intended to protect national security or so-called critical infrastructure such as fossil fuel pipelines.
he systematic criminalisation of environmental defenders is not new. Natural resources on Indigenous land have long been exploited, driving big profits for some but also fuelling violence and inequality.
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The legislation followed a report by the rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange entitled Extremism Rebellion. It claimed that non-violent environmental campaigners and campaigns could stray into terrorism, and called for new laws to curtail them. The government adopted its proposals in the new act. Investigative journalists later reported that Policy Exchange had previously received funding from energy interests including ExxonMobil, Drax and Energy UK.
Amnesty described the passage of the “deeply authoritarian” act as a “dark day for civil liberties in the UK”, but the ink had barely dried on the statute books when the government followed it up with a second anti-protest law. The Public Order Act, passed by parliament earlier this year, includes orders that can ban named individuals from joining protests, and an expansion of police powers to stop and search people on the grounds they might be planning to commit a protest-related offence – including many newly created by the bill – as well as powers for “suspicionless” searches. It also created new offences of “locking on”, where protesters chain or glue themselves to immovable objects or each other, going to protests equipped to lock on, obstructing major transport works, interfering with national infrastructure and tunnelling – all tactics used by climate activists.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/12/how-criminalisation-is-being-used-to-silence-climate-activists-across-the-world
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