Advocates for human rights have voiced concern about information of a tightening crackdown on climate rallies across Europe.
Reportedly, authorities have reacted to climate demonstrations in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom by making mass arrests, adopting harsh new laws, issuing heavy punishments for non-violent rallies, and labeling activists as hooligans, saboteurs, or eco-terrorists.
Is the UK Leading This Crackdown?
Following a summer of record-breaking heat in southern Europe, which is ascribed to the consequences of climate breakdown, appeals for civic space by leading human rights activists and environmental campaigners to enable the right to non-violent protest have been met with crackdowns.
Experts believe the UK has been at the forefront of this crackdown, with judges recently rejecting appeals from climate campaigners who were given lengthy terms for blocking a bridge over a highway in east London. A British court handed down the longest prison sentences ever for peaceful protest -- three years each to Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland, according to Evening Standard.
Protesters in the UK are trying to figure out how to operate in a new legal environment that places significant limits on their right to protest. This includes two sweeping new laws passed in the last two years that give police the discretion to ban protests deemed "disruptive" and criminalize a wide range of protest tactics.
United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, called the situation in the UK terrifying. He said the impact on Europe would be terrible since other nations were studying the UK's legislation with an eye toward implementing similar legislation.
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Continent-Wide Crackdown on Climate Rallies?
Since his appointment, Forst has visited several European nations. "There is a clear trend," he told the Guardian. "We can see an increasing number of cases by which these climate activists are brought to court more and more often and more and more severe laws being passed to facilitate these attacks on defenders."
Forst is convinced that European police forces cooperate against these actions. Concerns arise when governments label the climate activists eco-terrorists or employ defamation, which may greatly damage public perception and the cause they are fighting for.
According to Amnesty International, the organization is looking into reports of a continent-wide crackdown on protest. Senior activist on civil space and the right to protest in Europe Catrinel Motoc stated, "There's alarming evidence of criminalization, harassment, stigmatization and negative rhetoric towards environmental defenders."
She added that as a result of European nations' lack of action in the face of the climate catastrophe, peaceful protestors have no choice but to engage in public demonstrations and other forms of non-violent direct action.
Motoc said that European governments should instead focus on having an open discussion with activists and organizations to find solutions to the difficulties posed by the climate catastrophe rather than criminalizing and otherwise silencing non-violent environmental defenders.
