A report has shown that wealthy, democratic countries in the global north are using harsh, vague and punitive measures to crack down on climate protests at the same time as criticising similar draconian tactics by authorities in the global south.
A Climate Rights International report that exposed the increasingly heavy-handed treatment of climate activists in Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US, found the crackdown in these countries – including lengthy prison sentences, preventive detention and harassment – was a violation of governments’ legal responsibility to protect basic rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association.
Among other things, It also highlights how these same governments frequently criticise regimes in developing countries for not respecting the right to protest peacefully.
“Governments too often take such a strong and principled view about the right to peaceful protest in other countries – but when they don’t like certain kinds of protests at home they pass laws and deploy the police to stop them,” said Brad Adams, director at Climate Rights International.
Read also: Report: Half a million oysters to be introduced to Humber estuary in restoration plan
Across Europe, the US and the UK, authorities have responded to non-violent climate protests with mass arrests and draconian new laws that have resulted in long prison sentences. In some instances those who have taken part have been labelled as hooligans, saboteurs or ecoterrorists by politicians and the media.
Senior human rights advocates and environmental campaigners have raised concerns about the crackdown and called on governments to protect the right to non-violent protest.
“These defenders are basically trying to save the planet, and in doing so save humanity,” Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, told the Guardian last year. “These are people we should be protecting, but are seen by governments and corporations as a threat to be neutralised. In the end it’s about power and economics.”
The escalating climate crisis has resulted in record-breaking temperatures around the world in 2024, driving food shortages, mass movements of people and economic hardship – as well as deadly fires and floods.
But the report found that rather than taking urgent measures to rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels and halt ecological collapse, many relatively wealthy countries have instead focused on those trying to stop those raising the alarm by taking part in protests and civil disobedience.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
