United States: A UN expert has issued a warning, claiming that peaceful protestors are the targets of “toxic discourse” and that environmental activists are facing a “severe crackdown” in the UK.
During a recent visit to the UK, Michel Forst, the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, reported learning of “extremely worrying information” regarding “an increasingly severe crackdown.”
In a statement on Tuesday, he warned that “regressive laws” were being used to punish environmental and climate activists severely, “including in relation to the exercise of the right to peaceful protest.”
“The right to protest is a basic human right. It is also an essential part of a healthy democracy,” he added.
According to the UN’s Aarhus Convention, which guarantees justice in environmental matters, Forst was appointed as an independent expert. The convention is ratified by the United Kingdom.
After years of disruptive demonstrations by environmental activists, the government of Britain last year gave police anti-protest powers.
However, Forst claimed that at this point, nonviolent demonstrators were being targeted for the felony of “public nuisance,” which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
A nonviolent climate protester who participated in a leisurely march for roughly half an hour last month received a six-month prison sentence.
Prior to the implementation of these “regressive” laws, the expert emphasized, “it had been almost unheard of for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK since the 1930s.”
The fact that some judges had prohibited “environmental defenders from explaining to the jury their motivation” for protesting “or from mentioning climate change at all,” he continued, was incomprehensible.
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