Stop Persecution - Repression of climate activism in Europe

Repression of climate activism in Europe

Europe/ 2024

Majda Slámová

On July 18, 2024, five members of the British organisation Just Stop Oil, which demands that the UK phases out its fossil fuel operations, were brought before an English court to hear a verdict which was hard to believe. Four of them were sentenced to four years in prison, one activist to five years. The reason? Participating in an online call to organise a peaceful protest. What is believed to be the harshest punishment for participation in an act of civil disobedience in British history[1] is sadly only one example of a growing trend in the criminalisation of climate protests.

Tough new laws, thousands of detentions, and scandalous prison sentences – these are some measures European governments have adopted in recent years to discourage climate protesters, among attempts to picture the climate movement as “extremist” and label it as “criminal”. The rising tendency to criminalise peaceful protesters is alarming, as we notice this worrying trend in many of the established democracies of Western Europe.

In the UK, strict laws were issued to enable harsher punishments for participants in peaceful protests, organised mainly by Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. Since the introduction of the controversial legislation, several activists have been imprisoned, including the record four- and five-year prison sentences handed down in July 2024.[2]

In Germany, members of the Last Generation movement face tough measures, especially in the state of Bavaria, as Last Generation is considered to be a “criminal organisation” according to the German law.

In France, the grassroots movement “The Uprisings of the Earth”, opposing controversial projects of building large water reservoirs, was met with brutal police repression and attempts by the French government to label the movement as “extremist”.

Drawing similarities to both the UK and Germany, the Italian government[3] has approached the activists by adopting an “eco-vandalism” law, imposing disproportionate fines on protesters while misusing the “anti-mafia” law to deal with the climate movement as a “criminal organisation”.

Controversial developments have been reported in other smaller European countries, for example Austria,[4] Finland,[5] and the Netherlands.[6]

Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, pointed out that while some countries, such as Italy or Germany, apply old rules such as anti-mafia laws to the acts of climate protesters, in other countries, such as the UK, strict new rules have been adopted in reaction to the rising acts of civil disobedience.[7] Forst recognises, in his position paper from February 2024, four major areas where increasing repression has been reported: the media and political discourse, legislation and policy, law enforcement (police and prosecution), and the approach of the courts.[8]

The new wave of intensified repression of non-violent climate protests from state authorities stressed the importance of judicial reviews. For example, French and Finnish courts have ultimately ruled the government’s measures unlawful. On the other hand, the adoption of restrictive laws in the UK or Italy does not allow much discretion for the judiciary.

Rather than accepting the demands of civil society to phase out fossil fuels and increase climate action to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, governments across Europe have chosen a path of increased repression. Constitutional freedoms of assembly and expression are under threat, which is not a good sign for a democracy.

Dunja Mijatović, the Commissioner for Human Rights under the Council of Europe, has expressed her concerns about these developments.[9] She acknowledged the important role of peaceful protests for democracy and the enjoyment of human rights and urged governments to engage in a meaningful social dialogue and improve the participation of defenders of human rights rather than opting for more repression.

It seems that to European governments, the activities of non-violent protesters are viewed as more dangerous than the climate crisis itself.

However, it is sadly to be expected that these tendencies of disproportionate persecution of environmental activists will only grow in the coming months and years. The record prison sentences of British activists from July 2024 are among many disturbing signs.[10]

Repressive measures, however, do not seem to discourage the protesters. In late July 2024, several airports in Europe and North America, including Germany, the UK, and Austria, were disrupted by activists under the banner “Oil Kills”.[11] 13 groups in ten countries participated in protests demanding an “emergency international response to save lives”.[12] The airport blockades started just a day after the hottest day on record according to scientists,[13] a strong symbol and sign of motivation behind increasingly risky acts of civil disobedience.

The examples of increasing persecution of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly relating to peaceful climate protest should be worrying for everyone. At the end of the day, civic rights and a stable climate are important for us all.

As Katy Watts, a lawyer from the British NGO Liberty, notes: “Protest is a fundamental right, not a gift from the state. Government should be protecting our right to protest, not criminalising it.”[14]

United Kingdom

Strict Laws and Unprecedented Jailings for Climate Activism

Since 2022, the UK has increasingly tightened its laws with heavy consequences for participants in peaceful protests, thus disproportionately threatening the right to freedom of expression and right to freedom of a peaceful assembly. These worrying tendencies were stressed by the report issued by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Matovic (“the Commissioner”), from November 2022[15] and the statement of the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, Michel Forst, from January 2024.[16]

Media and political discourse

Both reports note that these tendencies to criminalise public demonstrations were motivated to discourage protests by members of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and other climate activists, while Dunja Matovic puts such changes into an overall context of increasing verbal targeting and accusations against defenders of human rights and human rights lawyers by citizens and even members of the UK Government and Parliament.[17]

Michel Forst has described the discourse used by mainstream media and political figures as “toxic”.[18] For example, the home secretary Suella Braverman, from the Conservative Party, has warned that disruption caused by peaceful protesters is a “threat to our way of life” and urged the police to “take a firmer line” when dealing with protesters.[19]

The influential conservative think-tank Policy Exchange has issued a report entitled Extremism Rebellion,[20] suggesting that the practices of Extinction Rebellion might turn into more extreme or even “terrorist” ones in the future, while calling for tougher laws related to public protest. Sadly, some proposals of Policy Exchange, which has received funding from the oil company ExxonMobil,[21] were implemented in 2022.

New restrictive laws as a repressive tool

In April 2022, the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act was adopted. It makes it possible to restrict or ban demonstrations under the broad notion of “serious disruption”. The level of noise generated by protesters could be used as a reason to ban a protest. The Act introduced a number of offences related to protests; the criminal offence of “public nuisance” under the Act is punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment.[22] Protests near Parliament are also restricted by the Act. According to the Commissioner, the provisions of the Act are “broadly formulated and thus risk being arbitrarily applied” and are likely to interfere with the rights laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights.[23]

These measures were followed by the Public Order Act of 2023. This Act introduces several tough measures against public protesters which raised concerns in e.g. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights and were initially rejected in the legislative process. Several practices by which peaceful protesters express their participatory rights are now classed as criminal offences, among them blocking traffic or infrastructure and the practice of “locking on” (“attaching oneself to something as a protest tactic”), which may be as simple as an act of holding hands in a “human chain”.

The Public Order Act also introduces new stop and search powers for the police connected to the named offences and there is a possibility of issuing so-called “serious disruption prevention orders”, which enables courts to “impose conditions on individuals following a conviction for a protest-related offence, including reporting requirements, electronic tagging, restrictions on entering specific places, restrictions on association with other individuals, or restrictions on carrying specific items which might be used to engage in a protest-related offence”.[24]

Judicial excesses

The concerns expressed by the Commissioner were unfortunately soon proved to be reasonable by the practice of law enforcement authorities.

In December 2023, Stephen Gingell, a father of three and a peaceful climate protester from Just Stop Oil, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for participation in a slow march on a public road for only about 30 minutes.[25] It is thought to be the first jailing under the Public Order Act and perhaps the first imprisonment in the UK since the 1930s for a peaceful protest.[26] Gingell appealed.

This is so far the harshest use of Section 7 of the Public Order Act, which bans any act “which interferes with the use or operation of any key national infrastructure in England and Wales”. Under the same law, around 60 people were arrested at a march in front of Parliament.[27] Only in November 2023, the police arrested at least 630 peaceful Just Stop Oil protesters; at least 276 were charged, 125 of those under Section 7.[28]

Even harsher penalties were imposed on two peaceful protesters for committing an offence of “public nuisance”. Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland were jailed for two years and seven months and three years, respectively. These were, at the time, the longest imprisonment sentences in the history of peaceful protest in the UK.[29]

Sadly, these record-breaking sentences were surpassed only a year later. In July 2024, five supporters of Just Stop Oil (aged 22 to 58 years) received shocking sentences of four to five years in jail.[30] In a process described as a “farce” and “a low point in British justice”,[31] they were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. All five had attended a Zoom call to recruit potential participants in the organisation’s activities. The judge of the Southwark crown court described all five activists as “fanatics”, while refusing to take evidence on the climate crisis into account.

The UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst expressed deep concerns over the fact that participation in a Zoom call discussing peaceful protest would be enough to send someone to prison for four years. “How a sentence of this magnitude can be either reasonable, proportional or serve a legitimate public purpose is beyond comprehension,” wrote Forst in an open letter,[32] declaring the day as being a “dark day for peaceful environmental protest”.[33] He also noted that in the case of Mr. Shaw, one of the five convicted activists, he had already spent 113 days in prison awaiting trial and was living for one and a half years on draconian bail conditions, which are measures tough enough to be in violation of the Aarhus Convention.[34] Michel Forst also urged the new British government to ensure that Mr. Shaw’s sentence is reduced in line with international law.

“These sentences are not a one-off anomaly but the culmination of years of repressive legislation, overblown government rhetoric, and a concerted assault on the right of juries to deliberate according to their conscience,” said Amy Cameron of Greenpeace.[35]

Activists are not facing only criminal proceedings, but also civil injunctions, which ban protests in certain areas, such as public roadways. For breaching these injunctions, protesters face up to two years in prison and an unlimited fine.[36] Thus, protesters can be subject to both criminal and civil proceedings.[37]

The procedural rights of protesters are also violated; for example, in recent cases judges did not allow prosecuted protesters to explain to the jury their motivation to take part in such protests. Activist David Nixon was jailed for eight weeks for disobeying a judge’s instruction not to mention climate change.[38]

There are other examples of government attempts to discourage protesters. Trudi Warner was prosecuted for contempt of court for holding up a sign outside a court which read “Jurors, you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.” This was decided by the then solicitor-general Michael Tomlison, now serving as a minister of the Conservative government. The accusations were dismissed by the judge.[39]

Peaceful protesters also face “highly concerning” bail conditions, which are being imposed on them while awaiting a criminal trial. The protesters may be on bail for up to two years and in many cases, harsh conditions have already been imposed, including prohibitions on engaging in any protest or going into a particular area. Some peaceful protesters were required to wear electronic ankle tags, some including GPS tracking or a 10 pm to 7 am curfew.[40]

Challenges ahead

Whether the situation improves with a new Labour government after 14 years of Conservative rule remains to be seen. The new government has promised to end new UK oil and gas licensing. This was acknowledged by Just Stop Oil in an open letter to the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, while the group demands the phasing out of existing oil and gas projects.[41] The core demand of the organisation is that “the UK government works with other countries to establish a fossil fuel treaty to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas, and coal by 2030.”[42]

As of July 2024, Just Stop Oil has been participating in international “Oil Kills” protests blocking airports. Ten participants were arrested in connection with a blockade at Heathrow Airport. Eight of them were imprisoned without trial.[43]

“As long as political leaders fail to take swift and decisive action to protect our communities from the worst effects of climate breakdown, Just Stop Oil supporters, working with other groups internationally, will take the proportional action necessary to generate much-needed political pressure,” Just Stop Oil’s statement reads.[44]