In late May a mass blockade of the A12 in the Hague in the Netherlands by 6,000
people ended with 1,500 arrests. The police used water cannons against the crowdfifteen minutes after the blockade began. Protestors were picked up bodily, putinto buses and transported to a nearby football stadium. Most of these werereleased shortly after, but forty were detained for a whole day without food orwater. These were held in a police bus and harshly interrogated. One was held forthree days, accused of biting a cop but no evidence was offered and they wereacquitted a week later. ---- The blockade was called by Dutch ExtinctionRebellion who were demanding that their government end fossil fuel subsidies.This is not the first time police have used repressive tactics againstenvironmentalists. In January police made pre-emptive arrests of protestorsbefore a similar blockade in January. This led to a mass wave of indignationagainst these arrests.In France environmental protestors demonstrated against the building of ahigh-speed train line between Lyon and Turin in France on Saturday, June 17th.They regard the line as highly harmful to the environment and negativelyaffecting water resources in the region. More than 4,000 demonstrated at thevillage of La Chapelle. The cops fired tear gas at the protestors. Twenty-sevenprotestors from Italy were detained by French cops and handed back to the Italianpolice.The Prefect of Savoie had forbidden demonstrations in seven municipalities closeto the French Alps. The demonstration was co-organized by a dozen organisationsincluding Soulèvements de la Terre ("Earth Uprisings") and the Italian groupNo-TAV ("No the high-speed train"), which has been opposed to the scheme for some30 years.On Tuesday June 20th cops, including members of the Anti-Terrorist SubDirectorate (SDAT) raided homes of Earth Uprisings members in different parts ofFrance and arrested fourteen people. They face charges of "criminalassociation" and "organised destruction" related to an invasion of a cementfactory in December 2022. Lafarge-Holcim, who own this factory, are one of thebiggest producers of CO2 in France. Local people have complained for a long timeabout the ovens there, fuelled by industrial waste and car tyres, polluting theatmosphere. Earth Uprisings later demonstrated at Sainte Soline in westernFrance against the construction of giant water basins, also seen asenvironmentally damaging, in March. 30,000 demonstrators turned out. The Stateresponded by turning out 3,200 cops and ten helicopters. Four thousand blastgrenades were fired at demonstrators, and the cops also used water cannon, andsurrounded the site with trucks. Two protestors ended up in comas, and the mostseriously injured of these, who was in a life-threatening condition for sometime, is only now showing signs of recovery. The Human Rights League (FDH) statedthat "as soon as the demonstrators arrived at the reservoir site, police fired atthem with weapons of war: tear gas grenades, stun grenades, explosive sting-ballgrenades and rubber bullets".On Wednesday June 20th, a cabinet meeting of the Macron government confirmed thatit had ordered the dissolution of Earth Uprisings, in other words banning it andmaking it illegal. This is an extremely disturbing move, with the use of a lawpreviously deployed against Islamists and the far-right.Repressive measures are also being used against protestors in the the UK. Whentwo members of Just Stop Oil unfurled a banner on a London bridge, causing it tobe closed for 36 hours, they subsequently spent the next six months in custody,before being sentenced under a new law that is specifically aimed at disruptiveprotests. This law was pushed by Boris Johnson when he was PM, and could seeprotestors potentially facing up to ten years in jail. The sentencing judge madeit clear in his closing statement that the sentences were meted out as punishmentand to deter others from taking similar action.Morgan Trowland received a harsh three-year prison sentence, whilst MarcusDecker got two years and seven months in jail.This follows sentencing of up to six months for Insulate Britain protestors, withothers narrowly avoiding similar sentences. Intelligence on environmentalprotesters who specifically target large companies is being passed tocounter-terror police (CTP) to see if their activity could "indicate a pathtowards terrorism".Public order and protest-related duties were removed from CTP's remit in April2020. But documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show thatinformation on environmental protestors is still being shared with CTP HQ, adepartment run by the Metropolitan police which oversees a nationalcounter-terror network, including on the grounds that it could cause "large-valueloss" to a business. When she was Home Secretary, Priti Patel was to labelExtinction Rebellion activists as "eco-crusaders turned criminals".In different states in Australia, similar repressive laws have been passedagainst environmental protestors, with those taking part in peaceful protestsfacing the same sentencing as for aggravated assault.Everywhere the State and the boss class is responding to attempts to halt climatechange and environmental damage, seen as affecting profit, with vicious Stateviolence and harsh sentencing. This reveals their real concerns. Whilst they comeout with mealy mouthed statements on the environment, they are prepared to donothing to halt the juggernaut of climate change. On the contrary, they areready to turn to the State thugs and mercenaries of the police and to compliantjudges, to halt the ever-growing environmental movements around the world.At the moment this is illustrated most clearly in France, where an increasinglymilitarised police is being used against environmental protestors. This is thesame militarised police that is being used against the large-scale protestsagainst pension reforms. The reactions of the State and the media to theenvironmental movements will inevitably lead to increased radicalisation tosections of that movement, to the growing realisation that the halting of climatechange cannot happen without system change, the dismantling of capitalism thatmust include the dissolution of the police.https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2023/06/22/moves-towards-criminalisation-of-environmental-protestors-on-international-level/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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