Climate activists are under increasing pressure in Europe, Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, told Lusa on Monday while expressing his surprise at the violence with which some governments treat them.
“Rights defenders as a whole face several major challenges and risks in many countries, including in Europe, but those who are currently paying the highest price are precisely environmental activists and people trying to defend their land and the climate,” said Forst in an interview with Lusa.
As the first rapporteur in the world to focus on environmental defence campaigners, Forst was in Portugal to take part in the international conference of the Human Rights Platform at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.
“I don’t understand why, but the fact is that more and more politicians in more countries are comparing people who are actually peaceful demonstrators with violent terrorists,” he told Lusa, noting that he sees this “in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK, Germany and Switzerland”.
“I toured more than 20 European Union (EU) countries to meet with activists and governments, inviting them to describe the atmosphere they face in their countries, and I can assure you that the situation is becoming very, very, very tense,” he said, pointing out that governments such as those in France or Austria classify these activists as “eco-terrorists or green Taliban”.
Forst also explained to Lusa that he is currently working with a group of NGOs “to try to understand better what is happening in Europe, to guide EU governments on how to respond to civil disobedience”.
Emphasising that civil disobedience is governed by international human rights law, he said he was alarmed when he met judges from Spain, France and Germany and found that they “did not understand international human rights law at all”.
Activists who engage in civil disobedience “should not be penalised”, but in reality, we see that “judges and governments do not comply with international obligations”, Forst pointed out.
Forst now aims to provide documents and guidelines for states to ensure better fulfilment of their international obligations, the UN official said.
His aim for now is to provide documents and guidelines for states to ensure better fulfilment of their international obligations, he added.
“Some states have been very receptive, such as Ireland and Norway, but many others have not,” he said, naming the example of the UK and adding that, in some cases, the police infiltrate groups to know what is being prepared and to be able to control the activists better.
“We now have evidence that some [environmental campaigners] have been placed under strict surveillance, with their phones being hacked and their computers being tapped,” he also said.
For Forst, environmental campaigners are no different from those who fight for human rights.
(Patrícia Cunha, edited by Cristina Cardoso | Lusa.pt)
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