Last month, campaign group Defend Our Juries organised this silent roadblock protest outside the Attorney General’s Office at the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in London to highlight the increasing number of political prisoners – environmental and anti-war protesters given harsh sentences or held in prison for very long periods before trial.
Now, the group are calling for concerned citizens to write submissions of evidence to an MOJ consultation calling out violations of the Aarhus Convention (see below), and are hoping that hundreds of letters could force a response and also help legal appeals being launched in the new year. Sign in for further details and advice here.
The UK government stands accused of systematically violating its international convention agreements as part of a wider crackdown on effective protest.
In our extensive coverage of the July trial of five Just Stop Oil activists planning peaceful roadblock protests, we wrote about the visit of UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst. He came to London to observe the court proceedings after taking special interest in the case of one of the defendants, Daniel Shaw. Daniel had been on remand for several months prior to the trial, simply for taking part in a Zoom meeting which was infiltrated by a Sun journalist.
Ahead of the trial, Michel Forst wrote to the UK government, and issued a public statement expressing his concern that the UK may be in violation of its obligations as a signatory to the Aarhus Convention, and threatening to refer the matter to its Compliance Committee.
The harsh sentences of four and five years’ imprisonment handed down to the #WholeTruthFive flew in the face of Michel Forst’s warnings, and appear to be part of a wider repressive and authoritarian response to increasing dissatisfaction with the government’s response to the climate and ecological emergency.
“Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent not just for environmental protests but for any form of peaceful protest that may at one point or another not align with the interests of the government of the day.” – Michel Forst
As predicted by Mr Forst, that authoritarianism encompasses resistance to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and we’ve seen journalists and leading Jewish academics and even Rabbis arrested recently, accused of support for a proscribed organisation, or of anti-semitic or racially-motivated offences.
As part of their campaign to uphold international law and halt arms to Israel, Palestine Action have seen rapidly increasing oppression too. After activists put Elbit Systems’ new Filton facility near Bristol out of action for several days in August, suspects were held for days under Terrorism powers. Although none were eventually charged with any terrorist offences, there were further raids headed by counter-terrorist police and ten people ended up on remand pending distant court trials (scheduled for the end of next year).
This week there were ten more arrests connected to the Filton action, after violent raids in which flatmates and family members were handcuffed and told they had to find alternative accommodation for days.
Amnesty International’s UK Law and Human Rights director Tom Southerden has expressed concern over the use of terrorism powers, saying that “Ordinary criminal offences can be investigated and prosecuted using ordinary criminal procedures, a process that helps ensure that the rights of those accused are properly protected.” Amnesty has longstanding concerns over the use of laws which “circumvent normal legal protections” and charges that are “not commensurate with the facts of a case.”
Real Media has previously published several articles showing direct connections between big business or Zionist influence and supposedly ‘independent’ strategy reports, resulting in new legislation and legal rulings which help deny justice to climate and anti-war protesters.
This country is a direct signatory to the Aarhus agreement, and so can be held to account by its compliance committee. Although letter-writing itself seldom if ever leads to change, further pressure to comply with its international obligations puts the government on notice and can be useful in future trials and appeals.
More info on the Defend Our Juries Aarhus campaign at actionnetwork.org
