Criminalization of climate activism already causing a deterrent effect: „Many have become frightened“.
The pressure is on. The increasing criminalization of climate activists in Spain is already having a deterrent effect on some organizations after police arrests that blame crimes such as criminal organization: „Yes, there are many colleagues who have been frightened and have moved away“, summarizes elDiario.es in Futuro Vegetal, a few days after an operation that has led to the arrest of 22 activists of this group.
As recently as August 2023, the UN rapporteur for the protection of human rights in the context of climate change, Ian Fry, warned of the „potential effect that the severity of sentences can have on civil society and activists“. He was referring to the imprisonment of two people in the United Kingdom for hanging from a bridge with a banner that read: „Just Stop Oil“.
Following the police action against Futuro Vegetal -which started in December 2023 and culminated last January 12 – „we are clear that at a legal level it is an outrage, but it is having the negative effect that there are people who have dissociated themselves from the group,“ says one of the detainees, Bilbo Basterra. However, she continues, „more new people continue to attend the weekly meetings, so it is true that the repression is noticeable, but it is not managing to get rid of us.
The piston went into overdrive when the movement to demand stronger action to tackle the climate crisis moved up a notch. A watershed moment came in October 2022 when two Just Stop Oil activists threw a can of soup against the protective glass of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. A few days later, two Futuro Vegetal activists glued their hands to the frame of Goya’s Las majas at the Prado Museum. They are two of the people included in the arrest operation that the police unraveled last Friday.
Already at that time, analyst Will Potter – who has studied the parallel between the persecution of animal rights activists and the hunting of communists in the U.S. in the 1950s- ventured to elDiario.es: „I would not be surprised if they received disproportionate penalties for protests. or described as terrorism. The police, for the time being, have included the crime of criminal organization in the records of the arrests of members of Futuro Vegetal.
The increased pressure „has impacted us in terms of being able to choose more disruptive actions and also to find activists willing to take these actions,“ explains Javier Raboso, head of Greenpeace’s Democracy and Culture of Peace campaign. „The aim is to demobilize those who are already aware, but also to send out a warning to the navigators so that others will not be mobilized“.
„It has impacted us in terms of being able to choose more disruptive actions and to find activists willing to do these actions. The aim is to demobilize those who are already aware, but also to send out a warning to navigators.“
Javier Raboso — Responsable de la campaña de Democracia y Cultura de Paz de Greenpeace
Greenpeace has a long history of action. Among them was that of a group of activists who penetrated the perimeter and climbed up the chimney of the Cofrentes nuclear power plant in 2011. They were acquitted in 2014. „This new situation forces us to draw on resources to defend ourselves from legal proceedings and, of course, on a personal level, it increases fear. If criminal proceedings accumulate, it forces some people to leave the scene and retreat to avoid ending up in prison for accumulation. In fact, in Greenpeace we have already agreed with some activists not to participate in certain protests that, in principle, should not entail much risk, but now they do“.
„It’s hard, even though it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time,“ says Basterra. „We are going through very difficult emotional processes. Living in fear of being in the street and seeing a police car with the fear that they are going to arrest us,“ adds the activist, who adds that all this „is causing some of our colleagues to suffer from depression or anxiety attacks“.
Fines under the ‘gag’ law
In its last annual report, the Public Prosecutor’s Office analyzed that groups such as Futuro Vegetal are carrying out „more significant actions that, unlike the previous ones, are no longer so widely accepted and welcomed by the public as a whole“. „Actions such as those carried out in different museums have not been well received, and there have been numerous criticisms,“ the text states. Prosecutors expect that „actions will continue, even increase, as more and more young people join these groups that defend sustainable society models“.
Raboso stresses that, „although it has less media dimension, the fines that the gag law still entails deteriorate the ability of organizations to exercise protests. They have been learning to use this law in such a way that the sanctions are greater“.
While the 15 Scientific Rebellion activists who dropped water dyed beet to the facade of the Congress are still pending if they are opened oral trial and the members of Futuro Vegetal are waiting for a judge to open a trial after the police arrests, Bilbo Basterra confesses to having had „nightmares and episodes of depression, especially because of the distrust that has been sown within the collective“. However, he assures: „This reaffirms that what we do fulfills our objectives of attracting the attention of high-level institutions and reaching an audience that is not normally reached. In the end, it is proof that we have that capacity,“ he says.
