disobbedienza civile

Criminal conspiracy aimed at disturbing the peace.Five Just Stop Oil activists, including one of its co-founders, 58-year-old Roger Hallam, on July 18 were sentenced to unprecedented prison terms for planning to block the M25 motorway in November 2022:a Zoom call was sufficient for the conviction which, according to the sentence, demonstrated "the intricate planning and sophistication of the disruptive action" and constituted "irrefutable proof" of the existence of a criminal conspiracy. Who are the Just Stop Oil activists? Just Stop Oil is a British group of climate activists, founded in 2022 and known for its disruptive actions, such as blocking major roads, disrupting sporting events, throwing cornmeal paint on monuments such as Stonehenge.The group calls its protest tactics actions of “non-violent civil resistance to pressure the British government” on the issue of anthropogenic climate change.The first Just Stop Oil protests aimed to stop al...

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. European countries must end the repression and criminalization of peaceful climate protests and act urgently to reduce emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C, he has declared the United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst. At the end of a year-long investigation, which included gathering evidence from several European countries, Forst said the crackdown on peaceful environmental activists around the world poses a grave threat to democracy and human rights.All states involved in the UN expert's investigation into environmental defenders have joined the Aarhus Convention, which holds that peaceful environmental protest is a legitimate exercise of the public's right to participate in decision-making processes and that those who participate must be protected.Yet the response to peaceful environmental pr...

What they have in common the latest generation actions with the vandalism on the Montanelli statue? A widespread journalistic view sees these actions as protests as an end in themselves, driven by exhibitionist intentions and on issues not connected to the actions themselves.Even public positions closer to the climate and feminist causes have expressed skepticism in this regard because, while sharing the aim, they deplore the means whose striking and radical modality would risk alienating the public's sympathy. Yet behind the refusal of principle or strategic skepticism lies a very common unsaid:If these causes and these strategies are not going well, what should we fight for today and how should we carry these requests forward?Age reasons (the population aged 0-14 is 12.4%, while the population over 65 is 24%, ISTAT 2023) and a good dose of intellectual laziness mean that a large part of Italian public opinion, especially that most visible in the mainstream media, is incapable of...

Senate approves bill against climate activists Update July 14, 2023:The Senate has a bill passed to punish with more severe penalties damage, disfigurement, soiling and illicit use of cultural and landscape assets.The proposal is from Minister Sangiuliano but absorbs other bills proposed by the League and the Brothers of Italy in recent months.The bill, which has yet to be examined by the Chamber, provides, in addition to criminal sanctions, an autonomous administrative sanction imposed by the prefect for a sum between 20 thousand and 60 thousand euros.The crime of damage is then modified (art.635 of the Criminal Code) and that of defacing or soiling other people's property (art.639 criminal code).For the first, a fine of 10 thousand euros is added to the aggravating circumstance already foreseen by the Salvini-bis decree for the case in which the damage is committed during a demonstration in a public place or open to the public.For the second, punishment is also foreseen if the defac...

I declare, I was irritated by the gesture of a person who throws a tomato on a shrine or defaces monuments, even if not irreparably.Then I decided to delve deeper into the reasons and try to understand.I spoke at length with my twenty-year-old daughter, climate activist, Carlotta Sarina aka Struggle  who, introducing me to his activist friends from Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, Ultima Generazione, made me reflect. I talked to them, I went to the their meetings, I tried to take off the weight of the presumption of truth, of the judgmental approach and I was literally left speechless by the depth of their ideas, their ability to network, their openness to discussion and their incredible ability to communicate and inform oneself. My initial approach was that of a person who professionally deals with communications and therefore I imagined I could help them communicate by making my experience available.A somewhat paternalistic approach that I gradually toned down until it...