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Seven Years in Prison for Playing the Cello in New York? [1]

['Liza Featherstone', 'Kate Aronoff', 'Heather Souvaine Horn']

Date: 2024-08-15

Rozendaal is not alone in facing ludicrously extreme criminal charges and penalties for climate protest. It’s becoming disturbingly common, as the ruling class seeks to use the criminal justice system to make anyone who disagrees disappear. Sixty-one demonstrators who protested against “Cop City,” Atlanta’s awful plan to build a military-style police academy on the site of a beloved urban forest, have been charged under RICO (a conspiracy law aimed at criminal racketeering), for example. They face a possible 20 years in prison, some for the crime of putting up flyers.

In the United Kingdom, too, climate protesters are facing alarming crackdowns. Last month, five Just Stop Oil protesters who had nonviolently stopped traffic on a major roadway in southern England were sentenced to four years each, with the leader of the group receiving a five-year sentence.

As if these examples weren’t bad enough, the fossil fuel industry is attempting to codify criminal penalties for some forms of climate protest. Pressed by industry donors, Congress has been working to broaden preexisting laws against destroying pipelines—a felony mandating up to 20 years in prison—with more expansive language extending such penalties to people who “[impair] the operation of” pipelines. Indigenous and other environmental activists rightly fear that the whole range of pipeline protests—from sacred rituals to Willie Nelson concerts—could be effectively outlawed. Exxon Mobil, Koch, and other bad actors have been lobbying hard for this, even as peaceful pipeline protesters are already finding themselves facing stiff prison sentences.

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[1] Url: https://newrepublic.com/article/184875/climate-protest-cellist-citibank-arrest

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