As many as 24 activists are under house arrest in anticipation of the climate summit in Paris next week. They are accused of planning to disobey France’s ban on protesting during the week of the summit.
According to the Guardian:
One legal adviser to the activists said many officers raided his Paris apartment and occupied three floors and a staircase in his block.
French authorities did not respond to requests for comment but lawyers said that the warrants were issued under state of emergency laws, imposed after the terror attacks that killed 130 people earlier this month.
The author and climate change campaigner, Naomi Klein, accused French authorities of “a gross abuse of power that risks turning the summit into a farce.”
Klein commented to the Guardian that the issue of climate change is contentious and democracy is a messy process, but the protests are very much a part of that process.
“Climate summits are not photo opportunities to boost the popularity of politicians,” Klein said. “Given the stakes of the climate crisis, they are by their nature highly contested. That is democracy, messy as it may be. The French government, under cover of anti-terrorism laws, seems to be trying to avoid this, shamefully banning peaceful demonstrations and using emergency powers to pre-emptively detain key activists.”
For more on this, read the article from the Guardian titled: “Paris climate activists put under house arrest using emergency laws.“
