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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-15/australia-leads-world-in-arresting-climate-environment-activists/104721294>
'A new study was released in recent days that should have been newsworthy, but
it escaped the media's attention in Australia.
It showed Australian police are world leaders at arresting climate and
environmental protesters.
According to the study, more than 20 per cent of all climate and environment
protests in Australia involve arrests, which is more than three times the
global average (6.3 per cent).
Australia's arrest rate was the highest of 14 countries in the global study.
It's higher than policing efforts in the United Kingdom (17.2 per cent), Norway
(14.5 per cent), and the United States (10 per cent).
The research makes it clear that Australia's political leaders have joined the
"rapid escalation" of efforts to criminalise and repress climate and
environmental protest, while sovereign states globally fail to meet their
international agreements and emissions targets.
But it shows killings and disappearances of activists in Australia are rare.
Between 2012 and 2023, it says there were over 2,000 killings of environmental
defenders globally, with large numbers occurring in Brazil (401), the
Philippines (298), India (86) and Peru (58).
In those countries, the arrest rates of climate and environment protesters are
much lower than in Australia, the UK, Norway and the US.
Researchers say that's a trend worth highlighting. They say countries with the
lowest rates of arrests of activists often have the highest rates of police
violence and killings of environmental defenders, which suggests something
about the social and legal reality in those countries.
However, overall they say Australian efforts to repress climate activism are
part of an alarming global trend to squash dissent. They characterise that
trend as a "threat to both the environment and liberal democratic systems."
They also say groups like Extinction Rebellion, which operates in Australia and
the UK, are running head-on into that clampdown, because they are intentionally
employing tactics that may result in arrests "to the point that being arrested
becomes part of their strategy for change."
It's worth reading.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
