Climate campaigners say that the forceful policing on display at The Hague on Saturday April 6, 2024, is part of a wider crackdown on protests across Europe.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, Michael Forst, has repeatedly expressed his alarm about the way climate activists are being treated by police, governments and media. “Since my appointment [in June 2022] I have been travelling to many countries in Europe and there is a clear trend,” Forst told the UK’s Guardian newspaper last year. “We can see an increasing number of cases by which these climate activists are brought to court more and more often, and more and more severe laws being passed to facilitate these attacks on defenders”. He believes there is “European cooperation among the police forces” where climate activists are concerned.
The Hague protests are designed to put pressure on the Dutch government, ahead of a planned debate about fossil subsidies in June. Similar protests were also organized on Saturday in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
According to a spokesperson for XR Nederland to Euronews: “It is an absolute disgrace that in the self -proclaimed ‘international city of peace and justice’ the police used violence towards peaceful [protesters], including pain grips on wrists and noses.”
He announced that about 1,000 protesters took part in The Hague action, and 437 people were arrested.