Against the criminalization of young climate activists

The Delegate Conference in 2023 by Terre des Hommes has decided on a strategic goal to support young environmental activists who are pursued and murdered worldwide. With this accompanying resolution we want to draw attention to your fate and protect you from criminalization and violence.

In 2021, according to the Global Witness organization, 200 activists were killed, which were committed to agricultural or environmental rights. The number of unreported cases is significantly larger because many other cases of murders and persecution of environmental activists are not reported. Terre des Hommes partner organizations in Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America report on these cases:

In Nepal, Dilip Mahato had campaigned against the illegal breakdown of raw materials from the river in his community. On January 10, 2020, he was brutally murdered by factory workers during his protest on the site of the local shredding factory, and his body was then run over by a tipping truck.

In Zimbabwe , activist Headman Chiyadzwa and the members of the environmental youth club he organized were arrested in Zimbabwe because they had protested at the goal of a mine and denounced climate and environmental destruction.

In Chile and Argentina, indigenous people of Mapuche are systematically criminalized because they defend their traditional habitat against mining companies and the exploitation of fossil raw materials. They are right, because the Latin American states have passed the Escazú Agreement, which guarantees the right to access information about the environment and the participation in environmental policy decisions. Above all, however, it obliges the states to prevent attacks on environmentalists and examine violent attacks.

In Germany climate movements and activists are regularly criminalized, for example Charlie Kiehne and Samuel Bosch , who are involved in ecological campaigns. They built and lived in the climate camp in the Altdorfer forest in southern Germany. In addition to their educational work on climate change, they use civil disobedience and non -violent resistance as the means of their protest. A penalty order was issued against them when filling a spell forest. Since they did not want to be criminalized in court, they are sought nationwide with an arrest warrant.

In 2022, the UN Human Rights Council unequivocally recognized the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment for all people. Environmental activists are human rights defenders. On the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights defenders, the delegates from Terre des Hommes ask the states to protect environmentalists instead of criminalizing, pursuing, torturing and killing them.

The fight against the climate crisis means defending life - the life of people and nature.