Climate activists found guilty of blocking road in western Switzerland
A Neuchâtel court found all 15 climate activists guilty of violating Swiss traffic laws and fined them each CHF200 as well as court costs.
Extinction Rebellion Neuchâtel (facebook)
Fifteen climate activists who blocked a main road in Neuchâtel in western Switzerland in March 2020 have been found guilty and fined.
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Keystone-SDA/sb
The Extinction Rebellion campaigners blocked a main road for 75 minutes on March 5, 2020 to draw attention to the climate crisis.
On Friday, a Neuchâtel court found all 15 guilty of violating Swiss traffic laws and fined them each CHF200 as well as court costs. The judge said the activists had carried out an unauthorised protest.
The official said his decision did not call into question the climate crisis. He added that each climate-related action considered by Swiss courts could result in different legal responses.
“This case is not similar to those in Fribourg, Lausanne, Geneva or St Gallen,” the judge said.
Over the past two years, Switzerland has been the scene of large climate protests. In 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of students marched across the country demanding stronger action on climate change. The financial sector has come under growing pressure to divest from fossil fuels.
Various cases involving climate activists blocking bank headquarters in Zurich, Lausanne, Basel and Geneva have been taken to Swiss courts in recent months.
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Climate activists resume street protests
This content was published on
An estimated 30,000 people have participated in street protests across Switzerland to demand concrete steps to reduce global warming.
This content was published on
Climate activists block roads in Switzerland
Climate activists aligned with the Extinction Rebellion (XR) environmental movement created traffic disruptions on Saturday across Switzerland.
"I am terrified by the state's inaction in the ecological disaster," said a student in the Plainpalais district of Geneva, before his sign was confiscated by police
Calling their demonstration a ''Rebellion Of One,'' activists set up single-person roadblocks in about a dozen cities–including Geneva, Lausanne, Zurich, Bern–and smaller towns such as Morat.
The demonstrations come one month before citizens go to the polls to decide on a revised national CO2 law.
It is impossible to determine how many people staged such single acts of protests, according to Keystone-SDA news agency.
"As we are working in a decentralised way, each group is organising itself independently," an organiser in Zurich told the agency.
Angry motorists
In Geneva and Lausanne, several roads were blocked in the morning and afternoon by activists. Most of them were dislodged and fined by the police, sometimes after only a few minutes.
In Lausanne, one activist lasted five minutes before being taken away in handcuffs. Angry drivers and passersby dislodged another activist in the same city before police arrived
Among onlookers, reactions ranged from applause and support to annoyance and outright anger.
"What do we care about the climate? There are all the cars waiting", a young woman in Geneva complained. Another contested the notion of "ecological catastrophe".
Vulnerability
By sitting alone on the pavement, each activist wanted to show the vulnerability of individuals to global warming.
"Behind every activist there are emotions," said the one from Zurich. "Climate change did not go away with the pandemic"
Switzerland’s climate activists want the government to tackle climate change more quickly and to convene a citizens assembly on climate and ecological justice.
They want the Federal Council (executive body) to declare a climate emergency and make the country carbon neutral by 2025 rather than 2050.
XR activists held protests in Britain last week and plan further actions in cities across 10 countries until June.
Climate activists acquitted over bank protest action
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Five environmental activists are acquitted by a Basel criminal court of charges relating to protest action outside a UBS bank in Basel in 2019.
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