<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/12/contempt-gagging-un-intervention-uk-wildest-climate-trial-just-stop-oil>
"As part of his role as UN rapporteur for environmental defenders, Michel Forst
has been watching proceedings against climate activists at courts across
Europe.
But he may not have seen anything like what unfolded at Southwark crown court
in London over the past two and a half weeks, where five Just Stop Oil
activists were convicted for conspiring to cause gridlock on the M25 in
November 2022.
On the days Forst visited, he witnessed three of the five defendants being
arrested in court and dragged to the cells, protesters outside attempting to
warn jurors they were not hearing the full case and a judge desperately trying
to maintain control over his courtroom.
The judge, Christopher Hehir, had ruled that information about climate
breakdown could not be entered into evidence, and could only be referred to by
defendants briefly as the “political and philosophical beliefs” that motivated
them – which he would tell the jury were in any case irrelevant to their
deliberations.
But the defendants had other plans. They sought to turn Hehir’s court into a
“site of civil resistance”, causing as much disruption as necessary to ensure
that if the jury could not see their evidence on climate breakdown, then the
jurors could at least be in no doubt it was being kept from them.
By the time the jury retired to consider a verdict, police had been called into
court no fewer than seven times, four of the five defendants had been remanded
to prison and 11 others were facing contempt of court proceedings for protests
outside the courtroom."
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
