Latest news with #FoE
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- General
- New Indian Express
Environmentalists demand full disclosure of hazardous waste leakages from MSC Elsa 3
Following the sinking of a Liberian cargo ship, MSC Elsa 3, off the Kerala coast, environmentalists are demanding immediate and transparent disclosure of the nature and quantity of the chemicals involved, as well as their impact on the coastal ecosystem and fisheries. They are also calling for urgent measures to protect marine ecosystems and the livelihoods of fisherfolk. Reports indicate that the sunken ship was carrying hazardous materials, including highly reactive calcium carbide, furnace oil, and diesel, which may have leaked into the sea, creating an oil slick. The global network of environmental group, Friends of the Earth (FoE), has expressed concern over the shipwreck of the Liberian cargo ship and the reported spillage of oil and hazardous chemicals off the Kerala coast. 'Reports indicate that floating containers are drifting toward the southern coasts, particularly Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram and Kanyakumari, raising serious environmental and livelihood concerns,' said Sarath Cheloor National Coordinator, FoE-India. According to the FoE assessments, the sunken commercial ship was carrying 640 containers at the time of the incident, including 13 containers with hazardous cargo and 12 with calcium carbide. The ship was also carrying 84.44 metric tonnes of diesel and 367.1 metric tonnes of furnace oil, which may have leaked into the sea, creating an oil slick.
Indian Express
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Suhas Palshikar writes on Pahalgam and free speech: How liberal is this democracy?
Free speech is a key element of the liberal norm. But the problem with the liberal norm is that on the one hand, states and societies invent multiple ways to compromise on the liberal norm and on the other hand, anti-liberals find it easy to misappropriate the norm for their own legitimacy. This predicament makes liberalism a weak justification of freedom of expression (FoE). Recently, two citizens exercised their right to free speech — both referred to India's decision to have Colonel Sofiya Qureshi as a member of the team at the press briefings during India's post-Pahalgam military action. One citizen argued that there was a contradiction involved in this choice while the other used the same instance to target her as being the 'sister' of terrorists. In the former case, the citizen was promptly arrested and received interim bail along with some bashing by the Court, and now faces the hanging sword of a Special Investigation Team; in the latter case, too, the idea of an SIT was invoked but the citizen got away without arrest. These two instances bring into sharp focus the complications in the path of freedom of expression and the confusion about how to approach it. While India always prided itself on its democratic credentials, its journey on the liberal path is dotted with such complications. They stem not only from a resistance to the idea of FoE but an unwillingness to let society and the polity be governed by the liberal norm. How do these complications reflect on India's democracy? Three myths govern India's difficult journey toward the liberal norm generally and the idea of FoE more specifically. But they have deeper lessons for India's democratic claims too. The first is a theoretical construct: It is argued that the state can be depended upon as a guarantor of FoE and also as an arbiter of questions about the extent and scope of FoE. It is argued that as a democratic institution drawing authority from the Constitution, the state is a reliable institution that respects FoE and operates within this liberal framework when it comes to limiting FoE. If a student of constitutional law were to write a dissertation on this, she would find that over the past almost eight decades, endless legal instruments have been designed to restrict FoE rather than to protect it. We have found too many excuses to legitimise restrictions on FoE. Beginning with the First Amendment, India's legislative, judicial and political history has had many alibis for muzzling free speech. Today, all these excuses converge with a vengeance to delegitimise the idea of the right to free speech. If at all, FoE is converted into an occasional concession to citizens. Broadly, one can identify three main alibis. National interest (including relations with a friendly country etc, but more importantly, anti-terrorism measures), defamation (popular in its use currently) and causing enmity between communities — these effectively authorise the state to curtail citizens' freedom of expression. Of course, a more omnibus argument about hurt sentiments becomes a popular justification for FIRs and arrests. This is not to say that all these are always wrong bases for limiting FoE; rather, the argument here is that once the genuine reasons for limiting FoE are designated, we start reading those mal-intents in every act of free speech that someone from the ruling establishment does not like. The second myth pertains to safeguards against attacks on FoE. Legislation on this is so weak that, in effect, the state has become the sole arbiter of what fits in FoE and what does not. Using legislative majorities, executives have consistently sought to empower themselves and the police bureaucracy to restrict citizens' FoE, intimidate them and punish them for the exercise of free speech. All parties when in Opposition appear to be upholding FoE, and when in government, find justifications for restricting FoE. Jurisprudence on these matters is so complicated and inconsistent that no lawyer or judge could easily guide us as to what can be said and what cannot. What we mostly get are eloquent eulogies to FoE through obiter dicta, oftentimes a pontification about the responsibility of citizens not to cross the limits, alluded to as Lakshman Rekha, and most commonly a confusion about the consequences of exercising FoE. The confusion is partly because it is not clear if transgressing the limits of FoE will invite judicial trial or prejudicial arrest wherein bail becomes a big concession. The third myth arises from a smart distortion of the idea of FoE — this myth is born out of a misappropriation of the liberal norm. It argues that if FoE is valuable, then it should be available to those who want to use it in order to distort the reality and target certain communities. While there is a group of expressions that are classified as hate speech, the practitioners of such speech and their supporters challenge the idea behind the liberal norm by asking why certain expressions are called hate speech. This argument ostensibly adopts the idea of FoE while in practice seeking to delegitimise the defence of free speech. The myth that all speech must be treated on the same footing allows the public to believe that any vulgar allusion to a given community has moral and legal validity as 'criticism' that is protected under FoE. But even as these nuances of jurisprudence and shades of hate speech will continue, the present crisis India faces is much beyond the FoE legalese. The core question which is not frontally asked and only obliquely answered is this: Is FoE necessary for democracy? Is it part of what we understand by democracy, or is FoE a fancy of the few? Both within India and globally, the past few decades have witnessed a slant in understanding the idea of democracy mainly through the prism of electoral regularity and formation of governments on the basis of the electoral majorities. Such understanding tends to downplay other factors such as inter-institution balance, supremacy of the Constitution, and above all, public reason that shapes electoral outcomes. All these, but public reason above all, are predicated on citizens' engagement with ideas, debates and disagreements. Once the idea of the liberal is decoupled from the idea of the democratic, we pave the way for distortion of democracy. When someone is arrested for what he says or when we demand that someone be arrested for what he said, we probably choose to ignore this umbilical relationship between the liberal norm and democracy. The debate about FoE therefore needs to be waged not in technical legal terms but the easily legible language of democracy. That alone will save the liberal norm and serve the democratic purpose. The writer, based in Pune, taught political science
Sky News
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Suffragette's great-granddaughter says climate protest sentences were 'disproportionate'
The great-granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst described the sentences given to several climate protesters as "heavy-handed and disproportionate". Helen Pankhurst was speaking ahead of the Court of Appeal hearing challenges against the sentences handed down to 16 activists. They were jailed for between five years and 15 months for their involvement in four climate protests. Adding her support to the appeal bids, Ms Pankhurst said: "The suffragettes are looked up to because they fought tooth and nail and refused to be silenced and give up on their cause, the universal suffrage now taken for granted in all democracies. "Environmental activists today stand in the same tradition. I have no doubt future generations around the world will thank them for their campaigns. "The heavy-handed and disproportionate custodial sentences given in the UK to peaceful environmental activists speaking truth to power is worrying in the extreme. "A repeal is the only just outcome here." Environmental campaign groups Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace UK have been allowed to intervene in the case of a group of five protesters nicknamed the " Whole Truth Five", with FoE claiming the sentences were of "unprecedented length related to peaceful protest". The challenges are set to be heard at the Court of Appeal in London over two days. They were jailed in July last year for agreeing to disrupt traffic by having protesters climb on to gantries over the M25 for four successive days in November 2022. Roger Hallam, co-founder of environmental campaign groups Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, was sentenced to five years in prison. Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin each received four-year jail terms. FoE and Greenpeace UK said their submissions supporting the five would also assist others involved in linked appeals. George Simonson, Theresa Higginson, Paul Bell, Gaie Delap and Paul Sousek were jailed for their involvement in protests on the M25, during which they climbed on to gantries over the motorway. Simonson and Higginson were jailed for two years, Bell for 22 months, and Delap and Sousek for 20 months last August. Larch Maxey, Chris Bennett, Samuel Johnson and Joe Howlett all received prison terms of between three years and 15 months, after occupying tunnels dug under the road leading to the Navigator Oil Terminal in Thurrock, Essex. Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed in September 2024 after almost "destroying" Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers by throwing soup on its protective glass at London's National Gallery. Plummer was sentenced to two years behind bars and Holland 20 months. Katie de Kauwe, senior lawyer at FoE, said: "Instead of further burdening our overcrowded prison system by criminalising those trying to push the climate and nature emergencies up the political agenda out of sheer desperation, the government should be accelerating efforts to deliver fair and meaningful action on the environment." Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "These long sentences for peaceful protest make it difficult to see modern Britain as the kind of mature, tolerant culture our parents and grandparents enjoyed."
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Suffragette's great-granddaughter says climate protest sentences were 'disproportionate'
The great-granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst described the sentences given to several climate protesters as "heavy-handed and disproportionate". Helen Pankhurst was speaking ahead of the Court of Appeal hearing challenges against the sentences handed down to 16 activists. They were jailed for between five years and 15 months for their involvement in four climate protests. Adding her support to the appeal bids, Ms Pankhurst said: "The suffragettes are looked up to because they fought tooth and nail and refused to be silenced and give up on their cause, the universal suffrage now taken for granted in all democracies. "Environmental activists today stand in the same tradition. I have no doubt future generations around the world will thank them for their campaigns. Read more: "The heavy-handed and disproportionate custodial sentences given in the UK to peaceful environmental activists speaking truth to power is worrying in the extreme. "A repeal is the only just outcome here." Environmental campaign groups Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace UK have been allowed to intervene in the case of a group of five protesters nicknamed the "", with FoE claiming the sentences were of "unprecedented length related to peaceful protest". The challenges are set to be heard at the Court of Appeal in London over two days. They were jailed in July last year for agreeing to disrupt traffic by having protesters climb on to gantries over the M25 for four successive days in November 2022. Roger Hallam, co-founder of environmental campaign groups and Extinction Rebellion, was sentenced to five years in prison. Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin each received four-year jail terms. FoE and Greenpeace UK said their submissions supporting the five would also assist others involved in linked appeals. George Simonson, Theresa Higginson, Paul Bell, and Paul Sousek were jailed for their involvement in protests on the M25, during which they climbed on to gantries over the motorway. Simonson and Higginson were jailed for two years, Bell for 22 months, and Delap and Sousek for 20 months last August. Larch Maxey, Chris Bennett, Samuel Johnson and Joe Howlett all received prison terms of between three years and 15 months, after occupying tunnels dug under the road leading to the Navigator Oil Terminal in Thurrock, Essex. Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed in September 2024 after almost "destroying" Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers by throwing soup on its protective glass at London's National Gallery. Plummer was sentenced to two years behind bars and Holland 20 months. Katie de Kauwe, senior lawyer at FoE, said: "Instead of further burdening our overcrowded prison system by criminalising those trying to push the climate and nature emergencies up the political agenda out of sheer desperation, the government should be accelerating efforts to deliver fair and meaningful action on the environment." Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "These long sentences for peaceful protest make it difficult to see modern Britain as the kind of mature, tolerant culture our parents and grandparents enjoyed."
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jailed M25 protesters gain support ahead of appeal
The great-granddaughter of leading suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst has said sentences given to several climate protesters were "heavy-handed and disproportionate" ahead of an appeal against their prison terms. Sixteen activists jailed for as long as five years for their involvement in protests will challenge the length of their sentences at the Court of Appeal in London. They were jailed for activities such as blocking the M25, throwing soup on to Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers, and occupying tunnels dug under the road leading to the Navigator Oil Terminal in Thurrock, Essex. Lending her support to their appeals, campaigner Helen Pankhurst compared their campaigns with that of the suffragettes. "Environmental activists today stand in the same tradition," Ms Pankhurst said. "I have no doubt future generations around the world will thank them for their campaigns." Environmental campaign groups Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace UK have been allowed to intervene in the case of five protesters, referred to by FoE as the "Whole Truth Five", who were jailed in July last year for disrupting traffic by having protesters climb onto gantries over the M25 for four successive days in November 2022. Roger Hallam, co-founder of environmental campaign groups Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, was sentenced to five years in prison while Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin each received four-year jail terms. All five protesters were convicted of conspiracy to intentionally cause a public nuisance, a law introduced in 2022 which outlaws direct action that causes "serious harm" to a section of the public. This can include property damage, injury, serious distress, annoyance or inconvenience. During their trial, prosecution barristers told the court the protest had led to 50,000 hours of vehicle delays, an economic hit of at least £765,000, and cost the Metropolitan Police more than £1.1m. During the trial last year, Judge Christopher Hehir said the five protestors had "crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic". He added Parliament had made clear it saw non-violent direct action against national infrastructure as serious and passed a law allowing him to hand down sentences of up to 10 years - more than for some violent offences. Calling for the court to repeal the sentences, Ms Pankhurst said: "The heavy-handed and disproportionate custodial sentences given in the UK to peaceful environmental activists speaking truth to power is worrying in the extreme." FoE and Greenpeace UK said their submissions supporting the five would also "assist those involved in the other linked appeals". Among those due to appeal against their sentences are Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, who were jailed to two years and 20 months respectively for throwing soup on protective glass in front of the Sunflowers painting at London's National Gallery. FoE said that its lawyers would argue that the sentences were "excessive" and breached human rights legislation, claiming they posed a "serious threat to our democracy". Katie de Kauwe, senior lawyer at FoE, said: "Instead of further burdening our overcrowded prison system by criminalising those trying to push the climate and nature emergencies up the political agenda out of sheer desperation, the government should be accelerating efforts to deliver fair and meaningful action on the environment." Ms Pankhurst's great-grandmother Emmeline Pankhurst founded the British suffragette movement in 1903 and helped women win the right to vote. Helen Pankhurst, who was the University of Suffolk's vice chancellor from 2018 - 24, has continued her family's ongoing campaigns for gender equality. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to Climate groups to back M25 protesters' jail appeal Activists throw soup on Van Gogh painting again
