Climate activists are particularly vulnerable to arrests and persecution
Originally published in Global Voices in Spanish
Protest for the climate in Copenhagen. Image of Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
This article is part of the Global Voices Spotlight series of September 2026, "Protest in democracy. " This series seeks to explore the different forms of protests, the tactics that States use to de-legitimize and suppress them, and the complex relationship between protest and democracy. You can support this coverage with a donation.
All over Europe, governments use criminal laws against those who protest the climate and the environment, which shows no signs of back up. One Comparative study published in late 2025, which analysed 14 developed and developing countries, concluded that criminalization is part of a broader pattern of repression. Researchers identified detentionand new laws that restrict protests, strategic use of existing laws and legal procedures, monitoringharassment and public dislegitimization of activists.
The figures show the magnitude of the response. One study about the weather protests revealed that 17.2% of the protests in the UK ended with arrests, compared to an international average of 6.3 per cent. In Berlin, the prosecution received 5681 causes related to climate movement Letzte Generation (Last generation) between January 2022 and October 2025, although almost half of it was finally archived.
The trend continued in 2026. In July, a French Court of Appeal confirmed the convictions against four environmental defenders for organizing forbidden protest of Sainte-Solinewhich was opposed to the construction of large reserves of water for agricultural use. Days later, in Turkey, the environmental activist Esra Işık was convicted two years and one month in prison, pending the settlement of the appeal, after spending 42 days in pretrial detention for participating in a peaceful protest related to the expansion of coal mining in the vicinity of the Akbelen forest. For its part, in Australia, 138 people were arrested for preventing a coal-loaded ship from docking in a very busy port.
In Australia, 138 people were arrested for preventing a coal-loaded ship from docking in a port of great activity. Screenshot from YouTube.
However, international human rights experts have gone in another direction. In October 2025, Michel Forst, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, published the Guidelines on the right to peaceful environmental protest and civil disobedience. The guidelines urge States not to use the increase in acts of civil disobedience as a pretext to restrict civic space and to ensure that sanctions against those who protest peacefully are necessary and proportionate. In March 2026, a number of special rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council expressed their firm support support to the guidelines.
In this context, what is happening in the European Court of Human Rights (TEDH) based in Strasbourg.
What happened in Strasbourg?
The ECHR in Strasbourg has long played an important role in defining how far European governments can go by restricting protests and political expression. Its judgments set human rights parameters for the 46 countries of Council of Europe.
Environmental protests are also part of this story. In the case Bryan and others against Russiathe Court concluded that the rights of Greenpeace activists, detained after participating in a protest against the oil drilling in the Arctic, had been violated. In Friedrich and others against Polanda similar conclusion was reached following the arrest in Gdansk of activists protesting against a shipment of coal. Both cases reflected the recognition by the Strasbourg Court that a political protest can be uncomfortable, unconventional and disruptive and still deserve protection.
Then came the case. Ludes and others against France. In 2019, non-violent climate movement activists ANV-COP21 They removed official portraits of President Emmanuel Macron from municipalities throughout France and left the walls empty to symbolize what they considered an insufficient response by the Government to climate change. The activists described the action as a temporary "confiscation" of the portraits, but the French authorities described it as theft.
In the face of the TEDH, the activists argued that their convictions had violated the Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rightswhich guarantees the freedom of expression. The Court It recognized that the action had been non-violent, transmitted a political message and referred to climate change, an issue of no doubt public interest. However, in July 2025, by five votes to two, it concluded that article 10 had not been violated.
Most distinguished between removing the portraits and preserving them. According to his reasoning, the withdrawal of the message had already transmitted the message, so refusing to return them could be punished as theft. The majority considered the fines between 200 and 500 euros relatively low, the execution of which was suspended. However, two dissenting judges argued that it was not so simple to separate both acts: the prolonged absence of portraits was in itself part of the political message. They also warned that criminal law should not be used so easily against peaceful political activists.
This case did not exclude climate protests from the scope of protection of freedom of expression. However, the Strasbourg Court recognized the political message of action, its peaceful nature and the importance of the climate debate, and still left a criminal conviction firm. Therefore, the question is not only if dissent is protected, but what remains of that protection when dissent deliberately alters the usual rules.
When protesting has a price
The protest brings together two fundamental democratic freedoms: freedom of expression and the right of assembly. But its importance goes beyond that. It allows people to question those in power between one election and another, to visualize dissent and bring issues to public debate when established political channels fail to do so. Many rights that we take for granted today - from labour rights and women's political participation to civil rights and environmental protection - were not only driven by institutions; they also advanced thanks to those who marched, organized and interrupted daily life.
Therefore, the growing criminalization of the protest matters beyond the fate of each activist. A State does not need to abolish the right to protest to weaken it. The right can continue to be protected on paper, while arrests, criminal proceedings, economic sanctions and prolonged judicial proceedings gradually raise the cost of exercising it. The possibility of facing an arrest or criminal process can, on its own, influence the decision of others to express, meet or join the next protest.
Since the 1950s, the European system of democracy and human rights has developed through the gradual strengthening of guarantees for political expression, the right of assembly and dissent. Threats to this tradition are not necessarily presented as far-reaching restrictions or new laws against protests. They may also arise more discreetly, through changes in the interpretation of existing rights and in the way they are weighted against public order, property or criminal law.
A sentence such as the Ludes case may seem limited in scope: it involves few activists, several presidential portraits and relatively low fines whose execution was suspended. But such interpretations help to define the space in which future protests will take place. For this reason, following closely the criminalization of the protest means observing not only what legislators and governments do, but also the less visible changes in how the courts draw the limits of democratic dissent.
