Just Stop Oil eco-protesters announce 'legal action' against oil and gas bosses for 'facilitating genocide'
19 July 2023, 13:13 | Updated: 19 July 2023, 13:42
Just Stop Oil has compared oil and gas giants to the Nazis as they announced legal action against executives who are ‘facilitating genocide’.
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Standing on Parliament Square, six activists made the announcement that they would begin to collect evidence against them to put in front of a court of law.
In a statement, mum-of-two Chloe Naldrett said: “Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi, at his trial sought to defend himself by saying that he didn’t kill Jews because he was only in charge of transporting them to the death camps. The judges threw out this obscene defence and he was hanged.
“When those in charge today go to court in the coming years, they will claim that they only facilitated the continued use of oil and gas and coal. They will argue that they never directly killed the millions who are already dying and will continue to die of starvation, floods, drought, wildfires and deadly heat.”
Just Stop Oil eco-protesters announce 'legal action' against oil and gas bosses for 'facilitating genocide'
When asked by LBC about the sensibility of the comparison, another activist, Zoe Cohen, said: “I understand it may seem outrageous to some people but as someone of Jewish heritage, I think about the irreversible scale of this.”
Getting emotional as she spoke, she said: “Forgive me for saying this, and I say this very sincerely, but it’s like we’re all trapped in a giant gas chamber. And we know that every single tonne of carbon dioxide makes this worse. And yet these people go on expanding oil and gas. Is that not genocide? Of course, it is.”
The campaign group has pledged to continue with its civil disobedience while building a case, they say, against ministers and members of the legal and media professions.
Asked who will fund it, the activists said it would be with their own money that they’ve diverted away from savings for a house or adoption.
Their daily slow marches through London have caused havoc on the roads and as the city braces for a week of disruption caused by Tube strikes, the group said it would proceed with its action, regardless.
“I think people need to direct their annoyance at the government,” another activist said.
PhD student Rachel Bosler went on: “I’m originally from the United States and my family are living in this heat where humans cannot survive. My mum is in Death Valley, California, where we nearly had the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth. I’m so scared.”
15 people were arrested on Parliament Square as the Just Stop Oil group spoke to the three journalists who showed up to their press conference.
Buses and vans were being held up as dozens of activists slow marched on the road, with horns and shouting from drivers.
Other Just Stop Oil supporters cheered as police marched protesters away in handcuffs.
