Cluj-Napoca and its Israeli ties 

The Israeli state has come to increasingly rely on strengthened ties with international tech companies to commit its genocide in Gaza and expand its apartheid regime in the West Bank over the past years. These collaborations involve the delivery of products and services to (illegal) Israeli activity across the Palestinian lands as well as the development of technologies and knowledge that facilitate oppression and violence against Palestinians. The French transport company Alstom, for example, is a major partner in the Jerusalem Light Rail project, which aims to connect West Jerusalem to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while German tech conglomerate Siemens has been awarded the contract to build subsea cables that will connect Israel and Europe’s electricity grids and allow illegal settlements to benefit from Israel-EU electricity trade.

Both tech companies, alongside Bosch and NTT Data, have offices in Cluj Napoca, Romania – frequently labeled the “Silicon Valley of Eastern Europe” for its twelve universities and fifteen percent of residents working in ICT. In line with a broader mobilization across the globe, tech workers and citizens at large in Cluj Napoca have called for the cessation of cooperation and investments in the Israeli military sector by the four present collaborative tech companies to prevent their work from being used to further violate human rights: No Tech for Apartheid and Genocide!

Direct action and a boycott campaign

The members behind the Palestine Solidarity Cluj-Napoca (PS.CJ) organization have been a crucial driver behind mobilization for the Palestinian cause in the Cluj-Napoca context since 2017. Founded by local organizers, following the Romanian government’s silence about Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israel in October 2023, the association has regularly initiated demonstrations, network building events and even hosted a Palestinian Film Festival.

Their 2024-2025 No Tech for Apartheid and Genocide campaign involved webinars, boycotts of local tech events and a series of demonstrations and other direct actions to disrupt business as usual in the city. With the support of Het Actiefonds, the protestors not only organized a ‘poster storming’ of the companies’ buildings to expose their complicity in Genocide and Apartheid in broad daylight, but also conducted engagement actions to confront unaware tech workers and convince them to support the cause.

Since the end of the campaign and the local media’s refusal to report on it, the PS.CJ has already launched a new initiative. This time at the national level, collaborating with twelve other collectives across five Romanian cities, the call to cut Israeli ties within the tech sector will be impossible to ignore. Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this action and stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The book-shaped shields are both symbolic and protective, they enable safer, more powerful and very visible protests.  

The project, partly funded by the Climate Justice Grants of Het Actiefonds, took place between the 21st of October and the 21st of November. First the action groups visited radical bookshops in São Paulo to select Portuguese titles that are grounded in local context. In Salvador, around 30 participants helped paint the covers during workshops. Street cleaners even came over and spontaneously helped paint one shield. 

The shields were used in the main Climate March and the Indigenous March (where only book covers by Indigenous authors were carried), they were then displayed at the People’s Plenary in the COP30 Blue Zone.  

The shields are now with the local activist collective Pororoka, who will organize workshops around them, together with Vaga Lume, a network of libraries across the Amazon region. 

Lanceros Digitales is an activist group fighting against these policies, and are standing next to the community leaders directly affected by the persecutions. They build and strengthen defense strategies for social line environmental defenders, and help them defend against attacks from the government and extractive companies in the Amazonian rainforests.   

With the funding of the Climate Justice Grants of Het Actiefonds, Lanceros Digitales was able to develop a social media campaign called ‘Without defenders there are no rights’, directed at protecting the rights of local frond line defenders, and informing the public of their struggle.  

They organized a meeting with defenders criminalized by the government and also created a website with a lot of information on the fight of the frontline defenders. And this campaign isn’t done yet! The action group will continue fighting for those who are being persecuted by their own government while they are trying to save the rainforests.  

Whereas the Ugandan government promised prosperity from the discovery of oil through infrastructure development and economic empowerment, locals have witnessed the opposite. The project that was promised to bring opportunities for the locals has instead increased vulnerability as the communities are paying a price for the profits they will never enjoy. 

The communities and Environmentalists Against the EACOP initiative (CEAE) aims to mobilize communities and environmental defenders to oppose this harmful project using a community-led approach.  

With the help of the Climate Justice Fund of Het Actiefonds CEAE was able to further their campaign against EACOP.  

As part of the campaign, CEAE mobilized 50 community members of several villages. Community meetings were held, during which the locals discussed the environmental and personal impacts of the project. Testimonies shared in these meetings built a strong solidarity among the locals calling for collective organizing.  

CEAE organized several trainings for 25 environmental defenders, during which they received information on human rights and constitutional protections, land laws and environmental governance, advocacy and community organizing, and digital and physical security for environmental defenders. The trainees have since been mentoring and training others in their villages, and have been using these skills for ongoing advocacy in their area.  

The initiative also amplified local voices through media engagement and peaceful civic action thus created wider public awareness of the human rights and environmental violations caused by EACOP. 

Imprisoning political activists in Indonesia and the broad countermovement

The use of legal instruments as a tool to silence people’s aspirations and weaken civil society movements has become widespread in the past years. Not only do the members of urban based organizations like Commune de Liberté risk these charges: shortly after their arrest, the indigenous community leader Gun Retno, who organized fellow residents of his region to oppose mining and cement factories in Central Java, is also being criminalized for defending his living space. The struggle for democracy and ecological justice is currently under serious threat due to the use of the law as a tool of silencing.

The targeting of a broad circle of activists asks for a broad countermovement. This is why Commune de Liberté organized a series of demonstrations and protests against the Central Java Provincial Government and their police division. They called for solidarity across religions, struggles and communities in Central Java.

The demonstrations were accompanied by political speeches, public discussions, and symbolic actions and came from various groups across their network of resistance – activist, students, workers, indigenous peoples – who all stand in solidarity with Gun Retno and the people from Commune de Liberté. Doing so, they put public pressure on the local govnement to end the practice of silencing and protect democratic space. Because speaking out should not be a reason to be arrested!

Commune de Liberté

Commune de Liberté’s primary activity is running a collective library that serves as a crucial space for education, critical reflection, and community organizing. This library is more than just a place for books — it is a hub where diverse groups come together, including workers, teachers, farmers, and sex workers from the neighborhood. It’s a space that creates the possibility for political awareness, solidarity, and collective empowerment across different social sectors and especially of marginalized groups. They also actively participate in various demonstrations and campaigns against e.g. state violence, showing solidarity with various social and political movements throughout Indonesia.

On the crossroads of fostering international feminist solidarity and raising class consciousness to empower marginalized group, Commune de Liberté (Pustaka Bestari) grows people for collective action. Their goal is to build a strong, informed, and united movements that resist capitalism, colonialism, and racism. Justice, equality, and liberation are their leading ideals.

Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this action and will stand in solidarity with anyone who stands up against the imprisonment or arrest of activists!

Extraction and road expansion

In July 2023, the French energy giant TotalEnergies launched an oil drilling operation in the Murchison Falls National park in Uganda – home to over 800 animal species, but also 6.5 billion barrels of oil deep under the ground. With the eventual aim of extracting 230,000 barrels of oil a day, TotalEnergies’ dual Tilenga and EACOP projects have meant the drilling of 150 wells in the park, the building of a refinery and industrial zone as well as a 1445-kilometer pipeline to the Tanga harbor in Tanzania. Although the oil giant claims its actions will have a net positive impact on the region’s biodiversity, for example by investing in black rhino and chimpanzee populations, TotalEnergies’ internal auditing firms conclude in confidential reports that its environmental measures are insufficient to conserve biodiversity. 

To make matters worse, the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) has been improving the dirt tracks throughout the park since early 2019 to expand and pave them for use by heavy vehicles. These major investments not only cut off wildlife corridors but are also a part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to improve its dominance in the world economy. According to a 2023 study, the local wildlife is negatively impacted by all extraction-related activity in the park. 

A protest against environmental degradation 

The Youth for Environmental Justice and Climate Action (YECA) organization was founded at Kyambogo University to provide a voice against these oil and gas activities across the entire Albertine Graben region in Uganda. The volunteer-led initiative organizes capacity building workshops to train, mentor and connect young people in Uganda and elicit change in their communities and online. The organization has, furthermore, initiated tree planting campaigns in local schools and regularly orchestrates demonstrations. 

With the support of Het Actiefonds, YECA organized a protest in April 2024 to scrutinize the Chinese presence and activities of TotalEnergies in Murchison Falls National Park. YECA mobilized the communities in Buliisa, near the park, to stand united against environmental degradation and declare its solidarity with the threatened wildlife. 

Although the local media shied away from reporting on the protest, intimidated by the present oil companies and security agencies, the activists have since appointed community leaders that continue to give updates on developments in the park and pursue strengthened connections with fossil-free movements across Africa. Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this action and stands in solidarity with YECA’s commitment to protect Uganda’s national parks and all the wildlife inside.

The commercialization of nearshore fishing in the Phillipines

In August 2024, the Filipino supreme court ruled in favor of the Mercidar Fishing Corporation (MFC), owned by an elite bureaucrat family with political ties, in its civil court case against the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) – a governmental agency under the Filipino Department of Agriculture. Where the BFAR could formerly restrict commercial fishing operations within the first fifteen kilometers off the Filipino coasts in areas up to seven fathoms deep, the landmark ruling opened the door for further exploitative fishing and corporate environmental plunder in nearshore waters. With the additional access to municipal territories, commercial fishing companies may operate in 98% of viable fishing territories amidst already increasing cases of illegal and unregulated fishing.

This ruling is problematic for several reasons. First, commercial operators are equipped with types of devices, baits and gear which allow for a much more aggressive mode of capture; commercial vessels may catch in a day what municipal fisherfolk harvest in months or even years. These vessels fish with much higher fuel intensity, destroy vital coral reefs and altogether threaten local ecosystems that are already severely overfished. Moreover, the increased market dominance of export-oriented companies like MFC exacerbates a shortage crisis in fish provision for consumption by the Filipino masses.

On top of that, the extension of nearshore fishing rights happens at the expense of local fisherfolk, for whom fishing represents not only a way of life but also a source of identity-construction. The economic well-being of Filipino fisherfolk lags significantly behind the national average with a poverty incidence of 39.2% compared to the 25.2% nationally) and this gap is bound to be extended by increasing commercial competition. Without social justice the local fisherfolk will have no choice but to resort to more polluting and destructive practices, as lacking economic stability means subsistence will outweigh sustainability. 

A march against hunger and capitalist encroachment

To protest the supreme court’s ruling, PAMALKAYA-Philipinas helped draft and file the “Atin ang Kinse Bill” (15km is Ours Bill) before the House of Representatives on October 20th 2025, to mandate the exclusive right of subsistence fisherfolk over the 15-kilometer municipal waters. With the support of Het Actiefonds, national fisherfolk representatives gathered and staged a protest on the same day, in which they emphasized the link between hunger, poverty, environmental degradation and the extension of commercial authority over nearshore waters. By including various local leaders, the protestors ensured that the intersectional perspectives of grassroots communities from across the Philippines were included in the national campaign for fisheries justice and urged Congress to consider the cross-generational implications of current inaction against overfishing.

Since filing the bill, PAMALAKAYA-Pilipinas has continued campaigning for protections of local fisherfolk through lobbying efforts and is currently planning an even larger summit in May to maintain pressure on policymakers and ensure the bill is passed swiftly. Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this action and stands in solidarity with local fisherfolk in the Philippines as they continue to face economic hardship, community loss and environmental degradation.

The 1965 massacre of Padang Halaban

In 1968, the residents of six villages in the Padang Halaban plantation area, Northern Sumatra, were forcibly evicted from their land by the Indonesian state. Although the residents had lived in the area for an extensive period and held official land occupation registration cards, the military wanted to create room for the cultivation of palms and fruit by the agricultural company Plantagen AG, now PT SMART, and launched a violent campaign against the community in 1965. During this period, over 50 residents disappeared, were tortured, raped and even killed under the guise of being affiliated with the communist party. To this day, an area of approximately 7000 hectares is still controlled by the company, while the human rights violations that the victims suffered remain unaddressed by the Indonesian government. 

Since the 1970s, various efforts have been carried out to get justice for the original residents and victims of the massacre, but these have always ended in procedural deadlock. Therefore, in 2009,  collective representatives from the six villages resorted to direct action and slowly re-occupied an area of 83.5 hectares that belonged to one of the original villages. Despite ongoing lawsuits, the land became a place of settlement and food production once again during the following years, and plays a central role in the identity of the local population. In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled against the community’s rights to the land and eviction was scheduled for 2025.

Commemoration and further displacement

In December 2025, KontraS North Sumatra, with the support of Het Actiefonds, erected a monument on the still-occupied Padang Halaban lands, displaying the names of the 50 massacre victims. Although the organization, which has been fighting for vulnerable populations in the area since 2000, was planning to assist the occupation of additional land to house twenty more households, the residents of the originally claimed 83.5 hectares were forcibly removed from their land on 28 January 2026. With 21 bulldozers and secured by approximately 800 police agents and military forces, PT SMART evicted the community and destroyed their houses, agricultural land and infrastructure. 

Driven by their spirit of resistance, the people of Padang Halaban continue to occupy the only building that still stands: the mosque. The 150 residents that remain have gathered there to set up temporary shelter, organize a communal kitchen and pray for their struggle. KontraS North Sumatra continues to assist the community by providing food and will soon launch a public campaign to build solidarity with the victims. Although all houses have been destroyed, the occupation perists! Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported the Padang Halablan community and will continue to stand in solidarity with their struggle for restitution of their land.

Genocide and the role of the Netherlands 

After the fall of El Fasher and the capture of the city by the RSF in October 2025, ethnic cleansing and mass killings in the Sudanese civil war reached a new peak. But this civil war is not only driven by internal conflicts – it cannot be separated from larger geopolitical interests and money flows. It is unacceptable that the inhabitants of Darfur are the victims of these.

That is why the Netherlands must use a maximum of their diplomatic efforts to end the genocide in Sudan and sever economic ties with players involved, such as the United Arab Emirates, which is the direct financier of the RFS.

Demonstration and open letter

The demonstration in Amsterdam was organised by the Sudanese Refugee Organisation, Yalla for Sudan and Doorbraak, an organisation that aims to bring people together to organise themselves to resist the established order and the status quo. In the run-up to the demonstration, Yallah for Sudan and the Sudanese Refugees Organisation sent an open letter to the Dutch House of Representatives calling for
– broad sanctions against all those fuelling the genocide;
– the establishment of an independent international investigation into the war crimes committed in Darfur during this war;
– an increase in humanitarian aid on the ground;
– the creation of safe escape routes and the acceleration of asylum procedures in the Netherlands.

Follow up

On 9 December, one of the representatives of the Sudanese Refugees Organisation spoke to the House of Representatives committee about the situation on the ground and how the Dutch government can contribute to ending this extreme violence.

Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this demonstration, continues to support Yalla for Sudan, the Sudanese Refugee Organisation and Doorbraak, and stands in solidarity with everyone who fights against genocide, wherever in the world!