Extinction Rebellion is a global movement that attempts halt the mass extinction of species and the risk of societal collapse related to the climate and biodiversity crises the world is facing today. In the face of government inaction, the movement declares an international non-violent rebellion against the world’s governments. Not long after images of the first actions in London swept the world, the Danish part of the movement started in November 2018.

Denmark is often seen as a green frontrunner. However, in recent months the government’s sustainable energy proposals have been scrutinised for protecting the fossil fuel sector and speculating on how to make money directly from CO2 emissions. This governmental green washing obscures the fact that economic interests are still put above social and environmental ones.

In light of this, in two weeks time the movement is organising mass-actions of civil-disobedience to disrupt “business-as-usual” in the city centre of Copenhagen. Different happenings will be organised with music, speeches, art-installations, and facilitation of peoples assemblies. The goal is to get broad news coverage that can generate public and political debate, raise awareness about the climate crisis and how this intersects with other social justice crises and issues. In other words, such direct action is aimed at encouraging a system-critical climate debate about how the current socioeconomic order in Denmark is fundamentally unsustainable.

Passive politicians, uncritical media and for-profit companies sustain a detrimental way of living. At an intersection of global crises of climate and ecological collapse, Covid-19, and social injustices, acknowledging this as symptomatic of an unsustainable and undemocratic system is the least one can do.

To keep up to date, see their instagram page.

Barcelona has seen one of the most strict lockdowns in the world due to Covid-19, and is still under stringent conditions. The city is normally characterised by a bad air quality. In its wide streets, cars, motorbikes and trucks are dominant. And many cruise ships port in the city. The lockdown turned Barcelona into a different kind of city. At night it was dead silent, from higher up parts of the city you the Mediterranean Sea appeared as clear as the sky, and wild boars roamed the streets.

In light of this, climacció, a climate organisation founded in 2019, is organising a new campaign “Recuperem la ciutat” (“We take back the city”) together with more than ten other organisations. In the middle of the transition from a strict lockdown to a new way of living, this is the moment to rearrange our public space for pedestrians and cyclists, for the citizens of the city. According to the organisation, a public debate about the role and the use of our public space and mobility is imperative.

In the last one and a half years, Climacció has organised demonstrations and non-violent direct actions, mostly using artivism (activism + art), to draw media-attention for the climate emergency. More specifically, it addresses subjects such as climate justice, anti-capitalism and ecofeminism. From the end of September three actions are planned: street paintings/graffiti, playful and frivolous street blockages and workshops. Het Actiefonds supports this campaign for buying the campaign materials.

The campaign is planned for the duration of one month, but ideally will continue in different ways as long as there’s no drastic action being taken in the mobility plans of the city, like an increase in bike lanes, car-free streets and improvements in public transport.

For more information, see their website and facebookpagina.

Oppression and wars raging around the world have a deep connection with Germany, as with all places where arms are manufactured. Kassel is one of the hotspots of the German arms industry, hosting its two largest manufacturers Rheinmetall and Kraus–Maffei Wegmann (KMW). They circumvent existing export restrictions and deliver to states that are actively involved in the war in Yemen. Turkey’s imperialist deeds are supported by German arms exports both directly, and indirectly – Rheinmetall’s sister company in South Africa delivers ammunition to Turkey’s forces in Libya. Both groups armed Germany in the two world wars and used forced labour during the Nazi era. Their common history serves to highlight the close relationship of anti-fascism and anti-militarism. Moreover, within Germany those issued with weapons -i.e. the police and military- have been exposed as harbouring fascist networks. Arms are at the centre of the capitalist-patriarchal nationalistic power complex. 

While the arms industry and German state earn money through arms, including the militarisation of Europe’s borders, the Covid-19 pandemic shows that resources are needed for health and social care systems around the world. The organisation demands ‘Healthcare not Warfare’. With their blockades in Kassel, the Bündnis Rheinmetall Entwaffnen showed that they oppose the German way of fuelling and waging wars at the expense of the health of people everywhere.

“We want to show that Germany, through its arms exports, creates refugees and then stops them from claiming asylum, while its arms companies profit at all stages of the war chain.”

This is the beginning of the end. We demand the end of the global armament race. But the fight against war is always also a fight against capitalism, against patriarchy and against racism, with the eventual goal of a liberated society, outside the capitalist-patriarchal order.

Het Actiefonds provided the financial means for the blocking materials needed for this direct action. The action group will continue their work against the arms industry. For more information on their next events, workshops and direct action, we redirect you to their website.  

The Epworth Residents Development Association [ERDA] was one of the parties that helped organizing this protest. ERDA is a social movement advocating and representing residents’ interests. They teamed up with political opposition parties, regional committees and Human Rights groups to gather thousands of citizens for the nationwide anti-government protest.

Residents all over the country are fuelled by anger — not only about rights violations, but also about the dire state of the health system and deteriorating living conditions. Corruption and mismanagement have led to the collapse of the economy and vast underinvestment in infrastructure.

Because of the tense political environment, there was a specialized team present for security monitoring during the demonstration. This was much needed, as they had properly foreseen the gravity of the situation. The government tightened their grip even more; the capital Harare was locked in advance of the protest, there were serious human rights violations and numbers of opposition activists were charged with a form of treason. The ERDA team was present to expose the savage heavy handedness of the Zimbabwean regime.

As this is an ongoing action, the ERDA, with other movements, will utilize every opportunity and gap available to radically oppose government corruption while pushing for dignified living for residents. Het Actiefonds supports ERDA in their highly needed fight for a better country.

With the Shell Must Fall campaign, Code Rood takes action against companies responsible for extracting, transporting and burning fossil fuels. In addition, they are taking action against governments that allow this to happen freely. The activists demand the public dismantling of Shell, because the company continues to opt for profit at the expense of the climate, nature and human lives.

The municipality of The Hague had limited the beforehand announced protest at the Shell head office to just 30 people, regarding the coronavirus measures. The organization has lodged an objection against this with the preliminary relief judge, but unfortunately lost the case. An appeal procedure against this decision is currently pending. There is a real danger that the right of demonstration will be infringed under the guise of coronameasures.

In order to give the demonstrators the opportunity to exercise their right of demonstration, the organization organized small demonstrations at two other locations in The Hague: a demonstration against the restriction of the right of demonstration, and one to demonstrate the ties that Shell has with the government. They kept a distance of 1.5 meters and the participants wear mouth masks. The main demonstration took place as planned at the Shell headquarters. There were various speakers and music and Extinction Rebellion gave an artistic performance on Het Plein and Spui.

In addition to the protests in The Hague, actions took place in nine other locations in the Netherlands. Code Rood is pleased that the groups that were planning to come to The Hague, but were unable to do so because of COVID-19, have taken the initiative to take local action themselves. There have also been considerable demonstrations internationally; various actions took place in the Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal and Germany. Gas stations were occupied, banners dropped, bicycle demonstrations organized and petrol hoses chained. The international movement for climate justice is – despite corona – not holding back!

Stay informed of future actions of Code Rood and Shell Must Fall via their website.

Galp Must Fall

Galp is the biggest oil company of Portugal. Only recently did it announce that it aims to double its oil and gas production in the countries in the Global South. Moreover, in the middle of this economic and oil crisis of the past months did Galp decide to distribute dividends to its shareholders, while firing workers from its refineries, which are mainly based in Mozambique. The Mozambican movement “Justica Ambiental” (Environmental Justice) urged Climáximo to also take action in Portugal against Galp.

Galp Must Fall started with a social media storm in which digital activists flooded Galp with critical questions. Later, at the Annual General Assembly, three activists demonstrated in front of the building. Others occupied a gasstation with banners calling out Galp’s ecocide. The day continued with an online event on Instagram Live which four hundred people watched, with conversations with activists, speakers and live performances on climate justice. At the same time, activist shareholders participated in the Annual General Assembly to pose critical questions, to which minimal responses were given. The day ended with a digital demonstration. For a full report on Galp Must Fall and more photo’s, click here.

Climate Quarantine

Over a time span of 3 months, 90 videos organised in 26 episodes were released as part of a webinar series to attract online attention for climate activism. Climáximo reached new audiences by inviting artists and experts in their sessions. The webinar series still continues, although in a less frequent, weekly format.

Bailout the Future, not Profits

As an exit-quarantine strategy, Climáximo organised a mass demonstration on the sixth of June. Under the slogan “Bailout the future, not profits”, 30 social movements organised themselves, attracting thousands of people in Lisbon and tens in other cities in Portugal. Especially the last couple of days were hectic, according to the organisation, with the murder of George Floyd in the US. In order to do justice to the rapidly changing global context, the consortium of organisations changed the emphasis of the demonstration. For more photos and a video, click here.

Women in Silly do not have the same access as men to the ownership of land rights. The action group calls for the implementation of a number of measures, the most important of which is to grant women the same right of access to land so that they can benefit from the reputable land titles for their housing and production of their agricultural land. In Africa in general and Burkina Faso in particular, owning one’s own parcel of land is one of the scarce means of production accessible to the inhabitants of rural areas. Ownership of property deeds will promote the socio-economic independence of poor social strata, to which women unfortunately often belong.

The activists start a campaign to reach the tens of thousands of women in the area. As a first step, advocacy sessions will take place in the 31 villages of the municipality of Silly with the aim of increasing the knowledge of women and girls about their human rights in order to better defend them in the future. In addition, these sessions serve to put pressure on local administrators to change their political choices to promote the equal rights of women.

Second, the consortium will continue to create activist women’s movements. These movements will be established in all 31 villages of the Silly Municipality and will be led only by women leaders. All action groups together develop a large-scale, common platform of demands that advocate for equal rights for women. They will voice their activism through marches, workshops and exerting political pressure.

In early 2019 the Pakistan government, informed by its intelligence agency, decided to deny 42 registrations of NGOs in the country. This official registration is necessary for NGOs to operate in the country and to receive foreign aids. Since the alleged cooperation of an international NGO with the American authorities to track down Osama Bin Laden, NGOs have been under pressure. For decades, NGOs have also been criticised by the right wing for promoting ‘Western values’ and it is this toxic mix of perceptions that is hurting the vital third sector in the country.

The question is why this is necessary in the first place for service providing NGOs. Through the official registration the Pakistanian government would have sufficient access to information to monitor their activities. The ban on NGOs oppresses citizen rights to organise and carry out public services, upholding a discours of anti-western imperialism.

Saidu Falahi Tanzeem (Society for Women’s Rights) aims to revive activism for women’s rights in a dangerous climate. They aim at building a movement, basically from scratch, through social media campaigning, organising small and peaceful protests, and by reaching out to existing women’s rights organisations to combine forces. Het Actiefonds supported Saidu Falahi Tanzeem in organising protests and printing flyers.

Last month, Animal Rebellion reached a large audience through their actions. The worldwide action ‘Blood on your Hands’ has not gone unnoticed. In various cities they had the water of large fountains colored red by (biodegradable) paint. The red water symbolizes the blood on the hands of governments due to actively facilitating and promoting large-scale animal agriculture. The action was carried out in London, Toronto, Adelaide, Barcelona and Amsterdam, among others.

In addition, a protest was held last week on the Museumplein in Amsterdam. The participants were equipped with large banners and colored smoke torches, and had fake blood smeared all over their hands and clothes to reinforce the message.

In addition to the cruel exploitation of animals and catastrophic environmental impacts, the organization emphasizes the urgency regarding our public health in a statement on COVID-19:

 “It is time for the government to tell the truth about the cause of this public health crisis and the ecological emergency we are in. If we continue to exploit animals in the current way, the next pandemic is inevitable. We have to change course. We deserve a healthy planet. And we have the knowledge and capabilities to achieve that if we act now. “

Animal Rebellion continues to regularly organize actions for a sustainable, just and plant-based food system. Expect civil disobedience actions, but also speeches, lectures and workshops. Follow their facebook page to stay informed!

“You can’t be pro-black and anti-queer”

The yearly worldwide Pride festivities have activist roots, as we remember the 1960s Stonewall Riots that marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement. And even though this movement has brought a lot of good to society, there’s still loads of liberation to do. In our current discourse it is queer and trans people of color that are left out in the predominantly white activism of the LGBTQIA+ community. Which is extra poignant, as that is precisely the group that has historically been on the front line in every human rights movement. Black Queer and Trans Resistance NL is committed to the black queer community, a group of people intersecting those two identities. As Naomi Pieter, one of the founders of Black Queer and Trans Resistance Netherlands, stated;

“You cannot fight for the rights of one group within the community and leave the others behind. When you do that, you are actively participating in the oppression of someone else – thereby denying that racism exists. All oppression systems are interconnected.”

Black Queer & Trans Resistance Netherlands is a community and activist group countering racism, transphobia and homophobia through marches, intergenerational meetups and archival work. In the midst of the worldwide protests against anti-Black racism and violence, the need to march for the fact that Black LGBTQIA+ persons are disproportionately often victims of racist, homophobic and transphobic violence feels more urgent than ever. The main goal of the Black Pride protest is liberation for Black queer and trans people in the Netherlands.

Pride is a protest

Saturday the 25^th of July a crowd of hundreds of people gathered at Museumplein in Amsterdam to join the protest and raise their voices against the marginalisation, stigmatisation and criminalisation Black LGBTQIA+ people have to face on a daily basis. The organisation of Black Pride NL stated that the diversity in their communities makes their politics complex and multiple.  As everything is intersectional, the protest can be noted as a resistance against the imperialist white supremacist capitalist ableist cis-heterosexist patriarchy.

Keep track of Black Queer and Trans Resistance Netherlands and Black Pride NL, as they plan to host a yearly recurring march in addition to the multiple other events organised throughout the year. For the coming Black Pride week (until August 6) there will be several events hosted in Amsterdam, follow this page for more information.