INFO FRANCE 3 OCCITANIE. Michel Forst, United Nations Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders, visits Tarn, Thursday February 22, 2024, “following alerts received concerning the methods of maintaining order and evacuating environmental defenders environment peacefully occupying the site.”
Michel Forst, United Nations Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders is visiting Tarn, Thursday February 22, 2024, according to information from France 3 Occitanie.
The UN representative announced that he would go to Saïx (81) to the A69 construction site, “following alerts received regarding the methods of maintaining order and evacuation of environmental defenders peacefully occupying the site with the aim of observing the situation on site and collecting additional information.”
Alerts on the policing methods currently used against peaceful activists on the construction site #A69 are alarming. It is essential to calm the situation on the spot so that environmental democracy can be exercised. @prefect81 https://t.co/t7wI2RkZQb
— Michel Forst (@ForstMichel) February 16, 2024
The Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders has the mandate to “handle cases related to alleged violations of Article 3(8) of the Aarhus Convention, signed in 2002 by France. This convention ensures “that people who exercise their rights (…) are not in any way penalized, persecuted or subjected to vexatious measures because of their action.”
The role of the Special Rapporteur is to “take measures to protect anyone facing penalization, persecution, or vexatious action for seeking to exercise their rights under the Aarhus Convention.“
In March 2023, Michel Forst publicly judged the State’s response to Sainte-Soline “grossly disproportionate“The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders then assessed the French situation”worrying“, while deploring, in the columns of Le Monde, that “ultraviolent groups (…) contribute to discrediting the cause of environmental activists“.
During his trip to Tarn, he plans to meet environmental defenders, as well as observers from the Human Rights League (LDH) present.
He also announced that he had requested a meeting with the prefect of Tarn, Michel Vilbois, in Albi (81). Meetings are also planned in Toulouse (31) on Friday February 23 with Claire Dujardin, lawyer at the Toulouse Bar.