The UK has led the way in the crackdown, experts say, with judges recently refusing an appeal against multi-year sentences for climate activists who blocked a motorway bridge in east London. The three-year jail terms for Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland earlier this year are thought to be the longest handed out by a British judge for non-violent protest.
Michel Forst, the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders since June last year, described the situation in the UK as “terrifying”. He added that other countries were “looking at the UK examples with a view to passing similar laws in their own countries, which will have a devastating effect for Europe”.
He added: “I’m sure that there is European cooperation among the police forces against these kinds of activities. My concern is that when [governments] are calling these people eco-terrorists, or are using new forms of vilifications and defamation … it has a huge impact on how the population may perceive them and the cause for which these people are fighting. It is a huge concern for me.”
Note: I am absolutely not an expert in her views. I have not read any of the books she published nor do I watch every single talk show she attends.
In one of the articles I linked, she mentioned this:
While this quote in itself seems innocent I think it reveals a great deal about her in combination with her other views. My theory is:
She is a populist and does not care enough about minorities if they can be abused by populist fearmongering.
Very often the fears of the majority are unsupported by reality. For example, the people in German states with the least amount of immigrants are the most concerned about immigration. Women who never visit’s saunas are awfully concerned about trans women in women’s only saunas.
There’s no doubt she has socialist views (even though her secondary incomes exceed those of any other politician). But she takes no issue in combining her views with populist or nationalist rhetoric (like some sort of national socialism ;).
Had she been around in the 1920s, I don’t doubt she would’ve been in the Communist Party. Simultaneously though, she would’ve likely been a ravaging antisemite since blaming Jews for - well, anything really - was quite popular in Germany at that time.
Her leftism seems to be about socialism only. A socialist country where minorities are hunted down is preferable to a capitalist one where they have equal rights, it seems.
Yeah, based on the quotes you provided she does seem like a populist. Reminiscent of Slovakia’s Smer, actually; economically leftist (at least nominally, I don’t know about her or Die Linke’s actual policies) but otherwise completely indistinguishable from extremist right wing parties.
As I said in another comment, as a Finn who votes for our version of Die Linke – Vasemmistoliitto aka. Left Alliance – I’m extremely glad they haven’t gone down the populist road. Probably also why they don’t get so many voters nowadays, not enough hate for minorities and no support for literal imperialism happening next door.