What do you think when you watch the Trump Administration abduct foreign students and lock them up in ICE detention centers? Or when you see legal immigrants snatched from their communities and dumped into a gulag in El Salvador?
For me, it is a stark reminder of how fragile our justice system can be.
It is clear to me that these vicious attacks on vulnerable people and SLAPP harassment lawsuits brought against environmental groups like Greenpeace are deeply interconnected. It’s all about attacking the rule of law.
That is why we must work together to defend the climate justice movement and our country from one of the most dangerous threats we have ever faced.
I want to give you a quick update.
As a result of a patently unfair trial in a pro-Trump county in North Dakota, Greenpeace was hit last month with an utterly grotesque $669 million jury verdict.
This was the largest damages judgment against a climate group in history.
The case against Greenpeace – a SLAPP harassment lawsuit – was brought by Trump’s friend and billionaire oil tycoon Kelcy Warren. Warren said in an interview that climate activists “should be removed from the gene pool” because they are bad for the country.
The rhetoric is hateful. But it’s also coldly calculated.
This verdict that was essentially bought by Warren is an attack not just on a major environmental organization, but also an attack on the entire climate justice movement.
We are fighting back and we need your help. Our plan is to deliver a major blow to Warren and other oligarchs who think they can silence our movement with abusive lawsuits.
We made our first move this week.
We sent a powerful 7-page letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights asking that the trial against Greenpeace in North Dakota be put squarely on the international stage. We also are pushing for UN officials to launch an investigation into the flagrant violations of Greenpeace’s fair trial rights.
This letter was released by the independent trial monitoring team that I helped organize. The team includes the legendary attorney Marty Garbus, who represented Nelson Mandela and Daniel Ellsberg.
There is no doubt that the verdict against Greenpeace poses a grave threat to free speech, the rule of law, judicial fairness, and Indigenous rights.
That threat is being turbo-charged right now by Trump and his attacks on the rule of law.
Greenpeace was a stand-in for all of us. The group just took a major bullet for our movement and the planet. Now, we must do all we can to protect Greenpeace and the broader right to advocate. That is so necessary to save our planet and what’s left of our democracy.
We need resources to spread this work far and wide. Funds will be used to write and publish a comprehensive report on the trial – and enlist what we will hope will be hundreds of attorneys and scholars from around the world to support our findings.
This is what we believe is the best way to protect Greenpeace and our right to protest.
I know that major events are moving at a dizzying pace. I am asking each of you to take the time to focus for a few minutes on this one opportunity.
Please join us as we work to help protect human rights and our sacred right to protest in the age of Trump’s attacks on the rule of law. Donate $50, $25, $500, $15, $1000, $5, $5,000 or whatever you can today.
I know all of you care profoundly about these issues and have gone to great lengths to support my advocacy. I remain deeply grateful. Let’s keep rolling!
Thank you,
Steven Donziger
Democracy & Good Governance 