‘The last form of protest I have’: German priest prefers prison over €500 fine for climate activism
A Jesuit priest says he prefers going to jail over paying a €500 wonderful for collaborating in a local weather activists’ avenue blockade within the southern German metropolis of Nuremberg.
The Rev. Jörg Alt began serving his almost month-long jail sentence on Tuesday in Nuremberg.
“Immediately, I’m beginning my 25-day different custodial sentence in Nuremberg jail,” he stated earlier than coming into the jail.
“I don’t like doing this, particularly as my well being is now not the very best on the age of 63. However I see no different, as a result of it’s the final type of protest I’ve left on this particular case to attract consideration to necessary points (like local weather change).”
In November, Alt stated that “as a priest, I’ve no earnings and no checking account as a result of my vow of poverty and that I don’t need to hurt the order and my fellow brothers by paying my wonderful,” German information company dpa reported.
His remarks got here after a Bavarian Larger Regional Court docket rejected his attraction to a decrease court docket’s resolution and confirmed Alt’s conviction for coercion for collaborating in a sit-in blockade.
After the court docket’s resolution, authorities repeatedly requested Alt to pay the €500, earlier than the wonderful was ultimately commuted to the 25-day jail sentence.
The court docket ruling in November was in reference to a avenue blockade in August 2022, when the Jesuit priest and about 40 different activists blocked visitors in Nuremberg by gluing their fingers to a avenue in entrance of town’s practice station to attract consideration to local weather change.
‘It could all be lawful, however it’s unjust’
Quite a few related protests have taken place throughout Germany and different international locations lately as activists attempt to attract consideration to the urgency of tackling local weather change. The general public and political response to such street blockades has been blended.
Whereas some Germans have stated they help the protesters’ trigger, if not their means, activists have additionally confronted violence from enraged motorists and requires robust punishment from conservative politicians.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has sharply criticised local weather activists as “ nutty” for drastic protests reminiscent of blocking streets or gluing themselves to well-known work in museums.
Final 12 months, activists belonging to one of many principal protest teams, the Final Technology, introduced that they might abandon the tactic and transfer on to holding what they name “disobedient assemblies.”
Alt has stated that he had additionally determined to serve the jail sentence as an alternative of paying the wonderful “in solidarity with these local weather activists who’re handled equally by the administration and the judiciary – it might all be lawful, however it’s unjust.”
It is not the primary time, that Alt was convicted for his activism. In Might 2023, a court docket additionally convicted him of coercion after he participated in a street blockade in Munich and ordered him to pay a small wonderful.
