The trial of three climate protestors
who sprayed easy-to-wash-off red paint over the front of the
Senate on January 2 began in Rome on Friday.
The three young people, Laura Paracini, David Nensi and
Alessandro Sulis, are charged with aggravated criminal damage
and could be jailed if they are found guilty.
The action was part of a series of acts of civil disobedience
staged by the Ultima Generazione (UG - Last Generation) group to
highlight the need to address the climate crisis.
"The idea of going to prison does not scare us," said Paracini.
"What terrorizes us is the climate crisis.
"We are worried about our future.
"I am scared of a future without water, without food. The
climate crisis is also a social crisis.
"With our actions we want the climate crisis to be on the news
every day because it's the biggest news story and not many
people realise.
"To those who say our methods are wrong, I say, are there any
better ones?
"What have they brought to the environmental movement so far?
"We stand by our methods, which polarize public opinion.
"We don't want to be liked, we want change".
There was a big show of support for the three outside the court.
Marta Bonafoni of the centre-left Democratic Party, Italian Left
(SI) Senator Ilaria Cucchi and leader Nicola Fratoianni, Green
MP Angelo Bonelli and former minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio
took part in a rally of solidarity.
Greenpeace was also there, along with representatives of Amnesty
International, who displayed banners reading "Peaceful Civil
Disobedience is not a Crime".
On Friday the court admitted the Senate, the culture ministry
and the city of Rome as civil plaintiffs in the criminal trial
against the three climate protestors.
UG said a high-profile Italian scientist, the geologist Mario
Tozzi, has been admitted as a witness for the defence.
The judge adjourned proceedings against until October 18.
The case is set to be one of many as the group have been
especially active recently, with the " We Won't Pay for Fossil
Fuels" campaign to stop public investment in, and subsidies of,
fossil fuels, the biggest source of the greenhouse emissions
causing the climate crisis.
Other UG protests have included splashing paint at the La Scala
opera house and the Vittorio Emanuele II statue in Milan,
sticking themselves to Botticelli's Spring at the Uffizi and the
Laocoon statue in the Vatican, blocking the Mt Blanc Tunnel,
throwing flour over an Andy Warhol car in Milan, stripping off
half naked and halting traffic, throwing soup onto a Van Gogh
and pouring diluted vegetable charcoal into the Four Rivers in
Piazza Navona in Rome.
In the light of such acts, the government has approved a
crackdown on art 'eco-vandals', with fines of up to 60,000
euros.
UG is part of the A22 network of climate civil-disobedience
groups in several countries, including Just Stop Oil in the UK,
Stop Old Growth in Canada, France's Derniere Renovation and
Declare Emergency in the United States
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