Authorities Should Drop Charges Against EACOP Protesters
On November 6, a court in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, gave the go-ahead for the trial of twelve activists, eight of whom are students. The group faces charges stemming from their protests against the planned East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), one of the largest fossil fuel infrastructure projects currently under development globally.
The activists were arrested on August 1 during a demonstration near Stanbic Bank, a Ugandan bank providing financial support to EACOP, and have been held in jail since, in violation of international due process norms. They are facing criminal charges for “nuisance on roads.” “Ongoing arrests are a way to suppress dissent and instill fear- especially since bail is often denied, so people know they could spend a long time in prison,” said Brighton Aryampa, a defense lawyer for the protesters.
This is the latest example of retaliation in response to peaceful demonstrations against EACOP that have taken place at various locations in Kampala, including Parliament, embassies, and banks, urging institutions to withdraw support to the project given its serious threats to human rights and the environment. Human Rights Watch has previously documented devastating impacts on the livelihoods of Ugandan families linked to EACOP’s land acquisition process.
MetropolitanRepublic enlisted social media influencers to promote giant oil project as climate campaigners suffered beatings and arrests.
Excerpt from this story from DeSmog Blog:
Last November, a beaming group of staff from MetropolitanRepublic collected their gorilla-shaped trophy at the Silverback Awards, Uganda’s top advertising and public relations gala.
The South African PR agency had won its prize for promoting the “sustainable development” of Uganda’s untapped oil reserves by French oil company TotalEnergies.
MetropolitanRepublic — which is part-owned by British communications giant WPP — described the brief for the award-winning “Action for Sustainability” campaign in its entry to the Silverback Awards: to devise an approach that “squashed all the negative PR” from protests against TotalEnergies’ plans for a 1,443-kilometre pipeline to export oil from Uganda’s Lake Albert via neighbouring Tanzania.
An accompanying video featured photographs of Ugandan anti-pipeline campaigners to illustrate this “backlash” and described them as “haters”.
“How do you launch a successful project off the back of this?” asks the narrator in the video. “Well, you develop a 360 PR campaign that retells your story the way it should be told.”
Now, DeSmog can reveal that Ugandan police or military personnel have arrested, beaten, threatened, or harassed at least eight of the 15 campaigners pictured in MetropolitanRepublic’s award submission video.
These incidents — documented via video taken at protests, interviews with the campaigners, and police records — took place both before and after the video was published on the Silverback website in March.
There is no indication that MetropolitanRepublic’s campaign or the award submission led directly to any specific incidents affecting the activists. Nevertheless, DeSmog found that the agency engaged a network of social media influencers to post hundreds of times in support of TotalEnergies’ plans to mitigate the impact of the pipeline — even as protestors were being beaten and harassed.
“These PR firms are sponsoring our oppression,” said Hillary Innocent Taylor Seguya, one of the campaigners pictured in MetropolitanRepublic’s award submission video. “The more you push misinformation to the rest of the world, the more it means that you don’t care about our rights.”
The "Summer of Heat" rages on with record-breaking temperatures and a demonstration demanding that AIG refuse to insure the East African Cru
The "Summer of Heat" continues—both in terms of record-breaking temperatures driven by fossil fuels and a series of nonviolent direct actions targeting Wall Street for its contributions to the climate emergency.
After protests last month calling out Citibank for "financing the arsonists," climate campaigners on Friday set their sights on finance and insurance giant AIG for "stubbornly" refusing to join over two dozen other insurers that won't cover the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
EACOP is set to run nearly 900 miles from Uganda's Lake Albert oilfields to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. Rights groups have sounded the alarm about how the project has devastated the lives and livelihoods of people in its path as well as violence endured by African activists, who have been "kidnapped, arbitrarily arrested, detained, or subjected to different forms of harassment."
Ugandan climate activist Hillary Taylor Seguya declared Friday that "EACOP is a carbon bomb being built in my backyard."
"Thousands of communities in Uganda are being displaced because of corporate greed," added the campaigner, who is affiliated with StopEACOP. "Today, as Ugandans, as Tanzanians, as Africans, we want to be loud and clear that we shall not allow any pipeline to put oil in our backyards."
‘Very disturbing’: crackdown on oil pipeline protests in Uganda concerns UN rights expert
Students in Kampala have been beaten and arrested for marching against a 900-mile pipeline co-owned by a French company
“In mid-September, four dozen university students marched through Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, to deliver a petition to parliament calling on the government to end fossil fuel investments and scrap the 900-mile east Africacrude oil pipeline (Eacop) ... Police officers refused to let them enter parliament. Most were chased away, but four male students were corralled under a table near the main entrance, where they say police kicked and punched them, and beat them with wood.
“After the beatings, the students were handcuffed and taken to a police station, where they say officers accused them of having been paid to protest against the pipeline. The four students spent the weekend in one of the city’s most notorious and overcrowded prisons, before being charged with public nuisance and released on bail.
“‘Young people are the majority in our country and we are the most vulnerable to the climate crisis. But anyone rising up against Eacop is facing the brutal wrath of the regime,’ said Magambo, who suffered a dislocated ankle and damage to his left eardrum. ‘It is a laughable case, but they want to keep us busy in court so that we can’t organize and protest. But we have to join the global community’s fight against fossil fuels,’ he said.
“Last month’s arrests were the latest in a wave of criminal charges and other judicial harassment against activists and organizations, raising concerns about the environmental and social impacts of the east African pipeline – which is one of the largest fossil fuel projects under construction in the world.”
"Speaking up for frontline communities should never lead to this," the #StopEACOP movement said following the release of Stephen Kwikiriza,
Opponents of a highly controversial oil pipeline under construction in East Africa on Monday demanded an investigation into the Ugandan army's treatment of an environmental activist who was hospitalized after allegedly being severely beaten while he was detained last week.
Stephen Kwikiriza, an activist with the Kampala-based Environmental Governance Institute (EGI), was found dumped on the side of a highway about five hours' drive from the Ugandan capital Sunday night following a weeklong detention by the country's army.
"Unfortunately, he is in poor condition after enduring severe beatings, mistreatment, and abuse throughout the week," EGI said, according toAl Jazeera. "Doctors are conducting various examinations."
Like other climate and environmental campaigners in the movement to stop the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), Kwikiriza is believed to have been targeted for his activism against the project, which is being built by the French fossil fuel giant TotalEnergies in partnership with the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the Uganda National Oil Company, and others.
The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said Kwikiriza was apparently abducted by Ugandan army officers in civilian clothes in what the group called a "particularly worrying escalation of repression."
FIDH said 11 activists have been "kidnapped, arbitrarily arrested, detained, or subjected to different forms of harassment by the Ugandan authorities between May 27 and June 5, 2024," part of what critics call a government campaign targeting StopEACOP campaigners that goes back years.
"Speaking up for frontline communities should never lead to this," the StopEACOP movement said on social media following Kwikiriza's release. "We urge human rights organizations to hold Ugandan authorities accountable and ensure human rights and environmental defenders can work safely."
"We also ask TotalEnergies and CNOOC to investigate the injustices done in their names as alleged," the coalition added. "You can still make profits without harming communities or enabling human rights violations."
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If completed, the $3.5 billion, nearly 900-mile EACOP project is expected to transport up to 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day from fields in the Lake Albert region of western Uganda through the world's longest electrically heated pipeline to the Tanzanian port city of Tanga on the Indian Ocean.
A July 2023 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) detailed how EACOP has devastated the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of people in its path while exacerbating the climate emergency.
"The Ugandan government needs to end its harassment of opponents of oil development in the country, such as the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project, which has already devastated thousands of people's livelihoods in Uganda and, if completed, will displace thousands of people and contribute to the global climate crisis," HRW senior environmental rights advocate Myrto Tilianaki said in a statement issued during Kwikiriza's detention.
China State Bank Shouldn’t Back East African Crude Oil Pipeline
Planned Fossil Fuel Project Threatens Human Rights, Drives Climate Change
“We are now drilling.” Uganda’s energy minister recently confirmed at COP29 that the government was pressing ahead with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). The 1,443-kilometer pipeline will connect oilfields in western Uganda with the port of Tanga in eastern Tanzania. Among one of the world’s largest fossil fuel projects currently under development, EACOP poses significant risks to human rights and the environment.
Given the government’s unwavering support, the pipeline’s completion will now rely on whether it can secure the necessary funding.
Several banks, including major African banks, have already declined to support the project. The state-run Import-Export Bank of China (Exim Bank) remains undecided and is expected to make a key decision in December about its financial support for EACOP.
A Human Rights Watch report in 2023 found that land acquisition associated with the project has already devasted thousands of people’s livelihoods in Uganda. The inadequate and delayed compensation for land lost to the project has impacted many communities’ access to food, health, and education. It is estimated that developments in the oilfields will displace as many as 100,000 people across Uganda and Tanzania.
Human Rights Watch has also documented the Ugandan government’s routine harassment and arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders and activists who voice concerns about the pipeline. More than 80 have been arrested since May 2024 for protesting against EACOP.
EACOP: Govt goes to court after 80 reject compensation figures
Government had dragged 80 people in different parts of Lwengo, Kyotera and Rakai districts to court for rejecting compensation fees for their pieces of land that are onn the demarcated route of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline-EACOP project.
The government through the Attorney General sued the Project Affected Persons, accusing them of declining to receive the compensation fees allocated to…
