About thirty politicians and university professors, among others, have signed a manifesto promoted by Futuro Vegetal in which they ask for the decriminalization of protest actions such as those carried out by the environmental group. According to Futuro Vegetal, 22 of its climate activists were arrested last year accused of forming a criminal organization.
Among the signatories is the leader of Sumar, Aina Vidal, along with former Podemos ministers such as Ione Belarra and Irene Montero and the former vice president of the purple party, Pablo Iglesias. Also joining are university professors and researchers such as Antonio Aretxabala Díez and Fernando Valladares, the astrophysicist Javier Armentia and the president of the Sustainability Observatory, Fernando Prieto, among others.
The organization has recalled that it is a group known for “its numerous protests in which it actively and intentionally creates the security conditions necessary to avoid the commission of crimes.” Likewise, he explained that in the actions in which they throw paint on a surface they use “beet juice or water tempera, materials that are easily washable with a little water.” As an example of these actions, they have mentioned the protest action of the ‘Majas de Goya’, “in which the activists stuck to the frame of the work, avoiding resorting to other acts that could have caused any damage to the work.” The group has indicated that it does not have any judicial conviction for its protest activity.
Futuro Vegetal has recalled that its objectives are to “protect the state’s water resources against the advance of large meat corporations through the legitimate exercise of its right to protest” and considers “an ethical and legal aberration that compromises the right to protest.” of the entire society” their arrests for their activism. “Laws must protect the population, not condemn them to passively watch as our future is destroyed without us being able to do anything to prevent it,” Futuro Vegetal added.
The manifesto condemns the actions of the National Police and the Ministry of the Interior against the environmental group and calls on the executive to “correct this situation, decriminalizing protests and repealing the well-known Organic Law of Citizen Security.”
