"Australia's Leader Called For A Crackdown On Environmentalists Before Fires Broke Out", 17 Jan 2020

Just weeks before unprecedented wildfires broke out across Australia, killing an estimated 1 billion animals, the prime minister declared that the country faced a terrible threat: environmental protesters...“A new breed of radical activism is on the march,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a November speech. He added that there was a “place for peaceful protests,” but he wasn’t going to stand for environmentalists obstructing and delaying mining projects or calling for boycotts of banks that finance the country’s coal industry... Morrison’s promise to quell environmental protesters in Australia is part of a global trend. Being an environmentalist has long been dangerous — at least 164 activists worldwide were killed in 2018, according to the NGO Global Witness...Almost 100 prosecutions were documented worldwide against environmentalists or activists defending community land rights from corporate interests last year by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre... “It doesn’t matter if you’re in Nicaragua or the US, powerful people want to stop you. And the government is prepared to help,” said Carla Garcia Zendejas, director of the people, land, and resources program at the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington. “And they don't just use brute force — governments use the rule of law and create the legitimate legal backing to put people in jail because you’ve equated environmental protesters with terrorists.”...