Peoples’ organisations and movements from the Global South along with our allies are deeply concerned about the passage of the ‘On specific solutions related to the organization of the session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in the Republic of Poland’ Bill in the Polish parliament,  which will prevent any ‘spontaneous’ public gathering of climate groups during COP24. The Bill is specifically drafted to target any organising and mobilisation of environmental defenders and people’s movements against detrimental climate policies. It also gives power to the Polish government to subject human rights defenders to state-led surveillance including access to all personal information...

We demand the following actions from respective entities:

• United Nations, Fiji Presidency of 2017, Talanoa Dialogue and Constituencies take action to redress this, failing which our organizations and movements will resort to non-cooperation towards COP24.
• Polish government repeal this harmful Act and ensure the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, association and speech of all person prior to, during and post COP 24. 
• European Union and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights  urge the government of Poland to uphold their legal, human rights obligations by repealing the Act, as a signatory to key regional and international human rights instruments.