Had a visit from a counterterrorism officer once because someone suggested our fundraising must be for nefarious purposes! Compare this eagerness to spring into action with what happens when environmentalists and whistleblowers are attacked or even killed gmwatch.org/en/106-news/la…
https://twitter.com/SDonziger/status/1631837668060397573
Salomé Saqué: “When environmental activists protest, [the Minister of the Interior] calls them ‘eco-terrorists’ and sends hundreds of police. But when the whistleblower who convicted Monsanto [of poisoning] is the victim of an extremely disturbing attack, there is radio silence.”
French MP Loïc Prud’homme in the 🇫🇷National Assembly: “Mr Minister, it took you less than 3 hours to call demonstrators ‘eco-terrorists’, how many hours will it take you to label these pro-#Monsanto fanatics – ready to do anything to silence whistleblowers – ‘toxic-terrorists’?”
Impunity: In France a pesticide attack on an organic farm hospitalised the farmer Tristan Arlaud. It followed a series of earlier crimes that nobody was prosecuted for—even though for some the Arlauds had photos of the alleged culprits, who made no secret they were responsible!! 
After the attack that put the organic farmer in hospital, their customers encouraged the Arlauds to bring in a lawyer because of the authorities’ failure to act. “The sense of impunity on the part of the criminals must end. Justice can no longer ignore what is happening here.”
Sometimes there's evidence of not just official indifference to the intimidation of whistleblowers, but active involvement in it. Take, for instance, what happened when Prof Andres Carrasco went to give a talk on his studies showing #glyphosate caused malformations in embryos.
.@amnesty says Prof Carrasco and his companions came under violent assault and not only were the Argentine police slow and unmotivated to respond but witnesses said they recognised **local officials among the attackers.** The attack left one man unconscious and another paralysed.
@amnesty Dr Ignacio Chapela says it was a senior Mexican govt official who threatened his family. He also got a threatening letter from an Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture. Chapela says some of the officials “are just working as spokespeople for DuPont, Syngenta & #Monsanto”
@amnesty In the article we talk about an attack on rural workers in Brazil protesting illegal GMO research. Armed men killed the protest leader and wounded four others. Syngenta was found guilty of murder. But that was in a *civil* court and over a decade later! There was no prosecution.
@amnesty Why? The official investigation into the murderous attack dragged on so long that it finally led to it being shelved completely after a judge ruled a court could not convict the defendants because the crime had happened 10 years prior, so they could not be held criminally liable.
@amnesty The pesticide industry and its supporters see ever-increasing public pressure to limit the use of their products as an existential threat. That means if we can’t break the hold of these corporations & start holding the bullies to account, more whistleblowers are going to get hurt
@amnesty More on how corporate capture of ministers, officials, regulators, academic institutions, and in some places even the judiciary and the police, is allowing the bullies to walk away unscathed from crimes of violence and intimidation here👇gmwatch.org/en/106-news/la…
@amnesty And here's our original English language account of the violent assault on the French farmer who fought #Monsanto through the courts gmwatch.org/en/106-news/la…
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