Protest/vigil at US Embassy to Demand President Biden Pardon US Human Rights Advocate Steven Donziger.

In Ireland, Citizens Protest at US Embassy to Demand President Biden Pardon US Human Rights Advocate Steven Donziger Chevron/Texaco Detained Donziger for 3 Years After He Helped Amazon Communities in Ecuador Win A Landmark $10 billion Pollution Case 

Dublin, Ireland – Irish citizens led by a longtime forest defender are planning to gather in front of the US Embassy Friday in Dublin to demand President Biden pardon US human rights advocate Steven Donziger after he was locked up for three years for helping Amazon communities win a landmark $9.5 billion pollution judgement.

Just Forests held a peaceful vigil outside the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, Dublin, on Friday 3 May starting at 12:30 local time. The event will coincide with World Press Freedom Day 2024 – marked by the United Nations on 3 May each year.

Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger’s fight against Chevron (owners of Texaco- longtime sponsors of children’s art and sports in Ireland) over Texaco’s pollution in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest is reaching a critical moment that demands immediate action by President Biden, said Tom Roche, an Irish citizen and ally of the affected Ecuadorian communities.

“I have had the privilege of getting to know Steven personally over the last several years,” said Roche, who has battled Texaco over its deceptive public relations campaign in Ireland. “He is a leader who has inspired many because of his powerful human rights advocacy on behalf of Amazon indigenous peoples and other vulnerable communities around the world.”

Donziger helped Amazon Indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador win the landmark $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron/Texaco in 2013. He then spent almost three years under house arrest and in prison after being detained directly by Chevron/Texaco in the nation’s first corporate prosecution based on a questionable “contempt of court” charge.

Chevron/Texaco also took Donziger’s law license without a hearing and confiscated his passport so he cannot travel to meet his clients in Ecuador. If Mr. Donziger is not pardoned, it is likely that thousands of people in the Amazon facing an imminent risk of death from Chevron/Texaco’s pollution will be left totally defenseless and unable to clean up their ancestral lands.

Donziger has won wide support from around the world. Dozens of Nobel Laureates, the human rights committee of the European Parliament, eleven members of the US Congress, and approximately 120 different civil society organizations (including Amnesty International) have backed him and demanded President Biden issue a pardon. In 2021, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers called the Donziger matter “one of the most important corporate accountability and human rights cases of our time.”

Just Forests fully expect the campaign to gain increasing momentum in the coming months.

ENDS

Media Coverage includes:

Steven Donziger re Dublin Vigil on INSTAGRAM

Just Forests Video Clips

Offaly EXPRESS