France, using the state of emergency laws passed after the Paris shootings, placed 24 green activists on house arrest ahead of the United Nations global warming talks starting in the country next week, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Saturday.
The activists are thought to belong to a "radical opposition movement" and have been accused of violating a ban on organizing protests for the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris, which is scheduled to take place Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, according to Newsmax.
"These 24 people have been placed under house arrest because they have been violent during demonstrations in the past and because they have said they would not respect the state of emergency," Cazeneuve said in a speech in Strasbourg, reported Reuters.
Three people are under house arrest in Rens, two in Paris, two in Rouen and one in Lyons. They are only allowed to leave their homes three times a day to sign a post office register verifying their location, and they will remain on house arrest until Dec. 12, the day after the climate talks end, according to The Independent.
Lawyers for the activists and Amnesty International accused the government of abusing the state of emergency laws, which were declared following the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. The state of emergency laws ban public demonstrations and give police expanded search and surveillance powers, according to Reuters.
Naomi Klein, an author and climate change campaigner, said French officials are guilty of "a gross abuse of power that risks turning the summit into a farce," reported The Guardian.
"Climate summits are not photo opportunities to boost the popularity of politicians. Given the stakes of the climate crisis, they are by their nature highly contested," Klein said. "That is democracy, messy as it may be. The French government, under cover of anti-terrorism laws, seems to be trying to avoid this, shamefully banning peaceful demonstrations and using emergency powers to pre-emptively detain key activists."
Over 140 world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, will attend the negotiations with hopes of capping average global warming at 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and preventing catastrophic climate change.
Thousands of climate activists are expected to defy the blanket ban on demonstrations.
