ON MY MIND: Mines buying silence
The disturbing rise in the number of suits against environmental activists by mining companies is designed to thwart transparency
Dawid Markus is a community activist from Hondeklipbaai in the Northern Cape. He works on environmental issues affecting residents of the fishing community. In November 2016, he and other members of the mine-affected community in which he lives held a peaceful protest outside the premises of West Coast Resources. They wanted a meeting to discuss the mining company’s social and labour commitments and they wanted it to know how badly the local fishing industry was faring, thanks to spillages from the mine. But West Coast Resources clearly didn’t want to listen. Instead, it went to court to stop the community from protesting. In the end, the mine even got a cost order awarded against Markus. Thankfully, in June, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies successfully helped him challenge that order. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Three years ago, Canadian company Ivanhoe threatened legal action against Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) over its allegedly "defamatory" statement rega...
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