Steven Donziger, a lawyer and environmental rights defender, who successfully represented victims of oil dumping in Ecuador by oil company Chevron, was later sued by Chevron in the USA. He refused to comply with a court order to hand over his electronic devices to Chevron, arguing that such a disclosure could violate attorney-client confidentiality and put his clients at risk. He was convicted of contempt of court and arbitrarily detained for almost three years under house arrest and several months in prison. Before leaving office on January 20, President Biden should pardon Mr. Donziger and protect environmental defenders from corporate retaliation.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: January 20, 2025
Dear President Biden,
I am writing to you regarding the situation of Steven Donziger, a US human rights lawyer whose case has garnered international attention and outrage. Mr. Donziger helped Indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador win a landmark pollution judgment against Chevron for having deliberately discharged billions of gallons of oil waste over a period of decades onto Indigenous ancestral lands as a cost-saving measure.
Mr. Donziger was arbitrarily detained in New York after an unfair trial and in retaliation for his human rights work. Mr. Donziger spent close to three years in detention at home and in prison even though the maximum sentence under the charge he faced was six months. The detention followed a long-running smear campaign against Steven Donziger and other human rights defenders by Chevron to delegitimize their work.
Granting a pardon to Mr. Donziger would rectify the human rights violations in the case of Mr. Donziger, demonstrating that corporations cannot continue misusing the US judicial system to target and harass human rights activists, particularly amid the global climate crisis.
Before you leave office on January 20, I urge you to pardon Mr. Donziger’s 2022 Class B federal misdemeanor conviction and ensure that he can continue his work defending human rights without fear of reprisals.
Yours sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]
Other Urgent Actions for this Case
- First UA Issued: [55.24 USA]
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