Offaly duo protest at US Embassy to demand President Biden pardon US human rights advocate Steven Donziger

The organization “Just Forests” held a peaceful vigil outside the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, Dublin, on Friday, 3 May - 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) 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 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 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. 

Donziger is encouraging supporters around the world to sign his petition urging Biden to pardon him and to stand up to big oil's abuse of climate advocates.

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.”