Very concerning. But it shows that governments are triggered and hit at a vulnerable spot by these protests. They know that it is very hard for them to please the activists and pass sufficient climate legislation in the short term, so it is apparent that protests will continue and even increase. Also they don't want to appear "weak" by giving in (which is completely stupid of course). So with these harsh sentences, they show us that they are afraid and want to stop these protests before they get too large

Threats to Germany’s climate campaigners fuelled by politicians’ rhetoric, says activist

Senior politicians in Germany have compared Last Generation, a nonviolent protest group that has blockaded motorways and thrown paint on glass-covered artworks, to terrorist organisations such as the Red Army Faction, a far-left group that killed dozens of people in the 1970s and 80s. Earlier this year, in tweets that have since been deleted, politicians from the centre-left and centre-right parties drew links between Last Generation and the Taliban.

The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who has described the protests as “completely idiotic”, appeared to compare climate activists to Nazis last year after two people disrupted a panel at which he was speaking in Stuttgart. “Let me say frankly, these black-clad spectacles at different events, always by the same people, remind me of a time that lies long in the past – and thank God for that,” he said, to loud applause.

in the UK I cannot wait until we're able to vote out the Tories and especially rishi sunak who we never voted in the first place. Any party would be better than them at this point.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Human rights experts and campaigners have warned against an intensifying crackdown on climate protests across Europe, as Guardian research found countries across the continent using repressive measures to silence activists.

Catrinel Motoc, the organisation’s senior campaigner on civil space and right to protest in Europe, said: “People all around the world are bravely raising their voices to call for urgent actions on the climate crisis but many face dire consequences for their peaceful activism.

Les Soulévements de la Terre, a collective of local environmental campaigns, had staged a series of protests, with tactics including sabotage, that ended with violent confrontations with police, and Darmanin denouncing the activists as “far left” and “ecoterrorists”.

The Digos police unit, which specialises in counter-terrorism, in April justified the use of anti-Mafia laws to target the group by saying its civil disobedience actions had not taken place spontaneously, but were organised, discussed and weighed up by an internal hierarchy.

“These one-off bans, of which there are very few in absolute terms, are not imposed because of the reason for the demonstration.”The Italian interior ministry referred to a statement from the culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano in April, who said attacks on monuments cause economic damage to the community that is is expensive to clean up.

The Bavarian interior ministry referred the Guardian to the public prosecutor’s office in Munich, which provided a statement from June in which it confirmed it had authorised the tapping of phones for six of seven Last Generation members under criminal investigation.

The original article contains 1,251 words, the summary contains 250 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!