Live Now with Steven Donziger!

I speak with him on his first day of freedom

On his first day of freedom after almost a thousand days of house arrest plus 45 days in prison, Steven Donziger is a free man today. His legal challenges aren’t over, but the most draconian phase of Chevron’s assault on his life has ended.

Donziger is an environmental lawyer who led a team of environmental and human rights activists in a case against Chevron. The case is based on years of the oil giant’s poisoning of an Ecuadorian swath of the Amazon River, poisoning the water, food and air of tens of thousands of farmers in that region. Incensed by the $9.5B judgement handed down by the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, Chevron has paid not one cent to make the farmers whole - yet has spent millions to come after Donziger.

Why?

To freeze environmental protest. To draw the line past which no lawyer or activist dare tread in any challenge to Big Oil’s hegemony. And the US government allowed Chevron to do it, using a legal loophole that basically allowed Chevron to use a US courtroom to stage a show trial against Donziger.

This case is about more than Steven Donziger. It is about the earth, and it’s about all of us. Donziger has expressed deeply gratitude to the many who have stood by him during his ordeal, and is reminding all of us that the struggle for justice can’t stop now.