Collective Climate Justice block UBS Bank in Basel, Switzerland

On July 8, 2019, around 120 climate activists occupied the entries to the UBS bank in Basel during “climate action days” organized by “Collective Climate Justice” (between July 2 - July 11, 2019). 4 activists chained themselves to concrete barrels. After around 5 hours, the bank filed a criminal complaint and asked the police to clear the occupation. An hour later, the police asked activists to leave and began clearing the occupation 15 minutes later by kettling the remaining protestors. The police issued 60 penal orders, and subjected 37 people to identification measures (including taking DNA samples), and arrested 40 people who spent up to 2 days in prison. The penal orders accused activists of criminal damage (art. 144 Swiss Criminal Code, CC), coercion (art. 181 CC), unlawful entry (art. 186 CC), rioting (art. 260) and transgression of cantonal regulations (art. 16, UeStG BS). The sanctions amounted to 180 daily penalty unites (Tagessätze) with a suspension period of 3 years, plus fines (Busse). At least 5 people filed a rejection of the penal order and appeared in court. Ahead of the trial, UBS withdrew its criminal complaints and reached a settlement with the activists. However, the public prosecutor insisted on proceeding with the trial. The court acquitted the defendants (rejecting the main charge of coercion) and the prosecutor did not appeal against the acquittal (due to a lack of appeal, no written judgement was issued). In a separate trial, activists who were subjected to police identification measures (Art. 260 Swiss Criminal Procedure Code, CPC) and non-invasive samples and DNA analysis (Art. 255 CPC) appealed against these measures with the prosecutor who rejected the appeal and subsequently with the court of appeals that also rejected it (Basel-Stadt Appelationsgericht BES.2019.150, March 20, 2020). Activists then appealed to the Federal Supreme Court (Bundesgericht) which accepted the appeal and nullified the police measures of identification and DNA profiling (Bundesgericht 1B_285/2000 - leading case, 1B_286 & 294/2000, 1B_287 & 293/2020, April 22, 2021). [In a parallel case in Zürich where activists occupied a Credit Suisse branch on the same day, they were convicted of coercion and unlawful entry (Arts. 181 and 186 CC) in the first two instances (Obergericht Zürich SB210390, 18.11.2022). The activists appealed to the Federal Supreme Court and await a decision (as of May 7, 2024).]