This Rebel Mom was forced from her government agency job for being a climate activist – now she is suing the Swedish state
In April last year, Marie was forced from her job at the Swedish Energy Agency where she had been working on a security-classified position as a gas coordinator since 2023. Her employer had suddenly considered her to be a security threat because of her climate activism.
Marie has said that she hadn’t kept her involvement in the the climate activist group Rebel Moms, a subgroup of Extinction Rebellion, a secret to her employer. Extinction Rebellion uses civil disobedience as a protest method, but Rebel Moms does not. Marie has explained that she had only been singing and knitting with the climate group. It was only after she was featured in a Swedish news magazine for her climate activism that her employer deemed her a security threat.
It was later revealed that Carl-Oskar Bohlin, minister for Civil Defense and member of the conservative party in Sweden, had actually reached out to the Swedish Energy Agency regarding the activist following the feature in the news magazine. Bohlin was heavily criticized for this since a minister in Sweden is not allowed to direct agencies in individual cases.
This whole debacle went so far that even the UN criticized Bohlin and the Swedish Energy Agency for firing Marie. In a letter to the Swedish government, UN rapporteur Michel Forst expressed his deep concern over the “alleged persecution, penalization and harassment” of Marie for her climate activism.
“It is highly troubling that a government agency, like the Energy Agency, has terminated Ms. Holmlund’s employment for her efforts in her private life to protect her right and that of future generations to live in an environment adequate to health and well-being. I am deeply concerned that, at this time of climate crisis, Ms. Holmlund’s participation in peaceful environmental protest has been determined by Your Excellency’s Government as a national security threat and the basis to withdraw her security clearance.”
Because climate activists in Sweden are increasingly facing repression from the state, Michel Forst has decided to review Sweden’s actions. In fact, environmental activists are increasingly facing tougher suppression and harassment from governments in Western countries.
And now the trade union ST is suing the Swedish government for violating the country’s constitution when they fired Marie from her job, and they are demanding 200,000 Swedish kronor in damages for her.
In a statement, ST has explained that they believe that the termination of her employment is retaliation for her exercising her freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration, and that the state has thereby violated her fundamental rights and freedoms.
“It is clear, we believe, that this is about our member being considered to have had the wrong political opinion and to have participated in the wrong expressions of opinion, and it is not common for a minister to interfere in our affairs, it has never happened before,” the trade union’s lawyer Joakim Lindqvist explained to Swedish media. “This government seems to be politicizing the role of civil servant in an unpleasant way, which suggests that they do not want people with certain political opinions employed within the state. It does not rhyme with the liberal state and the democracy we want to live in,” Lindqvist said.