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On Thursday, 63-year-old John Mark Rozendaal, a grandfather, climate activist and professional cellist, will defy a restraining order to play Bach’s “Suites for Cello” as a climate protest at Citibank’s Manhattan headquarters. He is calling the performance “a plea for our future.” 

The creative action comes nine weeks into the Summer of Heat on Wall Street—a sustained civil disobedience campaign by climate activists targeting Citibank’s financing of companies funding and expanding fossil fuel projects. 

Over the past few weeks, activists have claimed that the bank’s security personnel and law enforcement are targeting the campaign’s most visible leaders, citing the restraining order as well as multiple hasty arrests and increasingly serious charges against founding members of organizations running the campaign. Legal experts and observers have raised concerns about a possible pattern of intimidation and threats to freedom of speech by dissuading protest.

Three weeks ago, Citi security worker James Flynn accused two activists, Rozendaal and Stop the Money Pipeline director Alec Connon, of assault after, according to activists, Flynn ducked under a PVC pipe that the activists were using to blockade the bank’s doors and said it hit his head. Connon and Rozendaal, whose arms were locked inside the PVC pipe, maintain that their action was nonviolent and that they did not assault any Citi employee. Following the incident, a judge issued an order of protection—commonly called a restraining order—for Flynn, who has identified himself as a retired New York City Police Department officer, against Connon and Rozendaal.

“In spite of this happening while there were dozens of cameras around and being at the global headquarters of a major bank, no footage of this incident exists,” Connon, one of the lead organizers of the Summer of Heat, said in a written statement, referring to the allegation of assault. “This is because it never happened.”

Citi emailed a written statement on the protests but declined to comment on specific arrests or the protesters’ allegations, referring questions to the NYPD. 

“While we respect the right to protest peacefully, activists do not have the right to chain themselves to our building or vandalize our properties,” read the statement. “We appreciate the assistance of the NYPD in restoring access to our building.”

Flynn declined to comment.

NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy, who estimated that he has overseen more than a thousand arrests at Citibank this year, and who has been at some Summer of Heat protests, said that there has been no escalation in law enforcement’s response and that no individuals have been targeted.

“It’s just been a tremendous amount of resources for nothing,” McCarthy said. “The system is broken a little bit. We’re there every day, we arrest people, and nothing happens.”

McCarthy said most protesters are arrested, processed, receive a summons and then return another day to continue protesting. 

“We’ll continue making sure that employees of Citibank can get into their work every day,” he said. “It’s tiresome, I can tell you that, but I don’t have any issues.”

The order of protection forbids Connon—who is identified in the order by his legal name, Alexander Humphreys—and Rozendaal from going near James Flynn’s person, home, school, business or place of employment for six months, but does not specify any of these locations. Connon and Rozendaal have a court date in September, but until then, the order of protection stands. 

At Thursday’s action, Connon and Rozendaal will risk violating the order by returning to Citibank’s headquarters, where Rozendaal will perform. They could be charged with criminal contempt, which could result in a year in jail or up to seven years in prison, depending on the severity of the violation.

“We’re going to Citibank on Thursday, not with the intention of breaking the law,” said Rozendaal, a self-identified pacifist and former adjunct music professor at Princeton University. “We’re going there with the intention of defying Citibank’s intent to intimidate us.”

Jonathan Westin, director of the Climate Organizing Hub, and Teddy Ogborn, co-founder of Planet Over Profit, have also been arrested multiple times and have faced more serious charges than other protesters—for obstructing governmental administration. The District Attorney’s office ultimately declined to prosecute the charges. 

“We believe this may [be] a deliberate attempt by Citi to target highly visible organizers,” Connon said.

Joel Kupferman, co-chair of the environmental justice committee at the National Lawyers Guild, an organization that sends legal observers to monitor law enforcement at protests, said he believes the arrests and restraining orders show a pattern of “increased harassment” from law enforcement against Summer of Heat demonstrators in an attempt to quell protest through intimidation.

“There’s certain strains within the [New York City] police department that seem to be pushing toward ever-increasing harassment and increased incivility toward demonstrators,” Kupferman said. 

Experts from the Center for International Environmental Law, a human rights focused legal research and advocacy group that has consulted with Summer of Heat organizers, also voiced concern about an escalating crackdown on the campaign.

“The use of vague restraining orders to keep protesters away from Citi’s New York headquarters represents a troubling effort to suppress these lawful demonstrations and mute advocacy for a just and sustainable world,” the group said in a statement. “Such measures not only threaten democratic freedoms and hinder crucial advocacy against environmental racism, but most importantly undermine efforts to challenge the financial underpinnings of the climate crisis.”

Connon said attempts to escalate charges against activists show that the protests are hitting a nerve, and the Summer of Heat campaign will continue to press its demands on Citi.

“They’re on the ropes, they’re feeling the pressure,” Connon said to activists on a Zoom call on July 24. “We want to call on all of you to crank up the pressure in the weeks ahead.”

An Escalating Law Enforcement Response 

At most protests, demonstrators have sought to block the doors to Citi’s headquarters, and have been quickly arrested by NYPD’s Strategic Response Group for minor offenses such as disorderly conduct or blocking pedestrian traffic.

But over the past few weeks, some of the campaign’s lead organizers have been hit with more serious charges, some of which have been quickly reduced but resulted in longer than usual jail stays and may have lasting ramifications.

Westin was arrested at a Citibank action on July 15, and officers alleged that he resisted arrest, which he denies. The District Attorney’s office declined to prosecute. 

A few days later, he was arrested again when Citi employees claimed he violently threw Citi’s barricades. According to Westin, NYPD officers detained him for obstruction of governmental administration, but after he spent 16 hours in jail, the DA’s office declined to prosecute after video evidence showed that he dragged the barricades and did not throw them. 

The following Saturday, Westin was arrested again while acting as a safety marshal for a protest outside Citi CEO Jane Fraser’s home, despite complying with NYPD’s instructions to get out of the road. Safety marshals, who wear identifiable neon vests and liaise with police, are seldom arrested. Westin, who had his 11-year-old daughter at the protest, said he tried to comply with NYPD and step onto the sidewalk but was arrested anyway.

“It seemed very targeted,” Westin said. “There were other marshals standing in the street at the same time, and they did not arrest them. It made absolutely no sense.”

The arrest of a safety marshal is particularly concerning, said Charles Slidders, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, who raised concerns about the pattern of arrests. 

“It just appears to me that the leadership of the protests are being actively targeted to suppress their free speech, [and] to suppress the free speech of other non-violent protesters,” Slidders said. 

Ogborn was arrested at Citi’s headquarters on July 22 while trying to heed NYPD warnings and leave the building, according to a video of the arrest posted by Planet Over Profit. He said NYPD officers told him that there was an open complaint against him for touching Citi’s barricade on July 18. Ogborn, like Westin, was detained for obstruction of governmental administration and was held in jail for eight-and-a-half hours. Days later, the city declined to prosecute. 

“We cannot protect our fragile democracy or the fragile climate if the police and legal system are weaponized against those who speak out to protect it…”

“If, as they say, [protesters] are being arrested and detained for things they didn’t do, and ultimately not charged for any wrongdoing, then yes, it seems pretty clear that these arrests are at least in part meant to intimidate and chill free speech and expression,” said Katie Redford, an attorney and executive director of the Equation Campaign, a funder supporting some of the groups involved in the Summer of Heat, including Stop the Money Pipeline and the Climate Organizing Hub. 

“We cannot protect our fragile democracy or the fragile climate if the police and legal system are weaponized against those who speak out to protect it, even if it’s inconvenient for the bankers who are underwriting the crisis in the first place,” she added.

Ron Kuby, a lawyer who has represented hundreds of activists as part of the Summer of Heat, said that he has observed a pattern of unlawful arrests, and added that when the DA’s office declines to prosecute, it demonstrates an overly aggressive charge from the NYPD.

“The DA’s office, they look at the video, they interview the cops, and usually they make a decision not to go forward,” Kuby said. 

“All of the [activists] I’ve been representing in the climate protests, they have a rigorous commitment to nonviolence, so the assault charges are clearly cooked up,” he added.

Citi Employees React to Protests

In an internal memo to staff on June 24, Citi’s head of enterprise services and public affairs, Ed Skyler, referenced “heightened protest activity.” 

“We recognize that these protests can be disruptive, and the protesters have clearly become more provocative in their messages,” Skyler wrote. “I know many of you have been offended by some of the language and actions, as have I. But we have to keep our cool, and so we continue to ask that you avoid engaging with protesters.” 

Some of the campaign’s protests have prevented hundreds of Citi employees from getting into the building, and their frustration has at times turned into aggression, which activists have highlighted online.

On June 21, an employee was caught on video shoving a barricade into a row of protesters.

In response to the video, a Citi spokesperson said that “the protester’s story about what occurred is verifiably false. Unedited video shows she and others were unlawfully blocking our building doors with a large object, and after our employee was hit with that object, he pushed it out of his way.”

Citi declined a request from Inside Climate News to view the unedited video.

On July 15, another Citi employee was caught on video saying “get a machine gun and fucking kill them all,” about protesters blocking Citibank’s doors.

“These comments are unacceptable,” said a Citi spokesperson in response. “We are looking into the matter and it will be addressed appropriately.” 

Tensions and Temperatures Rise

Since the Summer of Heat campaign commenced on June 10, organizers have braved multiple heat waves to hold 28 actions at Citigroup’s global headquarters in Manhattan, at least 17 of which have included nonviolent civil disobedience. According to campaign organizers, more than 2,750 people have participated in the actions, resulting in more than 450 arrests.

The climate organizations are targeting Citibank for its reportedly robust financing of companies engaged in fossil fuel projects, and because they believe, based on the bank’s stated commitments to environmental and social-risk governance and climate-consciousness, it could be open to persuasion.

Citi has previously responded to shareholder activism. In April, alongside JPMorgan Chase and the Royal Bank of Canada, Citi agreed to disclose an annual ratio of clean energy supply financing to fossil fuel extraction financing, after pressure from NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and the New York City Employees’ Retirement System trustees. And in 2021, the bank’s initial commitment to achieve net-zero emissions from financing activities by 2050 followed a shareholder resolution by faith-based and sustainable investment groups.

But, although Citibank executives have met with Summer of Heat organizers, they have shown no willingness to acquiesce to the campaign’s demands, which include stopping all financing for oil, gas and coal projects, increasing financing of renewable energy projects, severing ties from companies violating human rights and Indigenous sovereignty, and contributing to climate reparations for communities hit hardest by global warming.  

In an internal memo responding to the first Summer of Heat protests, Skyler reiterated Citi’s net zero goals to staff.

“While we hear the calls from activists who would like to see faster progress, Citi sees the energy transition as a significant opportunity to advise and support our clients as they manage through change,” Skyler wrote. “Moreover, we believe that divestment would not lead to a responsible and orderly transition. While clean energy is growing rapidly, we expect our fossil fuel clients will continue to play a critical role in the global economy for decades to come, particularly in emerging markets that are focused on opportunities to develop.”

This rhetoric echoes Fraser’s consistent commitment as Citi CEO to finance both fossil fuel and renewable energy sources in the coming years. Citi has a goal of facilitating $1 trillion in sustainable finance by 2030, including for renewable energy, water conservation and sustainable transportation.

But activists say Citi’s progress is too slow. They point out that according to the latest Banking on Climate Chaos report, Citi, from 2016 to 2023, provided the most financing for companies that were continuing to expand oil, gas and coal projects. 

Citi has been struggling with declining profits and market volatility, leading to layoffs and scrutiny of Fraser’s leadership. Last month, federal regulators fined the bank $135.6 million for insufficient progress on internal control and risk issues.

Increasing Global Crackdowns on Protest Rights

In recent years, human rights experts have raised concerns about dwindling protections for free speech and protest. During a U.S. visit in May, Farida Shaheed, United Nations special rapporteur on the right to education, said she was “deeply troubled by the violent crackdown” on peaceful student protests. In April, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case that could have affirmed that the First Amendment protects protest organizers from liability for the actions of individuals attending demonstrations, letting stand a lower court opinion that protest leaders in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas can be held liable for violent actions that they did not order or intend.

According to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, 21 states have enacted laws restricting peaceful assembly since 2017, and eight states are currently considering measures to deter protest, including blocking federal funding for campuses that don’t clear protests and revoking visas for international student protesters. A bill in committee in the New York State Assembly would make road-blocking, a common tactic of nonviolent protest, an act of domestic terrorism. 

Internationally, the crackdown on environmental protest is even more severe. In Uganda, activists protesting Total Energy’s East African Crude Oil pipeline have been kidnapped, beaten, jailed and harassed. In India this year, farmers calling for fair prices and pensions were tear-gassed by drones. Last month, five activists from the U.K.-based climate group Just Stop Oil received record sentences of four to five years for speaking on a Zoom call that planned a motorway disruption.

This month, Amnesty International made its first-ever declaration of a prisoner of conscience in Canada, condemning the 60-day house arrest sentencing of Wet’suwet’en Chief Dsta’hyl, who was found guilty of breaching a court injunction to stay away from construction of the contested Coastal GasLink pipeline on unceded Wet’suwet’en land in Canada.