Jesuit Father Jörg Alt and two activists were fined on Tuesday for taking part in a road blockade. The accused had been sentenced to a fine of ten daily rates for coercion, said a spokesman for the Munich district court. The amount of the daily rate was set according to income. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
Alt himself wrote on Twitter that his daily rate had been set at one euro. Jesuits take a vow of poverty and have no income of their own.
At the end of October, Alt and climate activists blocked a street in front of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice in Munich. According to the police at the time, more than ten people were involved in the action at the Stachus, two of them would have stuck themselves with one hand each on the street. After a good hour and a half, the blockade was over.
Jesuit Father Alt, who had made headlines in the past with his fight for a financial transaction tax, justified his participation by calling for a different climate policy. “As a social ethicist and migration sociologist, I consider non-violent civil disobedience not only legitimate and necessary, but also for no alternative,” said Alt, according to a statement by the aid organization Jesuitenweltweit.