Stand With the Formosa 2! Oppose Plastic Pollution & Support 2 Activists Arrested at Formosa Plastic

Stand With the Formosa 2!

Oppose Plastic Pollution & Support 2 Activists
Arrested at Formosa Plastics Headquarters in NJ!

September 29, 2026

Veterans Courthouse

50 West Market Street, Newark, NJ

(Parking lot entrance off South Orange Ave., Route 510)
RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/share/1Cr6G1Tkbh/

9:30 am: Press Conference/rally at the Rosa Parks Statue, next to the Market Street entrance of the Veterans Courthouse, then head up to the courtroom. Hear Speakers. Sing along with the Solidarity Singers.
10:30 am: Courtroom 1114on the 11th Floor. Appellate Division argument for the case.

State v Edwards & Wilson Appellate Argument

Diane Wilson and Camryn Edwards were arrested on December 5, 2024, after a march and rally, when they attempted to enter Formosa Plastics Corp’s USA headquarters in Livingston, NJ, to hand-deliver a letter to top executives who work there. Those of you who were present saw that on the day of the rally, police cones had been placed on the lawn between the rally and the Formosa Plastics building. The Livingston police threatened to arrest anyone who went past the cones. Argument of their appeal from their convictions for Defiant Trespass in the lower courts will be heard by a three-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court on September 29th at 10:30 a.m. The Court will not render its decision on the 29th but will do so in writing sometime thereafter.

Their appeal argues the convictions must be reversed because the prosecution failed to prove the required criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt. They argue they lacked intent due to their correct belief that everybody has a Constitutional Right to peacefully approach a corporation’s public visitor’s entrance to ask executives whose offices are there to read and consider a letter. The appeal also argues the Police acted improperly by unilaterally setting limits on the property’s use beyond any that had previously been established by Formosa Plastics.

Some background about Formosa Plastics and the earlier arrests:
Formosa Plastics Group has a long history of violating environmental laws and destroying communities. In Point Comfort, Texas, the Formosa Plastics plant was subject to the largest citizen-brought Clean Water Act settlement in U.S. history and continues to disregard a court-ordered zero discharge of plastic mandate, racking up over 600 violations and counting. In St. James Parish, Louisiana, activists are opposing Formosa’s $12 billion petrochemical complex slated to be built in Cancer Alley. In Ha Tinh, Vietnam, a steel plant owned by Formosa Plastics Group was responsible for a chemical spill that’s considered the country’s worst environmental disaster. After fishing grounds were destroyed, the victims whose livelihoods were ruined have yet to see compensation. Additionally, over twenty activists remain in prison for speaking out on the disaster.

The Formosa Four were arrested while blocking entrances to protest against Formosa Plastics, a serial corporate polluter, for more planned plastic expansion and more than 700 new violations of a Clean Water Act settlement that requires zero plastic discharge from its Texas plant into Lavaca Bay. Those new violations added $30 million in penalty payments to the original penalties of $50 million. In August 2024, more than 70 protestors – including clergy, parents, and environmental justice leaders – gathered at Formosa’s U.S. headquarters in Livingston, NJ. Six were arrested and charged with criminal trespass. Four of those six, including Goldman Environmental Prize Winner Diane Wilson (https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/diane-wilson/), chose to head to trial. They were convicted in Livingston Municipal Court but appealed their conviction.

New Jersey Superior Court Judge Arthur Batista issued an important ruling reversing the Livingston Municipal Court’s refusal to allow the necessity and justification defenses. Judge Batista ruled: “It is clear to this court, that these appellants have presented compelling grounds to allow the affirmative defense of necessity - justification to be raised at trial.”

Trespassing charges against the Formosa Four were dismissed by a prosecutor after the group had prepared to use the necessity/justification defense to argue that environmental and public health concerns justified their actions.

“This dismissal is just another win in the long fight against Formosa Plastics and the damage they continue to do to Texas’s environment and fishing communities,” said Diane Wilson, Environmental Activist and Member of the Formosa Four. “While this decision is a victory, I will not stop taking on this serial polluter that thinks it is above the law, and I will continue to do all that I have to do to protect my community.”