Human rights and freedom groups have joined a chorus of criticism against stiff prison sentences for five Just Stop Oil protesters.
A Southwark Crown Court judge sentenced the activist environmental group’s co-founder Roger Hallam to five years in prison and the other four defendants to 4-year terms on July 18 – the longest sentences ever imposed for a non-violent protest in Britain.
The United Nations special rapporteur for environmental defenders, Michel Forst, said the jail terms were “punitive and repressive” and “not acceptable in a democracy”.
Sir David King, the government’s former Chief Scientific Adviser, labelled the sentences as “disgraceful”.
Amnesty International UK warned that the sentences “should increase the alarm over the ongoing crackdown against peaceful protest in this country, which violates all our human rights.“
Human rights group Liberty said an apparent trend of increasingly severe sentences for non-violent protest indicated “a grave erosion of … freedoms” in the UK.
Environmental campaign group Global Witness said the “incredibly harsh” sentences were “a profound injustice”.
The environmental protesters were convicted by a jury under the recently replaced Conservative government’s new law of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance – section 78 of the controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act which has been widely criticised as a wholesale attack on the right to protest.
Liberty has already won a High Court verdict quashing the law and ruling it unlawful but the Conservative government has appealed against that ruling.
The new Labour government said it would not intervene in the Just Stop Oil case with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman saying judgments and sentencing were matters for independent judges, “and it is not for politicians to intervene”.
The court was told that the Just Stop Oil protest blocking most of the London M25 ring road resulted in chaos over four successive days, causing nearly 51,000 hours of driver delays, people missing flights, medical appointments and exams, at an economic cost of at least £765,000 and the cost to the Metropolitan Police at more than £1.1million.
In sentencing, Crown Court judge Christopher Hehir said there had been “an unprecedented level of deliberate disruption” and “this was a conspiracy to cause extreme and disproportionate disruption”, adding that the protesters had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”.
The five Just Stop Oil protesters pleaded not guilty in a trial marked by chaotic scenes, with some defendants arrested in court for defying the judge’s rulings on their evidence.
Amnesty said the “draconian sentences and the manner in which the trial was conducted show that the hardline anti-protest approach adopted by the previous government is being emulated by the courts.”
And UN rapporteur Forst said:
“Even if we are talking about a disruptive form of protest, and there is no denying that, it is still entirely non-violent and it should have been treated as such. For me, for my team, it’s not acceptable in a democracy like the UK.
“The second element is that it’s a very dangerous ruling, not only for environmental protesters, but also for the right to protest as such, because we understand now that those who would like to go to the street to demonstrate, to organise a rally, they would consider twice before going out.
“That’s a deterrent for the right to protest in the UK.”
In a statement on the Just Stop Oil website Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London and a potential defence witness refused by the judge, said “the trial and verdict were a farce.
“They mark a low point in British justice and they were an assault on free speech. The judge’s characterisation of climate breakdown as a matter of opinion and belief is completely nonsensical and demonstrates extraordinary ignorance. Similarly to suggest that the climate emergency is irrelevant in relation to whether the defendants had a reasonable case for action is crass stupidity.”
Green entrepreneur Dale Vince, who stepped away from bankrolling Just Stop Oil to become one of the Labour Party’s most significant donors, joined broadcasters Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in calls for a meeting with the new Labour government about the case.
“I think climate denial should be illegal, but instead it’s illegal to talk about the climate crisis in court,” he said.
“It’s a travesty of justice and that’s why I’m joining the calls for the new attorney general to intervene.”
And Green MP Siân Berry said the sentences were “a hangover from the last government’s obsession with punishing … non-violent, peaceful protests” and Labour must “review the guidelines given to judges that have led to such extreme, disproportionate sentences for peaceful protest”.
There was one sign that the critical outcry resonated with the public. An online poll conducted for Social Change Lab, a nonprofit that carries out research into protest and social movements, found 61% of respondents agreed the sentences doled out to the five protesters were “harsh”, compared with 12% who felt the sentences were too lenient.
Climate protesters jailed for conspiracy
Chorus of criticism
Prison sentences draconian – Amnesty International
Labour must end criminalisation of climate protesters – Global Witness
Liberty wins court case to quash anti protest law
The end of a ‘wild’ court case – Novara Media
Just Stop Oil reaction
