The latest conviction brings the total number of incarcerated Just Stop Oil activists to 26, with some facing record sentences for non-violent protests.
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Two British oil campaigners have been sentenced to jail last week over a 2022 attack on a famous painting at London’s National Gallery.
Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, have been jailed for two years and 20 months, respectively, for pouring soup over Vincent van Gogh’s famous 1888 Sunflowers painting two years ago.
While the painting itself, which was protected by glass, was unharmed, the 17th-century antique Italian frame was damaged. “That picture frame was correctly described by the prosecution at trial as a work of art in itself. And unfortunately it was permanently damaged by your idiotic and criminal actions,” said Judge Christopher Hehir as he handed down the sentence for an offence he said was committed “in quite extraordinary fashion.”
At her sentencing, 23-year-old Plummer, representing herself, told the hearing: “My choice today is to accept whatever sentence I receive with a smile. It is not just myself being sentenced today, or my co-defendants, but the foundations of democracy itself.”
“As floods cause misery across Europe, Phoebe and Anna face a combined 3 years and 11 months behind bars for throwing soup on the glass covering a painting and walking in the road for 20 minutes,” Just Stop Oil wrote in an online petition it launched after the sentencing. “Hundreds more face similar charges — and prison sentences. Unless the legal system starts protecting us from the oil industry and stops imprisoning nonviolent, ordinary people, the injustice will be repeated. Again and again.”
An hour after the sentencing, three Just Stop Oil supporters dumped tomato soup over two of van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings – one of which was the artwork targeted by Plummer and Holland two years earlier. This time, both paintings were unharmed. All three activists were arrested. They pleaded not guilty to criminal damage at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and were later granted bail.
71-year-old Ludi Simpson, who was part of the trio, said: “We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law. When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians they’ve bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing?”
Phil Green, who was also part of Friday’s action, told gallery visitors: “Future generations will regard these prisoners of conscience to be on the right side of history.”
Record Sentences
The latest conviction brings the total number of incarcerated Just Stop Oil activists to 26, with some facing record sentences for nonviolent protest.
In May, Plummer was convicted along with two other Just Stop Oil activists of “interference with key national infrastructure” after taking part in a slow march protest in London. They were the first convictions under the controversial new section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023, which bans any act preventing harbours, airports, railways or roads “from being used or operated to any extent.” The protesters were calling on the UK government to ban new licences for oil and gas exploitation in the country.
In July, five supporters of the group’s climate campaign were sentenced to a combined 21 years in jail for conspiring to cause gridlock on the London’s M25, the UK’s busiest motorway, over four days in November 2022. It is the longest sentence ever handed down for peaceful protest in the UK. Passing sentence on the defendants, Judge Hehir said the activists had “crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.”
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Volker Turk described the sentences as “deeply troubling.” Meanwhile, more than 1,200 artists, athletes and academics, including musicians Chris Martin and Annie Lennox, and author Philip Pullman, condemned the sentences “injustice” in an open letter to UK’s Attorney General Richard Hermer. The signatories argued that the non-violent protesters were “fulfilling a necessary service” by “alerting the nation to the grave risk we all face.”
In an opinion piece published by The Guardian in July, campaigners Chris Packham and Dale Vince described the recent convictions as “complete madness” and said it was “a disgrace and a stain on our country that our courts have been co-opted to do the fossil fuel industry’s dirty work.”
Disruptive Tactics
The surge in disruptive tactics within the climate activism sphere has been instrumental in amplifying the urgency of environmental issues, with activists employing innovative methods to demand immediate action to address the rapidly worsening climate crisis.
Groups like Just Stop Oil in the UK and Letzte Generation (“Last Generation”) in Germany rely on blockades, sit-ins, roadblocks and art desecration to disrupt the status quo and propel climate change into the public spotlight.
However, the public response to these disruptive actions remains divided, with some lauding the activists for their courage and commitment to the cause, while others criticize the disruptions as causing inconvenience and potentially alienating public support.
Extinction Rebellion, a group founded in 2018 and well-known worldwide for its use of nonviolent civil disobedience to raise awareness about environmental issues such as biodiversity loss and ecological collapse, last year announced it would “temporarily” move away from disruptive tactics.
“As we ring in the new year, we make a controversial resolution to temporarily shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic,” the group said in a statement. “What’s needed now most is to disrupt the abuse of power and imbalance, to bring about a transition to a fair society that works together to end the fossil fuel era. Our politicians, addicted to greed and bloated on profits won’t do it without pressure.”
You might also like: Opinion: Are Climate Activists Reaching Too Far?
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