Campaigners receive longest ever sentences for non-violent protest after being convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance
  • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    422·
    2 months ago

    Criminalization of political activies is what happens in dictatorship, not in democracies

    • Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      10·
      2 months ago

      Unfortunately a lot of people seem to hate these kinds of protest and are probably happy they’re being locked up.

      • misery mansion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        84·
        2 months ago

        Yes true. It’s strange isn’t it? Especially anything involving cars seems to break something in people’s brains

          • Nachorella@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            8·
            2 months ago

            I’m not sure if there are better ways to do this but I think any effective protest has to cause some disruption otherwise it’s too easily ignored.

            I’m sure most people agree governments could be doing a lot more to fight climate change, so the problem isn’t the protestors, it’s the government creating a situation where it becomes necessary. It shouldn’t be too hard to understand why jailing these people is bad.

              • Vincent@feddit.nlEnglish
                3·
                2 months ago

                Damn, feels like it’s almost unavoidable to get fired at those employers then.

                Luckily in the Netherlands at least, it would be illegal to fire someone over that.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Five supporters of the Just Stop Oil climate campaign who conspired to cause gridlock on London’s orbital motorway have been sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

    Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were found guilty last week of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating direct action protests on the M25 over four days in November 2022.

    Supporters of the defendants expressed outrage at the sentences, which came after a two-week trial in which Judge Hehir denied them any of the defences in law for causing a public nuisance.

    Hehir ruled that the jury should not take into account evidence about climate breakdown, which the defendants wanted to point to as the key motivation behind their actions, and which they said provided them with a reasonable excuse for them.

    Michel Forst, the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, who had attended part of the trial, had criticised the severity of protest laws recently introduced under the former Conservative government.

    “Facing several years of imprisonment for taking part in a Zoom call – this is something I have not seen anywhere else and it is shockingly disproportionate.”

    The original article contains 546 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!