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Five Just Stop Oil activists receive record sentences for planning to block M25
(www.theguardian.com)
The sentences are 5 years in one case and 4 in the others.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
242 points (98.0% liked)
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Seems like a bit much to me.
Our prisons are designed for revenge and punishment not just to those going to prison, but to have a terrifying affect on others.
So ironically, the use of 5 years prison time is the real terrorism, in the literal sense of trying to make people terrified of protesting and of putting someone in a cage for 5 years.
5 years is also the maximum sentence for illegally selling firearms, violent disorder, performing female circumcision, assault, abandoning young children and some cases of sexually assaulting a child.
Basically the same as planning to block a road /s.
Might as well commit violent disorder if you'll get the same sentence.
Yeah 4-5 years too much.
Passing sentence on each of the defendants at Southwark crown court, the judge Christopher Hehir said: “The offending of all five of you is very serious indeed and lengthy custodial sentences must follow.”
Hehir admitted there was a scientific and social consensus that human-made climate breakdown was happening and action should be taken to avert it. “I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns motivating you are, at least to some extent, shared by many,” he said.
“But the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change, bound neither by the principles of democracy nor the rule of law.
“And your fanaticism makes you entirely heedless of the rights of your fellow citizens. You have taken it upon yourselves to decide that your fellow citizens must suffer disruption and harm, and how much disruption and harm they must suffer, simply so that you may parade your views.”
Fuck everything about this judge.
How are they harming their fellow citizens? They planned a peaceful protest. Maybe someone else can find where they caused an issue bc I can't.
Wait, for planning? Is this pre-crime?
Get your sick sticks ready
longest ever sentences for non-violent protest
For planning non-violent protest. They didn't even fucking commit "public nuisance."
A rightful punishment for us being mildly inconvenienced and billionaires losing a couple of dollars that day.
Mildly inconvenienced, you say? I bring my pitchforks and torches even for people making sense on a platform I don't even visit regularly. How dare they even think of or plan for mildly inconveniencing me?
Just to be clear, you get a shorter sentence here for beating the absolute shit out of people. Rapists have been given less time. You could do the exact same thing but Vladimir you did it because god hates gay people or whatever and barely spend a day in prison.
They were given those sentences because these protests are working. So, the fossil fuel lobby's plan is to make the human cost of it not worth doing.
Yes, they really are that cartoonishly villainous.
News of the sentencing reached the public broadcaster here in Estonia, including Dale Vince's comment that "this resembles Russia or maybe North Korea" and Chris Packham's assessment that "this is a threat against freedom of speech".
I hope the judgement gets overturned on appeal, and the law that enabled the judgement gets scrapped or rewritten.
I also suspect that the next people who want to stop traffic will not choose peaceful assembly as their method, but will use far more dangerous methods - sabotage from distance, e.g. no more traffic lights on a big intersection. Needless to say, state will cry "terrorism" then, and that is not a desirable outcome, so I hope nobody feels compelled to prove the point.
In these difficult times this is awful and depressing news :(
Outrageous!
Does King Charles have pardon powers?
The thing about the UK system is that the King might nominally do something, but what he does is entirely decided by the cabinet. There are a handful of residual powers (eg: interfering with the timing of Canadian elections) but that's pretty much it.
How do appeals work in the UK?
“I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns motivating you are, at least to some extent, shared by many,” he said.
“But the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic. You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change, bound neither by the principles of democracy nor the rule of law.
“And your fanaticism makes you entirely heedless of the rights of your fellow citizens. You have taken it upon yourselves to decide that your fellow citizens must suffer disruption and harm, and how much disruption and harm they must suffer, simply so that you may parade your views.”
A quote from someone who will probably die long before we see the worst effects of climate change.
Whoever (judge or whichever other position) said that should have considered the personal risk these people took in order to take an action many others would benefit but also shy away from. Especially considering that the ones responsible to reflect the wishes of the people and benefit of the people have given themselves all the exceptions that will protect them from not doing their duty.