UK Climate Campaigners Get 'Utterly Disproportionate' Sentences
A U.K. judge handed down shockingly harsh sentences to peaceful climate activists, sparking outrage and disbelief. Is this justice or suppression of dissent?
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"The sentences handed to the five Just Stop Oil campaigners are utterly disproportionate," environmentalist and author George Monbiot wrote on social media. "Four and five years in prison for peaceful protest? This is what you might expect in Russia or Egypt, not in a supposed democracy."
due to a four-day direct action protest on the M25 that Just Stop Oil ultimately held in November 2022.
They aren't being penalized for the content of their speech. If they wanted to run around with signs that argued their point, nobody would have blinked an eye. They're being penalized for dicking up British transport.
You can say what you want; that's your political speech. You cannot try and disrupt the country if it isn't doing what you want.
Russia's going to go after you for criticizing the war. They have a problem with the political message. What you're getting in trouble for here is for the disruption, not the message's content.
A protest without making waves is just farting in the wind. Even if they do stand in the road, that's not deserving of multiple years in prison.
Okay, ignore the protest part for a moment and look at the crime...
A group conspire to intentionally disrupt a major highway, breaking multiple violations including endangerment of motorists, major disruption of public and emergency services, and recruitment of 45 others to aid the intent, causing~ $3M in damages. And, yes, people of the publiic obviously sustained injuries but there is fortunately no known causation of death. This for 4 days resulting in over 700,000 people impacted and an estimated loss of 50,000 hours to the public.
Now that could be for whatever reason. The Tories, MAGA supporters, West Ham losing, or YouTubers; doesn't matter. The law shows no bias or care and these actions, especially the conspiring and collusion, are certainly multi-year crimes.
Meanwhile, the cost of climate change and global warming far exceed every measure you've quoted, and yet nobody is being imprisoned for causing or accelerating them.
If they are going to break the law anyway, go violate an oil executive as hard as that executive is violating the planet.
Obviously. But this court case wan't about climate change.
Hopefully we'll see more of those appearing as their comprehension of law is whittled away. When one loses, that will open pathways to the rest. The issue is that associated laws are vague and never envisioned such topics, so it is harder to have them stick than it is for a good legal team to wipe them off.
The law shows no bias or care
Completely false, the legal system is entirely biased towards the interests of the ruling classes and big business.
and these actions, especially the conspiring and collusion, are certainly multi-year crimes.
Yeah, nah.
I look forward to those causing climate disruption facing a judge.
Okay, ignore the protest part for a moment and look at the crime...
No. The "crime" is the means necessary to make the protest heard.
A group conspire to intentionally disrupt a major highway, breaking multiple violations including endangerment of motorists, major disruption of public and emergency services, and recruitment of 45 others to aid the intent, causing $3M in damages. And, yes, people of the publiic obviously sustained injuries but there is fortunately no known causation of death. This for 4 days resulting in over 700,000 people impacted and an estimated loss of 50,000 hours to the public
Which is less than nothing compared to the climate change and direct death caused by the fossil fuel industries out of pure greed every fucking day!
Get out of here with your Texas Sharpshooter fallacy bullshit!
Now that could be for whatever reason. The Tories, MAGA supporters, West Ham losing, or YouTubers; doesn't matter.
Of COURSE it matters! You can't just wave away their mission to basically save the world to make only the means matter!
By your metric, not only was Gandhi and Martin Luther King wrong, but so were fucking WWII resistance fighters!
Whether or not you're white, YOU'RE the moderate MLK is talking about here:
Which is less than nothing compared to the climate change and direct death caused by the fossil fuel industries out of pure greed every fucking day!
That's not the job of a court to handle in a specific case. We do not want a justice system that bends to leniency or malice based on opinions external to the case. Do you understand why society adheres to the concept, "justice is blind"?
Since you're dropping claims of fallacy out of context, I will help by putting it into context...
The court does not (and should not) care for what cause the sharpshooter in Texas murdered for, they are there to address the committing of murder and sentence justly so.
Unlike those principally involved in law, you have taken a side of personal opinion, making for a nightmare scenario of a judge. Though you obviously wouldn't last long in the judicial system applying personal bias based on what you think is right over the law.
It's deserving of being forcibly dragged off the street and chained to a lamp post for a couple days...
Then being locked up for a year for being chained to said lamp post?
You're against democracy then? You're advertising anarchy.
Democracy isn’t god given, it’s a societal contract. We decided to give certain powers to certain institutions, and these institutions should serve our interests as citizens.
However what I see currently is that these institutions are working for the interests of the super rich. If you’re a nazi, you’ll get a „you you you“ for supporting an ideology that attempts to overthrow democracy. If you’re protesting against climate change or genocide, you’ll get beaten up by the police, and apparently sentenced to long jail terms to set an example.
It isn’t anarchy to try and force politicians to change. Protest is supposed to be disruptive as others already mentioned.
Can you share a source where a Nazi has done the exact same thing as posted above? If you can't, why are you even comparing?
It's not about ideology. It's about a law. If a Nazi were to block the highway, they'd get the same treatment.
You're delusional. Not everything is a conspiracy mate.
It surely helps calling someone who isn’t of your opinion delusional.
I see you’re from Germany as well. How about the farmer’s protests? How about farmers threatening our vice chancellor and dumping waste on a high way and injuring people with this? How was the reaction, do you remember? Yes that’s right, our government gave in to their demands.
How about literal Nazis murdering people (NSU) and our institutions covering it up. I could go on and on, but the point is, it’s a very bad look on you to defend Nazis lol. I see from your post history that you’re also defending Israel’s genocide, makes sense for trolls like you.
It surely helps calling someone who isn’t of your opinion a troll.
See, that’s the thing with trolls. You call me delusional and all, you’re like “but Nazis would never do this” and then I show you an example where Nazis actually do this and much worse things and not only get away with it but actually rewarded.
And then you have nothing left to say. That’s why you’re a troll.
“but Nazis would never do this”
Nope, never said that.
I show you an example where Nazis actually do this and much worse things and not only get away with it but actually rewarded.
Nope, you didn't. It's completely unrelated to the topic at hand. The book of law is a bit more complicated than your moral compass.
You're taking every argument and every source out of context just to make a point. It's no use arguing with you.
You cannot try and disrupt the country if it isn't doing what you want.
That's the only kind of protest that works ffs! Banning and criminalizing disruptive protests is a means of silencing dissent and always has been.
What you're getting in trouble for here is for the disruption, not the message's content.
That's what the liberals said to the original Italian antifascists too. And what "regular white people" in India and South Africa said to Gandhi. And what American liberals said to Martin Luther King.
You may think you're being magnanimous by supporting their right to silently protest in a corner where nobody notices them, but by advocating against effective means, you're squarely on the side of the politicians and corporations that they're protesting against and victimized you.
This kind of disruption is exactly what climate change is doing - negativity affecting people just trying to go about their lives and make ends meet. Dumb decisions are being made which causes people with no choice in the matter to suffer.
The question is - why are you angry when poor people do it (on a limited scale, for a few hours) but not angry when rich & powerful people do it (to everyone, forever)?
That's the genius of this kind of protest.
Your take is however literally madness. It would be like you protesting on here that somone trying to get people medicine to survive if they raced across town disrupting traffic and you supported them being jailed.
I hope they can keep it up. The stupid attached to people not understating the impacts of climate change is appalling and will collapse civilisation. That's literally what XR, JSO etal want to try and do, prevent the collapse of civilisation and raise awareness of that so we do something. And people be like "my Uber Eats driver delivered me a cold buger, jail those protestors for life!!!?"
I get you're not brave enough to do this yourself but you'd think you'd at least support those who are!
This isn't anarchy mate. There are laws in a democracy too. You're making no sense.
Laws that the rich don't have to play by, only the common folk. So why keep playing?
If the rich are stupid enough to block highways they will get the same punishment.
What conspiracies are you talking about? Do you have any specific sources where certain people have higher privilages in the judiciary system of the UK? You cannot make strong claims like that without a source of a lawesuit.
I didn't mean direct examples of when the rich were blocking roads, I meant more like why can major corporations continually polite the environment either though dumping illegally or spills and never see jail time.
The rules aren't the same.
Because they don't violate laws doing that. It's very simple actually.
You're suprised that people that violate laws get punished. And equally you're suprised that people that don't violate the law don't get punished. Huh?
That's because they're not playing by the same laws. Good job, we came full circle
Yes they do. But a highway public disturbance law doesn't exactly apply to that, so. What's your point exactly?
Are you dense or argumentative?
You just have no idea what you're talking about. You just want to spread baseless conspiracies to get some internet points. Congrats on that.
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."
