Climate protesters are taking action against Big Oil. UK courts are handing them prison terms akin to rapists and thieves

www.cnn.com Climate protesters are taking action against Big Oil. UK courts are handing them prison terms akin to rapists and thieves | CNN

The sentences are believed to be the longest in the UK’s history for non-violent protest and were delivered under two new controversial laws that supercharged policing powers.

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5mo ago

Climate protesters are taking action against Big Oil. UK courts are handing them prison terms akin to rapists and thieves

www.cnn.com /2024/09/14/climate/uk-climate-protests-policing-laws-prison-intl/index.html

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34 comments

if you're spending the rest of your life in jail anyway might as well stop protesting and start taking direct action. This is self defense.

Questioning the staus quo is the single greatest crime.
- It really is, according to the MCU

handing them prison terms akin to rapists
If this was the case, over 99% of them would be free to go.
I'd say it's 100% rage bait to include rapists in the title, but it's worse - it's a flat out but very deliberate lie made up and perpetuated by patriarchal rape culture to give the illusion that all crime is treated the same, and that there are significantly fewer rapes than there really are (E: because, in this lie, rapists are not only generally convicted but seriously punished, and those who believe it, use the low numbers of convicted rapists as evidence of it not being the serious and widespread problem that it is, rather than of the system being complicit).
A more accurate headline should be: patriarchal pro oil "justice" system punishes anti-oil protestors significantly more harshly than it does rapists
- I think you’re giving CNN too much credit. So much so that it dips into conspiracy logic.
  Never over complicate and attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance and greed. Why would they do this? Because it’s clickbait. It’s a jarring word, and they want people to visit the site. Rapist are under convicted, yes. But to spin an entire web about the wording in the headline? C’mon. The body uses the suggested sentences for each crime as reference, which is why they could use the attention grabbing headline.
  
  It's called bias, it doesn't have to be intentional to exist and be pervasive.

The laws were passed under conservatives weren't they? Tells you all there's you need to know. All they care about are the rich and corporations which are owned by the rich.
- Which is widely know but surprisingly well supported by a vast number of voters.
  
  Because everyone seems to have it in their mind that they too could be this wealthy... ironically, because the wealthy told them they could be.

how dare these pesky protestors midly inconvience people >:(

Rapists and muggers might belong in the same tier, but thieves and vandals should largely be in a lower tier of sentencing. Maybe with the exception of seriously harmful vandalism.

I really hate the writing, it feels like watching an American news channel. I literally stopped reading it, I don't need that in my brain.

I feel like climate protestors in the UK lost a lot of sympathy when they started attempting to do things like deface the Magna Carta and Stonehenge.
- For what it's worth, most of those JSO protests have been done in a way that would not damage the actual object. Like the Stonehenge one, it wasn't paint, it was cornflour and food colouring that would just come off in the rain (and was, in the end, removed with just a leafblower). The Magna Carta one actually was doing damage though.
  Regardless of that, I don't personally think that they are effective protests. They're far too easy to frame as mindless vandalism.
  
  The lassie in the thumbnail looks like she could be removed with a leaf blower too lol
  Definitely feeds her cat on leaves
  
  Mindless vandalism by rich kids who would have gotten stuffed years ago if it weren't for their immense privilege.
- I'd hate for future generations to miss out on seeing those things. It sure would be a shame for fires, floods, storms, or mass die-offs to spoil that.
  What's the point in preserving history if there's no guarantee of a future?
  
  Do you think PETA is a positive force for animal rights?
- Given the backlash against environmental protestors blocking traffic, can you imagine the backlash against the oil industry when an unusually severe storm or flood or landslide blocks traffic?!

In late July, a London court found Gethin and four other members of the Just Stop Oil activist group guilty of “conspiring intentionally to cause a public nuisance,” after recruiting protesters to climb structures along the M25 — a major ring road around London — bringing traffic to a standstill in parts over four days in November 2022
Regardless of your opinion on these particular cases, Just Stop Oil's tactics are probably among the least effective protest strategies ever
- Shutting down oil refineries seems like a very effective form of protest to me.
  
  That stuff is cool, but I'm pretty sure they're referring to stuff like throwing soup over famous paintings (or rather, the glass covering famous paintings). I have to agree with them if that is what they mean; these actions are far far too easy to present as just vandalism for its own sake, and there's no obvious connection between the targets and the intention of the protests.
- Said a person addicted to their car.

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