In the United Kingdom, heavy prison sentences imposed on environmental activists arouse fear and anger

Photo: Adrian Dennis Agence France-Presse Activists from the Just Stop Oil movement hold signs during a “People vs Oil!” demonstration. » in London, November 18, 2023.

Akshata Kapoor – Agence France-Presse in London

Posted at 3:36 p.m. Updated at 3:50 p.m.

• Europe

British NGOs and activists are concerned about the decline in the freedom to demonstrate after the heavy prison sentences imposed Thursday on environmental activists from the Just Stop Oil organization for organizing the blocking of a motorway.

Accused of conspiracy, four members of this group were sentenced to four years in prison by the British courts. And its founder, Roger Hallam, was sentenced to five years for preparing this action on the M25 motorway around London.

His sentence is considered the longest never pronounced against a non-violent demonstrator in the United Kingdom and comes against a backdrop of growing concern among these activists.

Michel Forst, UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, called it “a dark day for peaceful protests in favor of the environment and for all those affected by the exercise of their rights. fundamental freedoms”.

“This conviction should shock any citizen. It should put us all on alert about the state of civil rights and liberties in the United Kingdom,” he said in a statement.

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During a Zoom meeting in November 2022, these activists agreed to organize a demonstration to disrupt traffic on the M25 motorway.

Dozens of people then participated in this action by climbing on gantries above this road axis for four consecutive days. The police had to interrupt the traffic.

Sociologist Graeme Hayes, a specialist in environmental policies and social movements, told AFP that these sentences were “clearly excessive and disproportionate.”

They nevertheless constitute, according to him, “the logical culmination of the authoritarian turn that Great Britain has observed over the last five years” .

These sentences for conspiracy to cause public nuisance stem from legislation introduced in 2022, which increased the maximum sentence for this to ten years in prison. count.

“Out of control”

In May 2023, another public order law passed days before the coronation of King Charles III created new offenses and strengthened police powers to search protesters suspected of wanting to cause “serious disruption”.

According to Graeme Hayes, who lectures at Aston University in Birmingham, the Crown Prosecution Service in England and Wales has been more severe towards demonstrators in recent years.

Although it does not intervene in court decisions, the previous conservative government “has signaled, through its new legislation and the powers conferred on the prosecutor's services, what it expects from the courts”, estimates the sociologist.

“Each of you some time ago crossed the line that separates the concerned activist from the fanatic,” Judge Christopher Hehir emphasized Thursday in delivering his judgment.

The United Nations had already criticized the sentencing of two Just Stop Oil activists to two and three years in prison for climbing the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge which spans the Thames east of London in April 2023.< /p>

At the announcement of this decision, Just Stop Oil, which calls on the government to suspend all new licenses and authorizations for oil and gas, denounced “an obscene perversion of justice.”

Amy Cameron, director of Greenpeace UK, said the sentences were part of a “judicial crackdown on defenders climate”, which she considers “out of control”.

“These convictions are not a one-time anomaly, but the culmination of years of repressive laws, over-the-top government rhetoric, and a concerted attack on the right of jurors to deliberate according to their conscience,” she added.

For activists, “it has become much more difficult to demonstrate given the potential consequences of their actions,” added Graeme Hayes.

“Some people could, however, decide to take more disruptive actions, as a form of resistance to this law,” he said.