London:
A British judge on Friday sentenced two climate activists who threw soup at Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ in London’s National Gallery in 2022 to two years and twenty months respectively.
Just Stop Oil protesters Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were convicted of criminal damage at London’s Southwark Crown Court in July.
Greenpeace UK co-executive director Will McCallum called the sentence “draconian and disproportionate punishment for a protest that caused minor damage to a picture frame.”
Plummer and Holland had pleaded not guilty to the October 2022 incident.
Judge Christopher Hehir sentenced the pair, saying the painting could have been “severely damaged or even destroyed”.
‘Maybe soup has seeped through the glass. You didn’t care if the painting was damaged or not,” he added.
“You had no right to do what you did with ‘Sunflowers.’
The gallery, located in Trafalgar Square, said the protesters caused “minor damage to the frame” but the painting itself was protected by a screen and was unharmed.
Holland, who received the 20-month prison sentence, and Plummer, who received a two-year prison sentence, also taped themselves to the wall of the gallery during their protest.
‘What’s most important?’
“What is more valuable: art or life?” Plummer had shouted.
“It is another grim milestone in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful protest by the previous government,” said McCallum of Greenpeace UK.
“Protesting is inherently uncomfortable and sometimes messy. These defendants do not deserve to spend years behind bars because they stand up for a livable planet.”
Just Stop Oil wants to end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas, because the greenhouse gas emissions they cause are “driving us towards climate collapse… (which) spells disaster for human societies worldwide”.
It has pulled off a number of high-profile stunts in recent years to draw attention to its plea to “end fossil fuels before they end us”.
The group has focused on the Wimbledon tennis tournament and the British Open golf tournament, as well as art galleries and museums and a performance of “Les Miserables.”
Five activists, including the climate group’s founder, were jailed for between four and five years in June for plotting to plan protests that blocked the M25 ring road around London.
Just Stop Oil says climate change poses an existential crisis for humanity and its direct tactics are justified.
In July 2022, Just Stop Oil protesters glued themselves to John Constable’s pastoral masterpiece “The Hay Wain”, also in the National Gallery.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)