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.
They planned a peaceful protest
No they didn’t. They planned to shut the M25, one of the busiest motorways in the UK. Shutting that would force traffic onto all the roads around it, progressively gridlocking the entire south-east and causing misery for at least tens of thousands of people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ran into six figures.
There’s nothing peaceful about a massive DoS attack on the nation’s infrastructure.
BTW before you bleat about protest being banned in the UK, no it isn’t. Peaceful non-disruptive protest is enshrined in law and everyone has the right to protest about anything they want. What protesters don’t have the right to do is disrupt the lives of those around them or to try to force the nation to capitulate to their demands by holding the country to hostage, which is exactly what those JSO wankers are trying to do, and is why they are so hated by so many people in this country.
JSO’s message may well be 100% correct. It’s not the message that’s the problem, it’s trying to force it down everyone’s throats. You know how much you hate vegans and evangelical Christians? Well JSO is both of them put together on steroids.
Peaceful non-disruptive protest is enshrined in law and everyone has the right to protest about anything they want.
Name a protest that is non-disruptive and worked. Also giving someone a jail term bc they might cause a problem with a protest is not a valid point.
longest ever sentences for non-violent protest
For planning non-violent protest. They didn’t even fucking commit “public nuisance.”
Wait, for planning? Is this pre-crime?
Get your sick sticks ready
You should not get a prison sentence for “planning” something unless it’s terrorism or another act of extreme violence. I.e. the guy who was just jailed for planning to kidnap, rape, and murder Holly Willoughby.
Arresting people for planning a nonviolent protest is authoritarian behaviour.
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 :(
How do appeals work in the UK?
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.
