LONDON: A British court on Friday cut some of the heaviest jail terms imposed on climate activists for their high-profile protests, but threw out appeals from 10 others to have their prison sentences overturned.
The groups Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have in recent years carried out spectacular, often disruptive protests, including stopping London’s busy traffic and targeting famous places and paintings, as part of their campaign to highlight climate change.
But last July, five activists were stunned after being sentenced to between four and five years in prison for planning in an online call to block the M25 motorway around London, a key transport link for the capital.
They were among 16 activists who appealed their jail terms before the Court of Appeal in London in January.
In her ruling on Friday, Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr cut the heaviest jail term of five years imposed on Roger Hallam, 58, a co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, for the conspiracy case to four years.
Two other co-accused in that case had their sentences shortened from four years to three, with two others seeing their four-year terms reduced to 30 months.
One of the oldest activists, Gaie Delap, 78, also saw her sentence shortened from 20 to 18 months, for scaling one of the gantries on the M25.
In the January appeal, defense lawyers had called the sentences imposed against all 16 activists involved in four separate protests “manifestly excessive.”
The group also included two women who threw tomato soup on Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting at London’s National Gallery. Their sentences of 20 months and two years were upheld in Friday’s ruling.
Lawyer Danny Friedman said in January that the collective prison terms of between 15 months to five years were “the highest of their kind in modern British history.”
The activists “did what they did out of sacrifice” and were acting in the “best interests of the public, the planet and future generations,” he said, asking for the jail terms to be reduced or quashed.
But prosecutors argued the sentences had been merited as “all of these applicants went so far beyond what was reasonable.”
Their actions also presented an “extreme danger” to the public and to themselves, they said.
The hearing has been closely watched amid fears that peaceful protest risks being stifled in Britain.
And NGOs and activists have warned the case could have far-reaching implications for future protests.
“Despite some modest reductions, these sentences are still unprecedented and they still have no place in a democracy that upholds the right to protest,” said Greenpeace co-executive director Areeba Hamid.
Friends of the Earth lawyer Katie de Kauwe said in a statement the group was “pleased” that some of the sentences had been reduced.
But she added “ultimately however, we believe that locking up those motivated by their genuine concern for the climate crisis is neither right or makes any sense.”
Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion launched their protests to fight the use of fossil fuels, which scientists say are causing global warming and climate change.
But the groups, which are urging the government to ban fossil fuel use by 2030, have attracted criticism over their eye-catching methods.
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth had backed what they called “a critically important legal appeal over the right to protest.”
Other cases are still before the courts, including charges brought against two Just Stop Oil members accused of throwing orange paint powder over the stone megaliths of Stonehenge, as well as two activists charged with spray-painting the tomb of naturalist Charles Darwin in Westminster Abbey.
The country’s previous Conservative government took a hostile stance toward disruptive direct action, and passed laws toughening punishments for such offenses.
UK court cuts longest jail terms on activists, rejects 10 appeals
https://arab.news/j594s
UK court cuts longest jail terms on activists, rejects 10 appeals
- Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have in recent years carried out spectacular, often disruptive protests
- Defense lawyers had called the sentences imposed against all 16 activists involved in four separate protests ‘manifestly excessive’
Volcanic eruptions may have brought Black Death to Europe, say new study
- Study says volcanic eruptions in 1345 caused temperatures to drop, leading to crop failure and causing famine
- This led Italy to have ships bring grain from central Asia, where the bubonic plague is thought to have first emerged
- The plague killed tens of millions of people and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe
PARIS: Previously unknown volcanic eruptions may have kicked off an unlikely series of events that brought the Black Death — the most devastating pandemic in human history — to the shores of medieval Europe, new research has revealed.
The outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death killed tens of millions and wiped out up to 60 percent of the population in parts of Europe during the mid-14th century.
How it came to Europe — and why it spread so quickly on such a massive scale — have long been debated by historians and scientists.
Now two researchers studying tree rings have suggested that a volcanic eruption may have been the first domino to fall.
By analizing the tree rings from the Pyrenees mountain range in Spain, the pair established that southern Europe had unusually cold and wet summers from 1345 to 1347.
Comparing climate data with written accounts from the time, the researchers demonstrated that temperatures likely dropped because there was less sunlight following one or more volcanic eruptions in 1345.
The change in climate ruined harvests, leading to failed crops and the beginnings of famine.
Fortunately — or so it seemed — “powerful Italian city states had established long-distance trade routes across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, allowing them to activate a highly efficient system to prevent starvation,” said Martin Bauch, a historian at Germany’s Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe.
“But ultimately, these would inadvertently lead to a far bigger catastrophe,” he said in a statement.
Deadly stowaways
The city states of Venice, Genoa and Pisa had ships bring grain from the Mongols of the Golden Horde in central Asia, which is where the plague is thought to have first emerged.
Previous research has suggested that these grain ships brought along unwelcome passengers: rats carrying fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague.
Between 25 and 50 million people are estimated to have died over the next six years.
While the story encompasses natural, demographic, economic and political events in the area, it was ultimately the previously unidentified volcanic eruption that paved the way for one of history’s greatest disasters, the researchers argued.
“Although the coincidence of factors that contributed to the Black Death seems rare, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging under climate change and translating into pandemics is likely to increase in a globalized world,” study co-author Ulf Buentgen of Cambridge University in the UK said in a statement.
“This is especially relevant given our recent experiences with Covid-19.”
The study was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment on Thursday.
