The UK has led the way in the crackdown, experts say, with judges recently refusing an appeal against multi-year sentences for climate activists who blocked a motorway bridge in east London. The three-year jail terms for Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland earlier this year are thought to be the longest handed out by a British judge for non-violent protest.
Michel Forst, the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders since June last year, described the situation in the UK as “terrifying”. He added that other countries were “looking at the UK examples with a view to passing similar laws in their own countries, which will have a devastating effect for Europe”.
He added: “I’m sure that there is European cooperation among the police forces against these kinds of activities. My concern is that when [governments] are calling these people eco-terrorists, or are using new forms of vilifications and defamation … it has a huge impact on how the population may perceive them and the cause for which these people are fighting. It is a huge concern for me.”
Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland didn’t slow-walk in front of a line of cars for a few minutes. They shut down a major bridge for 41 hours, causing massive gridlock, impeding emergency services, and impacting hundreds of thousands of people.
Their 3-year sentences are a pinprick relative to the degree of harm they inflicted on the public at large.
Oh no. People were inconvenienced for a couple of days. The absolute horror. We obviously have to severely violate those scoundrels for several years.
Meanwhile oil executives have been actively working towards destroying all human life on the planet for decades without consequence.
If they had targeted oil executives, I would be considerably more sympathetic. Eat the rich. Tax them into submission. Hell, you can throw them all in jail or a woodchipper, and I won’t be shedding any tears.
But they didn’t target oil executives. They deliberately interfered with the human rights of the general public, specifically, the right to travel. That’s one of the most important rights we have. The freedom to travel underpins virtually all other freedoms, rights and privileges.
As it is, their sentences seem rather light to me. If “impeding travel” is nothing more than a minor inconvenience, then a suitable consequence would be to “impede” their “travel” for a time commensurate with the time they wasted. Lock them up. Except that the person-hours they wasted greatly exceeds the remainder of their expected lifespan. Wasting that much time is a rather serious issue, whether it belongs to an individual, or a large group.
3 years is a graciously lenient consequence for the degree of harm these gentlemen deliberately inflicted on the general public.
Surely, if they went out and harassed all of the individuals they impeded, one at a time instead of concurrently, they would deserve and receive a much sterner cumulative sentence than merely 3 years imprisonment. They are getting a massive discount on the amount of attention they stole.
How would you target an oil executive with the resources available to the group who blocked that bridge?
The willingness of your activists to do certain things is a resource, so don’t freely assume here.
Maybe pull their little stunt somewhere in the vicinity of an oil executive? Maybe sabotage an oil well, or a pipeline? Maybe drive a bulldozer through their head office or their own home. I don’t particularly care how they do it, so long as they target the right people for harassment. The general public is not that.
See, all these things are harder, riskier, more violent, more punished. You freely assumed what you probably don’t have available.
It is easier for a soldier to fight a child, pregnant woman, or elderly civilian in an enemy’s country than it is to fight an enemy soldier. Fighting the enemy combatant will always be harder, riskier, more violent, and more punished than fighting the non-combatant. But fuck you with a rusty bayonet if you think the difficulty of fighting the soldier justifies targeting the civilian.
I utterly reject the relevance of your argument. Frankly, I am disgusted and deeply offended by your “It’s too hard” argument.
If you insist on subscribing to that argument, then I would respond that “making it harder, riskier, more violent, and more punished” for you is justified. If your justification for attacking the public is that “it’s easier”, the public is also justified in responding with any level of force necessary to convince you it’s not easier.
Breathe. What a violent comment!
Comparing nonviolent protestors to armed soldiers fighting vulnerable people is wild. With all due respect, I think you lost perspective.
I’m not interested in continuing this conversation, also because I feel you’re projecting violent things into my words.
No. I compared “oil executives” to enemy combatants. I compared oil executives to armed soldiers. Do not put words in my mouth.
Your argument is that “protesters” are justified in deliberately targeting the weak specifically because they are weak. That doesn’t make protesters comparable to armed soldiers. That makes these “protesters” comparable to terrorists or war criminals.
Oh, is it “too hard” to even talk with me? Gotta go find someone “weaker” to harass? God, your argument is infuriating. Rarely do I see someone taking pride in their own cowardice.
Only criminals accept that their targets for hostility are illegitimate, but try to rationalize their hostile behavior anyway. Your argument here is vile and disgusting. I’m trying to remember that it is you making it, and not any of these protesters. I have to assume that you are misrepresenting them.
It apparently wasn’t the first time they’ve been in trouble with the law over this, and they apparently didn’t stop then:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/just-stop-oil-pair-jailed-over-queen-elizabeth-ii-bridge-protest-lose-supreme-court-appeal-bid/ar-AA1i2LbM
In the US, and I assume the UK, typically sentences for first-time offenders are lighter, on the assumption that the person may be deterred. In this case, though, the two didn’t stop after earlier convictions.
Honestly, the larger punishment is probably this:
It’s not clear to me whether that’s temporary or permanent residency, but if he loses a right of permanent residency over that, I doubt that he’d ever be able to reacquire it, and that’ll probably impact him.