Sixteen climate activists will call for judges to reduce their prison sentences on Wednesday in a rare mass appeal, which their supporters argue will define Britain’s approach to peaceful protest for years to come.
The Court of Appeal in London will review the jail sentences related to four separate cases given to activists from climate protest group Just Stop Oil between July and September 2024, who claim the terms were excessive and breach international human rights.
This includes a five-year term for Roger Hallam, 58, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion (XR) and JSO, for taking part in a Zoom call to plan a protest on the M25 motoroway that brought the London ring road to a standstill over four days.
The two-day appeal comes as activists, lawyers and academics warn of a legislative and judicial clampdown on climate protest that has spread from the UK across western nations.
A study by academics at Bristol university last year found that environmental protesters in the UK were arrested at three times the global average rate, with 17 per cent of such protests leading to arrests compared with 6.7 per cent internationally.
The court’s ruling is being watched closely by other countries, according to Tim Crosland, an ex-government lawyer and director of Plan B, the climate-focused legal charity. “If the UK can get away with lengthy jail sentences for peaceful protest, other countries will think they can, too,” he said.
The increasingly confrontational climate protest movement, frustrated with the slow pace at which countries are addressing global warming, has drawn hundreds of thousands to marches around the world. Some groups have gained notoriety for headline-grabbing stunts, from throwing soup at works of art to breaking bank office windows.
The restrictions on protest and longer jail times across the world have sparked fears among academics and civil rights organisations of far-reaching consequences that could limit not just climate activists but the ability of any citizen to protest against any government, business or policy in the future.
The UN’s rapporteur for environmental defenders Michel Forst told the Financial Times: “Disproportionate sanctions for protests . . . have a significant adverse impact on the most fundamental freedoms.
“Not only of those who are personally criminalised for protesting, but also on every person concerned who would like to take part in protests but is deterred from doing so, by fear of being fined, tried, arrested or imprisoned for that.”
The appellants argue their “conscientious motivation” should have been taken into account during sentencing under both common and European human rights laws, while also questioning whether throwing soup at glass is an act of violence.
The UK has been at the forefront of attempts to curb protesters, according to academics, activists and non-profits. Until the emergence of activist group XR in 2018 and later JSO and Insulate Britain, which campaigns for greater energy efficiency, the country had little history of jailing non-violent climate protesters.
Oscar Berglund, a lecturer at Bristol university and specialist on climate activism, said protesters had been “targeted because they are effective to some extent”.
The initial “great wave” of climate protests in 2019, with the emergence of XR and Fridays for Future, played a strong role in raising political and public awareness of climate change, said Andrew Firmin, of Civicus, a non-profit group focused on strengthening citizen action.
The UK target to reach net zero emissions by 2050 was at least partially influenced by the climate protest movement, he argued.
But critics say the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act of 2022 and the Public Order Act of 2023 have made it increasingly difficult to hold non-violent but disruptive protests, while also allowing for longer sentences.
A report led by Lord Walney, commissioned by the previous government, called for a ban on extremist protest groups, arguing the “battle against climate change [has] been hijacked” by those “determined to bypass democratic norms and cause maximum disruption to society”.
The Labour government declined to comment. Before being elected, Sir Keir Starmer said he backed stiff sentences for climate protesters who blocked roads.
Among those appealing against their sentences this week are 78-year-old grandmother and retired teacher Gaie Delap. Last year, she was jailed for 20 months for climbing on to gantries over the M25 but later released early. Before Christmas she was recalled to prison after no electronic tag — a condition of her early release — was available to fit her wrist.
Phoebe Plummer, 23, who threw soup at the glass covering Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, is also appealing against her two-year sentence.
In other cases, protesters have been jailed without being found guilty of their alleged crimes. This includes 39-year-old Amy Pritchard.
During her trial for public nuisance for blocking traffic, the presiding judge banned the defendants from mentioning climate change — Pritchard defied the order, intending to explain to the jury what had motivated her actions.
While jurors failed to reach a verdict, the judge, Silas Reid, sentenced her to seven weeks in jail for contempt of court.
“There are people who say that what he did was completely . . . justified, to separate the law and motivations,” said Pritchard, but she felt the ban was “outrageous”. “For my understanding of the legal process, you go there to explain why you did what you did.”
Pritchard received another jail sentence for criminal damage last year for cracking a window at a JPMorgan office.
A report from Climate Rights International, a non-profit, in September also warned of heavy-handed treatment of climate protesters in Australia, the US, Germany, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Sweden.
“We are seeing this [crackdown] in global north countries that have positioned themselves internationally as climate leaders,” said Firmin. “Governments have closed down the space for protest.”
But other senior figures said there was a balance to be struck. “There is a very wide envelope within which people can protest legitimately and lawfully,” said Sir Robert Buckland, former Lord Chancellor and Conservative justice secretary.
“The interests of freedom of speech are very important but so are the rights and freedoms of other people who find their lives are disrupted.”
While officials argue that the crackdown is needed to deter protesters, it is also making some activists more resolute, said Linda Lakhdhir, legal director at Climate Rights International.
“Many protesters are going to worry more, think twice . . . [but] some people will think: ‘If I have to go to jail, I will go to jail. I am doing this for the future of my children’,” she added.
That urgency has increased following the re-election of US President Donald Trump, who called climate change a hoax, said Dana Fisher, director of the Center of Environment, Community and Equity at American University. The US is the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Movements actually work better when they’re pushing back against a common enemy,” she added.
She said historically social protest movements either “peter out and give up”, often as their cause becomes less of an issue, or they “radicalise until they achieve their goals”, as was seen with the suffragettes and the civil rights movement.
Just Stop Oil said the group expected more people to take to the streets as the effects of climate change became more apparent, arguing that Labour was not doing enough to tackle climate change.
“As the consequences play out, as farming collapses, as millions are flooded and social order breaks down, as the risk of ruin becomes apparent the number of those prepared to act to defend our traditions, heritage and hard won rights will increase,” the group said.
More than 1,000 people are expected to occupy the Strand outside the Royal Courts of Justice, where the appeal is being heard on Thursday lunchtime. TV personalities Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and singer songwriter Billy Bragg are among those due to attend.
Ahead of the appeal, XR spokesperson Zoe Cohen said: “It is shameful that the new government has not yet repealed these laws and restored the right of ordinary people to effective protest. We can push back against this repression when we come together to peacefully resist.”
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