The lengthy sentences handed down to two Just Stop Oil protesters for scaling the M25 bridge over the Thames are a potential breach of international law and risk silencing public concern about the environment, a UN expert has said.
In a strongly worded intervention, Ian Fry, the UN’s rapporteur on climate change and human rights, said he was “particularly concerned” by the sentences, which were “significantly more severe than previous sentences imposed for this type of offence”.
He said: “I am deeply concerned about the potential impact that the severity of the sentences could have on civil society and the work of activists, and express my concern about the triple planetary crisis and in particular the impact of climate change on human rights and on future generations.”
In October last year, Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland held up traffic for almost 40 hours after climbing the cables supporting the Queen Elizabeth II Suspension Bridge in Dartford, Kent, in a protest in support of the climate activist group Just Stop Oil.
The bridge, one of the UK’s busiest, carries the M25 motorway around London across the River Thames.
Both men were convicted of causing a public nuisance, with Decker jailed for two years and seven months and Trowland for three years. These were the longest sentences ever handed down to non-violent protesters in the UK.
Noting Decker and Trowland’s right to peaceful protest, Fry asked the UK government to explain “why it was necessary to introduce and pass the Public Order Act in the light of the current climate crisis and how both the Public Order Act and the sentencing of Mr Decker and Mr Trowland are consistent with international norms and standards”, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
He asked ministers to indicate “what steps have been taken … to ensure that NGOs, civil society organisations and all human rights defenders can carry out their peaceful work free from threats, violence, harassment or reprisals of any kind”.
The UK government has not responded to Fry’s letter, which was sent on 15 August. A letter sent on 22 December asking for an explanation of how provisions in the Public Order Act could be reconciled with international human rights law, signed by Fry and four other rapporteurs, has also remained unanswered, according to Fry’s letter.
The Home Office did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Just Stop Oil said: “Our politicians are planning to kill countless millions of souls and destroy the rights and freedoms we have struggled to achieve. This is the brutal reality of climate collapse that Dr Ian Fry has hinted at.
“If the government is prepared to ignore a letter from the UN, what chance do they have of listening to ordinary people writing to their MPs? We need to take to the streets, we need to resist and stand with the political prisoners who are imprisoned for defending their future. Join us for a slow march in London, from Trafalgar Square… every day at 12 noon.