The group of environmental activists Just Stop Oil (JSO) plans to stop their protest actions and review the strategy of further actions. This is said in a statement of the activists, reports the Independent.
The last active action will be a “performance” on Parliament Square in London on April 26.
The activists said it will be “the end of soup on Van Gogh paintings, cornstarch on Stonehenge and a slow march through the streets.” Just Stop Oil refuses to actively protest.
JSO’s original demand was an end to oil and gas extraction, now a priority policy of the UK government. Activists claim that with their campaigns he has achieved the preservation of about 4.4 million barrels of oil in the ground, and the courts have recognized a number of licenses for oil and gas extraction as illegal.
It is not ruled out that the “pacification” of activists has been brought about by the tightening of laws on disorderly conduct during, for example, slow-motion marches that provoke huge traffic jams. A number of climate activists have received lengthy prison sentences for their actions.
“Eco-activists said they need to take a different approach and are developing a new strategy that does not involve direct action,” the publication said.
Back in October 2022, UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman intended to introduce a Public Order Bill to Parliament that would expand police powers and impose more severe penalties on protesters if protests cause “serious disruption” or threaten a “significant adverse impact on public safety.”
Braverman announced her initiative immediately after two girls from the Just Stop Oil movement broke into a Trafalgar Square gallery and poured tomato soup on one of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh’s most famous paintings, “Sunflowers.” The action was repeated a year later with the same painting.
A month later, JSO activists smashed with a hammer the glass protecting Diego Velasquez’s painting “Venus with a Mirror” (1647) at the National Gallery in London.
The eco-activists also sprayed an orange substance on the stones of Stonehenge, timing the action to coincide with the day of the summer solstice. Two activists were detained after attempting to spray pop diva Taylor Swift’s airplane with orange paint.
Two more activists desecrated the grave of British naturalist Charles Darwin at Westminster Abbey. Using pastels in cylinders, the activists wrote on the tombstone, “1.5 is death.”
The action alluded to the news that 2024 was the first time in history that the global average temperature rose by 1.5°C from pre-industrial era levels, which was considered the safe limit of global warming.
2,712 total views, 2 views today
