Overview

• Six Just Stop Oil activists had their sentences reduced by the UK Court of Appeal, including Roger Hallam, whose prison term was cut from five to four years.
• The court upheld longer sentences for non-violent climate protests, marking a departure from the UK's historical leniency toward such activism.
• Two protesters who threw soup at Van Gogh’s 'Sunflowers' in 2022 failed to overturn their sentences, which were upheld as a form of 'violent' protest targeting cultural property.
• Critics argue the ruling supports an authoritarian shift in British law, with sentences for peaceful protests now among the harshest in Europe.
• The judgment leaves activists weighing an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which could set a broader legal precedent across its jurisdiction.