Two activists from the environmental organization Just Stop Oil were sentenced on Friday to terms of up to three years in prison for blocking an important axis near London, exceptionally severe in the United Kingdom for this type of action. On October 17 in the early morning, Morgan Trowland and Marcus Decker had climbed on one of the towers of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, a bridge used by around 160,000 vehicles a day in east London, in order to ask the government to put an end to exploitation of hydrocarbons in the country.

Traffic had to be halted from 4 a.m. that day until 9 p.m. the next day, according to prosecutor Adam King. The two activists, found guilty of “public nuisance”, were sentenced to three years in prison for one, and two years and seven months in prison for the other. It is, according to Just Stop Oil, “the heaviest conviction for peaceful climate action in the UK”.

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“To deter others from copying you”

“You have been punished for the chaos you have caused and for deterring others from copying you,” said judge Shane Collery, of the court in Southend, east England. He pointed out that the action had affected “several tens of thousands of people, some of them significantly”. The judge considered that Morgan Trowland, who, at 40, has already been convicted six times for previous protests, had had “a leading role”. Marcus Decker, 34, has already been convicted once.

From the top of the bridge, Morgan Trowland had posted a video of him on Twitter. “I’m ready to do this because I’m not ready to sit around and watch it all burn,” the bridge design engineer said. “I can’t challenge this madness from my desk designing bridges, so I’m taking direct action.”

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Since Just Stop Oil began operations in April 2022, there have been more than 2,000 arrests and 138 people imprisoned, the organization said. This judgment comes as another environmental organization, Extinction Rebellion, launched four days of action in London on Friday with several demonstrations.