Rev James Christie Brown

It is said dissent is the foundation of liberty. And yet the travesty of justice that took place today at Southwark Crown Court speaks to a democracy that is in danger of forgetting that at its peril. We must not be numb to how extreme the sentences handed out today to peaceful protesters are, and how this marks an acceleration in Britain’s democratic decline. These are the longest ever sentences handed out for participation in peaceful, non-violent action. These sentences have been made using the Tories’ new and draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. So extreme is this law and its impact on environmental defenders, that earlier this year UN Special Rapporteur @ForstMichel "seriously question[ed] the necessity and proportionality of such conditions for persons engaging in peaceful protest" and was "distressed to see how environmental defenders are derided by some of the mainstream UK media and in the political sphere". Following the sentencing today, @Global_Witness has said the UK is "becoming one of the most dangerous countries in the western world to speak up in defence of our planet." The ability to peacefully protest is integral to a healthy and robust democracy. Its criminalisation speaks to a deeper malaise. One that calls into question the health of some fundamental democratic cornerstones. The last Conservative government was one of the most authoritarian we have ever seen in this country. It changed the law to deny defendants the right to use as a defence their concern about the climate crisis and in so doing to speak truth to power. That power is oil corporations and the big business interests that benefit from its continued extraction. Extraction that will cost us all dearly. It is why I spoke in solidarity with the five climate protestors. And it is why I back their calls for a meeting between campaigners, scientists and the Attorney General to discuss their case and the laws which saw them imprisoned. These laws in question should be repealed and the five wrongly imprisoned, pardoned. Our current government must not only undo the damage the last one did to our democracy, but it must also strengthen and protection our democracy with new laws and institutions that protect it in the knowledge that authoritarian governments may follow them the years to come.

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