Climate activists sentenced to jail for throwing soup at Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’

NEWS WIRES

27 September 2024 at 9:23 am·1-min read

Two climate activists who threw soup at Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at London's National Gallery in 2022 were sentenced to prison by a UK court on Friday. Another five members of the British environmental group Just Stop Oil were sentenced in June for planning protests that blocked the M25 orbital motorway around London.

A UK judge on Friday jailed two climate activists who threw soup at Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers" at London's National Gallery in 2022 for terms of two years and 20 months respectively.

Just Stop Oil protesters Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, were convicted at London's Southwark Crown Court of criminal damage in July.

Greenpeace UK's co-executive director, Will McCallum, called the sentence "a draconian and disproportionate punishment for a protest that caused minor damage to a picture frame".

Plummer and Holland had pleaded not guilty over the incident in October 2022.

Sentencing the pair, Judge Christopher Hehir said the painting could have been "seriously damaged or even destroyed".

"Soup might have seeped through the glass. You couldn't have cared less if the painting was damaged or not," he added.

"You had no right to do what you did to 'Sunflowers'."

(AFP)

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