Delays on the M25 from a Just Stop Oil protest. Pic: Just Stop Oil/PA
Protesters now face up to two years in prison, but there has been international condemnation of the increasing severity of sentences for non-violent protest.
Five Just Stop Oil activists have just been jailed for up to two years after they climbed gantries over the M25 motorway and caused temporary gridlock.
For many of the 181,000 motorists the Highways Agency estimated were delayed in November 2022 by the coordinated four-day-long campaign of disruption, it may feel like justice served.
But there has been international condemnation of the increasing severity of sentences for non-violent protest.
“There can be no justification for the level of sentences that are being imposed,” says Raj Chada, a solicitor at Hodge Jones & Allen who represented one of the activists – a 77-year-old woman.
“These are sentences which have traditionally been reserved for violent offences. And in the UK, we’ve always said that no matter what the protest, even if it is disruptive, you get credit for it being non-violent,” said Mr Chada.
The latest sentences, of between two years and 20 months, follow those in July of jail terms between four and five years for Just Stop Oil campaigners who planned and recruited volunteers for the M25 protest.
“Today marks a very dark day for fundamental human rights in the UK,” wrote Michel Forst, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, who attended their trial at Southwark Crown Court.
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Lawyers representing some of the Just Stop Oil activists sentenced in both recent court cases said they would appeal the length of sentences.
The Court of Appeal has previously upheld judges decisions in protest cases, meaning the UK’s recent record on punishing environmental activists is likely to end up before the European Court of Human Rights.
Screen grab from PA video of Becky Platt, a British paediatric nurse who provided aid for children with shattered and amputated limbs from airstrikes in Gaza described what she encountered as “beyond anything I’ve ever seen before”, August 2, 2024.
A BRITISH nurse has described the plight of children in Gaza as “beyond anything I’ve ever seen before.”
Becky Platt, 50, treated youngsters with shattered and amputated limbs from Israeli bombing raids at a Gaza hospital in April.
She described the healthcare situation as broken and in dire need for medicine and other aid.
“When I first arrived, I remember seeing small children and toddlers picking through rubbish in the middle of the road, unaccompanied children, picking up things and eating [them],” she said.
“Multiple children had spinal injuries or pelvic injuries, which meant that they were unable to walk, and may always be unable to walk.
“These are children that have had their limbs blown off and what we’ve got to offer them is paracetamol and ibuprofen because all of the supply chains have broken down, and it’s really difficult to get hold of anything stronger than that.
“In addition to that, there are multiple children, thousands affected by all of the problems that are associated with living in poor hygiene conditions and overcrowded areas.”
The advanced clinical practitioner at a London paediatric A&E, who visited the hospital for charity Save the Children, told of how children couldn’t look at their amputated limbs and how one boy “who had his femur shattered when he was near where a bomb landed when he was playing with his friends — he lost his six best friends, and he dreams about those boys every single night.
“When he closes his eyes, they’re there — that kind of psychological distress is something that maybe they’ll never get over.
“They need significant help with that and they need it urgently. There’s an absolute dire need for aid at the moment.”
More than 20,000 children are estimated to be lost, disappeared, detained or buried under rubble, according to recent analysis from Save the Children.
Liz Bradshaw, senior conflict and humanitarian adviser at Save the Children UK, said: “Becky’s experiences in Gaza highlight the critical need for immediate action.
“We urge the international community to support our efforts and provide the necessary resources to help children enduring horrific violence from the ongoing Israeli bombardment.
“The world cannot keep standing by as these children suffer. An immediate and definitive ceasefire is the only way to save lives in Gaza and end grave and serious violations of their rights.”
“In addition to that, there are multiple children, thousands affected by all of the problems that are associated with living in poor hygiene conditions and overcrowded areas.”
Osborne– who was chancellor under David Cameron’s government and was instrumental in bringing about austerity – said that the cuts announced by Reeves on Monday were “almost identical in structure and form” to those he made in 2010, when he announced £6.2bn worth of cuts.
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“I don’t think there was anything she announced that I would have violently disagreed with or not done myself.
“In fact, it was almost identical in structure and form to what I did in the first couple of months that I was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
“So, you know, ‘Continuity Osborne.”
Sharing a clip from the podcast on social media, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said: “No comment.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro greets the president of the country’s Supreme Court of Justice, Caryslia Rodríguez, in Caracas on July 31, 2024. (Photo: Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images)
Venezuela’s foreign ministry hit back at the U.S. State Department, accusing it of spearheading a “coup attempt.”
The U.S. State Department has formally recognized opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner of Venezuela’s election as the nation’s highest legal body began an investigation of the vote at the request of President Nicolás Maduro, who says he prevailed in the contest that is now under intense global scrutiny.
In a statement released days after Venezuela’s election authority, Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), declared Maduro the winner with just over 51% of the vote, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed late Thursday that “it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election.”
“Now is the time for the Venezuelan parties to begin discussions on a respectful, peaceful transition in accordance with Venezuelan electoral law and the wishes of the Venezuelan people,” said Blinken, the top diplomat of a country that has repeatedly attempted to overthrow the Maduro government and hammered the country’s economy with sanctions. “We fully support the process of reestablishing democratic norms in Venezuela and stand ready to consider ways to bolster it jointly with our international partners.”
Venezuela’s Foreign Affairs Ministry quickly hit back, saying Friday that it “rejects the serious and ridiculous statements attributed to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which he pretends to assume the role of the Venezuelan electoral authorities, demonstrating that the U.S. government is leading the coup attempt against Venezuela, promoting a violent agenda against the Venezuelan people and their institutions.”
Blinken’s statement accepting the right-wing opposition’s claim of a decisive victory came a day after Maduro asked Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice on Wednesday to audit the presidential contest in the face of vocal concerns from regional leaders, election observers, and leading human rights organizations.
In a joint statement issued Thursday, the presidents of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico said they are “closely following” the vote-counting process and called on the CNE to “move forward expeditiously and publicly release the data broken down by voting station”—something the Maduro government indicated it will do but has yet to provide.
Meanwhile, the Carter Center—an organization whose founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, once praised Venezuela’s election system as “the best in the world”—argued that the 2024 contest “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic.”
“In the limited number of polling centers they visited, Carter Center observer teams noted the desire of the Venezuelan people to participate in a democratic election process, as demonstrated through their active participation as polling staff, party witnesses, and citizen observers,” the group said in a statement earlier this week. “However, their efforts were undermined by the CNE’s complete lack of transparency in announcing the results.”
The Carter Center also preemptively raised doubts about the legitimacy of the Venezuelan high court’s assessment of the election.
“You have another government institution, which is appointed by the government, to verify the government numbers for the election results, which are in question,” Jennie Lincoln, who led the Carter Center’s election delegation to Venezuela, told The Associated Press. “This is not an independent assessment.”
The tense and high-stakes dispute over the rightful winner of Venezuela’s election has set off violence in the streets of the nation’s capital and sparked fierce debate over the path forward for the Latin American nation’s government.
Some on the progressive left, both in Venezuela and internationally, view the right-wing opposition’s claims to victory as yet another in a long line of attacks on Venezuelan democracy by pro-corporate and fascist forces, while others—including left-wing regional leaders such as Chilean President Gabriel Boric—have expressed deep suspicions about the legitimacy of the contest, particularly given the CNE’s lack of transparency surrounding the vote count. CNE has attributed the delayed rollout of full results to a cyberattack.
“The international community, and especially the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency of the election records and the process, and that international observers not affiliated with the government report on the accuracy of the results,” Boric wrote on social media. “From Chile, we will not recognize any result that is not verifiable.”
Venezuela’s opposition, led by María Corina Machado, continues to insist it won Sunday’s election, producing its own website purporting to demonstrate that González defeated Maduro with 67% of the vote.
On Thursday, Machado—who was barred from participating in the presidential contest—took to the pages of the U.S. business press to proclaim that she can “prove Maduro got trounced.”
“Maduro didn’t win the Venezuelan presidential election on Sunday. He lost in a landslide to Edmundo González, 67% to 30%,” Machado wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. “I know this to be true because I can prove it. I have receipts obtained directly from more than 80% of the nation’s polling stations.”
Maduro has pledged to release the full election results in the coming days and blamed Machado and the U.S. for stoking unrest and violence.
“If the U.S. government is willing to respect sovereignty and stop threatening Venezuela, we can return to dialogue,” Maduro wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
