I agree wholeheartedly with Chris Packham’s and Dale Vince’s article criticising the jailing of environmental protesters (You may find Just Stop Oil annoying. You may dislike their tactics. But they do not belong in prison, 19 July). It’s a chilling response that shames our judiciary.
Yes, the protesters are often annoying, aggrandising and disruptive: that’s the point. Our history is littered with such protesters, whose actions have changed the lives of many and resulted in governments enacting legislation. That we now have legally protected characteristics for many citizens is, in part, due to campaigns by annoying, aggrandising and disruptive citizens, often pilloried, jailed and worse. Our legislative limits on the right to protest in the past few years are starting to look like an insidious march towards “illiberal democracy”, to coin a phrase that Viktor Orbán has used to describe his government.
Patrick Callaghan
London
• When I heard the news of the lengthy prison sentences meted out to the environmental truth-tellers, I suddenly felt I had been transported to another country. Was I now in Russia? Or North Korea? I was in the queue of traffic caused by the Just Stop Oil protest. I was late for a family funeral. The delay I experienced made no difference to me or the occupant of the coffin in the long term. However, the prison sentences have made a huge difference to everyone living in the UK, whether they understand it or not.
Rosy Mackin
Birmingham
• I disagree with Chris Packham and Dale Vince, who argue that members of Just Stop Oil who broke the law and pledged to wilfully continue such actions in the future don’t belong in jail. In fact, that is the very place they do belong.
It’s quite extraordinary that there are people who believe that, as long as you believe your cause is righteous, you should face no consequences for your actions. This belief, that the law should only apply to those we find morally objectionable, is a dangerous slope.
There was an easy way for these people to avoid jail – it was via peaceful organising, respectful political agitation, and the ballot box. Instead, they chose to act in a way that broke the law, and that must have consequences. This plea to the audience, that the evil petrochemical lobby breaks the law and gets away with it, is in fact an argument that the rules must be made to apply to the protesters, as they should always have done.
Michael Daniell
Kingskerswell, Devon
• I fail to understand the bleating about the recent sentences. The convicted went out of their way to cause very significant disruption to thousands of people. Stiff prison sentences will at least stop these particular individuals from causing more trouble for a while. How dare they push their views down other people’s throats in this way?
Nigel Hooper
Bodmin, Cornwall
• My fear is that the severity of the sentencing will embolden further protesters to be jailed “for a sheep as a lamb”, and raise the stakes to make the establishment take notice. People of a “certain age”, or of a medical situation, may not fear a longer sentence to make a valid point of view heard.
Ric Allen
Matlock Bath, Derbyshire
• Climbing a motorway gantry causes no disruption to anyone. It is the closure of the motorway to allow a rescue and an arrest that causes the disruption. In my view, anyone climbing up can be left to come down (and face arrest) on their own. The motorway remains open. I suspect this form of protest would soon fall out of favour if this policy were followed.
Robert Nelson
London
• If the Just Stop Oil activists had blocked the M62, rather than the M25, would they have been given such lengthy jail terms?
Rowena Beighton-Dykes
Birkenhead, Merseyside
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