Climate activists have condemned an 18-month jail term for a nonviolent protester who vandalized a display case at the National Ga...

Climate activists have condemned an 18-month jail term for a nonviolent protester who vandalized a display case at the National Gallery of Art as “grossly disproportionate” and a violation of the constitutional protected rights to free speech and peaceful protest. Timothy Martin, along with fellow activist Joanna Smith, staged the climate protest at the Washington DC gallery in April 2023, smearing washable red and black paint on the protective glass covering Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen Years sculpture. Climate activists see the jail sentence as part of a broader judicial crackdown on climate and environmental activists in the US and across the world, as governments accused of failing to take action to curtail climate catastrophe increasingly target those protesting. https://lnkd.in/gWzD_7K3