I was jailed for four years for a non-violent climate protest – this is my prison diary

www.theguardian.com

I was one of a group of Just Stop Oil activists given the longest-ever UK sentences for peaceful motorway. Six months into my incarceration, this is what I have learned

Not directly related to climate change, but Just Stop Oil has been in the news a lot.

47 comments

Seems like the lesson is "Don't bother doing non-violent protest. You'll go to jail anyway. Shoot a CEO, become a hero."
- Seems we're heading that way and it's not regular people's fault
  
  Are you sure you couldn't have voted harder or something?
In the following days, we are sickened by the racially motivated hate riots whipped up by social media posts and exacerbated by irresponsible political rhetoric. Later, those arrested for violent assault and arson will be sentenced to an average of two years. The contrast between their sentences and my own feels grim and stark. Fellow prisoners tell me they are shocked by the discrepancy.
disgusting
- Mild inconvenience apparentl is worse than fucking arson.
  
  Well, I guess the lesson to learn here is to commit arson instead...
Meanwhile the yatchs of oil billionaires sit in the waters you can dive in. With trivial dive training and basic equipment (an underwater propulsion Device, and an underwater drill with a lock hole cutting bit attached), you could probably send some of them under.
There's a whole bunch of relatively harmless but quite symbolic targets out there if you're creative and inconspicuous enough.
- I'm pretty sure you'd need more than a hole saw to sink a megayacht*. The hole would need to be big enough to overwhelm the bilge pumps.
  
  I'd assume it depends on how many holes per battery charge and how many batteries you can carry.
- No no no. Most of these yachts are aluminum hull. What you need is a scraper for the paint and a syringe full of gallium. Actually you could probably just scratch up a hull with a soap block of gallium and it'd do the trick. Gallium eats aluminum like cancer.
  
  Are you sure about that? Because almost every displacement hull vessel is steel.
  Also, just do it properly and build a bomb. That's a proven solution.
  
  Hmm, I forgot about this.
- You'd be doing them a favor because they would just get an insurance payout.
- You're not sinking a large yacht with a drill, they have watertight compartments and massive bilge pumps.
The way these protesters is a disgrace for our democracies. Why are there no riots? Why are we so numb towards these injustices?
- Why are there no riots? Why are we so numb towards these injustices?
  Because most of the outrage is downplayed as whackjobs and is downranked by social media companies so exposure is always low.
  Why do you think the government either controls the social media networks or have internet bot farms (50 Cent Army, Hasbara, Indian IT cell, )?
  US Air force was the most active city in reddit in 2013. I'm sure they were doing nothing nefarious at all, but reddit had to scrap the city reveal after that. hmm…
  They shape the narrative they like, anything else is shoved into the dark corner.
  
  Why do you think the government either controls the social media networks
  I think you'll find, in 2025, it's social media that controls the government.
- Because we don't have the kind organizing that sparks riots. We have a bunch of nonviolent civil disobedience instead.
  
  Oh we do. You just have to say a brown asylum seeker murdered the girls in Southport and you get weeks of it.
Isn't it "funny" how I read the title and instantly knew it was the UK?
- Same thing happens in Germany. Though I think the sentences are shorter
for peaceful motorway
- Standard Grauniad proof reading...
Wasn't Just Stop Oil that one movement mainly funded by an oil company?
I don't have any facts, so I'm very prepared to be wrong about that
- If I recall recall correctly the daughter of some oil barron has developed a conscious and is spending daddies money on sensible causes, like envirmental Organisations, Just Stop Oil beeing among them.
  It got spun into "funded by the oil Industrie" to discredit them, but that has no base in reality.
  Edit:
  Jup.
  Funding
  Just Stop Oil reports that all their funding is through donations,[12] with the group accepting both traditional currency and cryptocurrencies.[14] In April 2022, it was reported that Just Stop Oil's primary source of funding was donations from the US-based Climate Emergency Fund.[15] Through that fund, a notable donor to the group has been Aileen Getty, a descendant of the Getty family which founded the Getty Oil company.[16] In response, the Climate Emergency Fund stated that Getty did not work in the fossil fuel industry herself.[8]
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Stop_Oil
  
  Thanks for fact checking me, good stuff
  
  I think the reason that conspiracy theory has gained so much traction, is Just Stop Oil have been so incompetent, so annoying, and have pissed off so many people, all while completely failing to even slow down oil.
  I can see why people would think they're double agents.
good
I'm glad you were put in prison. Go protest in front of where politicians live or in front of the parlament. Don't inconvenience normal people.
Best case scenario, you achieved to piss of a bunch of random people. Worst case you killed someone who was having a heart attack and being rushed to the hospital.
- Go protest in front of a politicians house yourself!
  
  I will if I feel like our politicians deserve it. I definitely won't hold people hostage to try and get them to sympathise with me..
- One of these will make the news and one wouldn't. If the goal of a protest is to spread awareness and draw attention, going to where politicians live will probably get you a restraining order and a cozy ride in the back of a police vehicle and the protest will likely go unnoticed.
  Not saying these types of protests are not necessary or unhelpful! I'm just saying that, in order to draw the most attention to your cause, you inconvenience daily lives. Those are the things that make headlines and viral posts, not a secluded protest on private property.
  
  What does attention in this case help other than more people saying "look at those idiots blocking the road"..in my opinion it may even detract from the cause..
  On the other hand, if the CEOs of the companies who are polluting our world and the politicians they're successfully lobbying have to live in fear in their own homes, shit starts to change quick.
- Nonviolent protest should never be treated with prison.
  
  Depends how you interpret violence. Blocking the freeway is essentially holding people hostage for as long as you're blocking it.
  I think 5 years is extremely harsh but I do think a shorter prison sentence is a fair punishment.
  You could be putting people's lives in danger by doing it and even if you aren't, you have no right to stop other people from going where they're going.
  If someone stopped me on the streets and refused to let me walk down a public street, that to me would be trying to hold me hostage and I'd react accordingly.