Regendans"The research by Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and the protest group Defend Our Juries says that custodial sentences for acts of direct action or civil disobedience were once rare but are now being imposed with increasing length and frequency.
Their report, which will be launched on Tuesday, points to an increase in anti-protest legislation in England and Wales, police powers and civil law injunctions brought by corporations and public bodies as well as judges removing legal defences and “exceptionally long” sentences.
In what they say is the first analysis of the jailing of “Britain’s new political prisoners”, the researchers identified 286 cases involving climate and Palestine-solidarity activists who were sent to prison for protest for a total amount of jail time of 136 years.
The average detention period in the 256 cases for which data was available was 28 weeks, with one in three protesters jailed for six months or more and one in five for more than a year.
David Whyte, the report’s co-author and professor of climate justice at QMUL, said: “These are exceptional sentences that are being used to apply to protests which are themselves profoundly political."
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