British MP Gareth Johnson, a member of the Conservative Party, has urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to designate the environmental group Just Stop Oil as a «proscribed» organization, a term assigned to groups involved in terrorist activities.
«These people are not protesters, they are criminals,» said Johnson, who believes the activists are merely causing «misery and chaos» with their protests, which in the UK have ranged from road blockades to painting the facades of government buildings.
Johnson made his request in the so-called Prime Minister’s Question Time, where Sunak agreed that the activists have caused «massive suffering for the public» and have put the population «in danger».
However, the premier rejected his party colleague’s request and stressed that the British police have the support of the government in its efforts to counter the Just Stop Oil protests and address their «reckless and illegal activity».
The Terrorism Act, signed into law in 2000, empowers the Home Office to designate organizations that commit or promote terrorist activities. Membership or support of such organizations can carry penalties of up to 14 years imprisonment.
The environmental organization has pointed out that the British government has the power to put an end to the protests by putting an end to the high consumption of oil and gas and by adhering to the advice repeatedly given by the United Nations and scientists around the world.
Likewise, a spokesman for Just Stop Oil has defended that the members of the group are nothing more than «ordinary people» who «use all possible peaceful means to protect everything they love», according to the British channel Sky News.
Just Stop Oil has been one of the main protagonists of a wave of climate change protests that have been sweeping Europe for weeks. The organization has even blocked the M25, one of the most important roads in London, and has painted the façade of administrative and government buildings.
Other groups in Europe have targeted works of art, such as paintings by Francisco de Goya, Gustav Klimt or Edvard Munch; sculptures by the American Charles Ray or a car designed by Andy Warhol.
