Michel Forst, UN special rapporteur, joins growing chorus of voices criticising jail terms handed to five defendants
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    The lengthy multi-year sentences handed to Just Stop Oil activists are “not acceptable in a democracy”, a UN special rapporteur has said, as the government faced growing pressure to reverse the previous administration’s “hardline anti-protest” approach.

    Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were each sentenced to four years in prison this week after being found guilty of planning disruptive protests on the M25.

    Forst, whose role is to protect individuals facing penalisation, persecution, or harassment for exercising their environmental rights, attended two days of the trial earlier this month as he attempted to intervene with UK authorities on behalf of Shaw.

    And Tom Southerden, Amnesty International UK’s human rights adviser, called on the government to repeal the portions of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 that legislated the statutory offence of public nuisance used against the defendants.

    Pressed on whether Labour would look again at anti-protest laws it opposed before entering government, Starmer’s spokeswoman said: “The prime minister is very clear that when it comes to these cases, the judgments and sentencing is for independent judges to make them, they’ve had all the facts and evidence before them.

    Dale Vince, the green entrepreneur, who stepped away from bankrolling Just Stop Oil to become one of the Labour party’s most significant donors, joined the broadcasters Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in echoing calls for a meeting with Hermer about the protesters’ case.

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