The court in The Hague does not impose a penalty on the three climate activists who glued themselves to the glass plate in front of the famous painting in 2022 Girl with a pearl earring by Johannes Vermeer in the Mauritshuis. It court announced on Monday that a punishment is appropriate “in principle”, but is not imposed so as not to discourage other people who want to express their opinion through a protest action.
This is remarkable, because the three Belgian men were sentenced in the first instance at a super-fast trial to two months in prison, one of which was conditional. “The court is of the opinion that criminal law intervention may not be so drastic that it has a discouraging effect (‘chilling effect’) on people who want to exercise their right to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly in the context of a protest action,” the court said. Moreover, the men have already been in pre-trial detention, which is why the court finds a further prison sentence “too drastic”.
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