Criminalising Conscience: Gag Orders, Climate Protest, and the Imprisonment of a Generation

In July 2024, five young people were sentenced to prison for planning nonviolent protest action linked to Just Stop Oil. Among them was Cressida Gethin, a 22-year-old Oxford music student and gifted cellist, who received a four-year prison sentence. Her role? Participating in a Zoom call during which protest actions were discussed. She did not block a road, vandalise property, or harm anyone.

To many observers, including UN experts, her sentencing reflects not just a punitive response to protest, but a disturbing turn toward the criminalisation of climate conscience.

Jane Ripley, a scientist based in Hastings, attended the High Court proceedings. She shared her account with me in a recent interview. According to her, the most alarming part of the hearing was not just the severity of the sentences—but the explicit legal instruction given to the convicted:

“They were told they must not say why they had protested. Not in court, not to the press, not even outside the courtroom. If they did, they risked being held in contempt and given additional prison time.”

These gag orders represent a grave escalation. Protesters are not only being punished for their actions, but forbidden from explaining their motives. In effect, the state is criminalising both speech and silence.

According to Ms Ripley, none of the accused had been allowed to explain their reasoning for participating in the Zoom call. After sentencing, that silence became compulsory.

One must ask: what kind of democracy silences its own dissenters while the Earth burns?

A Chilling Climate for Protest

While protest may involve disruption, blocking roads or temporarily halting daily life, these tactics have long been used by movements that are now considered morally heroic: the suffragettes, civil rights marchers, anti-apartheid campaigners.

The UK government, under both Conservative and Labour leadership, has shown growing hostility toward environmental activism. New legislation including the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022) and Public Order Act (2023) has increased penalties and enabled pre-emptive arrests.

Neither party has pledged to repeal these laws. Labour leader Keir Starmer has gone further, calling Just Stop Oil activists "wrong" and dismissing their methods as counterproductive. Several Labour councillors were disciplined for expressing solidarity.

Yet many of these activists are acting in accordance with science, including the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The world is on course for over 3°C warming. This is the worst outcome according to the IPCC’s "rocky road" scenario this will result in ecosystem collapse, mass migration, and widespread food insecurity. It is also likely to result I increased use of genocide as a policy option adopted by governments.

“In a fragmented world of delayed mitigation, high inequality and continued fossil fuel use, global warming could exceed 3°C this century... leading to severe and irreversible risks.” — IPCC AR6 WGIII

If these predictions hold true, the climate protesters may not be extremists, but truth-tellers.

Voices from the Frontline: The Message on the Lab Coats

At one protest outside the High Court, demonstrators from Extinction Scientists wore white clinical jackets and carried signs bearing stark messages. Their words cut through the legal abstractions with moral clarity:

“UK Judges are:

• Banning defendants from explaining their motivations.
• Refusing expert witnesses to testify.
• Sentencing peaceful protestors to up to 5 years in prison.”

One sign asked plainly:

• “What public purpose is served by jailing climate defenders?”

Another read:

• “New Oil and Gas = Death.”

Perhaps the most striking message came from Peter Kalmus, a climate scientist at NASA:

“I say this with all the force I can, with the words as literal as they can be: It is the fossil fuel executives and lobbyists who must go to jail. Not the activists.”

These are not the words of ideologues. They are the words of people who have spent years studying the data — and who now see the criminalisation of peaceful protest as a final warning sign.

Growth at All Costs

Underlying the state's repression is an economic dogma that sees protest as a threat: growth-based capitalism. In this view, fossil fuel extraction, airport expansion, and GDP increases are unquestionable goods. But this model has brought us to ecological brinkmanship.

Alternative frameworks like degrowth, championed by thinkers such as Jason Hickel and Giorgos Kallis, argue for scaling down material throughput to stay within planetary boundaries while improving human wellbeing. Yet these ideas are virtually absent from mainstream political debate.

Instead of rethinking the system, governments are doubling down on fossil dependency—and silencing those who resist.

Whose Justice?

Consider this: a young woman receives four years for joining a Zoom call. Meanwhile, violent crimes such as sexual assault, fraud, or domestic abuse often result in shorter or suspended sentences. What message does this send?

We are witnessing a realignment of justice—one in which telling the truth about climate collapse is punished more harshly than actual violence.

As Jane Ripley told me, “The law is now being used not just to prosecute actions, but to suppress the truth. These young people are political prisoners. That is what they are.”