Two Belgian climate change activists who last week targeted the Johannes Vermeer painting Girl with a Pearl Earring have been sentenced to two months in prison by a Dutch court, of which one month was suspended.
One activist glued his head to glass covering the painting at a museum in The Hague. The artwork was not damaged, gallery staff said.
The protesters said their action was intended to highlight how seeing artwork destroyed evoked a similar feeling to seeing the planet destroyed.
But the prosecutor said: “An artwork hanging there for all of us to enjoy has been smeared by defendants who felt their message took precedence over everything else.”
The public prosecutor asked for a four-month sentence, with two months suspended, but the judge said she did not want her sentence to discourage other people from demonstrating.
The two men went to trial through a fast-track process on charges of destruction and open violence against the painting. A third activist, who did not agree with the trial being fast-tracked, will appear in court on Friday.
All three are part of Just Stop Oil Belgium, which is not affiliated with Just Stop Oil in Britain.
Just Stop Oil Belgium said after the verdict: “Isn’t it ironic that climate activists who nonviolently oppose the mass slaughter of life on Earth are being condemned?”