Just Stop Oil supporters, including an 82-year-old priest, smash windows surrounding Britain’s historic Magna Carta

London
CNN
—

Two supporters of the climate activism group Just Stop Oil on Friday smashed the glass protecting Magna Carta, an iconic 13th-century British manuscript.

According to Just Stop Oil, the Reverend Dr Sue Parfitt, 82, an active Anglican priest and author, and Judy Bruce, 85, a retired biology professor, entered the British Library in London on Friday morning and “broke the glass enclosure surrounding the library. Magna Carta.

After that, the two men glued themselves to the document attachment and held up a sign reading “Government is breaking the law,” Just Stop Oil said.

The British Library announced on that its Treasures Gallery, where the Magna Carta is exhibited, was temporarily closed Friday morning.

The library’s press office reported to from the library. »

“The library security team intervened to prevent further damage to the case, which was minimal,” the press office continues, adding that the police have been notified and that the Magna Carta “remains intact”.

London’s Metropolitan Police told CNN it had arrested “two people on suspicion of criminal damage, both of whom are currently in custody.”

The Magna Carta (Great Charter) is often considered the first declaration of human rights, credited with enshrining human rights in English law. According to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the document was published in 1215 and was the first “to put into writing the principle that the king and his government were not above the law.”

Parfitt said in the Just Stop Oil statement that “Magna Carta is rightly revered because it is of great importance to our history, to our freedoms and to our laws. But there will be no freedom, no legality, no rights if we let climate change become the catastrophe that is threatened today.”

Just Stop Oil said its latest act of protest came in the same week that the UK government’s climate policy was ruled unlawful by the country’s High Court.

“Instead of taking action, our dysfunctional government is like the three monkeys: ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,'” said protester Judy Bruce. “We must rid ourselves of our dependence on oil and gas by 2030 – and now. »