‘It’s hard to fathom how a peaceful protester can receive more prison time than many of the insurrectionists’ said one researcher, of Timothy Martin’s sentence
Climate activists have condemned an 18-month jail term for a non-violent protester who vandalized a display case at the National Gallery of Art as “grossly disproportionate” and a violation of the constitutional protected rights to free speech and peaceful protest.
Timothy Martin, along with fellow activist Joanna Smith, staged the climate protest at the Washington DC gallery in April 2023, smearing washable red and black paint on the protective glass covering Edgar Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen sculpture.
Video of the protest shows that they sat silently with their hands raised, and did not touch or damage the sculpture itself.
Martin, 55 and Smith, 54 were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States and injury to a National Gallery of Art exhibit, felonies that each carry penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
