US climate activists condemn 18-month jail term for nonviolent art museum protester

Smeared washable paint was part of a climate protest at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in April 2023. Photograph: Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia

Climate activists have condemned an 18-month jail term for a nonviolent 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 Years sculpture.