In the Netherlands, two environmental activists sentenced to one month in prison for having targeted the painting “The Girl with the Pearl Earring”

The two environmental activists who attacked the famous painting by Johannes Vermeer The Girl with a Pearl Earring were sentenced on Wednesday, November 2, to two months in prison, one of which was suspended, by a Dutch court.

Three men of Belgian nationality, two aged 45 and one aged 42, wearing Just Stop Oil T-shirts, stuck themselves with strong glue to the glass protecting the 1665 work, on October 27, at the Mauritshuis museum from The Hague, the Netherlands.

No damage was discovered to the painting, the museum said. But the court in The Hague admitted that the frame and the back plate had been damaged and judged the act “shocking” for many people, Dutch news agency ANP reported. “Anyone can imagine the fragility of such a painting and the fact that it could have been lost if it had gone wrong”underlined a judge, quoted by the agency.

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The third activist tried on Friday

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The public prosecutor had requested four months in prison, two of which were suspended, against the suspect Wouter M. for sticking his head on the window. He claimed to have carefully investigated the dangers of his act, according to the ANP.

Prosecutors had also requested four months, two of which were suspended, against Pieter G., who filmed the action. He denies having been aware of the images he was going to take, reported the ANP. The third activist, who emptied a can that appeared to contain tomato sauce, will be tried on Friday, according to the ANP.

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The action in the Netherlands came on the heels of other acts of vandalism in recent weeks. Environmental activists thus threw tomato soup on the glass plate protecting The sunflowersby Van Gogh, at the National Gallery in London, and others smeared the glass protecting Millstonesa painting by Claude Monet, in Germany.

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The World with AFP

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