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Two climate protesters were arrested on Wednesday for spraying orange paint on the ancient Stonehenge monument in southern England, police said.
Just Stop Oil’s latest act was swiftly condemned by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as a “disgraceful act of vandalism”.
The incident came just a day before thousands gathered at the 4,500-year-old stone circle to celebrate the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
English Heritage, which runs the site, said it was “extremely upsetting” and said curators were investigating the damage. Just Stop Oil said on social media platform X that the paint is made from corn starch and will dissolve in the rain.
Wiltshire Police said the pair had been arrested on suspicion of damaging one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Stonehenge was built on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain in stages beginning 5,000 years ago, with the unique stone circle erected during the Late Neolithic around 2,500 BC. Some of the stones, the so-called bluestones, are known to come from south-west Wales, nearly 240 kilometers away, but the origin of others remains a mystery.
Just Stop Oil is one of many groups in Europe that have attracted attention – and received a lot of backlash – for disrupting sporting events, spraying paint and food on famous works of art and disrupting traffic to draw attention to global warming.
The group said it acted in response to the Labor Party’s recent election manifesto. Labor has said if it wins the July 4 election it will not issue any more oil and gas exploration licences. Just Stop Oil supports the moratorium but said it is not enough.
In a statement, the group said Labour, which is leading in the polls and expected by experts and politicians to lead the next government, should go further and sign a deal to phase out fossil fuels by 2030.
“Continuing the burning of coal, oil and gas will lead to the deaths of millions,” the group said in a statement.
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