Two Belgian environmental activists who protested against the use of fossil fuels last week, while one glued his head to Johannes Vermeer’s famous painting Girl with a Pearl Earring (or Girl with a Turban), have been sentenced to two months in prison by a Dutch court. . of which one month was suspended, according to Reuters.

Gallery officials said that to emphasize how looking at destroyed artworks feels like a destroyed planet, the activist glued his head to the glass covering the famous painting at the museum in The Hague, even though the artwork was not damaged.

“The work of art that hangs there for all of us has been defaced by the defendants who believed their message took precedence over all else,” the prosecutor said.

Prosecutors asked for four months, two of which were suspended, but the judge said he didn’t want the sentence to deter other people from protesting.

Two men were tried on charges of destroying and abusing the painting. The third activist will be tried on Friday.

All three are part of the Just Stop Oil Belgium group, which is unrelated to Just Stop Oil in the UK. Just Stop Oil Belgium called the sentence “ironic”.

“Isn’t it paradoxical that environmental activists who nonviolently oppose the mass destruction of life on Earth are condemned?” – says the group’s e-mail.

In recent days, environmental activists have targeted Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflower” and Claude Monet’s “Malley” during their protests.