The Vatican against Ultima Generazione: three activists sentenced for the first time

At the third hearing came the sentence. For the first time, yesterday, three activists sat in the dock of a court Last generation, the environmental protest movement that has been carrying out “awareness” campaigns for months with paint smearing or mud sprinkling against statues and historic buildings. And it is not an Italian courthouse that is leading the way in the squeeze against ecologists-smearers, but the Vatican Tribunal: the sentence was issued against three people, two of whom were sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment (with a fine approaching two thousand euros) for having damaged the marble base of the statue of Laocoon, inside the Vatican Museums, in August last year.

Now, beyond the details of the sentence – which will result in an administrative penalty, equal to the payment of about 30 thousand euros to the Governorate -, the news is all in the firmness with which the Vatican justice has moved towards Ultima Generazione: that is, passing for the first time from words to deeds, in line with the Italian government’s desire not to “make discounts” to those who brand themselves the crime of damaging cultural property (we will recall the bill signed by Senator of FdI Marco Lisei). In short, although detailed and limited to a single episode, yesterday’s conclusion could act as a precedent and represent a turning point in the management of similar events.

Last Generation reactions were not long in coming. “It is an absolutely disproportionate sentence, we did not expect it, also because this verdict contradicts what the Pope has preached on the climate by asking us old and new generations to raise our voices,” says one of the condemned activists. The story between justice and the smearers is still to be written.