Four Just Stop Oil (JSO) members were jailed for four years each on Thursday, while the group's co-founder Roger Hallam received five years.
They were accused of plotting to block the M25 motorway around London.
Hallam's five years is believed to be the longest sentence for non-violent protest in the UK, and comes with mounting concern about a wider crackdown on protest rights.
The UN Special Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, Michel Forst, called it "a dark day for peaceful environmental protest and indeed anyone concerned with the exercise of their fundamental freedoms" in the UK.
"This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public," he added in a statement. "It should also put all of us on high alert on the state of civic rights and freedoms in the United Kingdom."
- 'Authoritarian turn' -
Sociologist Graeme Hayes, who specialises in environmental politics, social movements and direct action, said the sentences were "clearly excessive and disproportionate".
But he said they were the "logical outcome of the authoritarian turn in Britain over the last five years".
The JSO protesters were convicted for conspiring to cause public nuisance.
Legislation introduced in 2022 made "public nuisance" punishable by up to 10 years in prison and gave the government wider powers to define what is considered "disruption".
A Public Order Act passed just days before the coronation of King Charles III in May last year created new protest offences and increased police powers to search protesters who they believe will cause "serious disruption".
Climate protests in particular have been targeted by the legislation, as it bans "slow walking" -- a tactic used by JSO to disrupt traffic -- and the practice of "locking-on" to objects and buildings.
The Crown Prosecution Service, which decides on prosecutions in England and Wales, has in recent years brought "more severe charges against protestors", according to Hayes, from Aston University in Birmingham, central England.
A precedent for harsher sentences was set when two JSO activists were jailed for two and three years for scaling the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge over the River Thames at Dartford, east of London, last year.
The UN also criticised that as "severe".
Hayes acknowledged the formal separation between the government and courts.
But he told AFP that the previous Conservative government had "signalled through its new legislation, the new powers that it's brought in for the CPS, that this is what it expects the courts to do".
"I think there's an atmosphere, an expectation," he added.
- Crackdown -
The protests that led to Thursday's sentences took place across four days in November 2022 with dozens climbing gantries over the M25, which is one of the country's busiest.
Judge Christopher Hehir told the defendants: "The plain fact is that each of you some time ago has crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.
"You have appointed yourselves as sole arbiters of what should be done about climate change."
JSO has carried out a number of high-profile protests as well other actions impacting drivers, commuters and others, sparking anger among some, including Britain's predominantly right-wing press.
The group said the sentences were "an obscene perversion of justice" given for "nothing more than attending a Zoom call".
Climate activist group Greenpeace UK's director Amy Cameron said the outcome was part of a "judicial crackdown on climate activists" that had "gotten out of hand".
"These sentences are not a one-off anomaly, but the culmination of years of repressive legislation, overblown government rhetoric and a concerted assault on the right of juries to deliberate according to their conscience," she added.
The last three years have made "it much harder for activists to protest because the potential outcomes are much worse", said Hayes.
"I think what's easy to say is that if you are charged and prosecuted under this new legislation, you can expect a prison sentence," he added, referring to the "public nuisance" charge.
However, he also believes that "committed activists might engage deliberately now in more disruptive protests as a way of demonstrating their resistance."
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