LONDON: Climate activists on Monday smeared chocolate cake over a waxwork model of Britain’s King Charles III at London’s Madame Tussauds museum.

The Just Stop Oil demonstrators said in a statement they were demanding that the government halt “all new oil and gas licences and consents”. Police said four arrests had been made.

“We responded quickly to an incident at Madame Tussauds after two people threw food at a statue at approximately 10:50 hrs. They have both been arrested for criminal damage,” the Metropolitan Police said in a tweet.

A later police tweet said an additional two people had also been arrested for criminal damage.

In a statement released afterwards, Just Stop Oil named the protesters as Eilidh McFadden, 20 and Tom Johnson, 29. It quoted them as saying that they staged the protest to “protect this green and pleasant land which is the inheritance of us all”.

Just Stop Oil says climate change poses an existential crisis for humanity and its direct tactics are justified. Last week, two of the group’s activists scaled a major road bridge over the River Thames, resulting in its closure.

Days earlier others threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” masterpiece in London’s National Gallery.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2022