Gluing IPCC report to public buildings

In August 2021, XR activists glued excerpts of the latest IPCC report to the facades of public buildings in several cities, using water and flour. Unlike in Bern where the activists were fined or received a provisional ban from the city perimeter, several people were sentenced in Lausanne in the first instance to 60 daily penalty units for damage to property under Article 144 of the Swiss criminal code. Two of the activists appealed the judgment and their case was dropped after the plaintiff (Direction générale des immeubles & patrimoine) withdrew the complaint in exchange for reimbursement of the cleaning costs. Another activist, who had filmed the action in Lausanne, did not oppose his conviction but refused to pay his daily penalty units to publicize a sentence he considered disproportionate. Until 2023, he acknowledged letters from the authorities asking him to pay his pecuniary penalty in responding something along these lines: “I will not reply to your letter because I do not wish to cooperate with a system that endangers the population through its inaction in the face of climate change”. After the authorities established that the collection procedure had failed, the accused was finally incarcerated for three months between December 2023 and February 2024.