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20,000 euro fine for climate activist in Italy

A climate activist has now been fined 20,000 euros in Florence. He and a friend had pasted photographs onto the painting "Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510).

On Tuesday, the two members of the Ultima Generazione (Last Generation in German) group stuck several photographs of floods onto the glass protecting the painting. They also held up a poster in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence calling for a special fund of 20 billion euros to repair climate damage. According to initial findings, the painting was not damaged in the incident.

Here you can see the statement from Ultima Generazione.

The police took the two climate activists into custody. Giordano and Giacomo had "wanted to remind us all, especially President Meloni, that tens of thousands of people had lost their homes due to climate disasters", the group announced on its Instagram channel. They have already launched a petition against this oppression.

In recent years, activists in Italy have repeatedly targeted landmarks such as St. Mark's Basilica in Venice and the Trevi Fountain in Rome. No permanent damage has been caused so far.

Penalty of up to 60,000 euros possible
Last month, the parliament in Rome passed a law according to which climate activists can be fined up to 60,000 euros if they deface landmarks.