LONDON: Climate change campaigners targeted the UK headquarters of oil giant TotalEnergies on Tuesday, with paint, protesting the French firm's alleged human rights violations in the construction of a contentious oil pipeline in Uganda.
Supporters of the Just Stop Oil activist organisation sprayed black paint in the lobby of the company's headquarters in London's Canary Wharf district, while others daubed orange paint outside, the protest group said.
Dozens of students from a pressure group opposed to the building of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) also massed outside the building during the stunt to show support, it added.
TotalEnergies said in a statement that it "fully respects the right to demonstrate and freedom of expression, but deplores all forms of violence, whether verbal, physical or material".
"TotalEnergies promotes transparent and constructive dialogue with all its stakeholders," it added.
London's Metropolitan police said officers had arrested 27 people "for a combination of suspicion of criminal damage and aggravated trespass."
TotalEnergies is the largest shareholder in the controversial East African venture, which is set to carry crude oil to the Tanzanian coast through several Ugandan-protected nature reserves.
Communities in the region claim the energy firm and other EACOP backers have caused serious harm to their rights to land and food in building the 1,500-kilometre (930-mile) pipeline.
Critics have also called the project a "carbon bomb" which would release over 379 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.
Also on Tuesday in France, a group of Ugandan citizens and aid groups, joined by French aid organisations, filed a lawsuit in a Paris court against TotalEnergies for damages over the alleged human rights violations.
In its statement, TotalEnergies said it has "a history of engaging directly with all members of civil society" and "does not tolerate any threats or attacks against those who peacefully defend and promote human rights in relation to its operations".
Just Stop Oil wants the UK and other governments to end all new oil and gas exploration and has promised not to let up in its high-profile protests until it does so.
The group has repeatedly hit the headlines with its direct-action stunts, such as disrupting sporting events and targeting valuable works of art, to publicise their cause.
But some of their antics, in particular those most impacting people's everyday lives, have prompted a public backlash, and appear to be increasingly dividing environmental campaigners and their financial backers.
Trevor Neilson, a former funder of the organisation and other direct action climate change groups, recently told the Sunday Times that they should end their disruptive tactics because they were "not accomplishing anything".
"It's just performative," he told the newspaper. "It's not accomplishing anything. I absolutely believe that it has now become counterproductive."