Eight Ugandan activists who opposed the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) — a major project led by French energy giant TotalEnergies that would carry oil from Uganda to the Tanzanian coast — have been sentenced to approximately 11 months in prison on charges of "public nuisance" after spending more than eight months in pre-trial detention. The activists were originally arrested during a protest targeting Stanbic Bank, one of the financial institutions involved in funding the project. Critics, including the StopEACOP coalition, have condemned the sentences as disproportionate and are calling on banks such as Stanbic, KCB Bank Uganda, and their South African parent Standard Bank Group, as well as TotalEnergies itself, to speak out and be held accountable for the imprisonment of people opposing a project from which those institutions profit.