Copenhagen, Denmark: Norwegian police said two climate activists tried in vain Friday to glue themselves to Edvard Munch's 1893 masterpiece ``The Scream'' at an Oslo museum and no harm was reported to the painting of a waif-like figure appearing to scream.
Police said they were alerted by the National Museum of Norway and had three people under their ``control.'' A third person filmed the pair that tried to affix to the painting, Norwegian news agency NTB said.
The museum said that the room where the glass-protected painting is exhibited ``was emptied of the public and closed,'' and will reopen as soon as possible. The rest of museum remained open.
Police said there was glue residue on the glass mount.
A video of the incident showed museum guards holding two activists, with one shouting "I scream for people dying." Another shouted ``I scream when lawmakers ignore science'' as someone shielded ``The Scream.''
Environmental activists from the Norwegian organization ``Stopp oljeletinga'' _ Norwegian for Stop Oil Exploration _ were behind the stunt, saying they ``wanted to pressure lawmakers into stopping oil exploration.'' Norway is a major producer of offshore oil and gas.
It was the latest episode in which climate activists have targeted famous paintings in European museums.
``We are campaigning against `Scream' because it is perhaps Norway's most famous painting,'' Astrid Rem, a spokesperson for the Norwegian group, told The Associated Press. ``There have been lots of similar actions around Europe. They have managed something that no other action has managed: achieve an extremely large amount of coverage and press.''
Two Belgian activists who targeted Johannes Vermeer's ``Girl with a Pearl Earring'' in a Dutch museum in October were sentenced to two months in prison. The painting wasn't damaged and was returned to its wall a day later.
Earlier this month, climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum and a similar protest happened in London, where protesters threw soup over Vincent van Gogh's ``Sunflowers'' at the National Gallery. In both those cases, the paintings also weren't damaged.