‘Climate protection not a crime’, says Greta Thunberg after detention
Madrid, Jan 12 (EFE).- Swedish activist Greta Thunberg said Wednesday that “climate protection is not a crime”, a day after she was forcibly removed by German police from a protest in the village of Luetzerath.
Thunberg was among dozens of protesting activists who were removed from the premises of the Garzweiler II, a lignite mine property owned by energy company RWE that is due to be expanded.
“We were kettled by police and then detained but were let go later that evening,” the 20-year-old activist wrote on Twitter.
The police said the activists had been evicted one by one from the cordoned area for security reasons and that they had been temporarily detained in order to identify them.
Thunberg arrived in Luetzerath on Saturday to take part in the protest.
Some demonstrators who tried to force their way past barriers to access the abandoned village were met by police officers who used batons, water cannons, and pepper spray to disperse them.
The police later accused the demonstrators of deliberately seeking out a confrontation.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration on Tuesday criticized the activists who had resisted eviction over the weekend, saying they had turned violent and obstructed the work of police.
The demolition of the village to expand the brown coal mine is part of an agreement reached last year between the authorities of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and RWE
Berlin plans to abandon coal mining in North Rhine-Westphalia by 2030, but the agreement with RWE allows for a short-term increase in coal production to face the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.EFE
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