Greta Thunberg arrested after a protest against a coal mine in Germany

The environmental activist Greta Thunberg he was arrested along with other protesters on Tuesday during a protest against the expansion of a coal mine in western Germany.

“The group (of protesters) are in custody,” confirmed a police spokeswoman. In some photos released by AFP, the activist can be seen being evacuated by the security forces.

Minutes before the arrest, Thunberg had been forcibly evicted from the Garzweiler mine, where activists blocked the vicinity of the town of Lützerath (west), which was dismantled to expand a lignite mine.

The police explained that staying in that place was dangerous, so they proceeded to pick up the people who took part in the protest action one by one.

Both Thunberg and the rest of the activists were transported to upa about 50 meters outside the venue and proceeded to check their identity documents.

The center of the protest was Lützerath, which was cordoned off after the demolition of wooden houses, farms and buildings. For several days, hundreds of activists resisted the eviction, amid a massive police deployment.

The operation ended on Monday, after the last two activists who had entrenched themselves in a small town redoubt voluntarily left a tunnel.

However, this Tuesday there were new shares in other parts of the region, including the capital of the “Land” of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, as a group of up to 70 activists staged another protest, including Thunberg.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has condemned the acts of resistance carried out over the weekend, which according to the Interior Ministry turned violent and hampered the work of health teams.

The convened environmental movements, on the other hand, said the police acted with disproportionate force, including hitting activists on the head with a baton.

Greta Thunberg had been in the protests before

The police operation began at the end of last week and on Friday all the buildings occupied by the activists in the previous days were evacuated. However, different groups of people remained in about 35 wooden buildings installed.

Greta Thunberg had already made an appearance at the protests. It happened on Saturday when an alliance of organizations against lignite mining and Lützerath demolition held a march. The Swedish activist could be seen there.

According to official reports, nearly 300 environmental activists were evacuated from Lützerath during the operation, in which four acts of resistance to the eviction were recorded.

In addition to the peaceful demonstration, some people tried to bypass the police barriers to access the village and reach the edge of the open pit mine. In response, police used water cannons and pepper spray and made twelve arrests.

Authorities said the activists were deliberately seeking confrontation.

In that episode, more than seventy policemen were injured and nine activists were taken to hospital, though none with serious injuries. In addition, around 30 police vehicles were damaged and 32 tires of security forces cars were also punctured.

Although the German government’s plan foresees the abandonment of coal in North Rhine-Westphalia as early as 2030, according to the agreement signed last year with the energy company RWE, in the short term it is expected to increase coal mining in the face of the energy crisis resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

With information from agencies