The young climate activist has been detained at a demonstration near the Dutch parliament
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has padded her arrest record at a protest in the Netherlands, reportedly being detained twice by police after she helped block roads near the Dutch parliament.
The incidents occurred on Saturday, when a large crowd of Extinction Rebellion demonstrators tried to block the A12 highway in The Hague. A heavy police presence, including officers on horseback, prevented the activists from tying up the highway, but a small group broke away and sat down on a main road.
The 21-year-old Thunberg was among the protesters, and a clip posted on social media shows two police picking her up by the arms and carrying her to a bus filled with other detained people. Reuters reported that Thunberg was held for a short time before being released, and she then was detained again after joining a group blocking a road leading to the railway station.
Extinction Rebellion claims to have blocked the A12 highway dozens of times since 2022 in protests against fossil-fuel subsidies. Saturday’s demonstration called for lawmakers to halt subsidies and tax breaks for companies with ties to fossil fuels, such as oil major Shell and airline KLM.
“We are here because we’re facing an existential crisis,” Thunberg told Dutch broadcaster RTL Nieuws. “We are in a planetary emergency, and we are not going to stand by and let people lose their lives and livelihood and, of course, become climate refugees when we can do something.”
Thunberg was arrested for a public order offense last October, when she was among dozens of protesters who tried to block the entrance to an energy conference in London. She has repeatedly been arrested and fined for disobeying police orders during protests in Sweden, and she was detained last year at a demonstration against a coal mine in Germany.
The activist, then a teenager, began attracting media attention in 2018, when she staged weekly protests outside the Swedish parliament to demand stronger government efforts to fight climate change.
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