Ayhan Simsek
17 January 2023•Update: 18 January 2023
BERLIN
Police continued to use aggressive tactics to clear protesters from a coal mine area in northwestern Germany, drawing sharp criticism from environmental groups.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was among the protesters who were briefly detained near the village of Lutzerath on Tuesday after they marched to the coal mine area to stop excavation activities.
Police officers arrived with horses to disperse the protesters and used pepper spray and batons to prevent them from entering the mining site.
Thunberg and several other activists staged a sit-in protest, but later they were forcibly removed from the area.
They were put in a police bus and released after an identity check.
Anadolu’s freelance photographer and reporter Kadir Ilboga was slightly injured when a police officer hit him with a baton during the protests.
Environmental group Ende Gelande, which organized Tuesday's demonstration, heavily criticized the police for using excessive force against protesters, and risking the lives of climate activists.
"Lutzerath represents everything that is wrong with fossil capitalism," said Luka Scott, a spokesperson for the group.
"Politicians make anti-democratic deals with corporations like RWE and then enforce them with police violence," she said.
According to the activists, dozens of protesters have been injured due to the police violence since Saturday.
"We are shocked by the police violence that we observed and experienced in Lutzerath and condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Greenpeace Germany said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, climate activists blocked railway tracks in northwestern Germany to protest coal-mining plans in the region.
Dozens of climate activists chained themselves to the tracks leading to the lignite-fired power plant Neurath, owned by the energy company RWE.
"The #Neurath coal-fired power plant (one of the biggest CO2 polluters in Europe) is blocked. We occupy the railroad tracks forever," the activists said on Twitter.
Dozens of other activists occupied an excavator on the site of the Inden open-cast lignite mine in the early hours of the morning.
"Every ton of coal mined here further fuels the climate crisis – with catastrophic consequences. We take climate justice into our own hands and stop the excavator and the conveyor belt," they said.
Lutzerath was occupied by coal opponents for two years and became a symbol for environmental groups calling for an end to the use of coal and fossil fuels.
Last week, the RWE began demolishing buildings in the abandoned village to expand the Garzweiler coal mine.
The company said in a statement that the coal under Lutzerath is needed to "make the best use" of the lignite fleet during the energy crisis amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
Under an agreement between the government and the RWE, the company will bring forward its coal phase-out by eight years and end lignite-fired power generation by 2030.
