As of: 01/16/2023 8:57 a.m
The police have officially declared the evacuation of the village of Lützerath to be over, but the activists are not giving up just yet. The debate about violence at Saturday’s demonstration also continues.
One day after the official end of the police clearance operation in the Rhenish village of Lützerath, activists started new protests. According to the police, two people abseiled down a motorway bridge near Lützerath on Monday morning. The traffic on the Autobahn 44 is currently running. The highway below is closed.
According to RWE, activists have occupied a bucket-wheel excavator in the Hambach open-cast lignite mine. Four people are on the excavator, which has stopped operating. Members of a protest group said they wanted to show solidarity with the people in the village of Lützerath. The Hambach opencast mine is about 20 kilometers from Lützerath.
The night in Lützerath passed quietly
According to the energy company RWE, the night passed without incident in the almost evacuated village. A spokesman said it had remained calm. As before, two activists are in a tunnel. The “dismantling” of the village continues and is already “well advanced”.
The police had declared the eviction of Lützerath, which had begun on Wednesday, over on Sunday. RWE Power AG is now responsible for the two activists in the tunnel.
NRW Interior Minister Reul defends police operation
Meanwhile, the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of the Interior, Herbert Reul, defended the police against allegations of disproportionate use of force during the anti-coal demonstration near Lützerath on Saturday. In the ARD-talk show “Anne Will” said the CDU politician that the police had worked “highly professionally”.
He will have every case of inappropriate police violence investigated, said Reul. “We’ve seen a movie or two on the web where we’re like, ‘This doesn’t look good.’ We’ll take a close look at that, we’ve also filed a criminal complaint as a precaution, because I think it needs to be checked.”
But it’s not as if there were masses of “crazed police officers” at the demo. He would have wished the organizers of the demo to clearly distance themselves from violence, but that didn’t happen.
“Systematically hit on the head”
The demonstrators accuse the police of systematically hitting activists on the head on Saturday. A spokeswoman for the protesters’ paramedic service said there was a “high double-digit to triple-digit number” of injured participants. Among them were many seriously injured and some critically injured.
The injuries were partly caused by pepper spray, batons and fist attacks by the police. There were a lot of head injuries. There was no independent confirmation of this. According to the police, they are not aware of any life-threatening injuries.
Green leader Lang defends party line
The Federal Green Party leader, Ricarda Lang, once again defended her party’s line on clearing Lützerath for lignite mining. “It wasn’t an easy compromise for me personally, I think for many in my party,” she said ARD morning magazine. However, it is a sign of strength that the party does not make things easy for itself.
Leading Greens politicians such as Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and his NRW colleague Mona Neubaur are behind this decision. They say the coal is needed to maintain energy security. The demolition of Lützerath is part of a compromise that, on the other hand, provides for an eight-year earlier phase-out of coal. Parts of the Green Party and numerous climate activists, on the other hand, criticize the negotiated compromise.