climate protest
Tense mood before eviction: police remove barricades in Lützerath
Climate protection activists sit on a wooden pole on the outskirts of the village of Lützerath. They must expect the village to be evacuated from Wednesday.
© Oliver Berg / DPA
The activists in Lützerath must expect an evacuation of the village they occupied in the Rhineland from Wednesday. The police removed their barricades the day before – which further fueled the already tense atmosphere.
In a heated atmosphere, the police began removing barricades on the access road to the village of Lützerath, which was occupied by climate activists. The evacuation of the village itself will not begin on Tuesday, the police emphasized in loudspeaker announcements on site.
“The police are asking you once again to leave your blockades immediately,” the emergency services announced over the loudspeaker. Otherwise the blockades would have to be cleared “by means of coercion”. Several hundred activists had formed human chains in a confusing formation and set up a sit-in blockade, in which some of those involved had dug themselves about half a meter deep into the ground. “It’s about blocking the access to Lützi,” said an activist from the German Press Agency.
According to the decree, the police should already clear Lützerath on Tuesday
Among other things, the activists shouted “Get lost!”, “Shame on you!”, “On the barricades!” and “Protecting the climate is not a crime!”. The tone towards the police was partly aggressive. Most activists were masked.
The energy company RWE wants to excavate the coal lying under Lützerath – for this purpose the hamlet in the area of the city of Erkelenz is to be demolished. Since this Tuesday, the police have been able to clear the village due to a general decree from the Heinsberg district. However, the Heinsberg District Administrator Stephan Pusch (CDU) wants to provide information about the eviction and the associated police operation in the afternoon.
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Activist Luisa Neubauer criticizes the police operation
Climate activist Luisa Neubauer described the police strategy before the evacuation operation in Lützerath as not particularly peaceful. Politicians had announced a peaceful evacuation, but what was happening on the ground was “pretty much the opposite of that,” said Neubauer on Deutschlandfunk on Tuesday. “Several hundreds of people have just come into the village overnight, the emergency services are being mobilized from all over the country and obviously there is no real political plan when more and more police officers are brought in.”
The aim of the activists is initially to delay the eviction and make it politically very expensive. “That is also very important, because with this decision to give Lützerath to RWE, the federal government is opposed to the Paris climate protection agreement.” According to Neubauer, the coal under the village is no longer needed for the energy supply in Germany. She therefore expects the federal government “to pause at this moment and check on what basis they are making these huge, far-reaching decisions.”