Protest in Lützerath: Greta Thunberg calls eviction “shocking”

In Lützerath, the remaining activists received support from Greta Thunberg. The Swede also wants to take part in the large demonstration on Saturday. The police are currently concentrating on clearing the tunnels.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg visited the brown coal town of Lützerath and the crater of the Garzweiler opencast mine on Friday. “It’s appalling to see what’s happening here,” she said, holding up a sign that read “Keep it in the ground.” She called the evacuation of the village by the police “shocking” and criticized the actions of the emergency services. “It’s outrageous how violent the police are,” said the 20-year-old Swede.

As announced, she will take part in a large-scale demonstration for the preservation of Lützerath on Saturday. “We want to show what people power looks like, what democracy looks like,” she said. When governments and corporations work together in this way to destroy the environment and endanger countless people, the population must speak out against it.

Conditions for large demo on Saturday

The organizers of the demo and the police had argued before the administrative court in Aachen about the conditions for the meeting. The police wanted to move the starting point and banned ten tractors from taking part in the demo. The court has now accepted the relocation of the starting point, but confirmed that the tractors were not allowed to participate. With an expected 8000 participants, these are a possible source of danger. Both sides can still appeal to the Higher Administrative Court.

For the police, the main concern on Saturday is to prevent demonstrators from encroaching on the area of ​​​​the opencast mine. A spokeswoman for the protest alliance has already announced that she intends to relocate the actions to the opencast mining area. “Unfortunately, the police are in the village faster than expected,” she said in a video on Twitter.

tunnel several meters deep

During the evacuation of Lützerath on the third day, the emergency services are concentrating on underground tunnel systems. According to activists, there are two people there. The two were determined to chain themselves as soon as an attempt was made to get them out, said a spokeswoman for the “Lützerath is alive” initiative. During the night, the technical relief agency tried to get the demonstrators out, but ended the operation later. It is not yet known when a new attempt will be made.

The situation is not without danger, Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach said: “We don’t know how stable these underground soil structures are. We also don’t know how the air supply is there.” According to “Lützerath Leben” the climate activists are at a depth of a good four meters. There is a ventilation system. “It is not foreseeable how long the evacuation of the underground soil structures will take. It will also be important to proceed very carefully and not take any risks,” said Weinspach.

The squatters themselves had alerted the police to the tunnels: Yesterday there was a on the YouTube platform Video set been. In it, the two activists, who call themselves “Pinky” and “Brain”, warn the police against driving into the area with heavy equipment.

Clearance almost complete

Above ground, the settlement has largely been cleared, and demolition is also progressing. Throughout the day, police rescuers from heights took other activists out of tree houses and other structures. Cleared wooden buildings and stone houses in the village were demolished and trees felled. Nevertheless, some activists continue to defy the eviction. “We want to clear all structures as quickly as possible, if possible today,” said a police spokesman.

Further actions against the Greens

There were protests against the evacuation of Lützerath in various cities, some of them militant. According to the police, up to 200 people rioted in Berlin’s Mitte district. Stones and paint were thrown at shop windows in 26 shops, and a police station was shot at with pyrotechnics. The police took three people into custody for a short time. Two Green Party offices were also smeared.

Demonstrators in Düsseldorf and Flensburg had already occupied Green offices on Thursday. In Aachen and Leipzig, windows were smashed into party rooms.

Activists also protested in front of the RWE headquarters in Essen – among them members of the group “Extinction Rebellion”. About 20 people gathered in front of the front gate, some chained themselves to it like that WDR reported. On posters they demand, among other things, “Stop the destruction of our livelihood”. They also sprayed the slogan “Lützi stays” on the floor.

Habeck renewed criticism of protests

Economics Minister Robert Habeck showed little understanding for the massive protests. “There are many good reasons to demonstrate for more climate protection, for example against the Greens. But Lützerath is simply the wrong symbol,” Habeck told the “Spiegel”. The village is not the symbol for the continuation of the Garzweiler lignite mine in the Rhineland, but “it is the final stroke,” said the minister. The coal phase-out in the local coal mining area is preferred by eight years to 2030, which was always the goal of the climate movement.

Habeck defended a corresponding contract between the federal government, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the energy company RWE. That means: “We save five villages and farms with around 450 residents. The Hambacher Forest has been secured. The approved mining volume for coal in opencast mining was halved as a result of the agreement.”