The organizers of the demonstration on Saturday denounced the behavior of the police on Sunday during a press conference, saying that the police had beaten “without restraint” climate activists during the rally.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
Each camp accuses the other of having made a notch the tension on the ground on Saturday. Activists opposing the extension of an open -air coal mine in Lützerah, in western Germany, accused the police on Sunday, January 15, of having “violated” their demonstration of their demonstration the day before. During the latter, who degenerated into clashes, dozens of police and demonstrators were injured.
Indigo Drau, a spokesperson for the organizers of the demonstration, denounced the “pure violence” which the German police showed on Saturday, at a press conference given on Sunday. She said that police officers had “without restraint” the activists for the climate, by hitting several of them at the head.
Saturday, around 15,000 demonstrators according to German police, 35,000 according to the organizers, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, protested the extension of an open lignite mine leading to the destruction of the hamlet of Lützerath , located in the Rhine basin, between Düsseldorf and Cologne. The latter had come to support the activists who have occupied the site for two years and that the police have undertaken to dislodge this week. 2>
around twenty hospitalized activists and seventy-dixes injured 2>
At the end of the mobilization day marked by the violent clashes between police and demonstrators, the Lützerath Lebt collective! (“Lützerath lives!”) Has injuries for dozens of activists, including some serious injuries. About twenty of them were hospitalized, according to Birte Schramm, a nurse from the group of activists.
Police said on Sunday on Sunday that nearly seventy agents were injured on Saturday and that legal proceedings were launched against around one hundred and fifty people for resistance to police officers, material damage or damage to public order.
“We were targeted by projectiles, with stones, mud, fireworks,” said France-Presse Andreas Müller, police spokesperson. According to the police, several police vehicles have also been damaged, in particular by stone jets or their tires having been punctured. Twelve demonstrators were arrested or placed in police custody at the end of this day.
Sunday, police also wanted to declare that the situation on the field had become “very calm” again and announced that it had practically finished evacuating the hundreds of activists for the climate occupying the area, after a Operation that started Wednesday, January 11. If the evacuation was initially to last for weeks, there were only two activists left in the village on Sunday evening, terrified in an underground mine, according to the police.