For the seventh time, Extinction Rebellion has blocked a stretch of expressway in The Hague. The police used water cannons to clear the area.
According to police, the number of arrests during a protest by climate activists in the Netherlands has risen from a few hundred to a total of 1,579.
However, one day after the blockade of a section of the A12 motorway near the Dutch parliament and seat of government in The Hague, only one of those arrested was still in custody. He is accused of biting an officer.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, a total of 48 participants are being investigated for criminal offenses, including insult, damage to property and obstruction of traffic. The prosecution authority decided that there would be no investigations into the other temporarily arrested people. On Saturday afternoon, the police initially only spoke of several hundred arrests.
Protests against government energy policy
With the blockade of the A12, the group Extinction Rebellion wanted to protest against the government’s energy policy. Several thousand people responded to a corresponding call. According to the ANP news agency, the police used a water cannon to prevent the demonstrators from closing the highway. The officials intervened earlier this time than in previous disruptive actions by Extinction Rebellion, it said. The city of The Hague had previously warned that blocking the expressway was prohibited. Referring to this, a water cannon deployment had also been warned.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin said on Sunday evening at the request of the German Press Agency that three water cannons from the federal police and 19 federal police officers to operate them in The Hague had been deployed. The legal basis is the German-Dutch police agreement. They were deployed under the direction of the Dutch authorities. Only “water rain” was sprayed.
According to the ANP, Prime Minister Mark Rutte called it “absurd” that climate activists blocked the A12 despite an explicit ban by the mayor of The Hague. You should therefore not complain about the use of a water cannon. It’s their own fault for that.
Source: Stern
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