Activist Greta Thunberg, 21, was detained at a Saturday climate demonstration in The Hague, where she and the other protesters planned to block the intercity A12 motorway.
Thunberg was one of several protesters forcefully dragged away by police when they refused to move from the small roadway where they had set up camp. Their protest was intended to protest Dutch tax breaks given to companies that invest in fossil fuels, according to the climate activism group Extinction Rebellion.
“We are in a planetary emergency and we are not going to stand by and let people lose their lives and livelihood and be forced to become climate refugees when we can do something,” she told the crowd at the protest before being detained.
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A heavy police presence in the area prevented the action from totally shutting down the A12 highway, although a small number of people sat down on a different road and defied orders to leave, the Associated Press reported. According to police, more than 400 people, Thunberg included, were arrested at the protest.
Photos and videos from the event show protesters carrying banners reading “Stop Fossil Subsidies” and flags with Extinction Rebellion’s symbol, an X in the shape of an hourglass inscribed in a circle.
Thunberg, a youth climate icon, has been fined and detained multiple times over the years since she began working as a climate activist. In February, she was acquitted by a London court after she was arrested for blocking the entrance to an oil and gas industry conference last year in defiance of police orders.
The A12 highway, the subject of Saturday’s protest, has been a frequent target of climate activists in recent months, who have managed to shut it down for hours at a time in the past. Police in those instances drove detained protesters to other parts of town and released them without issuing charges or other punishments.
The Swedish activist said the detention proceeded “calmly” in a phone call to the Dutch news agency ANP.
“It’s not about the arrest. I am here for the climate,” she said.
