Dusseldorf
Police begin clearing Lützerath. It doesn’t stop with peaceful protest. Greens under pressure.
The police began on Wednesday with a large contingent to clear the lignite town of Lützerath. Some climate activists left the village voluntarily, but many resisted with sit-ins and other actions. Stones and bottles were occasionally thrown at officers. Barricades burned, the police also reported Molotov cocktails.
Interior Minister Reul demands distance from demonstrators to violent criminals
NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) said in the afternoon that he was concerned that police officers had to “go through the fire” during this operation. He appealed to the peaceful demonstrators to distance themselves from violent criminals who wanted to “hijack” the protest for their own purposes. The security forces were well prepared for this complicated situation, Reul assured.
For their part, climate activists accused the police of acting with unnecessary harshness against demonstrators. Politically, their anger is directed primarily against the Greens, who govern in North Rhine-Westphalia together with the CDU. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck and North Rhine-Westphalia Economics Minister Mona Neubaur (both Green) have agreed with the energy company RWE to excavate the town of Lützerath in order to save other opencast mine towns from the lignite excavators and coal production in the Rhenish area as early as 2030 and thus eight years ahead of schedule.
Green Youth NRW continues to fight for the preservation of Lützerath
The Green Youth of North Rhine-Westphalia expressed their solidarity with the occupiers of Lützerath. Their spokesman Rênas Sahin described the evacuation of the village and the planned burning of the underlying coal as wrong in view of the worsening climate crisis. The fight for Lützerath and for compliance with the international target of 1.5 degrees for global warming continues.
The state party leaders of the Greens, Yazgülü Zeybek and Tim Achtermeyer, and the Greens faction leaders in the state parliament, Wibke Brems and Verena Schäffer, defended the police operation. The early phase-out of coal by 2030, which politicians agreed with RWE in the middle of an energy crisis, is “a milestone for climate protection,” said Brems.
Big demo next weekend with Greta Thunberg
The police union (GdP) in North Rhine-Westphalia described the officers in this difficult mission as protectors of the law. The eviction of Lützerath is legally incontestable. “If we no longer accept the decisions of our courts, our rule of law will be over,” warned GdP state chairman Michael Mertens on Wednesday.
Lützerath has one for next Saturday big demonstration for the preservation of the village and for climate protection planned, to which the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer and Pauline Brünger from the organization Fridays For Future as well as other prominent representatives of the climate protection movement are expected.
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