The action of the environmentalists of Extinction Rebellion, which had quietly progressed in Brussels during the afternoon, is now taking a more grim turn. The activists had closed the last part of their protest, renaming the Finance Tower to the Resilience Tower, and wanted to march to Wetstraat in a parade, but were almost immediately stopped by the Brussels police.
The environmentalists had already held two actions earlier Saturday afternoon. They had stood still for five minutes on both Beursplein and Nieuwstraat and showed their protest signs. Those actions went smoothly and without incident. The intention was to close the action at the Finance Tower. Earlier this week, the letters ‘Finance’ had already been removed from the tower, and Saturday it was planned to replace them with the word ‘Resilience’, with each letter representing one of the moves supported by Extinction Rebellion.
For example, the ‘R’ stood for all groups in society suffering from structural and systemic racism, the ‘S’ for the arts sector, and other letters for the Yellow Vests, the ecological-social movements and the care sector. The activists were unable to put the letters on the wall of the building, because the police did not allow that. When the demonstrators then wanted to march to the Wetstraat in parade, they were almost immediately stopped by the police. Currently, several dozen activists are sitting on the ground on Pachecolaan, enclosed by police in riot uniform.
They are left one by one through the police barricade, after which their identity card is checked.
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