© ANP
Greta Thunberg.© ANP/HH
Lieke Jongbloed
Yesterday at 2:46 PM
The Hague
The intended blockade of the A12 in The Hague by climate activists from Extinction Rebellion was not a success on Saturday afternoon. The demonstrators who wanted to block the Utrechtsebaan, the last stretch of the A12 near The Hague, were stopped by the police. Several activists have been arrested, including Sweden’s Greta Thunberg. After being taken away in a city bus, he almost immediately reappeared at the protest. The police then arrested her for the second time.
Police officers are present en masse at the demonstration, including vans and officers on horseback. Measures had already been taken, such as placing black fences around the tunnel boxes above the A12. A water cannon is also ready.
Watch Greta Thunberg being arrested here. The article continues below the video.
video: Mizzle Media / Michel van Bergen
A group of a hundred activists therefore sat down on the road near the Koningstunnel in The Hague. They are surrounded by a cordon of officers. Some of the activists have already been arrested and taken away.
A group of demonstrators who ran onto the A12 were also arrested almost immediately by the police.
Greta Thunberg arrested and put in detention van
On the other side of the Malieveld, where the King’s Fair has just opened, about a hundred demonstrators were on Zuid-Hollandlaan. Traffic was diverted around it. Officers announced via a megaphone around 2:15 p.m. that they intended to end the action. The message was that those who did not leave of their own accord were taken away. Some of the activists then left voluntarily and were taken away by HTM buses.
The remaining demonstrators were rounded up by police and put on buses. Greta Thunberg among them. A group of supporters who wanted to run across the road, through traffic, to the bus containing Thunberg, among others, were stopped by the police.
(Text continues below the photo)
© ANP/HH
Thunberg’s removal was short-lived. She rejoined the protesters a short time later. She was sitting with several dozen other demonstrators on a zebra crossing on the Koningskade and was arrested there for the second time. The police were the first to remove her from the group and this time put the Swedish activist in a detainee bus.
Public Prosecution Service: detaining activists is not possible
A police spokesperson informs our editorial staff that demonstrators who are arrested are not detained, but are taken to another location. “The goal is to keep them off the road. If they sit on it again, they will be arrested again and taken away.”
The Public Prosecution Service announces that there is a Public Demonstration Act under which the activists cannot be detained because prosecution cannot be initiated. “If this happens several times, registration will follow and it will be carefully examined whether that person can be detained.”
Extinction Rebellion planned to occupy the A12 for the 37th time. The group wanted to demonstrate against fossil subsidies with the action.
Beach tent entrepreneurs previously expressed their dissatisfaction that the activists had to cause traffic disruption on the access roads to the Scheveningen coast on the first bright day of spring. “To put it mildly, it is quite irritating,” says Martin Wörfsdörfer, chairman of the Association of Beach Tent Operators in the coastal town of The Hague.
