“We are in an emergency situation”: Greta Thunberg was detained twice by Dutch police

Protesting environmental activists tried to block roads

The notorious 21-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg was detained by police in the Netherlands. A climate change activist was arrested twice by Dutch police on Saturday after protesters blocked roads in The Hague.

Swedish climate change activist Greta Thunberg has been detained by police in the Netherlands.

Thunberg, 21, was among dozens of people detained after protesters partially blocked a road in The Hague, Sky News reported.

After her release, Greta Thunberg quickly joined a small group of demonstrators blocking another road leading to the train station. There she was detained a second time and taken away in a police van.

Thunberg was seen waving a victory sign as she boarded a bus used by police to transport detained protesters from the site of a protest against Dutch subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuel companies.

Thunberg told reporters she was protesting because the world was facing an existential crisis.

Greta said: “We are in a planetary emergency and we are not going to stand by and let people lose their lives and livelihoods and be forced to become climate refugees when we can do something about it.”

Demonstrators were protesting against Dutch subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuel companies.

The group Extinction Rebellion said before the demonstration that activists would block the main road leading into The Hague, but a heavy police presence, including mounted officers, initially prevented activists from entering the road.

A small group of people managed to cross onto another road and were detained after they ignored police orders to leave.

Extinction Rebellion activists blocked the road past the temporary Dutch parliament building more than 30 times to protest against subsidies.

Local police declined to comment on individual cases, but said everyone who tried to block the roads was detained. Police posted on social media that 412 protesters were detained, mostly for participating in a banned protest, Reuters notes.

In February, Sky News recalls, Greta Thunberg was acquitted by a London court of refusing to obey police orders to leave a protest that blocked the entrance to a major oil and gas industry conference last year.

Her activism has inspired a global youth movement demanding greater efforts to combat climate change, as she began holding weekly protests outside the Swedish parliament in 2018.

She has been fined numerous times in Sweden and the UK for civil disobedience in connection with the protests.