Thousands of climate activists face police brutality in Germany
The activists belonged to Ende Gelände, a grass-roots alliance for climate justice
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Your support makes all the difference.Thousands of climate change activists were beaten and pepper sprayed by police in Germany. Several were hospitalised.
Over 6,000 protestors from various countries, including the UK, tried to shut down one of the country’s largest coal mines near the western city of Cologne over the weekend.
The activists belonged to Ende Gelände, a grass-roots alliance for climate justice, who were organising a six day climate gathering, culminating with civil disobedience.
Matthew, 23, from Manchester, was part of a group of approximately 600 that were held by police in the Rhineland coal field on Saturday.
He told The Independent: “People were passively resisting and playing limp but police grabbed them by their chin and nostrils. Another guy was pulled by his dreadlocks. It was shocking.
“You can’t do anything but shout at them or you’ll get hit. Even some of the other police looked uncomfortable.”
Frieda, 23,added: “I wasn’t sprayed [by pepper spray] but the person next to me was and we were all being pushed so it got onto me. You don’t really feel it at first but then it gets painful. It burnt my arm for about 12 hours.”
She said another activist was left “writhing in pain” after being directly pepper sprayed in the face. She added: “At one point my friend was weeping from what she saw happening.”
Over 3,500 protesters walked around six miles from their camp to the coal mine in lines of six wearing white overalls and face masks.
As they approached lines of police attempted to blockade them but protestors broke through. Eventually, they were stopped.
Al, 24, from Southampton told The Independent: “Two women broke away from the big group and walked to the police line with their hands up. The police peppered sprayed both and [the women] dropped to the ground.”
He added: “My friend saw an old man calmly approach the police with his hand ups I think maybe to ask them a question but the police pushed him back. He went back again with his armed back but they pushed him to the ground and pepper sprayed him.”
A spokesperson for Ende Gelände said: “Many people of our blockade suffered from the police violence, for example pepper spray, pain grips and beating. Five people had to go to the hospital because of fractures. We are still working on an accurate counting of the injured people.”
The action was deemed a success by Ende Gelände, which translates as: “Here and no further.” At one point protesters managed to reduce the mines operations to 37 per cent after shutting the tracks of a coal shuttle for nine hours.
The plant was also forced work on reduced capacity for 20 hours.
Ende Geländea’s aim was to shut down the operations of the Germany’s dirtiest coal mine belonging to the utility giant RWE for as long as possible.
Protestors organised themselves into difference action groups. Some were in small autonomous groups others were done by different larger groups of 300-400 activists.
“Personally its quite powerful and inspiring to be part of a large group and feel invigorated to fight a global climate change” Al said.
There will be another Ende Gelände action in November, just before The Bonn 2017 UN climate change conference.
The Independent has contacted the police city of Aachen for comment, but none had arrived at the time of publication.
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