Police have finished their operation of removing climate activists from the German “brown-coal village” of Lützerath.
The last occupiers were removed from the tree houses on Sunday. Only two activists remain in a tunnel underground, and they will be "rescued" by energy company RWE, who now own the site, said a spokesperson for the Aachen police.
The police have no involvement with this operation and are therefore withdrawing from the village. The village in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate had been occupied for more than two years, as activists wanted to prevent energy group RWE from removing 280 million tons of lignite coal from under the village. That amount of fossil fuel is driving up the earth’s temperature unacceptably high, the occupiers said.
A large police force began the eviction Wednesday, removing nearly 500 occupiers from the village.
Accusations of police violence
A spokesperson for the protestors, Indigo Drau, accused the police of "pure violence" at a press conference, saying officers had beaten the activists "without restraint," also hitting them on the head with their batons.
The Lützerath lebt! collective reported on Saturday that dozens of activists were injured, some seriously. About 20 of them were hospitalised, according to a nurse from the activist group, Birte Schramm.
The police said on Sunday that around 70 of its officers were injured on Saturday, and that legal proceedings had been launched against about 150 people.
The situation on the ground had returned to "very calm" by Sunday, the police said. The president of the police union for the state dismissed criticism of police action Saturday against protesters.
"The police enforce the law," Michael Mertens, GDP head for North Rhine-Westphalia, told German news agency DPA on Sunday. "And if communication no longer help, then unfortunately situations like yesterday arise. Nobody wants that, but then it is simply indispensable to implement the mandate that the police have."
"However, the activists are now spreading ‘stories’ in that context.” For example, he said, nothing is known about a rescue helicopter that activists say was needed to evacuate a seriously injured protester. The police officers had “done an excellent job under difficult circumstances," Mertens said.
