175 Extinction Rebellion protesters were arrested in Rotterdam on Wednesday afternoon during a climate action. A spokesperson for the Rotterdam police reports this NRC† 110 activists were arrested in the center and 65 on the Maasvlakte, outside the city. The activist climate movement has been campaigning in Rotterdam for several days against the fossil fuel industry.
About three hundred activists protested on Weena — at a Shell office — and Hofplein in the center of Rotterdam. The demonstrators blocked car traffic and public transport, forcing the police to close the road around 2 p.m. According to the police spokesperson, several activists glued themselves to the asphalt and to a car. The protesters also emptied bottles of fake blood on the road. The police asked the demonstrators several times on the orders of Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb to leave. Anyone who continued to block the road was arrested.
On the Maasvlakte, outside the city, several activists chained themselves to a railway line, with the intention of stopping the transport of coal to the Onyx coal-fired power station. Access roads were also blocked there, but demonstrators did not enter the site of the plant.
Over the past five days, Extinction Rebellion demonstrated at several locations in and around Rotterdam under the name ‘rebellion against the fossil industry’. This led to arrests in addition to Wednesday only last Friday, at a BP refinery. The police then arrested 13 protesters. Extinction Rebellion demands “the end of the fossil fuel industry and a climate-just transition”.
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