Famous climate activist Greta Thunberg has been charged with disobeying police in Sweden after taking part in a protest last month to block fuel transports, according to local media.
The 20-year-old Swede and at least one other climate activist are being prosecuted for refusing to obey law enforcement when they were ordered on June 19 to end their blockade of oil tankers in Malmö, according to an indictment. obtained on Wednesday by Sydsvenskana daily newspaper based in southern Sweden.
“Today, for the third day in a row, young activists…blocked tankers in the oil port of Malmö”, Thunberg wrote on Instagram two days before the police forcibly removed her and other protesters.
“The climate crisis is already a matter of life and death for countless people. We choose not to be bystanders and to physically shut down fossil fuel infrastructure. We reclaim the future.
Thunberg joined about 20 teenage and young adult associates with Take Back the Future, the youth-led climate justice group that organized the protest. The organization said the blocking was part of a “peaceful resistance” to the fossil fuel industry.
A police official who was at the scene said about 30 trucks were prevented from crossing the port because Thunberg and other activists were sitting in the road, according to Sydsvenskan. Police and Take Back the Future have confirmed that at least one activist climbed onto a truck to prevent it from moving forward.
Protesters were eventually ordered, in English and Swedish, to move from the road to a lawn so the trucks could pass, according to the newspaper. All but four obeyed, including Thunberg, and were dragged off the stage.
Johan Nilsson/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images
Take Back the Future spokeswoman Alma Laudon said June 20 that the fossil fuel industry “has life on its conscience.”
“The warming it causes puts even more lives at risk and tears the future of young people apart,” an English translation of Laudon’s statement said. “Blocking fossil fuels is therefore both an act of solidarity and self-defense.”
A hearing for Thunberg’s charges is tentatively scheduled for the end of the month in Malmö District Court, according to Sydsvenskan. Disobeying police orders carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison under Swedish law, but the prosecutor handling the case said those found guilty usually face fines.
Thunberg did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. But the activist continued to post climate justice initiatives on social media, including his visit to Switzerland march with other activists to demand regulators and central bankers stop funding the fossil fuel industry.
June was not the first time Thunberg had clashed with law enforcement at climate protests. In January, the activist was arrested twice in three days after taking part in an anti-coal protest in the abandoned village of Lützerath in western Germany, which was to be destroyed to make way for the expansion of a coal mine.
