Dutch border police on Saturday arrested hundreds of climate activists who clambered over fences and gates at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and occupied an apron for private jets, which they said should be banned.
The protesters ran onto the tarmac at about 1pm before sitting in front of private planes parked on the apron, including a Royal Canadian Air Force C-130 transporter.
It was not clear if any of the jets were set to depart, but protesters said they saw at least one pilot leave a plane and walk back to a nearby hangar.
Photo: AFP
Organized by environmental groups Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, activists also pushed dozens of bicycles on to the apron.
Shouting slogans like “Down with flying” and “Schiphol environmental polluter,” they cycled around the apron to the cheers of onlookers on the other side of the fence.
“This action today is about Schiphol Airport needing to cut its emissions, which means we need to fly less,” Greenpeace spokeswoman Faiza Oulahsen said.
“We are starting with those flights we absolutely don’t need, like private jets and short flights,” she told reporters.
About three hours later, Dutch border police started arresting activists — some of whom were dragged to waiting buses after passively resisting arrest.
Border police were also seen tackling several activists off their bicycles as they tried to escape their pursuers.
“We take this very seriously,” Dutch border police spokesman Major Robert van Kapel told reporters.
“These people are facing charges relating to being in a place where they should not have been,” he said, adding that prosecutors would formulate the exact charge.
The activists were taken to border police offices around the airfield where they were being processed and identified, Van Kapel said.
Van Kapel said no commercial flights were affected by the protest.
Greenpeace later said police were “far too heavy-handed against the activists on bicycles” and that at least one person sustained a head injury.
The protest came as the world geared up for the UN climate summit that started in Egypt yesterday, and which activists said should also focus on air travel.
“This is a subject they have to talk about,” Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman Tessel Hofstede said.
“Planes are some of the biggest polluters on the planet,” she told reporters.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
CHURCH ABDUCTIONS: Remarks by police and other officials were ‘intended to prevent unnecessary panic while facts were being confirmed,’ a spokesman said Nigerian police on Tuesday made an about-turn, saying that gunmen had abducted dozens of people during Sunday mass in northern Kaduna State after dismissing the initial reports. A senior Christian clergy and a village head had on Monday told reporters that more than 160 people were snatched from several churches on Sunday. A security report prepared for the UN said that more than 100 people had been kidnapped at multiple churches. The chief of police of Kaduna State and two senior government officials had initially issued denials, saying security officers had visited the scene of the alleged crimes and found no proof of
RSS