German police broke up a pro-Palestinian protest camp after hearing Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was due to visit. Thunberg later accused German officials of seeking to silence those wanting peace.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Wednesday accused German police of overly heavy-handed tactics in breaking up a pro-Palestinian camp ahead of her planned visit.
Police dismantled the site in the western German city of Dortmund a day earlier after an announcement from Thunberg that she planned to go to the protest camp.
What Thunberg said about the police
“Police said they would arrest me if I went there,” Thunberg tweeted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “All this just because the students had invited me to speak at their event, and I had been to a [pro-Palestinian] protest in Berlin the day before that police has stormed.
“Germany is threatening and silencing activists who speak out against the genocide and occupation,” she said.
Thunberg has repeatedly expressed her solidarity with Palestinians and accused Israel of genocide in recent months.
Israel has strongly rejected such accusations after South Africa brought a case to the International Court of Justice last year accusing Israel of breaking the 1948 Genocide Convention. While preliminary hearings have already been held in the case, the court is expected to take years to reach a final decision.
Dortmund officials said the decision was made, among other things, because Thunberg’s appearance would probably have attracted more people to the protest camp than originally allowed.
Police cite fears of violence
Police said they had taken down the camp, which had been in place for several months, in a peaceful manner, with seven protesters present.
“After an intensive examination in the context of a risk assessment, the Dortmund police headquarters ordered the ban and the associated dissolution of the gathering,” the police statement said.
Dortmund police initially said the decision was taken because Thunberg was a “potentially violent participant” in the protest.
Authorities later retracted this statement and, when asked, said there had been an “internal error.”
The dismantling of the camp comes after a pro-Palestinian protest in Berlin saw bottles being thrown at police and journalists attacked, with Thunberg being present at the protest.
The decision comes a day after the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, with the previous day marked by numerous pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrations across Germany.
Arrested in Belgium protest
Thunberg was detained by Belgian police at a climate demonstration in Brussels on Saturday, the latest in a string of arrests.
The 21-year-old joined a sit-in blockade with around 150 other activists on Saturday afternoon, the Belgian news agency Belga reported, before she was detained by police together with more than 100 other protesters.
The demonstrators had been calling for an end to subsidies for fossil fuels.
Thunberg became known worldwide for her “school strike for the climate,” and her protest action gave rise to the international climate movement Fridays for Future.
Since the Islamist attack on Israel a year ago and with Israel’s subsequent military action in the Gaza Strip, the Swede has regularly attended pro-Palestinian rallies.
Critics have accused Thunberg of taking a one-sidedly pro-Palestinian stance during the war in Gaza and the attack that triggered it.
At the protest in Brussels, she wore a keffiyeh — the chequered scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian solidarity.
