AMSTERDAM —
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.
اضافة اعلان
The protesters ran
onto the tarmac at around noon GMT 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.
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 AFP.
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 AFP.
“These people are
facing charges relating to being in a place where they should not have been,”
he said, adding that prosecutors will now formulate the exact charge.
The activists were
taken to various 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 received a head injury.
The protest comes
as the world gears up for the UN climate summit that starts in
Egypt on Sunday,
and which activists said should also focus on air travel.
“This is a subject
they have to talk about,” said Tessel Hofstede, spokeswoman for Extinction
Rebellion.
“Planes are some of the biggest polluters on the planet,”
she told AFP.
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