After climate activists of the “last generation” managed to paralyze the capital’s BER airport for a few hours on Thursday, criticism of this form of activism is growing. “Protest actions of this kind are completely illegitimate and can no longer simply be accepted,” said FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai to the news portal t-online. The “full hardness of the rule of law” must take effect.
Djir-Sarai’s party friend, the Berlin FDP leader Sebastian Czaja, spoke of “climate criminals”. His brother, CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja, said t-online: “The rule of law knows the necessary instruments to defend against such crimes. They must now be used consistently: preventive detention, bans on residence, fines.”
AfD party and faction leader Tino Chrupalla called on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to become active in the case of the “last generation”. Not opinions, but actions should be decisive for its evaluation. “Securing critical infrastructure must have top priority,” said Chrupalla.
That had happened
According to the federal police, two groups had gained access to the BER airport site on Thursday afternoon. Some people glued themselves to the ground. The “Last Generation” announced that some activists rode bicycles across the site. The action was streamed live on Twitter. Berlin Airport temporarily stopped operations on both runways. According to the first information, five starts had to be canceled because of the action, according to the airport, 750 passengers were affected.
After the action, the police took several people into custody. The police headquarters in Brandenburg announced in the evening that the climate activists would be charged with dangerous interference in air traffic, trespassing and property damage. More information on the number of those arrested is expected on Friday.
Also criticism of the security concept of BER
The Berlin Greens state chairwoman Susanne Mertens emphasized on t-online that protests must rule out endangering other people. “However, BER apparently has to revise its security concepts.” Her party colleague Konstantin von Notz, deputy parliamentary group member in the Bundestag, criticized the action as “counterproductive, presumptuous and potentially dangerous”. Left leader Martin Schirdewan, on the other hand, defended the “last generation” whose protest “put a finger on the wound of political inaction in the face of the climate catastrophe”.
In the past few weeks, the activists have repeatedly blocked road traffic, stuck themselves to paintings in museums and this week in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie on a conductor’s desk. Their goal is to draw public attention to the consequences of climate change and to call on politicians to take action. You have already received a lot of criticism for these actions. In a survey, 86 percent of those questioned considered the protests to be counterproductive.
