Activist Greta Thunberg Detained At London Climate Protest

The Swedish climate activist had joined other activists outside the InterContinental Hotel on Park Lane, where oil executives were meeting.

Activist Greta Thunberg

Source : Getty Images

Climate activist Greta Thunberg was detained by police in London after she addressed protesters at a demonstration against oil and gas companies in the centre of the city, news agency AFP reported. Greta Thunberg has been arrested or removed from protests in Sweden, Norway, and Germany this year.

After staging weekly protests in front of the Swedish parliament in 2018, she became the face of young climate activists worldwide.

#BREAKING Police detain activist Greta Thunberg at London climate protest: AFP photographer pic.twitter.com/Y9Iajl50qq

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) October 17, 2023

Greta Thunberg was seen standing calmly as two police officers spoke to her while wearing a 'Oily Money Out' badge. According to Reuters, one of them was seen holding her arm.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace said two of its activists scaled the Intercontinental Hotel in Mayfair and unfurled a massive banner over its entrance reading 'Make Big Oil Pay' in protest of an oil and gas leaders' meeting inside the building, Reuters reported. 

Hundreds of demonstrators had gathered in front of the venue to protest the fossil fuel industry's influence on the UK, according to the group.

Thunberg was fined again last week by a Swedish court for disobeying police during an environmental protest in southern Sweden in July, according to the news agency AP.

The Malmo District Court ordered her to pay a 2,250 kroner ($206/Rs17,150 approx) fine. Thunberg, who had previously been fined for a similar offence, participated in an environmental protest on July 24 at an oil terminal in Malmo, where activists temporarily blocked access to the facility by sitting down and were removed by police.

On September 15, she was charged with defying law enforcement by refusing to leave the scene when officers asked her to. According to the report, she was then dragged away by two uniformed officers.

Thunberg, 20, has admitted to the facts but denied guilt, claiming that the fight against the fossil fuel industry was a form of self-defense in response to the existential and global threat posed by the climate crisis.