Staging or just following procedures? On the sidelines of a demonstration against the expansion of a coal mine in western Germany on Tuesday, environmental activist Greta Thunberg was detained and taken into police custody for a few hours before being detained for release.
Since then, on social networks, several Internet users have been surprised by a video sequence that shows the seconds before the arrest of the young woman, escorted by two police officers.
In this thirty-second video, Greta Thunberg is immobile, smiling, in the middle of the two blue helmets that seem to be waiting for a signal to finally escort the activist. Several people then denounced a manipulation and an illegal detention, organized for the cameras with extras.
Justified expectation
An accusation that sweeps, together with the BBC, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. “We will never lend ourselves to such recordings,” he assures, denying the staging by the police.
However, several witnesses assured the British media that they had actually attended the scene during which the young woman had to wait with the two agents. Faced with these questions, the spokesman assures that these moments of waiting were actually due to logistical concerns.
“They had to wait a few minutes before they could take him to a certain police car,” he says, pointing to a “practical and banal” reason.
A hypothesis confirmed by a journalist present at the scene at the time of the arrest, also contacted by the BBC. The police “decided how they would proceed with the identity check and waited to take Greta to the police vehicle,” he said.
On Tuesday, Greta Thunberg and thousands of activists turned out in Lützerath, western Germany, to demonstrate against the extension of the Garzweiler mine to this town. To deal with the energy crisis, particularly in the context of the war in Ukraine, Berlin is bound to return to coal mining.
Source: BFM TV
