Even after the eviction of the lignite village of Lützerath, climate protection activists are not letting up: The party headquarters of the Greens, who are co-governing in North Rhine-Westphalia, remains a popular place for their protests - even for monks in disguise.
Dusseldorf (dpa / lnw) - The party headquarters of the North Rhine-Westphalian Greens should again be the target of climate protection activists on Ash Wednesday. About 15 activists in monk costumes want to talk the Greens into conscience, as the initiators announced on Tuesday. The reason for the protest was the initiation of criminal proceedings against the occupiers of the party headquarters, it said. A cabaret artist in monk's disguise from the Düsseldorfer Kommödchen even wanted to hear the confession from the Greens, who are co-governing in North Rhine-Westphalia.
However, that might be difficult. "We are on political Ash Wednesday in Cologne," said party spokesman Martin Lechtape when asked by the German Press Agency. The chairmen of the state and federal parties, Tim Achtermeyer and Omid Nouripour, want to speak there.
In January, around 30 climate protection activists occupied the party office of the Greens in North Rhine-Westphalia to protest against the eviction of the village of Lützerath in the Rhenish lignite mining area. After ten hours, the police had ended the occupation. A few days earlier, activists had unloaded 250 kilos of lignite briquettes in front of party headquarters.
Since the protesters did not leave the building voluntarily, the party had to enforce its house rules and file a criminal complaint, Lechtape confirmed on Tuesday. According to the environmental activists, there had been investigations into trespassing against twelve participants after the occupation. The Green Party's criminal complaint relates to all of the dozen or so people who were still present at the time, the party spokesman confirmed.
Whether there were also members of the Greens among the occupiers was not ascertained, according to an answer published on Tuesday by NRW Energy Minister Mona Neubaur (Greens) to an AfD request on the subject.
Rilana Krick from the "Lützerath Unräumbar" alliance criticized that the party now wants to take climate activists to court. "It seems that after the police escalation and the evacuation of Lützerath, the Greens themselves are not too embarrassed about the prosecution against us." Dressed in monk's costume, the former squatters now want to urge the authorities to withdraw the criminal complaint and stop the proceedings.
During the action last month, the alliance had called for a moratorium on the Lützerath evacuation, which had long since been completed, and wanted to negotiate with Neubaur personally. She did not follow this request. According to the party spokesman, however, there had been several offers of talks that had not been accepted.
When asked by AfD MP Markus Wagner whether Neubaur was considering entering into negotiations with "climate extremists", the minister replied: "I have not received any requests for talks in this regard."
In a WDR interview, the Greens said after the occupation: "It doesn't leave me cold. To see how people who stand up for climate protection don't see what we were able to achieve as a success."
