Norwegian police arrested Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg on Wednesday during a demonstration in Oslo (Norway) against the construction of wind turbines in Norwegian Laplandwhich are complicating the work of reindeer herdersaccording to an eyewitness told Reuters.
The arrest occurred during the mobilizations that are taking place this week indigenous campaigners and other activists. Protesters are demanding the removal of wind turbines from reindeer pastures in Norway and have blocked access to several government buildings in recent days.
Thunberg and others who blocked one of the doors of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance they were picked up by police officers and taken out of the area while other protesters chanted slogans. While this was happening, the protesters chanted “let the mountains live“.
Greta Thunberg at the time of her arrest.
The Norwegian Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that two wind farms built in Fosen, in the center of the country, they violated the rights of the Sami under international conventions, but the turbines are still in operation more than 16 months later.
“No doubt. Turbines are illegalso sooner or later they have to go off,” Fosen reindeer herding district leader Terje Haugen told Reuters after meeting the country’s energy minister, who visited the wind farms on Friday.
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Reindeer herders in the Nordic country say the sight and sound of giant wind turbines scare their animals and therefore they break old traditions.
However, the turbines are still running and the government is trying to resolve what it has described as a complex legal and political dilemma.
The activists refused last night to meet with the Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Terje Aasland, and demanded to do it instead with the Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre. “We do not accept more empty words in the process. We have two demands: the wind turbines must be removed and the grazing lands must be returned,” the NSR, which brings together various Sami groups, said in a statement.
The activists stressed that the Government has had 505 days to comply with the sentence and that they have lost confidence in him, so it must be the prime minister who solves the problem.
Due to protests, Aasland today called off a trip to the UK to take part in a visit with the Crown Princes Haakon and Mette-Marit.
