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Lützerath in NRW: The fight in pictures

2023-01-11T11:02:22.719Z


The place is the symbol of the conflict between climate activists and lignite advocates: The police want to clear Lützerath in North Rhine-Westphalia in these hours. But she encounters resistance.


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"Lützerath remains": The former residents left the small town in North Rhine-Westphalia a long time ago.

RWE relocated them to dig up the treasure buried under Lützerath: masses of lignite.

Since then, activists have occupied the place.

Lützerath has become a symbol of the climate activists' fight against lignite mining.

Photo: Thomas Banneyer / dpa

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Before the evacuation began, RWE employees made their way to Lützerath under police protection.

Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa

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Burning barricades made progress difficult.

Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa

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The activists, dressed in white protective suits, had previously erected them from straw bales.

Photo: Thomas Banneyer / dpa

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A yellow banner hangs on one of the farms in Lützerath, which reads: "1.5 degrees means: Lützerath stays!" If the place falls, we will miss the Paris climate goals - that is the narrative of the activists.

Politicians counter this: Germany needs the coal from Lützerath as long as the Ukraine war continues and gas supplies from Russia are restricted.

Photo: Thomas Banneyer / dpa

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The activist Zora Fotidou is one of the squatters of Lützerath.

She has lived here "from time to time" for two years, she told SPIEGEL.

For weeks she prepared for the eviction with action training.

"It's not my plan to leave Lützerath on foot," says Fotidou.

Photo: David Klammer / DER SPIEGEL

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On Tuesday, January 10th, the time has come: The police begin to clear the first barricades around Lützerath.

Photo: David Klammer / DER SPIEGEL

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Some of the demonstrators dug themselves into the ground.

Photo: David Klammer / DER SPIEGEL

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The next day, the large contingent follows: the police move in with hundreds of emergency services.

Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa

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"It's going to be a mud fight," says a SPIEGEL reporter on site: At around 7:15 a.m., when the evacuation began, it was pouring rain.

Photo: Lukas Eberle / DER SPIEGEL

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At dawn, a person hangs in a large yellow cross at the entrance to Lützerath.

Photo: Lukas Eberle / DER SPIEGEL

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Once again, the climate activists blocked the way for the approaching police.

Photo: Tobias Großekemper / DER SPIEGEL

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An activist apparently throws a rocket battery in the direction of the emergency services.

Photo: David Klammer / DER SPIEGEL

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On barricades made of throwing stones, one of the activists plays the ukulele, "Imagine" by the Beatles.

Photo: Tobias Großekemper / DER SPIEGEL

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Some of the erected barricades are massive.

The administrative court in Aachen has so far rejected all urgent applications by the activists against the ban on staying in the brown coal town of Lützerath.

As in the previous week, the court classified the corresponding general decree of the Heinsberg district as “probably lawful”, as the court announced.

The legal basis is police and regulatory law.

Photo: Lukas Eberle / DER SPIEGEL

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The emergency services quickly advance to the site.

They later accuse activists of having stones, bottles and Molotov cocktails thrown at them.

Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa

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Activists, in turn, report inappropriate violence by the police.

Despite the police's request to leave Lützerath, they want to continue to occupy the village.

"People are determined to persevere, to protect the trees and the buildings," said a spokeswoman for the "Lützerath Lives" initiative.

Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2023-01-11

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