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Climate protection activists from the initiative are blocking access to the capital's BER airport.
Photo: Paul Zinken / dpa
After the interim blockade of Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) by climate activists on Thursday, politicians from several parties sharply criticized the protest action.
Blocking the capital's airport is "another escalation and absolutely unacceptable," wrote Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) on Twitter.
The deputy leader of the Union parties in the Bundestag, Andrea Lindholz (CSU), called for "consistent penalties" for disrupting flight operations.
"Protest actions of this kind are completely illegitimate and can no longer simply be accepted," said FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai to the news portal "t-online".
The "full severity of the rule of law" must take effect.
Djir-Sarai's party friend, the Berlin FDP leader Sebastian Czaja, spoke of "climate criminals".
His brother, CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja, said »t-online«: »The rule of law has the necessary instruments to defend itself against such crimes.
They must now be applied consistently: preventive detention, residence bans, fines.”
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AfD party and faction leader Tino Chrupalla called on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to become active in the case of the "last generation".
According to the federal police, two groups had gained access to the BER airport site on Thursday afternoon.
Some people glued themselves to the ground.
The »Last Generation« reported that some activists rode bicycles across the site.
The action was streamed live on Twitter.
Berlin Airport temporarily stopped operations on both runways.
According to the first information, five starts had to be canceled because of the action, according to the airport, 750 passengers were affected.
After the action, the police took several people into custody.
The police headquarters in Brandenburg announced in the evening that the climate activists would be charged with dangerous interference in air traffic, trespassing and property damage.
More information on the number of those arrested is expected on Friday.
"Counterproductive, overbearing and potentially dangerous"
The Berlin Greens state chairwoman Susanne Mertens emphasized on “t-online” that protests must rule out endangering other people.
"However, BER apparently has to revise its security concepts." Her party colleague Konstantin von Notz, deputy parliamentary group member in the Bundestag, criticized the action as "counterproductive, presumptuous and potentially dangerous".
Left leader Martin Schirdewan, on the other hand, defended the "last generation" whose protest "put a finger on the wound of political inaction in the face of the climate catastrophe".
In the past few weeks, the activists have repeatedly blocked road traffic, stuck themselves to paintings in museums and this week in Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie on a conductor's podium.
Their goal is to draw public attention to the consequences of climate change and to call on politicians to take action.
You have already received a lot of criticism for these actions.
In a survey, 86 percent of those questioned considered the protests to be counterproductive.
mfh/dpa/AFP
