Climate activist Greta Thunberg is being charged by Swedish authorities for disobeying police following her refusal to leave a protest blocking oil tankers from entering a port.
Thunberg, 20, was arrested on June 19 along with several other insubordinate protestors after she “refused to obey the police command to leave the scene” of a climate change protest, according to a statement by Swedish prosecutors, per CNN. The report initially did not confirm that Thunberg was the woman in question, but Swedish Prosecution Authority spokeswoman Annika Collin later verified her identity. The protest was centered on the oil terminal of the port of Malmö, Sweden, with activists stopping all oil tankers for six days straight, according to the New York Post.
“You have the freedom to demonstrate, but you must not demonstrate in such a way that it causes disturbances for others,” Swedish prosecutor Charlotte Ottosen said, according to local Swedish news outlet Sydsvenskan.
Thunberg boasted in an Instagram post during the protest, “Today, for the third day in a row, young activists from @tatillbakaframtiden have blocked oil tankers in the Malmö oil harbour. The climate crisis is already a matter of life and death for countless people. We choose to not be bystanders, and instead physically stop the fossil fuel infrastructure. We are reclaiming the future.”
The crime Thunberg is charged with could result in as much as six months in jail or just a fine, with the AP reporting the latter as the more likely outcome. Thunberg is scheduled to appear in court along with three other protestors on July 24 to answer the disobedience charge.
Thunberg became famous in 2018 for viral tirades berating world leaders for failing to act on the “climate emergency.” Her most famous speech in front of the United Nations laments that the leaders of the world have “stolen my childhood and my dreams with your empty words.”
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