A British judge decided, Friday, February 2, to drop the charges against environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who appeared in London for disturbing public order during a demonstration against the hydrocarbon industry last October, in the British capital.
On the second day of this trial, the judge at Westminster Magistrates Court found that the police officers responsible for securing the demonstration had imposed “unlawful” conditions and had not been sufficiently precise in addressing their instructions to the 21-year-old Swede, who was on trial with four other demonstrators.
In total, twenty-six activists were arrested on October 17 for disrupting access to the Energy Intelligence Forum, a conference which brought together the main oil and gas companies in a luxury hotel in the British capital.
Unreasonable conditions
The young activist was prosecuted for not having complied with the injunction of the London police not to block access to the hotel in which this rally took place. But the conditions of the protest were “unreasonably imposed” by police on activists at the scene, and other measures “were available and could have been put in place”, Judge John Law said . Therefore, “anyone who has not complied with these rules has not committed an offense,” he added.
During a previous hearing in November, Greta Thunberg pleaded not guilty, like the four other activists who appeared with her. She faced a maximum fine of 2,500 pounds (nearly 3,000 euros). In October, it was also fined for blocking the port of Malmö in Sweden. On January 29, she took part in a march in the south of England against the expansion of Farnborough Airport, which is mainly used by private jets.