Pics from the Policestation
Pics from blockade
Press release – action declaration yet to be translated

In the night from Saturday to Sunday at about 00:30 am, activists of the anti-coal-movement have occupied an excavator inside the opencast-mine Inden. One person is locked on, three others have climbed the digger with harnesses. A banner reading “Lignite kills. Everywhere.” was dropped.

“The deadlock of the excavator, which is one of the centrepieces of RWE, means a massive intervention in the smooth running of the corporation. Thereby we deliberately disturb the continued exploitation of a source of energy which entire ecosystems fall victim to”, says Konny L. (name changed). “Due to the expansion of the pit people are displaced and dispossessed. At the Hambach mine, an old forest is being cut down, which was since the beginning of the Middle Ages in citizens‘ hands – if a forest can ever belong to someone – and was ever since managed relatively sustainable. Now RWE has bought it, with the sole purpose of utterly destroying it for the profits from coal mining.” However, it is not only the regional consequences that promt the activist into action. Konny L. illustrates: “The global warming caused by lignite combustion leads to droughts, floods, epidemics, etc. These cost hundreds of thousands of lives and force countless people to flee. ”
From the activists‘ perspective, active resistance against a profit-oriented business model is the only way to effectively counteract these problems in order to “end this catastrophe that will sooner or later be felt fiercely worldwide. Those who only think of their own interests or believe in governments and business to do the job, will in the long run destroy their own and future generations‘ livelihoods.”

The occupants have announced to block the work of the excavator for as long as the eviction by the police will take. The occupation is still ongoing.