Blockade lasted ‘only a few minutes’, but succeeded in causing major disruption
Nine activists from the Climáximo movement were arrested today after temporarily blocking traffic on Lisbon’s Segunda Circular highway.
According to the movement, the nine young people were taken to Benfica police station, “where the collective is calling for a solidarity vigil until all the activists are released”.
The blockade lasted only a few minutes, but “the disruption to the road took around two hours”, says the movement’s statement reads, adding that two activists had hung themselves from a pedestrian bridge by cables and had to be removed by the PSP and firefighters.
Adopting measures in the same vein as Extinction Rebellion, it is interesting to see how much quicker authorities in Portugal have been than those in UK which frequently left activists to snarl up traffic for much longer periods of time – frustrating thousands of drivers.
The location for today’s action was “right in front of Galp’s headquarters, a company which the collective accuses of being one of the main culprits for ‘thousands of deaths and displacements’, writes Lusa.
Climáximo movement also accuses Portugal’s government and other companies of having declared war on all people and the planet, considering them to be “guilty of genocide”.
Videos and photos of the protest, which are circulating on social media, show protesters holding placards calling for an end to fossil fuels, with phrases such as: “They are destroying everything you love” or “Governments and companies have declared war on society and the planet”.
Source material: LUSA
