Police Bicycle Chase at Schiphol

Climate activists staged a protest at Amsterdam Schiphol airport on Saturday that resulted in a police bicycle chase.

The protest involved around 500 people from Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion at Schiphol East, where private jets take off and land. About 1pm some protestors climbed over the fences using ladders, and others pushed through the fences. Around 200 of them successfully made it onto the airfield.

They sat under the private planes to prevent them from being moved. Some people chained themselves to planes.

Other protestors cycled around the airfield.

It was joyful to see the innocent fun of riding a bicycle being used as part of a climate protest, but that was tarnished by the thuggish behaviour of the Dutch Marechausse, or military police.

Greenpeace said it was shocked by the unnecessary violence by the police. One person sustained a head injury as a result of being arrested violently.

A spokesperson for the European Business Aviation Association, Roman Kok, said the action was unacceptable because the pilot of a medical flight decided not to take off. Where is Mr Kok’s concern for the 33 million victims of global heating-induced flooding in Pakistan, you have to wonder?

Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion said they had been in close contact with the airport authorities all day so that vital flights were not disrupted, and Schiphol confirmed that.

The protest began in the morning on Schiphol Plaza, and had been notified to and authorised by the local authority. It moved on to the construction site of a new Schiphol terminal.

Private jets were the next target because they are the most polluting form of aviation.

By Sunday evening, all the protestors who had been arrested were freed.