Nearly a year after protestors were met with armed police resistance in Amsweer after blocking a gas facility, members of the climate justice activist group Code Rood have once again set up camp to occupy the site.
A small group of seven Code Rood Groningen members set up tents and banners at the perimeter of a NAM gas facility in Amsweer in the province of Groningen on Monday night. RTV Noord reports that the group members were planning for the Amsweer site to be a one night gesture: a member told the regional broadcaster that the members would move on to Loppersum on Tuesday, where the group intends to set up a central location for organising other small events throughout the week.
According to Dagblad van het Noorden, the group chose to return to Amsweer because of the clashes between police and protestors which occurred there last year. In late August of 2018, around 150 Dutch and foreign marched to the NAM industrial site in the town of Amsweer to protest ongoing gas extraction activities. Police struck several protestors with batons at the location, and a similarly violent scene played out at a NAM tank park in Farmsum earlier in the week.
A Facebook event created by Code Rood Groningen for a week of protest activities in the province emphasises the importance of civil disobedience “from Groningen for Groningen” and explains that the group intends to carry out a range of activities throughout the week instead of a single, large blockade like they did last year.
The group’s aims are drawing attention to the “procedural injustice” of repairs operations and damage claims; destruction of tangible heritage, “our living environment” and social cohesion of local communities; and intangible damage of physical and mental distress experienced by residents living in the earthquake region.
The Dagbladreports that the group is considering protesting at a number of locations in the city of Groningen on Wednesday, either at the Gasunie or Gasterra buildings or at four different Shell petrol stations. The group also briefly blocked the Gasunie building in Groningen in May following a 3.4 magnitude earthquake in Westerwijtwerd.
Photo source: Code Rood
