At least four climate activists were detained this Thursday during a protest blocking the entrances to a complex next to the Tagus River in Algés, where the Council of Ministers was supposed to be present, as Lusa discovered at the scene.
“They are repressing us again,” Beatriz Xavier of the collective Greve Climatica Estudantil de Lisboa told Lusa.
A special unit of the Public Security Police had to reinforce its presence in front of the main entrance to the building. Meanwhile, Avenida Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho, located next to the roundabout leading to the main entrance to the facilities in Alges (municipality of Oeiras, Lisbon district), was blocked by special unit vehicles.
“We are blocking all entrances where the Council of Ministers will be held. We are glued to the gates, and in other cases we use iron pipes,” Beatriz Xavier, a representative of the Greve Climática Estudantil collective, told Luse at the scene.
“It is unacceptable that governments do not put the climate crisis at the center of discussions in meetings. Humanity has recorded its hottest months on record, and they are set to get even more intense. We already knew this when we started the first protests in 2019,” he added.
The meeting of the Council of Ministers was scheduled for 9:30 am.