“I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, 'cause you guys paid for all this. So seriously, for every Amazon customer out there, and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart, very much. It’s very appreciated.”

~ Jeff Bezos, July 2021, as he departs for space tourism

Windows 2.1 in a VM on Linux viewed over Spice in an SSH-forwarded X11 session running on WSL2 with XWayland forwarded over RDP to a Windows 11 desktop: https://deskto.ps/u/sjmulder/d/fztjse

With fossil giants continuing to endanger our very civilisation and governments cracking down on not them but on non-violent activists, what are they expecting to happen next?

Here’s the full press release in Dutch: https://extinctionrebellion.nl/en/extinction-rebellion-spant-kort-geding-aan-tegen-nederlandse-staat-inzet-waterkanon-per-direct-verbieden/

This blockade isn’t preventing any of that, there are small diversions. A mild inconvenience at worst.

Roads are regularly closed for events (which do not enjoy constitutional protection as a human right, as protests do) and roadworks.

Finally the other ways are being done. There was a simultaneous protest on a field nearby. There are regular marches, die-ins, sit-ins - you name it, it’s being done.

Thanks for correcting on the 70/h bit, wasn’t aware.

Location is Utrechtsebaan right between Parliament and the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate.

People don’t just jump in traffic. The municipality makes sure traffic is diverted, just like other protests or events.

No people were charged for the protest itself (art 11 WOM). The community service convictions were for incitement. A small handful of people get charged with vandalism (usually placing stickers or such), resisting arrest, etc.

The prosecution office has a FAQ on why people aren’t getting charged for the blockade itself, it explains that judges won’t convict (as I mentioned): https://www.om.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/05/28/waarom-de-meeste-a12-activisten-niet-worden-vervolgd

And of course it has to do with the right to protest. It is a protest. The mass arrests are under protest law, not criminal law. The prosecutor doesn’t charge because it’s a peaceful protest.

From your description I wonder if your conception of the protest matches what’s happening there - that notion of jumping into traffic on an actual highway. That’s not what’s happening now.

Protests are allowed and expected to cause inconvenience, protestors are under no obligation to minimise inconvenience, and inconvenience is not legal ground for a mayor to limit or ban a protest.

It’s the mayor’s choice to mass arrest people and send in water cannons. He could have facilitated the protes, in fact the the government is by law obligated to attempt to facilitate protests in the way the protestors intend to have them.

It’s telling that the prosecutor doesn’t even attempt to charge those arrested - they write on their own website that judges have ruled these protests to be peaceful and orderly.

Be aware that street blockade are not, as a rule, categorically excluded as a valid way of protesting and that this stretch to road is not in fact a highway - a sign says a much and the speed limit is 50km/h. There are traffic lights at both ends and detours are just a few 100 meters.

Furthermore the public prosecutor doesn’t charge the protestors because judges have ruled repeatedly that these are peaceful and orderly protests and hence people are acquitted or not sentenced.

Everyone was arrested in this case. A judge ruled the use of ‘burgerlijke verplaatsing’ which you describe as unlawful here after the Zuidas action. Now when they put people in buses, a prosecutor comes into the bus, formally arrests everyone, and then formally releases them pending further investigation.

I think it’s a farcical ‘arrest’ and completely goes against the judge’s verdict but that’s how it happens now.

Please no, Timmermans had his heart into it and got a lot done, Hoekstra however is a Shell alumnus and he nor his party has ever shown any serious concern for the climate catastrophe we’re in.