LAccording to an internal note from the Berlin fire department, the climate protest by the group “Last Generation” had no impact on the treatment of the 44-year-old woman, who got under a cement mixer on Monday morning and died in hospital on Thursday evening. This is reported by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Accordingly, the emergency doctor who looked after the cyclist at the scene of the accident was not hampered by the traffic jam. A so-called rescue vehicle from the fire brigade, with which the concrete mixer could have been lifted, would have been stuck, but the emergency doctor decided at the scene of the accident against having the concrete mixer lifted. Instead, the emergency doctor wanted the vehicle to roll under its own power, according to the report cited, because this would have been faster than lifting it.
Public criticism of the group intensified after the rescue operation after a bicycle accident in Berlin was delayed by a few minutes due to a traffic jam caused by the “last generation”, according to research by the Berlin “Tagesspiegel”. The Berlin police filed criminal charges against two climate activists for, among other things, failure to provide assistance.
The climate activists of the group “Last Generation” criticize a “wave of allegations, untruths and hate speech” against themselves. In a statement by the group, which the magazine has received, they accuse the media of not reporting objectively. It is shocking that “the simplest principles in a democracy – such as neutral, fact-based reporting” cannot be relied on.
Since the beginning of the year, members of the “Last Generation” have repeatedly blocked roads and freeway accesses by sticking themselves to the tarmac or abseiling from bridges to draw attention to the climate catastrophe. Most recently, activists stuck themselves to works of art in several museums and poured food like mashed potatoes on valuable pictures.
“Last Generation” wants to continue protests
“Let’s not misunderstand each other: It’s terrible that the cyclist had an accident on the road. We are dismayed and in mourning,” the statement said. “But it’s time to draw a line.”
“We knew that something was going to hit us. We knew we would make many enemies,” the statement said. “We did not expect that an entire media system would turn against us.” The group does not consider the reporting about itself to be objective. “Is it comprehensible that a media landscape, which takes up the cause of enlightening society, fictitiously exaggerates a situation in this form and thus delegitimizes democratic protest in a crisis situation?” the group asked in the letter.
The “Last Generation” also announced that they wanted to continue their protests: “Whatever public hate speech we may face as people will not prevent us from doing the only morally right thing: not to remain in an all-important crisis, but to go.”
The DJV rejected the activists’ criticism of the media. “I don’t see any agitation in the reporting,” said spokesman Hendrik Zörner of the AFP news agency. The last generation had to put up with the fact that the accident was reported in the media. It is not surprising that there is now a “critical commentary” on the protests in both the traditional and social media. Because the accident is an “event that polarizes”.
Berlin’s governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) said after the news of the cyclist’s death that it was “the task of the police and the courts to clarify the circumstances of her death quickly and carefully”.
The Last Generation has been criticized for its protests by politicians from various parties. The circumstances of the Berlin accident must be “completely clarified”, demanded the Green politician Anton Hofreiter in the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. Even protests against the climate crisis should not endanger other people’s lives. “Forms of protest that endanger people are wrong,” said Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
“The end does not justify the means,” said the parliamentary director of the FDP in the Bundestag, Stephan Thomae, the newspaper. If climate protection is made absolute, then at some point everything is allowed for the climate. Therefore, this case should not remain without consequences. “The rule of law must not grant a discount.”
The Fridays for Future activist Luisa Neubauer is also critical of the actions of the last generation. Civil disobedience stands and falls with the word civil, she said in the ZDF “heute journal”. “It’s non-violent and people shouldn’t be endangered.” The current situation makes the climate movement think about “reviewing our own security concepts”.
