Police on Tuesday began dismantling barricades and dragged away activists staging a sit-in protest against the expansion of an opencast lignite mine that has highlighted tensions over Germany's climate policy during an energy crisis.
The demonstrators, many wearing masks or balaclavas, have been protesting against the Garzweiler mine, run by energy firm RWE in the abandoned village of Luetzerath and is part of the brown-coal district of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
