Greta Thunberg — the internationally famous climate change activist who was awarded Time Magazine "Person of the Year" in 2019 —was arrested on Wednesday after Swedish law enforcement officials charged her with disobeying their orders. Prosecutors in Sweden allege that Thunberg and other activists stopped traffic at an oil terminal in the port in Malmö on June 19, according to the local newspaper Sydsvenskan. After the police instructed the protesters to stop what they were doing, authorities claim, a "young woman" and others "refused to comply with police orders to leave the scene." Swedish Prosecution Authority spokeswoman Annika Collin later confirmed that the "young woman" described in the report was Thunberg. Sydsvenskan claims that Thunberg, will be called to trial at the end of July. If she is found guilty, prosecutor Charlotte Ottosen told Sydsvenskan that the punishment for her crime would most likely be fines.
This is not the first time the 20-year-old activist has had a brush with law enforcement in response to protesting for the planet. Earlier this year, she was detained by German police while protesting a coal mine expansion in Lützerath, a west German village which was slated to be cleared and demolished to make way for the nearby Garzweiler coal mine, as reported by NPR.
Thunberg has emerged as a polarizing figure in global politics, with detractors attacking her for her autism, temperament and in general for being a woman. She has consistently argued that her goal is to protect Earth for her generation and future generations from man-made climate change. The science, as she repeatedly and correctly points out, proves that carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are trapping heat and unnaturally warming the planet.
