Halsema asks Extinction Rebellion to abandon plans for second blockade on A10

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema has made an urgent appeal to Extinction Rebellion, asking them to abandon their plans of blocking the A10 on Saturday. She wrote this in a letter addressed to the climate action group. The mayor says there are "substantial safety risks" linked to the demonstration. Extinction Rebellion is reporting that "everything is going as planned."

The group wants to block a part of the A10 motorway on Saturday by the old headquarters of the ING to protest against the bank's financial policy. Extinction Rebellion had already done the same on December 30. The demonstration was illegal, and almost 400 people involved were arrested. The second blockade is also forbidden, Halsema has announced.

The triangle (mayor, police, and Public Prosecution Service) offered the activists an alternative location to demonstrate just as they did on the first occasion—the grass field below a former ING building on the Amstelveenseweg. Extinction Rebellion did not use the location last time, and it does not look like they will this time either.

"No way! We are in a climate emergency, and in the meantime, ING continues with fossil financing. That goes beyond all limits and must stop. Considering nothing has helped so far, a next step is necessary," the climate action group responded to the letter from the mayor. "Unless ING announces that it will stop financing and providing services to the fossil industry, we will block the A10 on February 24 from noon."

The triangle claims that the demonstration brings "a concrete fear of disorder" as the road that they are targeting is a busy road with six lanes that has a speed limit of 100 kilometers an hour, "but also due to insufficient guarantees that emergency services will be allowed through to nearby hospital the UMC location VUmc unhindered."