A journalist was followed and “brutally attacked” after a pro-Palestine protest addressed by climate wunderkind Greta Thunberg, reports state.
Greta Thunberg made a surprise appearance at a pro-Palestine protest in Leipzig, Germany, on Wednesday, speaking in support of Palestine and criticising Israel, another demonstration that the already-veteran child climate campaigner is speaking out on other left-wing issues. Yet the demonstration has made headlines for violence, with a journalist covering events attacked.
According to a statement by local television station Sachsen Fernsehen which had commissioned a freelance video journalist to cover the event the reporter and his assistant were “massively harassed by stewards and demonstrators from the anti-Israel demonstration” and then followed after the event as they tried to leave. Pursued to a tram stop, the pair were “first verbally attacked by three demonstrators, including a steward, and then brutally beaten”.
Per the statement, the beating continued even after the journalist had already fallen to the ground, with the attackers kicking him. Both of the men were hospitalised by the attack with injuries to the head. The perpetrators were said to be wearing “a Palestine scarf around their necks, and a black/white/green flag is said to have been visible”, and despite police responding by the time they arrived the attackers had already fled.
Police are investigating but no arrests have been made. The director of the television station made a statement on the attack, saying: “We condemn the attack in the strongest possible terms… Violence against journalists is absolutely unacceptable and threatens the fundamental values of press freedom. We wish our reporter and his companion a speedy recovery from their injuries”. The media union also condemned the attack.
German newspaper Die Welt reports recorded fragments of Thunberg’s pro-Gaza speech in Leipzig, given to an audience of “dozens” of listeners have surfaced. She is reported to have said that no one can remain silent “when a genocide is underway and people are being deprived of the most basic human needs.”
Thunberg’s Palestine activism may be less well-known than her climate campaigning, but she has spoken out on the subject several times. Thunberg appeared as a pro-Palestine protest in Stockholm, Sweden in November 2023 [pictured, top] and co-wrote an opinion on the conflict in the UK’s left-wing Guardian newspaper in December.
She wrote then of an Israeli “genocide” against the Gaza strip and complained “most of the world, particularly the so-called global north, is looking the other way”. Rejecting claims she and her comrades in the climate movement had been “radicalised” by Gaza, Thunberg said pushing politics was always the point of the movement. She wrote; “Contrary to what many have claimed, Fridays for Future has not “been radicalised” or “become political”. We have always been political, because we have always been a movement for justice. Standing in solidarity with Palestinians and all affected civilians has never been in question for us.