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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Josh Salisbury

Man grabs Greta Thunberg's microphone after pro-Palestinian chants at climate rally in Amsterdam

A stage invader briefly interrupted a speech by climate activist Greta Thunberg in Amsterdam on Sunday after she invited Palestinian and Afghan women to speak.

Ms Thunberg, 20, was speaking to a crowd of tens of thousands when she invited the women on to the stage.

“As a climate justice movement, we have to listen to the voices of those who are being oppressed and those who are fighting for freedom and for justice,” she said.

But after the women spoke and Ms Thunberg resumed her speech, a man went on to the stage and grabbed her microphone.

The man, whose identity was not clear, told her: “I have come here for a climate demonstration, not a political view," before he was ushered off.

After Thunberg got the microphone back, she chanted “No climate justice on occupied land" repeatedly, videos posted on social media showed.

Before the green activist took the stage, the event was briefly interrupted as a small group of pro-Palestinian activists in the crowd, who waved flags and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.

The incident came after tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Amsterdam calling for more action to tackle climate change, in a mass protest just 10 days before a national election.

Organisers claimed that 70,000 people took part in the march and called it the biggest climate protest in the Netherlands.

Ms Thunberg was among those walking through the heart of the Dutch capital.

Political leaders including Frans Timmermans, who now leads a centre-left, two-party group in the election campaign, later addressed the crowd in a square behind the landmark Rijksmuseum.

Some protesters wore scuba diving gear as a reference to rising sea levels and many carried signs reading “Cut the crap, scale emissions back!” as part of the protest.

The Netherlands heads to the polls on November 22, with the election campaign so far dominated by discussions on migration and the rising cost of living.

Mr Timmermans' coalition is currently polling in third place, behind two conservative parties who put more emphasis on the need to limit migration.

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