Climate activists attempted to block air traffic at eight different airports across Sweden, with several glueing themselves to a runway.
The protests took part at many of the country’s major airports on Sunday and saw at least 15 people belonging to the Extinction Rebellion climate change activist group being arrested by Swedish police as they made attempts to block aeroplanes.
Per Fahlström of the Stockholm police spoke to broadcaster SVT on the incident at Stockholm’s Bromma airport, saying: “Once there, we found two people in the area by the aircraft. They have been arrested and are suspected of airport sabotage. When we searched the area, we arrested two more people.”
At Växjö Airport a man and a woman were arrested after glueing their hands to the runway of the airport, a tactic that a woman and her daughter attempted to carry out at Malmo’s airport as well, but they were removed by police.
Both the Växjö and Bromma airports had to be closed due to the disruptions and planes to Bromma were diverted to Arlanda airport instead.
Aviation expert Jan Ohlsson commented on the protests, telling newspaper Aftonbladet that the actions we “totally reprehensible” and adding: “This affects third parties who are going home or to their workplaces.”
“This can have serious consequences for society. This has to be curbed very quickly,” Ohlsson added.
The protests are not the first time Extinction Rebellion climate activists have attempted to block air traffic in Sweden.
Last year in July, activists blocked an aeroplane at Ängelholm–Helsingborg Airport, getting on a runway in front of a SAS airlines flight and claimed the stunt was due to government bailouts of the airline.
“SAS flights blocked by rebels. No crisis packages for dirty industries! Activists physically block a domestic flight and demand that no taxpayers’ money will be spent on saving the aviation industry,” the group said in a statement.
The protests come as climate change activists in Insulate Britain, an Extinction Rebellion splinter group, have blocked traffic in various areas over the last several weeks as well, with one man glueing his face to a road last week to block traffic.