14 Greenpeace Belgium Activists Have Been Detained For Over 24 Hours

30 April, Brussels - 14 Greenpeace Belgium activists who were arrested yesterday during an action at the Fluxys gas terminal in Zeebrugge are still being held. Since being detained, they have already had to spend a night in prison. Greenpeace Belgium is working for their release and calls for protecting the rights of environmental defenders.

"It's not our activists, but gas companies like Fluxys who are the criminals in this story," says Valerie Del Re, director of Greenpeace Belgium. "They continue to invest in new fossil gas infrastructure, which is a disaster for human rights and for the climate. It is impossible to understand why environmental activists would be detained for so long.”

Yesterday, climbers and kayakers from Greenpeace Belgium occupied the Fluxys gas terminal in Zeebrugge for six hours. The action was meant to raise awareness of the role of gas operators such as Fluxys, in the massive increase in US liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports to Europe, to the detriment of climate objectives and human rights. Greenpeace calls for all new gas infrastructure to be stopped and for a European plan to phase out gas by 2035.

Valerie Del Re added: “Our non-violent actions of civil disobedience always follow the rule of do-no-harm. They are a legitimate means of opposing practices that threaten all of us. We applaud the courage of our activists and we are doing all we can to help them in these difficult times.”

As shown in the Greenpeace International report “Who Profits From War,” in 2022 European imports of US LNG increased by 140%. [1] The US and the EU must respectively double their LNG export and import capacity, while the impact of LNG on the climate remains much higher than that of piped gas. [2] Currently, 8 LNG terminals are under construction in the EU and plans to build 38 more are on the table. If all these come to light, they would be responsible for the emission of 950 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year, which is equivalent to almost a third of EU emissions in 2019.

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