STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was charged with disobeying a police order on Friday, less than two months after she was convicted and fined for the same offence.
Thunberg, 20, was fined 1,500 Swedish crowns ($134) by a Swedish court on July 24 for failing to leave a protest when ordered by police. Straight after the verdict, Thunberg and other activists from the environmental group Reclaim the Future blocked the road for oil trucks in Malmo harbour and were again forcibly removed by police.
“The demonstration did not have a permit and it led to the blocking of car traffic. The woman refused to obey the police command to leave the scene,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
Thunberg, who became the face of young climate activists worldwide after staging weekly protests in front of the Swedish parliament, could face a harsher sentence if convicted a second time. Failure to obey a police order carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison.
($1 = 11.1719 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander; editing by Miral Fahmy)
