Dutch police said Saturday night they had made more than 1,500 arrests during an action by the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion in The Hague, Netherlands, to protest state subsidies for fossil fuels.

"A total of 1,579 people were arrested, 40 of whom will be prosecuted," including for vandalism and insult, said police, who used water cannons to disperse activists blocking a major road in the city.

One of the activists bit a police officer during his arrest, police said.

Activists blocked the Utrechtsebaan section of the A12 motorway in central The Hague during the afternoon.

It was the seventh action organised by Extinction Rebellion on this stretch, but never before had so many people been arrested, according to Dutch news agency ANP.

Several Dutch celebrities participated in these actions.

On Saturday, actress Carice Van Houten, 46, best known for her role as Melisandre in the series "Game of Thrones", was part of the group of activists.

In a video she posted on the social network, we see the actress, who plays the character of Melisandre in "Game of Thrones", dressed in a red poncho, wet by water cannons.

The 46-year-old actress, who had previously indicated her presence at the scene on her Instagram account, "was taken away" in one of the buses chartered to evacuate the arrested individuals, Dutch news agency ANP reported. According to her agent, she was able to return home in the evening, the ANP reported.

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Increasingly harsh repression

A similar action on March 11 led to the arrest of nearly 700 activists, according to the same source.

"We come back every month, or every two months, and every time the number of protesters doubles," said Aaron Pereira, 31, spokesman for Extinction Rebellion.

"There is broad popular support for real climate action and people are realizing that the government is actively opposing it by subsidizing the fossil fuel industry," he told AFP.

"The blocking of a road like this has been recognised by the European Court of Human Rights as a legitimate form of protest," he added.

The Brussels police have just been ordered to compensate twelve Extinction Rebellion activists arrested, then handcuffed at the end of 2019 during a collage of posters, before being subjected to strip searches in cells.

At the same time, Germany has cracked down on the environmentalists' punchy actions. German police on Wednesday carried out a vast operation against the radical environmental movement "Last Generation", author of several controversial civil disobedience actions and which called in response to "protest marches".

At the end of April, two activists from the environmental organisation Just Stop Oil were sentenced to up to three years in prison for blocking a major road near London, which is exceptionally severe in the UK for this type of action.

With AFP

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