Following the indictment of five members of Germany's Last Generation protest group, climate activists in Berlin have protested against the public prosecutor's decision and announced further actions.
"What we have done is right. I can only say: Keep going," Edmund Schultz, one of the defendants, said on Wednesday afternoon in Berlin.
Several alliances had called for a rally on Washingtonplatz, the square in front of Berlin's central train station, because the public prosecutor's office in the town of Neuruppin to the north-west of the city had brought charges against five members of the climate activist group on suspicion of forming a criminal organization.
The public prosecutor's office accuses the defendants of carrying out several attacks on facilities belonging to the PCK Schwedt oil refinery to the north-east of Berlin near the Polish border and an oil pipeline in the north-east of the state of Brandenburg and in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
They are also accused of actions at the capital's BER airport and the Barberini Museum in Potsdam just outside Berlin.
The defendants emphasized on Wednesday that they would not be deterred from protesting despite the expected trial at Potsdam District Court.
"They want to put us behind bars. We will stay loud," Henning Jeschke wrote on the social media platform X.
"Our government is acting criminally," was another message from the Last Generation group.
The lead candidate of the hard-left Die Linke (The Left) party for the European elections, climate and refugee activist Carola Rackete, also told dpa: "The activists are the wrong people in the dock."
She referred to the ruling by the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court according to which the German government must tighten its programme to combat climate change.
Last Generation is once again calling for a gathering on Washingtonplatz on Saturday at noon (1000 GMT). There are also actions planned for the cities of Erfurt, Karlsruhe and Bonn on Saturday.
With the rallies, Last Generation plans to increase pressure on the German government to take stronger action to combat the climate crisis.
The public prosecutor's office in the southern city of Munich has also been investigating five climate activists from Last Generation for over a year on suspicion of being members of a criminal organization and two others for providing support. The public prosecutor's office in the far northern city of Flensburg is also conducting a corresponding investigation.
