Protest against highway expansion
Police complete eviction in the Fechenheimer forest
01/20/2023, 2:28 p.m
Since September 2021, activists have been occupying the Fechenheim forest to prevent the area from being deforested for the expansion of the A66. Within a few days, the police cleared the demonstrators’ tree houses. Several preliminary arrests were made.
The clearing of the Fechenheimer forest by the police, which was occupied by activists in protest against a motorway expansion, ended after two and a half days. According to a spokesman for the emergency services, the last remaining tree houses and other structures were cleared. All people were brought “safely” to the ground. The clearing caused traffic delays again, and Autobahn 66 was closed again.
Some activists lived in the tree houses.
(Photo: picture alliance/dpa)
According to the spokesman, the operation in the forest was not over yet, and there were further police measures in the area. There is also a vigil on the site where clearing work has already begun.
The forest is to be cut down for a controversial expansion of Autobahn 66, and the construction project has been protested for years. Activists have been occupying the forest since September 2021, some of them living there in tree houses. The eviction began Wednesday morning. At the beginning of the operation, the police spoke of around 30 activists, some of whom were at a great height.
Police take seven people into custody
By Thursday evening, the police said they had already cleared more than half of the tree houses and structures built by demonstrators in the forest, including a so-called “Skypod” about 40 meters high. According to this, seven people were taken into custody by then, five of whom were provisionally arrested. According to the police, it was about allegations such as resistance and trespassing as well as missing personal details.
Around two and a half hectares of forest have to be cleared to close the gap on the A66 between Hanau and Frankfurt. For the sections in the area of the Fechenheim Forest, building rights have been in place for years. Around a thousand trees are to be felled, and the expansion should be completed in 2031.