Greta Thunberg Detained by Danish Police at Anti-Israel Protest

Danish police detained activist Greta Thunberg at a Copenhagen protest against the war in Gaza and Israel‘s presence in the West Bank on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the organizers of the demonstration said.

Thunberg was later released from detention, according to Danish media reports, and the daily Ekstra Bladet showed video footage of her walking out of a police station.

Six people had been detained at the Copenhagen University after about 20 people blocked the entrance to a building and three entered, a police spokesperson said without commenting on individual detainees.

Widely known for her campaign to end climate change, Swedish-born Thunberg has increasingly taken up the Palestinian cause and said in May such protests “should be everywhere.” She has received widespread criticism for attempting to insert opposition to Israel’s defensive war against Hamas in Gaza into the environmentalist movement’s agenda.

Video posted by Students Against the Occupation, a pro-Palestinian student group, showed uniformed police officers leading Thunberg and other detainees into a police van while handcuffed or with their hands tied behind their backs.

“We will not leave the site until the University of Copenhagen terminates cooperation with Israeli universities,” the group’s Instagram account said.

Thunberg wore a scarf around her shoulders imprinted with the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh pattern, a common symbol among anti-Israel demonstrators.

The Copenhagen University may take disciplinary action against enrolled students who took part in the protest, Kristian Cedervall Lauta, prorector of education at the university said in an email.

Thunberg — who has come under fire for expressing solidarity with “Palestine and Gaza” without denouncing Hamas or its Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel — is not a student at the university.