Greta Thunberg detained at German coal mine protest in 2023

"Everything is a show. Everything is a performance", says the description of a video posted on Instagram on November 10, 2025 that has been viewed over sixty thousand times so far. In the video, Greta Thunberg appears to be held by police officers and smiles as they escort her. The same video was also posted on the user's Facebook profile.

Many users appear to believe the claims are true. One of the comments reads; "It's terrible how many followers she has, everyone believes her… Ugh," while another commented; "Fake to me from the very beginning, this doesn't surprise me." AFP has fact-checked this account in the past for inaccurate and misleading claims.

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Screenshot of an inaccurate Instagram post from November 10, 2025. Orange Cross added by AFP.

Video is from a 2023 protest in Germany

In the 27-second video, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg stands in a field, surrounded by police officers on both sides. At the end of the clip, she is seen being escorted off the field by police. The profile that posted the video claims that the entire event was staged for the public. 

AFP first used a reverse image search to trace the origin of the footage. We used InVID WeVerify to make keyframes, so a key moment of the video can be selected and searched on Google Lense, allowing visually similar images to be found and the context to be identified.

Videos and articles from sources such as The Guardian and BBC were located through a reverse image search. AFP also published a video of Greta Thunberg at the protest on January 18, 2023, on YouTube. The scene from these videos is different from the one shown in the videos making the false claim. They show Thunberg being carried away by several police officers during a protest in the German village of Lützerath (archived here). 

With a keyword search, AFP found more videos on YouTube. Several clips show Thunberg being detained, including one from The Independent, which depicts the same scene in which she was carried away, filmed from a different angle (archived here). The same event was also shared by DW News on their X profile on January 17, 2023, which described that, according to the German police, Thunberg and other protesters ran towards the edge of an open-pit coal mine before being stopped and removed from the immediate danger zone (archived here). 

The police confirmed the arrest

The protest was reported to have taken place in January 2023 in the German village of Lützerath in North Rhine-Westphalia, where activists demonstrated against the demolition of the village to expand a coal mine. Riot police, supported by bulldozers, were deployed to remove activists from buildings and other structures in the village.

AFP reported that Thunberg spent several days in Germany supporting protests against the demolition of Lützerath. A police spokeswoman said a group of activists had been taken into custody after having “broken away from the demonstration” and run toward the edge of an open pit. Officials were working to identify those in custody, with decisions on further action to be made later (archived here). AFP did not find any indications in any credible sources that it was a staged arrest.

In an email sent to AFP on November 11, 2025, Georg Wilden, chief commissioner of the responsible Aachen police, confirmed that Thunberg had indeed been temporarily detained on January 17, 2023, for identity verification. Wilden explained that Thunberg and a group of climate activists had separated from the main assembly and confirmed that they moved towards the edge of the open-pit mine, an area designated as dangerous. Wilden also noted that the police had already rejected claims on January 18, 2023, that the detention had been “staged.” In the video circulating online, the scene shows a static situation on the ground, with police officers waiting for the next steps in the operation, he wrote.

According to an article from January 18, 2023, of the Austrian website of the public broadcaster, ORF, the protest involved a significant police presence, with reports indicating that up to 3,700 officers deployed, supported by forces from almost all German federal states. Before the clearance, barricades were set on fire, and protesters threw pyrotechnics, paint bags, and stones toward police and the staff of the coal company RWE, a German multinational energy company. While 372 people left Lützerath voluntarily, 159 were removed by police. An Aachen police spokesperson told ORF News that during the incident, Thunberg was photographed by journalists, which the police said was allowed under press freedom, and that officers did not “pose” with her. Once her information was recorded, the group was moved away from the edge of the mine and released, with all activists treated equally.

On January 18, 2023, Greta Thunberg addressed the protest on her X profile, describing the events from her perspective. She wrote: “Yesterday I was part of a group that peacefully protested the expansion of a coal mine in Germany. We were kettled by police and then detained, but were let go later that evening.”

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Screenshot of an X post by Greta Thunberg, captured on November 13, 2025

The first videos making similar accusations appeared in January 2023. At that time, the Austrian factcheck organization APA‑Faktencheck examined the claim that the arrest was staged and found it to be false.

In recent news, Greta Thunberg was among hundreds of activists detained by Israeli forces after the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying aid to Gaza was intercepted in international waters. According to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the activists were taken to an Israeli port for deportation, while the flotilla organizers described the interception as “illegal”.

AFP has also debunked many climate-related claims, like here and here.