Sweden charges Greta Thunberg with disobeying police

Swedish prosecutors on Wednesday announced they would be charging "a young woman" for refusing to obey police orders to leave a climate protest in the southern city of Malmo in June.

A spokesperson for 20-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg confirmed that she was in fact being charged.

The charges stem from a climate protest in Malmo, an oil port, lasting several days.

Thunberg participated in the disruption of shipping in the harbor alongside protest organizers from Ta Tillbaka Framtiden (Take Back the Future). Thunberg and others were arrested on June 19, after they succeeded at blocking traffic at the facility.

Thunberg actively commented from the protest, even posting a selfie holding a sign reading "Jag blockerar tankbilar" (I am blocking tankers) while standing in front of a tanker truck.  

At the time, she wrote on Instagram: "We choose to not be bystanders, and instead physically stop the fossil fuel infrastructure. We are reclaiming the future."

The young activist has been the face of the youth climate movement since inspiring "Friday's For Future," which grew out of her first solo "School Strikes" at the Swedish Parliament at age 15. She has spoken frankly about the urgency of the climate crisis to activists, and government and business leaders ever since.

In March, she harangued those leaders for their "unprecedented betrayal," after the publication of UN's IPCC climate advisory panel annual report.

Thunberg is now expected to appear at the Malmo District Court before the end of July. Charges for the crime of disobeying police can carry sentences of up to six months in jail, though Prosecutor Charlotte Ottosen told Swedish media most end in fines.

js/jcg (AFP, AP, dpa)