Three activists from the environmental collective Futuro Vegetal entered runway 32R of Madrid’s Adolfo Suárez-Madrid Barajas airport at six o’clock yesterday morning and stuck their hands to the asphalt.
The activists’ intention was to prevent air traffic – the runway was closed – and at the same time to denounce that “no political party” is presenting “high-level measures” in Sunday’s general elections to deal with the “climate crisis”.
Aena, the airport manager, points out that after they were detected “by an Aena signaller, the control tower was notified immediately and the company’s technicians and the Civil Guard intervened to avoid any impact”.
The track was finally operational again before noon and the three activists – two women and a man – were arrested by the Civil Guard and brought before the Magistrate’s Court number 49 in Madrid.
This body explained that they are charged with crimes of public disorder and damage against air safety”, since the activists broke a perimeter fence to access the runway.
Aena points out that, according to Air Safety Law 21/203, the action constitutes an infringement against the safety of civil aviation, therefore, it can be classified as serious or very serious, and the administrative penalty can range between 45,001 and 225,000 euros.
This group already carried out similar protests at the Ibiza airport last week and previously at the El Prado supermarket. In the latter case, they got stuck in Las majas de Goya in November. Previously, they had also done a lot of graffiti against bank branches.
In a statement, the Futuro Vegetal collective said that with this action it intended to make a “call” to the population so that, regardless of the result of the elections on July 23, “organize to face the worst consequences of the climate crisis”.
In conversation with La Vanguardia, a manager of this group explained that “there were only seven people in the organization who knew what was going to be done, the seven involved”. The activist explains that, due to its structure, not all its participants are aware of the actions of their colleagues. The reasons are, first of all, to avoid leaks of information that could prevent the protests from taking place, but above all, to reduce the stress level of the volunteers.
