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Sheerness port hit by Greenpeace car protests
[ September 21, 2017 // Chris ]Greenpeace protestors in kayaks and boats boarded K Line’s Elbe Highway 23,498-tonne car carrier in the Thames Estuary on the morning of 21 September as part of a protest against “toxic” diesel cars.
The campaigners drew up alongside the car carrier at around 8.30am, hanging from the 27-metre-high unloading door and saying that they would not disembark until Volkswagen commits to take the vehicles back to Germany.
Some 40 other volunteers scaled the fences at Sheerness port in Kent – the intended destination of the ship – and gained access to the vehicle park where they are attempting to immobilise all of the VW diesel cars by removing the keys. They also lifted the bonnets and labelling the engines with messages calling on VW to ditch diesel.
Campaigners hung a 50 sq m banner on the ship’s unloading ramp showing the face of a two-year-old respiratory diseases sufferer Sephie Ruan and her portrait has also been hoisted on gantries surrounding the car park.
Two years ago VW was at the centre of a scandal in which it used software to rig the results of diesel emissions tests.
Thousands of imported VW diesel cars
seized at harbour by Greenpeace volunteers