"Fetzendeppert"

Arrest for activists: Windl must now also go to prison

On Tuesday, the activists Anja Windl (27) and Laila Fuisz (23) began their 42-day alternative detention.(Bild: Letzte Generation AT)

Following the arrest of three men from the Last Generation on Monday, two more women followed on Tuesday: Climate activists Anja Windl (27) and Laila Fuisz (23), already well-known in the media, are expected to spend 42 days in a cell. 

Despite her alternative detention, Windl has only one thing to say: "The thing that makes me panic is not the prison sentence. It's the escalating climate catastrophe." Not only she and Fuisz, but also three other men will soon no longer be able to protest on Austria's streets. The men had already started their prison sentences at the beginning of the week. 

"The whole of southern Germany, regions in Upper and Lower Austria and Vorarlberg are under water - and we who want to prevent this are being locked away," complains the 27-year-old. The group itself has already commented on the lockdown on Platform X (see above). "We are racing towards a three-degree hotter world. A three-degree hotter world means the end of human civilization. What are a few weeks in a cell compared to the loss of everything I hold dear?" asked Laila Fuisz (23), just a few hours before entering prison.

Anja Windl (left) and Laila Fuisz at a protest in Austria.(Bild: Letzte Generation AT)

Once again, Windl also addresses criticism to the Austrian Federal Chancellor: "How telling that Karl Nehammer is inviting people to a car summit against the end of the combustion engine - during the next flood of the century in a few years' time. Are we as a society so 'fetzendeppert' that we simply go about our daily lives in the face of the facts and carry on as if nothing is wrong?"

While five activists are serving their alternative detention in Austria, the German hunger strikers Wolfgang Metzler-Kick and Adrian Lack went on a dry hunger strike on Wednesday. Metzler Kick was admitted to hospital at short notice on Tuesday. According to the German media, his condition is critical. People can survive for around three days without water. "And all because the German Chancellor cannot say that the climate catastrophe is a threat to society," says Fuisz.

At the end of May, Windl caused quite a stir online. In a cheeky Instagram video, the 27-year-old showed what she thought of the arrest notice by feeding the note to a donkey.