Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has apologized for saying politicians should be put “against the wall” after critics took it to mean that she was advocating violence.
The 16-year-old Swede made the comment in a speech to young activists in the Italian city of Turin on Friday.
Thunberg later said she was making a literal translation from Swedish, in which the expression means to put someone on the spot with tough questions.
“That’s what happens when you improvise speeches in a second language. But of course I apologise if anyone misunderstood this,” Thunberg wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
Thunberg told the crowd in Turin that world leaders were running away from their responsibilities to fight climate change.
“We have to make sure that they cannot do that,” she said. “We will make sure they, that we put them against the wall, and that they will have to do their job and to protect our futures.”
Jasmine Crockett: ‘If I Go to Sleep, Democracy Very Well May Die’
Top Goldman Sachs Lawyer Quits Over Epstein Relationship, Media Glosses Over Her Connection to Obama
Conservative firebrand launches ‘TruckSafe Tipline’ to report illegal drivers amid spike in highway deaths
‘It’s absurd’: DHS shutdown bears down on US as lawmakers jet off to Europe
Ted Bundy’s cousin recalls the chilling moment that exposed the monster within
‘Fiction’: House Republican campaign chair dismisses Democrats’ expanding GOP target map
Beloved figure skating coach, former Team USA medalist gunned down in Starbucks drive-thru: reports
Government shutdown hits DHS after Democrats blow up bipartisan funding deal over immigration uproar
DHS enters shutdown after Congress skips town without deal on ICE
AI tool Claude helped capture Venezuelan dictator Maduro in US military raid operation: report
Federal agent attacked and hospitalized during anti-ICE protest in Downtown LA
Pima County sheriff no stranger to controversy as criticism in Nancy Guthrie case ramps up
US military launches deadly strike on drug-trafficking vessel in the Caribbean, leaving 3 dead
Liability or useful foil? Trump takes center stage in Susan Collins reelection fight
Schumer’s ‘E. coli’ burger photo resurfaces after another Dem’s grilling skills get torched: ‘What is that?’
The expression “putting someone against the wall” in Swedish describes a situation when someone is forced to address difficult questions or a difficult situation.
But some right-wing voices on social media interpreted her comment as a call for violence against politicians.
Thunberg tweeted that she and the youth movement she inspired is against all forms of violence.
“It goes without saying but I say it anyway,” she wrote.
Story cited here.
