Is Extinction Rebellion a terrorist organisation?

11 April 2025

Once again, the radical climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) is in the news, this time because of their plan to bombard shops in several Dutch municipalities with butyric acid, a caustic and pungent-smelling substance which can cause respiratory and other health problems. 

In one Dutch city, people became unwell in late January after the action group threw this substance inside a clothing shop. 

XR seems to want to dismiss the action as a ‘joke’.  Municipalities take the announcement at face value but in several cases they put the responsibility for safety measures on the shopkeepers themselves.

This is unacceptable. FVD MP Pepijn van Houwelingen has put down parliamentary questions to the ministers of Justice & Security, the Interior and Economic Affairs.

You can read the questions below.

1. Are you aware of Extinction Rebellion's intention (now dismissed as a supposed ‘April Fools’ joke’) deliberately to cause a stench nuisance in several cities on Saturday 12 April and to bombard shops with butyric acid, a caustic and pungent-smelling substance which can cause respiratory problems and other health complaints besides panic?
    
2. Can you provide an overview of all known actions by XR (and affiliated organisations) in the past 5 years in which damage has been caused to infrastructure, property or people, as well as the detection and prosecution actions taken?
    
3. How much economic damage has been suffered so far as a result of the actions of XR (and related organisations), including disruption of traffic, business operations and shop closures? Can you break this down by sector and year?
    
4. What is your opinion of the fact that in some municipalities the responsibility and possible extra costs for limiting damage as a result of the announced actions are being placed on the entrepreneurs, who have been informed by means of a letter from the municipality that they themselves have to weigh up the risks, possibly deploy extra security and take “appropriate measures”?
    
5. Do you share the view that it is unacceptable that the government is failing in its primary task of enforcement and protection, and that responsibility is being shifted to shopkeepers, citizens and small and medium enterprises?
    
6. Are you willing to have XR as an organisation investigated for its structure, funding sources, networks and links to possible extremist or foreign influences, given its radicalisation and increasing law-breaking?
    
7. Do you agree that the right to equal treatment is at stake when the government treats some demonstrations more harshly than others, and if so, what steps are you taking to correct this inequality?
    
8. How do you explain that in their threat analyses, the Dutch security services AIVD and NCTV mainly focus on right-wing and ‘anti-institutional’ extremism - movements which rarely commit criminal offences in the Netherlands - while left-wing radicalisation, which is regularly accompanied by violent actions such as those of XR, receives scant attention?
    
9. Can you answer these questions separately and within the timeframe set?