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Copenhagen: the crackdown

Most of those arrested in Copenhagen were entirely innocent

Reporting on Saturday's march here in Denmark is overwhelmingly focused on police action, with 938 people arrests made. All but 13 have already been released. An eyewitness I spoke to watched the entire scene from her apartment overlooking Amagerbrogade street. Some young people who had infiltrated the crowd were throwing stones and smashing windows as they passed the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. Police descended on an entire section of the crowd referred to as the "Black Bloc". Most of those arrested were entirely innocent and bird's-eye images of lines of the detained in multicoloured bobble hats and ski jackets contrast with rumours circulating yesterday of hundreds of black-clad youths.

The operation was shockingly efficient. The arrested were pulled on to an adjoining street, tied up with cable ties and left to sit on the near-frozen roadside for nearly four hours. I heard a marcher from Japan tell how he was put into a police bus and brought to a huge warehouse where he was detained in a cage for up to nine hours. He described the atmosphere as jovial, with everyone there safe in the knowledge they had done nothing wrong. By the time I passed the scene half an hour after the arrests were made, all that could be seen was a line of strict police blocking off views on to the adjoining road.

Back on the march outside the Bella Centre, Mary Robinson, former UN high commissioner for human rights, wrapped up the movement with an inspiring speech. She emphasised again one of the salient points of this conference, that it is about people. "I sometimes worry slightly about the images we have . . . If the image is a melting glacier or the polar bears -- and I love polar bears -- it still distances us . . . For me, the image of climate change is a poor farmer, a poor indigenous woman, and she is desperate because her livelihood is being undermined."

Unlike previous speakers, Robinson wasn't afraid to launch into the numbers debate. She put the minimum that developed countries must donate to the developing world way above the earmarked $10bn. We should expect a fund of $200bn per year and put the initial fast-track fund at a minimum of $100bn. "This is very modest in terms of financial bailouts and defence budgets," she said. The crowd was reverentially quiet throughout, but livened up when Desmond Tutu took to the stage, cackling and grinning and calling for the "wonderful rich people -- and you are wonderful" to realise their "moral" obligation.

While this went on outside, one blogger inside the centre described the place as "hermetically sealed", with people crowding around screens to follow the protest outside.

Another 200 people were arrested today in an unauthorised march that was planned to blockade Copenhagen's port. The protesters were on their way to the headquarters of the shipping firm Maersk. There has been little mention of this protest, which seems to be a very fringe affair, involving what the police have called some "hardcore" protesters.

The only sign of action was the sound of police cars racing around the city at around 2pm, adding a little drama to what was otherwise a pretty quiet day in town.

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Tags: Copenhagen  Climate Change

3 comments

Chris's picture

Iran? China? No, it's liberal, open-minded, tolerant Denmark! Just goes to show that police and governments in the most developed, democratic and free (so-called) countries are as intolerant of those they can't control as any autocratic country. Good on the protesters for standing up for what they believe in. Now we can only hope that our political leaders can agree to something meaningful.

writeon1's picture

Denmark isn't tolerant, open-minded, or liberal anymore. It has, arguably, one of the most rightwing government's in western europe, but they talk a good talk, especially to foreigners, who are presented with a carfully draw "cartoon" of what Danish society is really like.

For example, the most important political party in Denmark, the party around which all politics revolves, is the Danish People's Party, which holds the balance of power, giving it enormous influence far above what its support among the electorate justifies.

The Danish People's Party, has an agenda that's pretty much in line with the British National Party on most issues; especially on Europe and immigration. It is, I think it's fair to say, a neo-fascist, or national socialist type of party. It is obsessed with Islam and Muslim's, who they regard as the source of all "evil" in Denmark, and in the wider world. But they aren't stupid fascists, they are sly, cunning, and devious, which is why they are so dangerous, and are a "model" for the far right all over Europe.

writeon1's picture

Another couple of minor examples of Danish tolerance at work, the reason these developments are important is that if they can occur in "liberal" and "tolerant" Denmark, one of the richest countries in the world, with a long history of social democracy, then, it can happen anywhere.

Danish politics has only one real subject - Muslims and Islam, both in Denmark and abroad. The last couple of elections have been, more or less, about one thing - the "threat" from Muslims and Islam. Muslims are the new Jews, and the neo-fascists, as usual, play on people's fear of the "unknown."

Denmark's ruling elite was, if that's possible, even more gung-ho about attack Iraq and Afghanistan, than the circle around Tony Blair. Their willingness and sevility in relation to the United States is legendary. The then PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen, called opponents in parliament, of the invasion of Iraq, " traitors to their country" and boldly stated that he didn't just "believe" that Iraq had WMDs, he "knew" they did, because he'd seen the secret intelligence reports! Fogh Rasmussen's "reward" for his loyalty to the United States, which makes a joke of his accusation of "treachery" relating to others, was that the Americans made him NATO's General Secretary. In reality he is as big a war criminal and mass murderer as Blair. So much for western, liberal, democratic, values.

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