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Danish Police Raid Copenhagen Climate Campaigners' Rooms
Police detain 200 activists at their Copenhagen accommodation and seize items they claim could be used for acts of civil disobedience
COPENHAGEN - Danish police last night raided a climate campaigners' accommodation centre in Copenhagen, detaining 200 activists and seizing items which they claimed could be used for acts of civil disobedience.
Police stand guard outside a former beer depot in Copenhagen, used as a temporary prison for possible activists arrested during COP15. (Photograph: Christian Als/EPA) About
200 police arrived at the shelter on Ragnhild Street, in the Nørrebro
district of Copenhagen, at 2.30am. They locked activists into the
building for two hours, and searched some of the nearby properties.
Campaigners say they took away various items including a power drill,
an angle grinder, and some wooden props. No arrests were made.
A spokeswoman for Climate Justice Action (CJA), one of the activist groups, said: "People were enormously frightened and alarmed. We really don't know why the police handled it like this: the Danish government has provided this accommodation for activists and now the police are acting unnecessarily. We'll be asking for the items they confiscated back."
Police have confirmed the raid took place but have not yet issued a statement.
The centre on Ragnhild Street is one of a handful of sleeping spaces provided by the government for the protesters who are expected during the course of the summit. Activists estimate that between 30,000-40,000 protesters may arrive over the next couple of weeks. Hundreds of small-scale actions are planned, and three large-scale peaceful protests are also due to take place on Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday.
Police have said that although they will facilitate peaceful protest, they fear that an international extremist network may come to Copenhagen to join the peaceful protests then break away to commit acts of violence.
The head of the Police Intelligence Service (PET), Jakob Scharf, has said that "violent extremists will try to abuse and get a free ride on the peaceful activist involvement in the climate debate."
Scharf said he feared that peaceful protesters may end up in a battle zone between extremists and police.
Some activists have privately conceded that there may well be trouble at some of the upcoming demonstrations. But most strongly refute the idea that troublemakers are descending on Copenhagen. "We've found that to be a myth put about by people who are seeking to undermine the genuine reasons people are protesting," said Mel Evans of CJA. "We've issued a call out for people to take peaceful action on climate change and that's why they're coming here."
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14 Comments so far
Show All"Danish police ... seizing items which they claimed could be used for acts of civil disobedience... including a power drill, an angle grinder, and some wooden props."
Wow! That means that I have in my workshop the means to overthrow entire governments!
Thanks for cracking me up this morn!
I needed it after reading this article - seems fascism is in fashion all over the globe. Prosecuting thought crimes before any illegal act is committed.
"including a power drill, an angle grinder,"
I suppose the guy intended to march with a very long extention??
Only the fascists could see power drill as a weapon. Maybe the Danish police are getting lessons in power drill threatening techneques from the CIA?
I suppose they had to find something, but this performance by authorities must take some justification, by the way, did they come armed and wearing riot gear? Were they threatening? Did they invade peaceful peoples privacy?
Danmark is famous for its bacon I guess!
Yes, the ridiculousness of that so reminds me of that scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the Roman legions search that house to find the known criminal, Brian, of the People's Front of Judea.
After searching the place once, they come back because, as they tell the old man who lives there " . . . there's one place we forgot to look."
They don't find Brian, but . . .
"We found this wooden spoon, sir."
"Good job Sergeant. We'll be back . . . oddball."
A power drill? An angle driver? Some wooden props? WTF?
The Little Mermaid is ah, is ah, is ah Fascist?
Very clever "spider and the fly" move on the part of the Danish government: offer the protestors shelter so that you know just where to detain and search them.
DAFTism is FASCism!
Well, I guess one doesn't have to be in Iran to have one's rights violated by the state.
from the article:
"Scharf said he feared that peaceful protesters may end up in a battle zone between extremists and police."
some variation on this fairly frightening sentence will be used more and more frequently going forward...like the Eastwood line in Unforgiven: any man (protester) don't wanna get killed better head on out the back...
I'm big on proactivity in my private life, but it has no place in crime enforcement...you don't get to punish random people for vague things you think they may do...
what happened to investigating and arresting those, after a crime, that actually committed the crime? one has to wait for the crime to occur, first...and existing\thinking is not a crime...
Read Philip K Dick's short story "The Minority Report" for a frightening glimpse of our dystopian future.
Whenever these "Democracies" (Denmark, Holland, Sweden, etc.)want to become police states they become police states overnight.
Write a letter the the Danish embassy.
Embassy of Denmark
3200 Whitehaven St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel:(202) 234-4300
Fax: (202) 328-1470
E-mail: wasamb@um.dk
Share with them your views and how this encourages you to visit their country.
This article nicely compliments another Commondreams piece about why progressives are giving a "free pass" to Obama, asking us where are all the protesters?
In my area, we don't protest to avoid hate crimes against us by our dear neighbors -- I'm talking middle America, not Iran. But it does seem better, for our protection, if we were to just do away with democracy altogether, doesn't it? The Constitution is, after all, radically and clearly subversive. I mean, people can say things, 'n'shit, and gather and so forth, I'm already shaking in my boots just thinking about free speech. How can we expect our government's decisions to stand up to the power of words???
It's not like the Danish Police didn't warn people they would be strapping on the jackboots and breaking some heads (and national laws, as well as international human rights legislation).
These thugs with badges took their cue from the Pittsburgh Police who unlimbered the whole 'non-lethal' arsenal (truncheons, tear gas, Tasers, rubber bullets, LRAD sound cannons, etc) against unarmed and peaceful protesters during the G20 meeting last month.
Norwegian neighbor Vidkun Quisling must be raising a frosty mug of brew with Hitler in Hell, toasting the success of todays Fascists...