2006 was a brave year for youths in Copenhagen. After the city mayor chose to evict the cultural youth house, Ungondshuset, protests were enacted on the streets for a year afterwards. Since then, youths and police have been pitted against one another in a battle that's altered laws and protests today.
Earlier tonight, a police spokesperson announced at 7.30pm that a group of 700 people had been arrested after a window at the Danish Foreign Ministry was smashed and fireworks had been let off. News reports run this a their line tomorrow and police have successfully detracted from the fact that the day had otherwise been a success, for peaceful protest and the environment movement as a whole as 100000 took to the streets to show their support for the action on climate justice.
Arrests were made on Amagerbrogade (street name) soon after the largest environmental gathering in history, The Flood, organised by Friend's of the Earth, left its halfway point in Parliament Square in Copenhagen. Once the march past Torvegade bridge and enter the Christiania district of Copenhagen Police employed a controversial tactic known as kettling to sever a group of 700 from the back of the demonstration. A police spokesperson said that this was because a number of people in the crowd had masks on.
There was no violence at this stage and a police spokesperson admitted this group were unprovoked. Protestors report the mood being 'happy' and 'like a carnival' when a group of 50 police entered from the back of the group, forcing a number of protests to sit down whilst cornering another group and picking out the masked few. The police spokesperson reiterated that in Denmark it is illegal to cover your face during a protest under new laws past ahead of the COP15 and that police have the right to disrupt any form of protest.
After detaining the group of 700 for 5 hours public buses arrived to take them to a temporary compound facility on the outskirts of the city.
No comments:
Post a Comment