Copenhagen climate summit: police repression creates furore in Denmark

'I think this demonstration is so impressive and large that you can only be happy for it' declared Eriel Deranger, representative from an native-American organisation who travelled from Canada to Copenhagen, according to a leading Danish newspaper.

I bet there were another 100,000 participants or so last Saturday who would have gladly supported his statement.

But not everyone was happy that evening. In fact, 968 people had earlier been incarcerated by the police and transported to a Danish version of the Guantánamo base...    

Shortly before the Cop 15 summit began the Danish government had introduced a new set of laws, nicknamed “the hoodlum package”. It gave the police extensive rights to make preventive and administrative incarcerations:  — it is enough now for a policeman to suspect that you have in mind to do something offensive to allow them to arrest and detain you.

You can be sentenced to up to 40 days in prison for obstructing the police. This goes also for first-time offenders and for people who have not been directly involved in it, but have been in the same 'vicinity where severe breaches of law and order in a public place has occurred'.  

The official target for the police was NTAC: 'Never Trust a COP', an autonomous network. NTAC rightly declared that the real aim of the summit was to legitimize capitalist 'solutions' to the climate crisis and to give the capitalists who are responsible a new mandate to continue their reckless and pro-capitalist policies.

But the agitation of the NTAC was loaded with images of Molotov-cocktails ('alternative fuels'), burning police cars, sabotage of the capitalist production ('To burn a car dealership to the ground in resistance is more ecologically sustainable than carbon trading') and characters in black equipped with all kind of weapons. Political nihilism that allowed the police to pile in.

And on Saturday the police used its new powers extensively — 968 people were arrested that afternoon. The total figure rose over the following days to 1,282 and by the end of the week stood at between 1,500 and 2,000. Of these only a minority consists of Danes (287), while the majority comes from Germany (335) and Sweden (245).  

Large numbers of the detained belonged to different strands of 'libertarian' left: it seems for instance that the police arrested the entire group belonging to the Syndicalist Youth League from Sweden. Also a lot of people from the CWI were apprehended, simply because the 'Black Bloc' took a short-cut straight through their contingent! 

Those who were arrested on Saturday were tied up with plastic strips behind their backs and then forced to sit down on the asphalt – in freezing December – in an uncomfortable position and —at least at the beginning of the police operation — without the possibility of visiting a toilet.

After an eternity they were transported to a newly erected 'climate prison' – immediately nick-named 'Guantánamo' - consisting of a large numbers of 'monkey cages' each eleven (11) square metres, containing up to 10 people.               

'We sat in cages ten and ten and the cage was about 3 metres. I believe someone managed to break up the fence. The police had had enough and ran in with shields, dogs and pepper spray. Our cage was sprayed upon. But then we all ran to the other side and clung to the wall. So we only got it on our clothes' told Fredrik Rubin from Malmö to the Swedish daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet about his experience of 'The Guantánamo of Copenhagen'. After six hours he got his shoes and coat back, so he then could leave. 

'I felt violated, the police had detained us because of our views. I felt like a political prisoner' said Johan Appelgren, 18-years-old, from the small town of Simrishamn in Sweden. He and several others from his secondary school had travelled to Copenhagen to make a film about the demonstration, as a school project. Instead, 10 of the youngsters were arrested by the Danish police.

Johan and the others in his group had not anything to eat since breakfast, so they were very weak and one almost passed out. First at 10 o'clock in the evening, after eight hours in custody, was Johan and his mates released and had a possibility to eat.         

On Sunday the police arrested 200 people in the 'Hit the production' demonstration, which aimed to blockade several large Danish companies situated in the free-port. Two photographers from the leading Social Democratic paper Politiken covered it and shouted 'Press' while they at the same time showed their press cards to the police:

'Next I received a hard blow against my throat by a policeman. The other photographer was kneed in the groin' claimed one of the photographers, Tobias Selnæs Markussen.

The Conservative minister of Justice Brian Mikkelsen was of course enthusiastic about the results of his new laws: 'The actions of the police yesterday was a success – just as it is today. In contrast to other cities the police have managed to fend off what could have developed into mob rule, determined by taking care of the troublemakers.'

Even more enthusiastic was the right-wing and racist Dansk Folkeparti (DF: Danish People's Party). It is not part of the government, but collaborates closely with it. It praised itself for the results of the 'hoodlum package':

'It is no doubt that the hoodlum package, enforced by the Danish People's Party and the government shortly before the summit, has made it possible for the police to strike a capital blow against the professional troublemakers,’ stated Dennis Flygtkjær, the party spokesman.   

Worst of all initially was that there was a distinct majority in the Folketing (Danish Parliament) behind the massive repression by the police. Unconditional support came from The Social Democracy, Socialistisk Folkeparti as well as the ruling right-wing party Venstre.

The chairman of the committee for judicial issues in the Folketing, Peter Skaarup from the racist right-wing party Danish People's Party, had definitely no remorse about declaring all those who been arrested as collectively guilty, even though only three have been charged with anything.

'I will not accept that the demonstrators were innocent. Even if they are not being accused of anything, the situation could have developed into something uncontrolled, if not the police had intervened. It is better that the police detain to many, if they then catches the worst troublemakers.' 

Of the establishment parties only the Social-Liberal opposition party 'Radikale Venstre' criticised the police action and the ‘hoodlum laws’ immediately. The chairman of the RV's youth league demanded an immediate suspension of the right to make preventive detentions.

From the Danish Social Democracy their lips were tight as usual for a long while, although its chairperson Helle Thorning Schmidt spoke to the demonstrators in front of the Parliament. Finally it seems to react now and is demanding an immediate retraction of the hoodlum package.  

The Socialist People's Party did come out just as pitiful and spineless. At first they defended the action from the police. But when the scandal with the 1000 detained demonstrators, plus their subsequent degradation, became common knowledge through mass media, then the SPP got cold feet. In a third press release the SF finally came out against the hoodlum package and the mass arrests by the police. 

The SF gained heavily in the local elections recently, including capturing several mayoral posts, but its shoddy stand now could tarnish the party's reputation severely among radical people.      

'Enhedslisten' (EL or Ø: The Unity List, a federation of different left groups) further to the left, took also first a stand against the action by the libertarian left, but seems to have quickly grasped the scope of the police action.

Already now the Ombudsman of the Folketing has stated that he is going to make a survey of the mass incarcerations and of the 'monkey cages' in the climate prison. Amnesty International has totally condemned the prison, as well as the hoodlum package and the preventive detentions. A professor of law has claimed that it all together might be a violation of  the Danish constitution, etc. 

The repercussions of the police actions in Copenhagen run and run and the left and democrats must keep the momentum going until the laws are repealed that have the green light for this action.

 

John Andersson

Member of Socialistiskt Alternativ (Socialist Alternative) in Sweden

A co-founder of 'The Democracy Network' in Sweden, established in the aftermath of the major clampdown made by Swedish police during the EU summit in Gothenburg in 2001Local Councillor for the Social Democratic Labour Party in Sweden, in the town of Skurup  

 

 

Thu 17, December 2009 @ 17:20