DANISH POLICE have been accused of overreacting to sporadic street violence after they detained hundreds of activists during a mass rally in Copenhagen.
Only 13 of the 968 people arrested during the demonstration were still in custody yesterday, according to police. Of those, two Danes and a Frenchman are to appear in court on preliminary charges of fighting with police.
An estimated 40,000 people joined Saturday’s mostly peaceful march towards the suburban conference centre where the 192-nation UN climate conference is being held.
Riot police detained activists at the back of the demonstration when some started vandalising buildings in central Copenhagen.
Mel Evans from Climate Justice Action said protesters were held for hours in freezing conditions without water, toilets or medical attention.
“People were very scared and they were held for about four hours on the ground. They weren’t able to have any medical attention, any water, and weren’t allowed to have any toilet facilities,” she told BBC Five Live.
“People were there in freezing conditions urinating on themselves and being held in lines like, essentially, like animals.”
The violence broke out when tens of thousands of people – some dressed as penguins and polar bears, carrying signs saying “Save the humans” – took to the streets. The march had been organised to urge conference delegates to work out a binding deal to tackle climate change but was marred when a group of protesters threw bricks at police.
Hundreds were arrested and police detained several hundred more in a pen before sending coaches in, filling them up and driving away. Henri Purje, who was in Copenhagen with Attac, a group opposed to international free trade, was standing in front of the group that was penned in and taken away by police. “I was in the last line of people before the police suddenly moved in for no obvious reason,” he said. “
It seemed as if they just wanted to take out a bunch of random people. No one was being violent, I didn’t see anyone doing anything apart from singing and chanting and marching. Everything had been really peaceful.”
A British demonstrator, Georgy Forshall, said: “Two of my friends are in there. The police said demonstrators had been throwing stones, but my friends were in a cow costume, they wouldn’t have been able to throw stones.”
Police said two Britons had been deported. “There were many thousands on the march. The police knew that some of them were activists,” police spokesman Henrik Moeller Jakobsen said. “Some of them were throwing stones and in that case we make arrests. The activists also wear masks on their faces and this is illegal under Danish law.”
– ( Guardianservice)