DENMARK:At least two Irish people were among more than 600 arrested by Danish police in Copenhagen at the weekend following intense rioting in the city.
One of the Irishmen has already been deported following his arrest there during disturbances last Friday. The status of another Irish citizen being held was unclear, but it is believed he was still under arrest in Copenhagen yesterday.
The Danish police has confirmed to the Department of Foreign Affairs that at least two of those arrested were from Ireland.
Saturday saw a third consecutive night of unrest in the Danish capital as small groups of protesters threw rocks at police and set fire to rubbish bins and barricades.
But the clashes did not come close to the violent rioting of the two previous nights.
Police patrolled the streets in large numbers throughout the night, and said more than 50 people had been arrested.
More than 30 people were arrested near the Christiania hippy enclave after protesters built barricades on a street and set them on fire around 3am, police said in a statement. Smaller fires were also being set in other parts of the capital.
More than 600 people, including 140 foreigners, have been arrested in riots that started on Thursday after an anti-terror squad evicted squatters from a disputed youth centre in the Noerrebro district.
More than 200 of them were arrested early yesterday following overnight clashes where hundreds of protesters hurled cobblestones at riot police who responded with tear gas, authorities said.
A school was vandalised and several buildings were damaged by fire as flames spread from burning cars and bins. One protester was reportedly wounded in the violence yesterday, while 25 were injured in riots the night before in what police called Denmark's worst riots in a decade.
The protesters see their fight to keep the "Youth House", a building used by young squatters since the 1980s, as symbolic of a wider struggle against a capitalist establishment.
The eviction had been planned since last year, when courts ordered the squatters to hand the building over to a Christian congregation that bought it six years ago.
As news of the riots spread, sympathisers around Europe rallied support for the protesters, and youths from neighbouring countries have flocked to Copenhagen in recent days to participate in the rallies. - (AP)