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The Tragicomical Copenhagen Climate Trials part III
Dear friends, great news are coming from Copenhagen. You won't believe. The police in charge of the mass arrest December 12 have claimed in court that he made a mistake during the climate protests in December. Can you believe it? The name of this heroic man is Henrik Orye, now finally telling us the truth:
- It had probably been a little bit better if we had waited ten seconds to insert the wedge. So we had avoided hitting some who were not part of the black bloc.
Can you believe it, a policemen claims that he have made a mistake! Now there is footage from the demonstration and one can see that it is seldom very many walking on each others heels although using much of the whole street. If we are very generous there might pass five rows of demonstrators in 10 seconds and with maximum 20 in each row the total becomes 100 protesters. Can you think about it. A bit more than 800 arrested instead of a bit more than 900, is not the Danish police very kind to us?
There are more details brought up in the trial showing how the police acts with accuracy exactly were they see the situation is such that it is necessary. And afterwards can prove their reasonable behaviour.
The police helicopter borrowed from the Swedish police had full video coverage of the demonstration on the 12th of December, except for the time and place when the mass arrest took place. By coincidence a police video team had installed themselves in an apartment exactly were the mass arrest started. And of course this was not planned at all. It was the result of the same unplanned coincidences that made the Danish police guide the so called black bloc into the main demonstration, then not intervening at three times when a few black dressed activists were throwing stones due to sudden problems with the radio communication and finally saw the pressing unplanned need to intervene in front of the cameras in the apartment.
I must admit after seeing and studying the police behaviour at the EU Summit in Gothenburg 2001 there is almost no limits to the idiotic mistakes the police can do, especially when the main commander in charge is only interested in maximizing the use of the law and uninterested in maintaining any order. In Gothenburg it is clear that communication failures caused severe problems at the most violent clashes. What in the end is true and not true in Denmark is maybe to early to say, but it for sure is the most idiotic appearance in courts after a summit so far. The Danish police have stretched the laws more far away than anywhere else arresting everyone as they please before any acts have been made or of totally innocent.
Horrifying is the Danish acceptance of this new state of the art in police behaviour. Thus political voices are few and instead the lawyers are becoming the voice of opposing the police and they seem to fully accept mass arrest of any black dressed people, it is the obviously innocent that should be protected, not the Western tradition that it is the individual act that should be the cause of intervention. The atmosphere in Denmark is depoliticized by many political actors. Bottom line is let the police do what is necessary to keep the black bloc away from our peaceful protests, and when the police brings the black bloc into the demonstration it is still the black bloc which is the main problem.
In this atmosphere the police become political actors while explaining why all also obviously not belonging to the black bloc had to be brought to the prison:
- They should be recorded. And so there would not be complete anarchy, as we have seen in the rest of the world - most recently in Greece and Thailand.
If the police cannot arbitrary mass arrest anyone and put them in jail we will get a society built upon total arbitrariness, is that not very logical?
The trials against the police will end on Monday May 31 after addressing mass arrests during December 14 and 15 in the end of this week and the mass arrests during the Reclaim power action the last day.
Predictions? With the lack of political guts against repression in Denmark the obvious result if justice may be done is at risk. After the EU Summit in Amsterdam 1997 approximately 250 protesters that had made claims against the police after the mass arrest of some 800 demonstrators all were paid ca. 1000 euro. But this happened after much work by Autonoom center and others who made detailed reports about what had happened and opinion making in the Netherlands. Internationally Friends of the Earth Sweden initiated a campaign that was supported in 8 countries. In spite of an equally or even more clear case in Copenhagen and a lot more aggressive attack on basic principles the reaction against the repression is weak and unfocused.
This is especially troublesome for the politically most troublesome trials against the spokespersons of Climate Justice Action that have started and will continue until at least August. Anything but acquittal in the trials after preventive arrest of spokespersons is a catastrophe for the right to organize. Actually anything but payments to those mass arrested is also a scandal. It should not be out of reach if Danish and international opinion starts to get its act together.
Tord Björk
Source: email