York Student held seven hours by Danish police at Climate Summit

The student, an active member of Disarm and Palestinian solidarity, had gone to Denmark to discover more about “the extent of damage on our environment by our western mode of living.” Inspired by the activity of fellow visitors, mostly between the ages of 18-25, the student decided to participate in the “Hit the Production” demonstration against the shipping industry which is responsible for approximately 5% of global carbon emissions.

The demonstration began with a peaceful procession through the city in which participants distributed information about the perils of climate change. Participants handed out flyers to raise awareness of escalating environmental dangers and distributed soup made from pesticide free vegetables, from local farms. They were making their way to the harbour, where they had planned to disrupt ‘business as usual’.

The police, however, had been ordered to round up the demonstrators and send them away to various facilities, in which they were ‘pre-emptively’ treated like criminals.

The student commented that “I fear that the freedom to demonstrate is being squashed in Democracies all over the world, right under our noses and this needs to be urgently addressed.”

In an account given to the Yorker, the student described her experience. “On arrival at Trianglan Square 15 minutes early at 11.45, we faced an empty square. Within minutes people started arriving, cautious and nervous, as police vans were constantly driving and parking round the square. By 12.30, a big crowd had assembled and everyone was chatting to each other.

The tension increased, as the numbers grew. A group of police-men made their way to the middle of the crowd and asked to ‘speak to the organizer’, who would go with them and ‘answer some questions’. The surrounding crowd was irresponsive till someone yelled, ‘we are all the organizers!’ which lead to a big round of applause. The chief policeman laughed and left, followed by the rest. This is the signal for the beginning of the demonstration.

At 12.45, about 1000 people start marching all together towards Nhordavn harbour, chanting ‘our climate, not your business!’ The police neatly sandwich us from either side. A van carrying two young speakers leads the way. The atmosphere is festive with lingering apprehensiveness, which soon enough is directly associated with the discreet decrease in number of protesters and the tightening of the police walls from all sides. At this point, either the police were cutting off demonstrators from the core or many uneasy demonstrators decided to abandon the demonstration. Either way, this was the turning point.

The speakers urged us to ‘stay tight’ and reassured us that ‘we have a right to be here.’ Some of us tried to create chains so that the police could not separate us, but people were panicking as we watched the police form a circular chain around us and bring us to a halt. At this point, the boys on the van started screaming through their microphones that the police were climbing on to the van. To our horror, the police grabbed the speakers, who resisted and were consequently dragged violently in front of all of us, off the van.

With the van now taken over aggressively by police, we knew that we would not only be prevented from peacefully demonstrating, but we would be punished for doing so. The police closed in on us, so we could hardly move, pushing whoever resisted. We started chanting ‘this is what democracy looks like’ and ‘the whole world is watching’ in an effort to raise our spirits.

Suddenly the police started shouting ‘sit down’ and forced people close to them by the shoulders to the ground. A woman, who refused to sit down because ‘the road [was] wet and [she] will catch a cold’, was hauled off her feet and onto the ground. One of the policemen was so angry at her disobedience that he swore he would remember her face and would have her in court and behind bars. ‘We are peaceful, what are you?’.

While a group of people in the middle still refused to sit, we observed the policemen’s bulging eyes and their batons in the air, or in their belt with their hands clasped provokingly round it, ready to strike any “unnecessary” movement. Eventually, we were all sitting down, trembling from fear and the cold.

From a megaphone we were told that we were going to be searched one-by-one for weapons and then allowed to continue our demonstration. We were not allowed to use our phones or cameras and at this point anyone from the media was literally grabbed by the jacket and thrown out. For no conceivable reason, a second announcement was made telling us that we were actually under arrest! One by one, we were pulled to stand up, handcuffed, and guided by the arm to a bus. The observing crowd was shouting ‘let them free’ and taking pictures of us.

In the bus, we all started to sing, ‘always look on the bright side of life’ and stamped our feet. We were driven to one of the temporary detention centres set up prior to COP15. We were all sat down on benches or on the floor in lines. We were not given food or water but were taken to the toilet if requested or had our handcuffs loosened. We would often break into song and stamp our feet, to display that we have done nothing wrong.

On a visit to the toilet, I passed a room full of cages and saw people sitting motionless and skeptical or restlessly prowling around their cages, not unlike caged leopards. On returning to the “waiting room”, I heard the most beautiful sound. A chorus of hundreds of voices were singing an old, anti-fascist, Italian song called, ‘Bella ciao’. In parallel, the caged people had broken into rhythmic clapping. The police looked either bewildered, or were quietly smiling. Some were snarling.

When my turn came, I was taken to the “search room”. There, I was photographed from four angles, with my identification details on a whiteboard in the background. My bag was searched; I was given a water bottle and was allowed to make one phone call. It was explained to me that the Danish police has been empowered with a new law, which allows them to detain demonstrators for up to 12 hours (or longer if they find it necessary), without filing charges. When I explained to the policewoman searching me, that this “pre-emptive law” essentially prevents one from the right to demonstrate and hence violates the freedom of speech and expression, she shrugged and told me to ‘leave when things get rough’. I added further that in this manner a demonstrator is treated like a criminal and she responded that I was unlucky and she was sorry. I was then escorted to a cage with another 6 girls.

We were kept in the cages for 7 hours. These cages fit for chickens, made one feel stripped of her humanity and consequently many were trying to break out of the cages. Some succeeded, only to be placed in other cages and to have everyone’s water bottles, benches and blankets taken away from us. Those who continued to shout and shake the cage walls were told ‘stop or spray’, as cans of pepper-spray were shoved threateningly in their faces. The smell of pepper-spray reached my nostrils several times, which means that several people were sprayed within their cages. A friend of mine needed to take her medication strictly during the time we were withheld, but she was not allowed access to it or allowed to see a doctor confidentially. We sat on the cold floor of our cages for the time remaining, waiting to return to reality.”

Add Comment

You must log in to submit a comment.