It was an incredibly inspiring event. Lots of creativity and warmth on display even though the day was quite cold. The Copenhagen police, however, weren’t so warm. There was a massive police presence and their crowd management approach was indiscriminate preemption of anything that made them nervous.
Less than a mile into the four mile march, the Copenhagen police cut off the final portion of the march and drove lines of police vehicles in front of and behind the back of the march, sealing the protesters within a single city block. Nearly 1,000 of this trapped group was arrested. All but a handful were released.
…update… It’s Monday now. I just left a Tar Sands protest at the Canadian Embassy. Lots of wonderful speakers including Tom Goldtooth, Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow. Maude Barlow was angry. She was in the group of protesters at the end of the march that were trapped by the Copenhagen police. Barlow said the intent of the police was quite clear. According to her, they were clearly targeting young protesters, letting others go.
According to an article in Sunday’s Guardian:
Denmark may be breaching European law, Danish human rights groups claimed tonight as they called for their government to launch an immediate inquiry after police in Copenhagen used controversial kettling and mass preventative arrest tactics for the third day running.
Following the arrest of 68 people on Friday, and 958 yesterday on Saturday, police today arrested 257 demonstrators, “kettling” a section of a march near Osterport station, and as they had done on Saturday, cuffed the protesters and put them onto buses transporting them to a detention centre.
Here’s what the “kettle” looked like after the block had been sealed in Saturday’s march.