Recent
Watch also...
A Copenhagen activist speaks: 'I was afraid I would go back to the cages'
Tomas Lundström was held for over 11 hours without charge in the Vallby ‘prison’, where he says police used violent tactics
I came to Copenhagen to protest against the undemocratic and ineffective climate talks and to stand up for climate justice. On Saturday, I joined together with 100,000 other people to march to the Bella centre. I was in a section of the march calling for “System Change Not Climate Change”, together with people from all over the world who are sick of fake corporate solutions like carbon trading, and want to see real climate solutions that deliver justice to the global south.
Not long into the event, the police suddenly cut off a large section of the march – about 1,000 people – for no obvious reason.
There was no violence, no one was throwing anything. It was scary. I’m not into violence, I’m a pacifist. The police came from two side streets and cut off the main road. First the riot police with dogs came on foot and then they cut off the street with vans. They put us all in plastic handcuffs, including me, and lined us up on the cold ground together. I was kept there for about half an hour before I was loaded on to the first or second bus to the specially prepared Vallby “prison”. My brother was on the street for three or four hours.
We had to wait again, with the handcuffs on, in the bus outside the prison for about one and a half hours. One protester was begging the police over and over to be allowed to go to the toilet, but was continually ignored or refused. The protester asked if the police wanted him to pee in his pants on the bus floor. In response, two policemen dragged him outside, smashed his head hard against the side of the bus and told him something the rest of us could not hear. After this, the protester was dragged back on to the bus, still in desperate need of the toilet.
When we were led into the “prison” waiting hall, they put some of us on benches and others on the floor. They picked people, seemingly at random, and took them into another room. They refused to tell us why we had been detained, what was going to happen, or how long we were going to be held. They still did not let anyone go to the toilet.
After about two hours in the waiting room they took me to another room where they took all my information and looked at my passport. “Did you throw anything at the police?” one of the officers asked me, while they took my photo. “No, of course not. I am a pacifist.” I answered him, and then he and a couple of his colleagues laughed in my face and dragged me into another room.
This room was a very big hall, filled with about 20 cages where people were being held. In my cage there was nothing to sit down on, no benches, no mattresses – nothing. Just a very dirty cement floor. The police and the guards were still totally unwilling to answer any questions about how long we were going to be held. I was not allowed to make a phone call, even though the police gave me a paper that stated that I had this right.
There were 12 people in my cage, and we probably had one square meter of space each. A while after I arrived a disturbance broke out. A lot of people started to scream loudly in anger and some even tried to break out of the cages. When this happened, many police in riot gear rushed into the hall. When the disturbance didn’t end one of the police men started to spray pepper-spray into the cages. Me and three or four of my cage-mates were sitting quietly on the floor during the screaming, but because we were close to the door the spray went in our direction and I only just had time to hide my face. I got pepper-spray on my clothes but fortunately not in my eyes. This made me feel very scared of what might come next, since they were using such violent tactics on people who were just sitting quietly down on the floor.
I was released 11 and a half hours after my arrest without charge. I asked why they kept me there but they never explained why they detained me. They dumped me at a train station outside the city, without any money or explanation on where I was or how to get home. I was quite afraid walking around the streets of Copenhagen before I left on Sunday because the police could take me back any time and I didn’t want to go back to the cages.
I’m glad to be home. These police tactics must be an attempt to scare people away from taking part in protests – but it won’t work. The struggle for climate justice is just too important.
• Tomas Lundström is a 23-year-old student from Sweden
• According to Climate Justice Action, thousands of people are preparing to invade the Bella Centre on Wednesday 16 December, to hold a “Peoples’ Assembly”
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/15/copenhagen-activist-speaks