2009-12-17 

Account of mass arrest experience on Dec 12th

On Saturday 12th December, myself and my friend were arrested along with 966 other protestors whilst participating in a peaceful climate change protest in Copenhagen. We were never given any explanation as to why we were arrested and were treated abusively by the Danish police. In total, we were detained for 8 and a half hours.
In the attached document, myself and my friend have written up a chronological account of what happened. This includes examples of illegal behaviour by police and breaches of human rights. The Danish police must be held to account for their actions. We must not let their disgraceful and illegal tactics set a prcedent for future police operations at peaceful demonstrations.

We look forward to your help in raising awareness of this issue.

Many thanks,

Liam Raftery and James Davies

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are writing to you today to provide our account of the events that took place on Saturday 12th December in Copenhagen. After travelling to Copenhagen with Christian Aid, we inadvertently became two of the 968 people arrested whilst participating in a peaceful climate change protest. We feel that police tactics were abusive and possibly illegal and in this letter we will give our version of what happened in chronological order.

• Detention of protestors began at 3pm with no obvious provocation. There was some commotion and people began to run. Police moved in swiftly to surround protestors.
• The move was obviously pre-planned. The Christian Aid group, which was following just behind the small Anarchist group, was told to halt. Police were in pre-planned positions to enable them to close off the street with vans.
• A section of the march was cordoned off without any effort to discriminate between members of the anarchist group and ordinary protestors.
• We were kept waiting and not allowed to leave this small area for 1½ hours. No explanation was given for this detention.
• Eventually police moved in and began to arrest individuals. The police still gave no explanation as to what was happening and we were not told our rights. We were not even told that we were under arrest – just handcuffed and detained.
• Amongst the detainees were some members of the Hare Krishna religious movement. These monks were clearly not involved with any violent activity and their arrest is a very visible example of the indiscriminate approach taken by the Danish police.
• Protestors were then put in deliberately uncomfortable positions with hands tied behind our backs and legs stretched out in front of us. This put considerable stress on the legs and arms/wrists.
• We were held in this position outside in the freezing cold for up to 4 hours.
• Only a small number of those who wanted to go to the toilet were allowed to go and those who were allowed to go had to wait for over an hour. Some people wet themselves. Access to toilets was denied vindictively rather than for practical reasons.
• Medical assistance was not forthcoming. One man was unconscious and was left unattended and without aid for half an hour.
• Protestors were not given water.
• Temperatures were freezing and we were not allowed to move to warm up. Some protestors were without jackets/gloves etc and were not offered blankets.
• Many people were very visibly distressed – crying, panicking etc.
• Access to media was limited and possibly denied. There was a distinct lack of media in the area most probably to ensure that the police version of events could not be contradicted. I saw only one cameraman and attempted to give an interview to explain what was happening. A policeman came over and made him stand back a considerable distance. I was forced to shout across my comments from a distance of ten metres.
• When residents of the flats overlooking the streets began to protest in support of the detainees (shouting slogans etc), police went inside the flats to stop them.
• Police organisation was incompetent. Buses to take people to the detention centre took several hours to arrive.
• Police were heavy-handed when moving people around.
• Many people asked to have their handcuffs adjusted because they were too tight and causing pain. Police refused to assist.
• Police generally ignored attempts to get their attention to raise issues/ask questions.
• AT NO POINT WAS OUR DETENTION EXPLAINED AND AT NO POINT WERE WE TOLD OUR RIGHTS.
• We were eventually rounded up onto coaches and driven to the detention centre. As hands were tied behind our backs we were unable to fasten seatbelts. Had there been a crash, people may have been seriously injured.
• Onboard the coaches, water was in extremely limited supplies. There was also no food provided.
• On Liam’s bus, a police officer slapped a protestor across the face. He then refused to provide his name and number despite repeated requests. Other police officers also refused to reveal their colleague’s name and number.
• Another officer on Liam’s bus openly admitted that the police knew most people had done absolutely nothing and were merely taking part in a peaceful protest.
• When obtaining details of detainees, some police officers took a snide and vindictive tone. e.g. When addressing a girl one police officer said “What gender are you?” and began to laugh in her face.
• On James’ bus, one girl complained of “extreme pain in her arms.” The police officer responded, “I don’t think you’re the only one” and did nothing to resolve the situation.
• When the detainees on Liam’s coach were released, there weren’t enough copies to go round of the document which explains how to make a formal complaint. Half of the detainees therefore left without being given instructions about how to make a formal complaint.
• As we approached the end of our detention, we were informed that we would be released without charge. Despite this, officers on James’ coach refused requests to move cuffs to a more comfortable front-of-body position.
• We were finally released at 11.30pm, after 8 ½ hours in detention. 965 of the 968 people arrested were released without charge because they had done NOTHING WRONG.

For the sake of democracy and civil liberties, it is imperative that this incident is reported correctly. The huge amount of unnecessary and possibly illegal arrests has undermined a very peaceful demonstration and has breached human rights. We also feel that this issue has been misreported by most of the media, which has generally taken far too soft a view on the Danish police.

We feel that the Danish government should offer an apology for the actions of its police force. We also feel that an investigation must be launched immediately to find out how and why this was allowed to happen.

We hope you will be able to assist in raising awareness of these issues, and in pressing the British government to make a formal complaint to the Danish government about the treatment of British citizens.

Yours faithfully,

Liam Raftery and James Davies