63 Arrested in Copenhagen Clashes

Source: Associated Press

63 arrested in Copenhagen clashes

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A protest by hundreds of youth activists turned violent early Sunday, with protesters setting fire to street barricades and cars and smashing shop windows, police said. Officers used tear gas to disperse the crowd. Authorities said 63 people were arrested as riot police clashed with rock-throwing youth in the Noerrebro district of Copenhagen.

The unrest started after a demonstration late Saturday commemorating the Youth House, a makeshift cultural center for the city's anarchists and disaffected youth that was demolished in March.

"It's six months since we cleared the house there, and they want to show they've not forgotten," police spokesman Mads Firlings said. "Almost immediately they started building barricades and throwing rocks through the windows of shops and banks."

He said police used tear gas to disperse the crowds who set fires to barricades and cars, including a police vehicle that had been abandoned by officers fleeing the angry mob.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070902/ap_on_re_eu/denmark_clashes

Seems we are only getting one side of the story.

squatters lost their Ungdomshuset


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungdomshuset

The Youth House began as a labor hall back in 18...97? and was always traditionally a house where left-wing groups could gather. The city had, a couple decades ago, unoffically given the house away to the youth that were occupying it, and it was used as a music venue and culturally center.

Then the city "sold it" to an ultra right-wing evangelical church so that they could demolish it and build a new church building.

I know someone in Copenhagen, and *all* of the media coverage on this issue has been extremely biased in protraying all of the protesters as, "disaffected youth" or "anarchists". Many different left-wing groups used the house and many different progressive people in Denmark are pissed off about what happened...

The government had no right to give it away in the first place but it was nice of them to lend it to the squatters until a buyer could be found.

So, they officially sold it to a buyer that many hate.

The squatters I bet were given a few chances to pay for a title transfer and then have to upkeep the property.

Now it's up to the original squatters from a few decades ago to organize and come up with funding an alternate youth house. Or find another abandoned property to fix up while squatting.

Last time I went to Denmark that was enough to start a full scale riot.