by frog
Yep, really. It’s a new law, just passed the other day.
Legislation giving police the right to pre-emptive arrests in connection with the COP15 climate conference was passed by a decisively split parliament yesterday.
The new legislation allows police to detain those arrested for up to 12 hours under the premise that they ‘might’ take part in civil disobedience. In addition, protesters can be jailed for up to 40 days if police determine the activists have ‘hindered’ their work.
So uhh, that’s some pretty heavy curtailment of freedom of speech… If you’re thinking about having your say at Copenhagen, be sure not to say the ‘wrong’ thing! Or look like you’re thinking of saying it.
Published in Society & Culture by frog on Sun, November 29th, 2009
Tags: cop15, copenhagen, police state
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
They must be expecting BIG trouble.
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Well, the Danish are not slow in arresting activists, as the Ungdomhusset (youth house) residents found nearly two years ago in Copenhagen … running anything ‘by the people, for the people’ seems to be regarded as inherently dissident and suppression-worthy.
AFAIK, Indymedia are running a convergence centre; this co-incides almost neatly with the ten-year anniversary of the first Indymedia convergence centre, at guess which international forum in Seattle…(trick question, no replies needed, just a history-check)
My heartfelt best wishes to you, Frog, on your journey. Keep us posted.
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I hope they have a huge prison there, lol
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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Hardly. It’s been run since 2001 by the centre right Venstre and the further-right coalition of the DPP. The DPP agreed to the coalition because their pretty draconian immigration laws got a look-in. Denmark was also the place where the Mohammed cartoons that pissed everyone off so much a couple of years ago originated. Bastion of “European socialism” Denmark is not.
Also, these kinds of laws already exist in most European countries to deal with football hooliganism. Those with previous convictions for unrest or who lead groups with histories of violence, or who previously led those groups, are banned from travelling by their own countries. I don’t know how far Denmark will go, or who they’ll be targeting, but remember that Denmark does have a court system, and it’s overseen by that nightmarish institution, the ECHR.
And I don’t know if any of you have ever been to a G* summit, but going on previous performances from some protestors, the laws might be worth it. Anyway, I don’t think it could be much worse than Italy.
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I half-remember a rumour that the Danish Muslims who were offended about the cartoons initially wanted an academic conference to examine the boundary between free speech and respect for religion, and that they only took the issue to the Islamic Conference, from which it led to violence, when they were rebuffed. I can’t find a link for this in Google. Can anyone confirm this?
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FYI Frog;
http://indymedia.org.nz/article/78060/10-years-indymedia-where-here
story on the development of citizen-initiated independent media.
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more at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/science/earth/07security.html
350. Ironic.
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There are two names on the article, one of whom could be Danish. I conjecture that at least one knows about 350.org and is protesting.
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