Youth space under atack.
international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
news report
Wednesday September 20, 2006 00:13
by Friend of Ungdomshuset.
Danish social centre under attack from Danish Government.
Ungdomshuset is a space used by the youth of Copenhagen for over 20 years and is under threat after a two year legal battle in the Danish court system. Solidarity is needed all over the world to try and save this space for the youth of Copenhagen.
A solidarity demo is being held in Dublin tomorrow on the 20th of september and the meetup point is the entrance to st stephens green at 3 o'clock.
THIS IS A CALL FOR SOLIDARITY
We invite people to come for the weekend of September 22nd-24th!
We have reached the end of a 2 year long trial against activists from Ungdomshuset. The court has spoken and the verdict turned out in favor of Faderhuset. This means that they will try to shut down Ungdomshuset and establish their rightwing Christian fundamentalist group in OUR house. We do not acknowledge their so-called justice system! There will never be anything but Ungdomshuset in that house and therefore we will do anything in our power to defend it!
On the 23rd + 24th we hit the streets to show them that we are many, that we are powerful and that we will NOT be ignored!
It is no longer a matter of IF we are going to fight for the house, but rather WHEN! But WE decide when it's time to fight - therefore the demonstrations will be non-confrontative.
Copenhagen is not the only city under attack! Houses all over Europe are currently being evicted or “normalized”! We encourage everyone to come to Copenhagen to show them that we do not tolerate them trying to take away the last non-commercial, left-wing activity house in Denmark!
We will provide sleeping places and hopefully with the help of
everyone we can turn Copenhagen upside down!
The Programme for the weekend will look like this:
FRIDAY 22/9
All day - Art Exhibition about Ungdomshuset
In “Pressen” (Politikens Hus)
Open all weekend! -Free entrance
19:00 - Soupkitchen in Ungdomshuset
Vegan food for 20 Dkr
20:00 - FÆSTEN in Ungdomshuset
There will be a blast of a party with tons of hip hop, punk, reggae, ska, rock, DJs, cocktail bar, visuals and much more. Expect 3 floors of madness!
Entrance: 50 dkr
SATURDAY 23/9
14:00 - Lunch in Ungdomshuset’s garden
16:00 - DEMONSTRATION FOR UNGDOMSHUSET
Leaving from Jagtvej 69 to Christiania
18:00 - Party at ”DEN GRÅ HAL”
(The Grey Hall - Christiania)
Party with lots of bands, DJs, film, workshops, art and much more. A celebration of Ungdomshuset and Christiania.
Entrance: 50 dkr
21:00 - Concert in Ungdomshuset
Alarma Man (Sweden, Don Cabbalero/Black Flag)
Will Sartain (US, Indie rock)
Menfolk (Cph, Aggressive rock/post hc)
South Paw (Cph, Indie/emo)
Entrance: 40 Dkr
SUNDAY 24/9
12:00 - Brunch in the basement Café
Join us for the delicious vegan brunch buffet with coffee ad libitum for 20 Dkr.
15:00 - RECLAIM THE STREETS
”If they take our House, we will take the whole fucking city!”
From: Sankt Hans Torv, Nørrebro
20:00 - Soupkitchen in Ungdomshusets garden
Vegan food for 20 Dkr
21:00 - Concert in Ungdomshuset
Ballast (Canada, Female fronted anarchopunk)
H.B.G. (Holland, fast hardcore)
Summon The Crows (Norway, hardcore) Entrance: 40 Dkr
A solidarity demo is being held in Dublin tomorrow on the 20th of september and the meetup point is the entrance to st stephens green at 3 o'clock.
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Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2I heard a brief sketch of what happened at the demo. Can some who was there do up a summary?
http://indymedia.dk/newswire.php?story_id=665
Reclaim the streets: Eye wittness acount
I'm an activist from Denmark who participated in a Reclaim The Streets party for ungdomshuset (The Youth House). I have used ungdomshuset for a few years as a place for great parties and cool atmosphere. I hate the fact that christian fundamentalists are to take it over and i've been to many protests supporting the place. None of them like the one today. None of them escalating to this degree of violence.
At the beginning of this protest we started from Skt. Hans Torv where the sound van came in and kicked the party alive. We were with about 500 protesters but many people joined in when they saw the cool partying. Noone wore masks or did anything provocative towards the police present. Then the party started moving in the direction of the inner city. The day before we had a great protest walking all the way through town with a nice atmosphere the whole way and no confrontations of any kind. Because of that noone anticipated any troubles.
However as soon as we went to cross the bridge leading to the inner city the police massively blocked the road standing in riot gear and using armored cars. This of course scared the protesters a little bit, standing in front of what looked like an army ready to charge. The speakervan informed people that they should stay calm and that this didn't affect the party. The party then simply unfolded itself on the bridge. A lot of people seemed to have joined in on the protest. People were handing out sandwiches and the sunny weather only hightened the mood. The police didnt seem to want to start any trouble even though they occasionally drove their cars back and forth a little bit.
After an hour or so the demo decided to walk back the way it came. The police then started to drive their cars into the crowd pushing it along. This was ofcourse a bit provocative but soon after we lost them and walked through some of the smaller roads near another bridge into the inner city. As soon as we got near another bridge two police drove angrily near the demo and riot cops jumped out of the vans. Then they charged the crowd with their batons. A few people threw whatever bottles they had at the officers but most just ran away. This triggered a series of attacks from all sides where the police charged with batons penning people into a little street called Rantzausgade. Me and a friend just saw a hole in their formation and jumped out through the police. We could then see police charging the penned in people who werent fast enough to run away with batons from all sides beating and kicking people unable to move. This crowd was later mass arrested. Note that as far as i could see this crowd consisted solely of protesters from the demo who didn't run fast enough. The ones who actually did throw stuff at the police were mostly able to run away in time.
This police assault triggered a lot of anger in many of the protesters. At first some tried to charge down a side street near the police pen but the police hid in their armored cars which didn't have much trouble from of the hail of rocks being thrown at them. Then people started building barricades in the streets close to the police pen and hurled rocks at the police cars as they passed through. The police then drove their armoured vans at a very high speed through the crowd forcing people to literally jump for their lives. Had anyone tripped or fallen there was no way the vans would have been able to stop in time. This of course angered people even more and some local youths decided to join in the fighting as well. Though some attempts were made people were unable to free their comrades. However some of the people penned in for a mass arrest kicked down a gate to a backyard an managed to escape that way.
After an hour or so the riots died out.
This has been the worst riots in denmark and as far as i've seen its solely due to provocative police behavior. Had the protest been allowed to go on i don't think anything violent would have happened. The riots looked improvised and unorganised. Far more importantly the use of armored police vans as battering rams is clearly a disrespect for peoples lives! Had anyone been run over i'd never forgive them.
These riots are a small taste of whats to come if a solution is not found. There is no way the house will be given up without a fight!