Ungdomshuset Updates - March 9th to 12th (English translation from Modkraft.dk)
Monday 12th March
The police searched the offices of the political youth organisation Red Youth. The police did not have a court order,
but had suspicion that there were weapons there. The police did not find anything illegal, but five Norwegians were arrested.
Just before 15:00 Activists occupied one of Copenhagens council's buildings in Gyldenlovsgade.
The property formely belonged to Copenhagen tax department, but is now under the Culture department.
The activists were removed by the police after an hour. 14 have been arrested and are being taken to
Bellahoj police station. The activists said in a pressrealse that they were connected to the foremer Ungdomshuset
at Jagtvej 69. The group consisted of about 30 girls from Copenhagen. A 15m2 banner was hung out the window saying
"Room for differences - ungdomshuse now". The activists refused to leave the building before another ungdomshus is
made available. They emphasised that the action was non-violent.
"Ungdomshuset at Jagtvej was a well-run and democratic culture house, and was loved by thousands of Copenhageners.
The politicans have now sold the house to a christian sect. Our hosue have been demolished and we no longer have a place
to do all the activites we used to do at Jagtvej 69" says Jeppe from the group in a press realses.
"When thousands of young Copenhageners take to the streets in protests, it doesn't help that the politicians are
being arrogant and ignoring the point: a user controlled house is needed at Norrebro" he says further.
"The clearing of Jagtvej 69 was a result of political removal of responsibility and a crazy single minded cultural
politic in Copenhagen council over many years. The commerical and elitist is being expanded, while the experimental
and free culture is being restricted and subdued in the name of 'normality'", says Laura from the group.
"We are angry and disappointed that the politicans can't recognise the need for a user controlled ungdomshus.
We don't know where we are gonna take all our activities, and we are therefore having a party in the council's building",
says Jeppe.
Letters, sofas, newspaper articles and demos are part of a number of new support arrangments for Ungdomshuset in Vinstrup,
Copenhagen, Helsinki and Italy.
At the iniative skrivforfristeder.dk one can send a personal message to mayor Ritt Bjerregaard.
Ritt (and her employees) have stated publicly that she tries to read and answer all letters, mails and faxes.
The iniative writes to Modkraft "If Politiken can get 400 mails sent to Ritt, then Modkraft can get at least 1000".
Send a letter, email or fax from here:
http://skrivforfristeder.dk/.
Sit down for Ungdomshuset. In Jutland activists have made a small sympathy action in Vinstrup between Randers and Hadslund.
A sofa, graffiti'd with "69" and "please sit down", was placed on the street.
If you are good at languages:
http://ilmanifesto.it/Quotidiano-archivio/07-Marzo-2007/art36.html.
In Helsinki, Finland, the fourth action for Ungdomshuset took place. A smaller demo with 40 people took place
Saturday night past the Danish embassy, where the embassy sign was painted white with 69 sprayed over it in black.
Earlier in the week around 30 activists occupied the entrance to the embassy.
The entrance is shared with a shopping centre, and the activists handed out cookies to the customers and played
the Madness hit "our house" until the police showed up after half an hour.
The party then continued outside the building for another hour and a half.
Saturday 10th March
Reclaim the Streets
A couple of hundred people met at 23:00 by Forum at Fredriksberg for a reclaim the street party.
The police were massively present, and surrounded the party while a police helicpoter hovered above.
The party turned into a solidarity demo for the prisoners at Vestre prison and moved there to protest.
According to participants in the demo the police showed zero tolerance and arrested at least four people on the way.
A total of 12 people have been arrested during the night, mostly for minor things, and one for having
thrown a bottle at police.
Police free to search anyone over the weekend
The police can now search people for no apparent reason at Norrebro and Christianshavn. This will last from saturday
18:00 10th of March until 07:00 Monday 19th of march, 2007.
The decision was based on 19 arrested for breaking the weapons law in connection with the riots around Ungdomshuset.
The police are allowed to do this according to the Police law Paragraph 6.
The atmoshphere at Norrebro is tense in connection with the Reclaim the Street party at Forum.
A helicopter is patrolling and police are on the ground.
In Blaagaardsgade a number of police forced their way into the hallway of an apartment block
chasing some "autonomous" people who had apparently "been standing there looking".
The police left the building, which has several banners hanging in the windows, after not having found anyone
suitably suspicious.
Today's Demo in Oslo
There was an unannounced demo infront of the Danish embassy in Oslo today. The 50 protesters were meet by 20 police vans.
The demo lasted for about half an hour, and slogans were shouted, such as "Tear the embassy down, ungdomshus now".
According to politiken, the protesters promised to keep coming back until there is a new ungdomshus.
In copenhagen today, on two different occasions, ten norwegians have been arrested and denied entery into the country.
5000 people protest peacefully at Raadhuspladsen
There was up to 5000 people at the demo today at Raadhuspladsen, which was filled with clowns, jugglers, people
dressed up, young, old, children, punkers, famous artists, "people's kitchen", music, speeches and much more.
The demo was met by several positive shouts from people in their apartments on the way.
There was a heavy police presence in the side streets, but things were calm.
Later tonight there will be a demo and a party at Forum and Ground 69.
Active Creative Copenhageners
"The demolition of ungdomshuset is a great loss to copenhagen" says a statement from a number of Copenhagen
journalists, filmmakers, creative directors, event makers, artists and publishers, who describe themselves as
"active creative Copenhageners". They say they have no political affiliation to Ungdomshuset.
"We have no connection to the autonomous people's ideals, and we take strong distance from all the street violence.
It seems a bit ridiculous that they think that the world is after to get them, instead of living their lives constructively".
But they still defend ungdomshuset, "We feel a closer connection to Ungdomshuset punkers than we do to faderhuset's
new religious, anti-abortionist and homophobic members".
"We encourage all Copenhageneres, especially them with a creative and humanistic affiliation, to support Ungdomshuset".
The people who signed this are:
Thomas Dalvang Fleurquin (direktør, human office - copenhagen), Frederik Bjerregård (chefredaktør, cover magazine), Tomas Barfod (musiker, whomadewho), Jesper Elg (gallerist, v-1 gallery), Henrik Vibskov (designer, the company of henrik vibskov), Nanna Thylstrup (journalist + dj), Rasmus Schack (dj + producer + eventmager, mid week brakes), Andreas Rosforth-Johnsen (pris belønnede dokumentarfilm instruktør), Jens Skovgård (dj + promotor, lækker lytter), Christian Bonke (direktør, superstar records), Nis Sigurdsson (kunstner, grafisk designer, escho.net), Malene Malling (udgiver, malling publications), Henrik Moltke (journalist, dr + creative commons), Adam Hashemi (film instruktør, bacon), Linn-Cecilie Hansen (forfatter), Sebastian Larsen (kreativ direktør, onesto mong), Mads Niklas Lerager (prisbelønnet dj tom collins), Dorit Weber (masters i moderne kommunikation), Frederik lBille Brahe (promotor, klub yohad) and Mads Nørgaard (designer, mads nørgaard copenhagen).
Five Norwegians denied entry to Denmark
A bus with Norwegian protesters was stopped around 4am at the border in Helsingor.
The bus and passengers were searched and registered.
Five people were taken to the police station and the police are working at expelling them from the country.
The five peple were already registered as having taken part in previous riots on 16th december 2006,
and so were refused entrance into the country.
The other 24 were allowed to continue to Copenhagen, where they will take part in the demo at Raadhuspladsen at 15:00.
05:05
The police are still massively blocking Jagtvej.
A lot of people are leaving the area. There are about 50 to 100 people in three groups near Norrebro runddelen.
Some people are shouting at the police in anger, while some are playing drums.
The party was dissolved because it was an "illegal gathering",
according to the police, and because the bonfire became too big.
When a police van that wanted to negotiate with the young people was hit by stones they decided to clear the area.
18 people were arrested, and 2 to 3 people for violence against the police.
A total of 37 people were arrested during the night for damage, graffiti, and for "shouting nasty things at the police".
4:25
The police have dissolved a group of around 1000 peaceful protestors at the ground where Ungdomshuset used to be.
"This is clear power arrogance" says a source about the way the police handled it. More police have arrived and
have blocked Jagtvej. There are
about 20 to 30 police vans are present and also a police bus.
Friday 9th March
There will be a lot to do on Saturday 10th March, the whole day has been announced "storskrald".
The slogan will be "Tired of crap. Think big" (traet af lort, taenk stort).
They encourage the activists to show their "disgust for the politicians' lack of will to a peaceful solution,
and instead use the police". The activists are encouraged to put their 'storskrald' in the street.
"We are giving them shit in return and a lot of stress and hassle for their treatment of jagtvej 69.
At 15:00 there will be a "where are we now gonna be?" demo from Raadhuspladsen in Copenhagen.
The people arranging it are "Old Ungern' activists".
Monday 12th of march there will be "the people's kitchen" at Raadhuspladsen. This will take place at 17:00.
15 minutes before there will be a noise demo at the same place. "Our house is now gone, so we will make noise on the street".
Finally, Radio 69 are up again. The radio will broadcast all the time from radio69.dk, and this weekend it will be
broadcast from 106.3 at following times: friday 13:00-17:00 and 20:00-24:00, Saturday 11:00-16:00, sunday 6:30-14:00
The police left Jagtvej 69 today and removed the barriers to "ground 69".
At 22:00 about 400 people showed up with music, furniture, beer and a fire. The atmosphere is good and there's no
police so far. at 23:30 the party moved out onto the road, and so far the police are leaving them alone.
On the website jagtvej69.dk the activists say the want to establish a permanent camp at the property.
At 19:00 a group of protesters gathered outside Vestre prison in copenhagen to show solidarity with the prisoners.
The demo demands the release of the prisoners and the prison being changed into a new ungdomshus.
"The place has a good size, has work rooms, a large kitchen for our vegan food, a church with good acoustics for our
concerts, and people have the possibility to spend the night in seperate rooms on soft madresses.
Everything is perfect as a replacement for Jagtvej 69"
Odense Support arranged a demo and about 200 people showed up in symphathy with Ungdomshuset.
The demo had the slogan "Ungdomshuset can not be torn down. The spirit lives on in the street".
Before the demo the police arrested 29 right wing people as a preventive measure in fear that
they would attack the demo. Right wing hooligans are known to attack the left wing youth in Odensen.
At 16:00 about 70 activists tried to get into Magasin (an expensive department store in Copenhagen), which was to be
used as a temporary Ungdomshus, but the police did not think this was such a good idea.
The police lined up outside Magasin and turned away all the activists because they were considered to
"not want to buy anything".
At 14:00 the iniative Blod Front (Soft front) was started with the Division Stuffed Pet animals.
Their aim is to "manifest active resistance against the 'normalisation' which we have seen at Christiania and Jagtvej,
but do so by unharmful means".
Peple that want to participate in "non-violent, confrotational actions" can mail: divisionkrammedyr@gmail.com
According to the police's website, since the 7th of march 06:00 they have arrested another 18 people for disturbances
and putting up posters. A total of 695 people have been arrested in connection with Ungdomshuset.
At least 8 of those arrested where done so illegitimately
Norwegian police have arrested four activists who have been charged with doing damage toward the Danish consulate in
Kristiansand. The consulate has been painted three times in one week, and three young men and a young woman have
confessed to doing it. Two of them were caught with paint on their shoes. There has also been put a banner up. The
four declared they did it in symphathy with ungdomshuset.
This morning some Swedish students occupied Osakrade Studenter kaarhuset at Stockholm university.
"We are doing this in solidarity with our Danish friends who are in prison and those who are still out fighting.
The attack at Ungdomshuset is seen as part of a new liberal offensive that want to destroy everything we have
created together and that is ours".
Two activists sailed out in a homemade fleet in Peblingeso in central Copenhagen in symphathy with Ungdomshuset.
This happened under the slogan "Ritts city - our island". Five minutes later the police arrived and searched six people.
The people on the fleet was arrested after an hour and a half when their fleet drifted back to land.
The flyer that was handed out by the people on land read:
"We have created an island in Peblingeso, where we live in freedom and peaceful co-existence, and where everyone was welcome".
the following was written earlier on friday:
Nothing from Modkraft yet today, but Politiken are reporting that Amnesty International are
concerned over how authorities have handled the disturbances and are calling for an investigation
(our main translator is taking a break, so any help translating this would be greatly appreciated).
"Shit" Ritt (the mayor, head of council, of Copenhagen etc) has recieved over 700 angry emails and letters to which
she has to reply (or her secretary does at least). Also, the young people have been allowed back to
Jagtvej 69, now known as "ground 69", and people are placing flowers where Ungdomshuset used to stand
http://politiken.dk/indland/article261353.ece
News from Thursday 8th March