[imc-presse] [Cja-press] Police raid activists sleeping quarters in the middle of the night

[Climate Justice Action: latest news]

Police raid activists sleeping quarters in the middle of the night
Social & Climate Justice Caravan to arrive in Copenhagen at 6.30 pm

Last night at 3 am, around 200 police officers raided the Ragnhildgade
centre in Northern Copenhagen where activists were staying during the
Copenhagen climate talks. The police surrounded the building where the
activists were sleeping and proceeded to confiscate a number of tools and
materials, before leaving at around 4am.

Tannie Nyboe, of Climate Justice Action said,

“It’s completely disproportionate for the police to come in at three o'clock
in the morning, surround the sleeping-spaces and intimidate a lot of
sleeping guests. It’s really unacceptable for the police not to use the
liaison process that we set up and very worrying that this is how Denmark is
being portrayed to our international guests."

Lars K. Kristiansen, who has been working in the last week securing windows,
building fire doors and insulating empty buildings in the run up to the
summit said,

“The Danish authorities have been criticised for failing to provide enough
places for people who are coming to Copenhagen to sleep. We were trying to
meet that need, but now the police have confiscated the tools that we were
using to construct those sleeping spaces. ”

Isabelle LaChoix, who was sleeping in the centre at the time said,

“People from all over the world have come to Copenhagen to deal with climate
change, just like the people staying at the Ragnhildgade centre. The ‘Danish
text’ has already been a source of international embarrassment for the
Danish government – and now it risks more criticism by treating climate
activists like criminals.”

Despite last night’s events, activists will be providing a warm welcome for
the arrival of the Social & Climate Justice Caravan at 6.30 pm at the
Klimaforum. The caravan has travelled from the 7th conference of ministers
of the World Trade Organization in Geneva to COP15 in Copenhagen, with 60
activists from the global South drawing attention to the consequences that
neoliberal globalization and climate change have had on their lives.
Together with local activists in Copenhagen, they will be exploring
alternatives to free trade and the privatisation of resources, and new means
of cooperation between Northern and Southern activists.

Contact Danish media: +45 41294994
Contact international media: +45 50669028
Email: media at climate-justice-action.org
Follow us on Twitter: @actforclimate

To contact the Climate & Social Justice Caravan press officer - +49
17685205260


-- 
Climate Justice Action - media team.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.climate-justice-action.org
media at climate-justice-action.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/imc-presse/attachments/20091209/47af6b5a/attachment.htm 
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Cja-press mailing list
https://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/cja-press

Contact : media at climate-justice-action.org
http://www.climate-justice-action.org/
Phone +45 5066 9028