Saturday, March 03, 2007

Riots in Copenhagen

This is a 1944 riot in Nørrebro, Copenhagen during the German occupation of Denmark
I have been watching the present situation in Nørrebro in Copenhagen with interest. For the past three days police and activists have been battling in the streets of the suburb around the 'Young Peoples House' that has been a thriving center for culture for over 20 years and is now being closed as the recently acquired property of a Christian sect. The new owner of the house decided to evict the young people when they used the word "Hell" in a banner they hung from the wall of the building.
It seems this is not the first time Nørrebro has seen civil insurrection on a mass scale. In 1944 the Danish people resisted the Nazi occupation on the same spot. A large collection of videos on the 2007 riot are being amassed on YouTube. As I write several thousand activists have assembled at Rådhuspladsen and it seems there will be another night of action in Copenhagen tonight. With the G8 coming up in Berlin in June this year we could be in for a European summer of anti-fascist street actions.

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