AGAINST FORTRESS EUROPE       Dec 12-14 2002
Protests Against EU Summit In Copenhagen

The weekend of the 13 - 14 December an EU summit took place in Copenhagen, Denmark.

A coalition of grassroots movements, various activists groups, social and students' organizations, trade unions and left wing political parties called for a week of mobilization against the EU summit and the neo-liberal politics of the EU.

The coalition 'The initiative for a different Europe' expected thousands of people from all over Europe demonstrating against a Europe of eurocrats and multinational companies. The counter-summit and protests envisioned a Europe without privatisation, social exclusion, unemployment, environmental destruction and racism.

The agenda for the EU summit this time was the enlargement of the EU towards the east and civil rights. Contradicting this agenda, the right to free movement and dissent was denied to protesters. At 3 o'clock Friday morning police stopped around 20 Italian disobedients who came to Copenhagen via the Zapatista caravan. The police arrested six people and charged them with resisting public order officers. Read the press release (eng) by the Italian Disobbedienti and watch the video of the arrests.

Invited by Copenhagen police officials, foreign police patrolled the streets of Copenhagen, in violation of the Danish Constitution. The foreign police were surveying foreign activists "considered to be a special threat to the state".

Strict border controls: buses were stopped at the border. Therefore the ÷resunds action group called for a collective action of crossing the Swedish-Danish border (yelah.net).

Latest updates in english from Denmark Indymedia | Video Library

Thursday 12/ 12: Actions at the borders against fortress Europe.
Pictures from the action at the German border.

Friday13/12: Day of Action. Around 1000 people took part in an anti racist demo that moved towards the conference centre where the EU leaders were meeting. Although there was very heavy riot police presence following the demo, no clashes were reported. The demonstration was eventually blocked 100 meters away from the Summit by large numbers of riot police. See Timeline of events | Photos.
Earlier in the day police raided an ISP hosting several websites associated with the protests and obtained server logs, while several protest websites were shut down with a heavy denial of service attack (Summitinfo now has a mirror site here). Police intimidation of independent media also resulted in the arrest of Indymedia volunteers.
See Photo Gallery of the day's actions from La Haine.

Saturday 14/12: 10,000 people demonstrated in inner Copenhagen under the slogan "Our world is not for sale - People before profit". The international demo was mainly made up of socialists, anarchists, disobedients and other groups (photo gallery). Two groups eventually split from the main demo: the anarchist bloc moving towards central Copenhagen under the slogan "Against Police State Europe" (photos 1 and 2), and the Disobedients marching towards Vestre prison where the people arrested the day before were being kept. Later these two groups rejoined outside Vestre prison where 7 people were arrested allegedly for wearing masks after some sporadic clashes with the police (report | debate on tactics). La Haine.org informs of a total of 40 arrests during the weekend's actions. Also, reports of activity by police agent provocateurs and reports of people being arrested in central Copenhagen away from de demos.
The day ended with the Italian disobedients being released and a Reclaim The Streets party at 1 AM.
Up to minute reports and timeline of events from La Haine

Demo-info / Arrests

Links Initiative for a different Europe / Anarkist federation / Global roots / NGO ‚ forum Stop the violence /

Media IMC Denmark / IMC Sweden / Alternative media centre / TV Stop / Modkraft / La Haine / Global Radio / Summitinfo Mirror