“Denmark is losing its reputation for being a good world citizen.” – Naomi Klein
Danish police arrest 150 demonstrators as world leaders arrive at Copenhagen conference. Mainstream groups such as Friends of the Earth have been barred from the conference centre (“Every delegate from the international environmental campaign group arrived at the centre this morning to find their badges were no longer valid.”). This follows the highly controversial preventive arrests by Danish police earlier this week, the arrest of a German spokesman for Climate Justice action, police raids on climate campaigners and, lest we forget, a warm welcome for President Mugabe by Danish PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
“The Copenhagen conference is fast becoming an international shambles.” – Andy Atkins
For me, I welcomed the incredulity on the BBC news readers’ faces as they interviewed a spokesperson, Henrik Suhr, for the Danish police force, the use of “preventive arrests” and Mr Suhr’s insistence that “if you do not want to be arrested, you should not be demonstrating” (let me draw your attention to the UN’s own Universal Declaration of Rights and, in particular, Articles 19 and 20). The BBC journalists’ reaction were very different to the type of journalism I had grown used to in Denmark in the last decade or so.
And as I’m typing this, a climate deal seems increasingly unlikely.
.. and they lived happily ever after – they being the knitter and her own Liesl.
