More than 200 activists
detained Sunday
Danish
police stopped an unauthorized demonstration on a second
day of street protests over climate change as environment
ministers met for informal talks to advance negotiations
on a new pact.
13/12/2009
- Police stopped an unauthorized demonstration headed toward
the city's harbor and carried out a security check of some
of the participants, Copenhagen police spokesman Flemming
Steen Munch told.
The
hundreds of demonstrators were outnumbered by police officers
in riot gear who surrounded them. Steen Munch said police
found bolt-cutters and gas masks when they searched a truck
that led the demonstration. At least 200 activists were
detained, he said.
Police
said only 13 of the 968 people detained during and after
a mass rally Saturday in Copenhagen remained in custody
Sunday. Of those, three — two Danes and a Frenchman
— were set to be arraigned in court on preliminary
charges of fighting with police.
An estimated 40,000 people joined the mostly peaceful march
toward the suburban conference center where the 192-nation
UN climate conference is being held.
Riot
police detained activists at the tail end of the demonstration
when some of them started vandalizing buildings in downtown
Copenhagen. Windows were broken at the former stock exchange
and the Foreign Ministry.
Critics
blasted the Danish law that allows police to make preventative
arrests if they believe a demonstration will turn violent
and hold suspected troublemakers for up to 12 hours without
a court arraignment.
"They
have arrested 1,000 people. And they only followed up on
three of them," Amnesty spokeswoman Ida Thuesen said.
"There are lot of people who haven't done anything
and had no intention of doing anything."
The
conference took a day off Sunday, though more than 40 environment
ministers were meeting for informal talks at the Danish
Foreign Ministry on greenhouse emissions cuts and financing
for poor nations to deal with climate change.
The
pledges on emissions cuts so far are short of the minimum
proposed in a draft agreement to keep temperatures from
rising to a dangerous level.
Do UNFCCC
