[Onthebarricades] Fw: Denmark: police attack on Christiania leads to fresh unrest

[Andy]

Youths, police clash in Copenhagen riot
JAN M. OLSEN 

Associated Press

May 15, 2007 at 8:07 AM EDT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070515.wdaneriot0515/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20070515.wdaneriot0515

COPENHAGEN - Hundreds of black-clad youths clashed with police in Copenhagen on Tuesday, barricading streets and setting fire to cars to protest against the demolition of a building in the free-wheeling Christiania district.

Police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested 59 people, all Danes. Three people were hurt, all police officers.

"At times it was pretty violent," police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.

The clashes started Monday when workers tore down a condemned building in Christiania, a partly self-governing section of Copenhagen that is home to an alternative lifestyle community.

The youths threw bottles, cobblestones and firecrackers at police and set fire to cars and street barricades.

Although the building was largely abandoned, many protesters saw the demolition as part of a government plan to assert control over the enclave.

Two months ago, angry youths went on a rampage in downtown Copenhagen to protest the eviction of squatters from a youth centre in another part of the city. Hundreds were arrested and 25 people hurt in the riots, the worst clashes in Copenhagen in more than a decade.

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