Personal account of today's arrest

A personal account of what happened before, during and after the mass arrest at the COP15 demo today (Dec 12). The report was relayed to IMC DK moments after they were released, and is published pretty much verbatim.

"I was part of a Libertarian Socialist bloc in the "System Change, Not Climate Change" section. We'd reported our demo (from Kgs Nytorv to the large demo at Christiansborg Slotsplads) to the police well in advance. We met as planned and marched with our red-black flags and banners - with a Christiania bike serving coffee and tea. When we reached Christmas Møllers Plads there were different groups marching around us. Some Trotskyites ahead of us, some Greenpeace people and some Hare Krishna to the right and some black bloc like people behind us."

"Having just passed Christmas Møllers Plads we're on the first part of Amagerbrogade when suddenly a lot of people run through our bloc from behind. We're confused and stop to find what's going on. Soon police cars cut off the road ahead from a side street and the same behind us. The people who ran through our bloc have mostly escaped, but we're left bewildered and confused. So the police have us closed in and we don't know what to do. We just stand there, hoping they'll realize their mistake. I tell a police officer that we are a legally reported bloc and show him our permit (of which I have a copy). He says: "Just sit down!" in a harsh tone. So we sit down, and at this point I call the dispatch phone."

"We're sure they'll realize their mistake and let us going - seing as they've captured Greenpeace and Hare Krishna alike. But instead they start hand-cuffing us all and putting us on the cold ground in "trains". And there we sit for 3½ hours - literally freezing our asses of, not to speak of the pain from the all too tight plastic cuffs. People wet their pants and faint. There are many hundreds. Even the Krishna people get put on the cold ground, wearing thin robes and all. As time passes and nothing happens, people are becoming more and more hypothermic and chanting "This is torture!" and "This is what democracy looks like!""

"After sitting for what seems like forever on the freezing tarmac, I was put into a bus and driven off to Valby. (Retortvej, where the makeshift detention has been set up.) Still arms cuffed behind my back - 4½ hours of pain ... It hurt so bad. When we got there, we were just left sitting in the bus. There were many buses waiting."

"At one point, two policemen come into the bus I'm in at the front and when they come to me, they ask: "Do you have any ID?" I answer in the affirmative, and they ask me to come outside. I show them my ID and they ask me to tell what happened. I do, and they say: "Ah, well, unfortunate mistake. We're sorry about that. Sometimes the wrong people get caught. You're free to go." They let me out. These policemen are very apologetic - I assume they're from a different assignment and not used to such brutality."

"I go down to the bus stop where ABC is waiting with food, tea and coffee in thermos. I hang out there for a while, trying to understand what just happened and how they can put innocent people through that ... Then the police come over to bully the ABC crowd around and they shove them away from the bus stop. They move on to the S-train station. Later the police bully them away from there as well."

"I had a copy of the permit for the demonstration. But the people who released me from the bus probably didn't know that when they picked me out. It'd been hours since I'd shown it to a different officer who took no notice of it."