Police raid of Bolsjefabrikken

A report from the police raid of Bolsjefabrikken (the Candy Factory).

The police came suddenly and unannounced at about 4:45 p.m. and invaded Bolsjefabrikken (the Candy Factory). Between 50 and 100 cops entered the place. First they took the activists down to the basement for about an hour, while the police roamed around the building. When the activists asked what the police was doing, they were told: "They aren't doing anything, just looking around". The police claimed that they had two different police groups. One group who was going to decide whether to arrest people or not and another group that would search the place afterwards. So for an hour there was officially no search and the activists weren't allowed to watch what the police were doing.

After "doing nothing" for an hour, the police who was going to search the place started searching. The activists couldn't tell the one group apart from the other. Three activists were allowed to supervise the raid, but the police was divided in four groups with different leaders, so the activists had no way of watching everything. Their internal communication amongst the police wasn't functioning very well and the different groups didn't know which leader had charge of which group.

At first the police said that they didn't have a search warrant, but they changed their mind several times saying a particular cop had the warrant, which turned out to be false. If the activists decide to file a complaint, the police can retroactively obtain a warrant within 24 hours.

The police took a computer, an iPod, a cell phone, different posters, notes, an activity calendar, two double trouble bikes, one tall-bike, and lots of different papers. Everybody inside got their name registered.

One person got arrested because he was carrying a folded knife. A recent Danish legislation makes it very difficult to have any kind of sharp objects, even when you are using it for a legal purpose. There have been quite a few examples of people going to jail for seven days because they had a hobby knife or knife for fishing in their car. This guy was working in the workshop and used the knife there.

Because of the police raid, the announced David Rovics fundraising concert for the media center in Solidaritetshuset, Griffenfeldtsgade 41, got cancelled.