When I got off the city train, between a sea of people, I saw a single police officer on a motorbike waving the protestors in the direction of the US embassy. For a crowd of 15 000 protestors I saw in total around 10 police men through out the entire protest. Not in riot gear but wearing their every day traffic police gear. The population of Copenhagen is only 800 000 people.
The first hour of the protest was chanting protest slogans against the US embassy.
Then we marched through Copenhagen. Shops did not barricade their windows. Restaurants remained open with tables on the walk way of the narrow street we were walking though. No violence no Looting. The protestors even allowed traffic to pass. Some of the protestors were toddlers and babies in baby carriages.
The thing I felt less save about was Corona. The Danish Health Ministry does not believe in scientific evidence on how infectious the CCP virus is. Hence Denmark has no Mask law and only recommends 1 meter safety distance. Technically there is even a ban to wear mask (targetted against Muslims wearing burka). I wore mask anyway and people in the crowd of the protestors were safe enough from police that I saw people daring to wear burka. The lock-down was recently lifted but I expect corona cases to increase again. Only few were wearing mask and many did not even try to keep 1m distance and bumped into other protestors as if the virus never happened.
When arriving at a larger area, we kneeled in protest while listening how one of the organizers and his family, who have immigrated from Jamaica to London, was targeted by police.
The theme of the protest was not only to protest the lack of equality, human rights, democracy and police control in USA. The theme was also to realize racism in our own countries, and act on them before they become normalized. The theme was also equality and freedom of discrimination of trans and gay people. I even saw a Palestinian flag, which makes sense due to the severe police violence they face on a daily basis just for being Palestinian. China, USA and Israel are the most severe hotspots of police oppression of minorities and discrimination, but they are not unique hotspots.
But also it was chanted that refugees are welcome here. Denmark has very strict policies against immigration and refugees. They even reserved an island to imprison any refugees coming to Denmark. Quite the opposite to its surrounding neighbours Sweden and Germany who have a large percentage of their population refugees. Still Europe's borders are fortified, and so the protestors called out for open borders.
The protests were also about de-funding the police globally. Trumps response to WHO failing to remain the neutral organization was to de-fund them, hence naturally it would make sense to de-fund the police. Less police means only response to actual emergencies instead of constant harassment of citizens. This is only one of the double standards of Trump. Armed right wing protestors storming state buildings is exercising freedom of speech, but peaceful protests in front of the white house is "rioting" and gets rubber bullets and tear gas as a response? Deploying all kinds of US state security forces, even Park Rangers and others who have no rights to make arrest but rights to kill?
The protest saw little police and no violence occurred. Less police means less violence.
Enjoy the pictures:
