Copenhagen December Riot - Campaign in Defense of The House

Campaign in Defense of The House

Following the decision of the national court a campaign in defense of the house was started. The campaign had been going on ever since the house was sold, but it was only now when facing eviction that the campaign got organized and began focusing on mass-mobilization. As the campaign got more and more attention in the media, the number of people started attending demonstrations in support of the house rapidly increased. The demonstrations grew from a couple of hundred people to numbering several thousands in just a few months. For the first time in its history, Ungdomshuset experienced massive support from people outside radical left-wing circles. Much of this support came from young people, some of whom had never even visited the house before. Many of these young people was later going to form the main bulk of protesters in the subsequent riots.

Ungdomshuset soon began holding a number of meetings concerning the defense of the house, some of which were attended by up to a thousand people. The users began to make it clear that they were not going to give up the house without a fight. The consensus within the broad specter of supporters slowly, but surely started to change from non-violent protest to a felling that if violence was the only way to defend the house "then so be it". This radical shift in the movement was caused by a number of things. First of all the conflict had turned in to deadlock. The users of the house made a compromise offer to the city council, that if they would present the young people with a new house, they would peacefully leave Ungdomshuset. The only demand was that the new house was the same size as Ungdomshuset. The city council blankly refused that offer.

At the same time, a foundation had been created to try and by back the house from Faderhuset. This also failed. Faderhuset was offered 13 million, all the money the foundation could muster, but in spite of this being over six times the money that Faderhuset had bought the house for, they still refused to sell. At the same time, the users of the house experienced a wave of repression from the police. The police had frequently begun to attack Ungdomshusets demonstrations and a lot of people fighting for Ungdomshuset experienced massive harassment on a day to day basis.

People started to feel that the police were taking sides with the city council and Faderhuset. Tensions boiled over when a demonstration on 24 September was attacked by the police. The reason for the police attack apparently was a bottle being thrown at a police van. The police responded with a full frontal baton-charge on the demonstration. This led to several hours of street fighting between police and demonstrators. During the street fighting, three hundred people were arrested, many of which had not been involved with the fighting. A lot of these later claimed to have been brutally treated while in police custody. This sparked anger amongst the supporters of Ungdomshuset and many stated that violent resistance was now not only necessary and justified but the only right course of action that they could choose.

In November 2006, a demonstration outside Faderhusets headquarters was surrounded by the police. The demonstration was small and did not try to resist against the police. The police then started to beat the demonstrators, a lot of which were sitting down at the time. One demonstrator later had to be taken to hospital. This sparked a public outcry and deepened the anger the users already felt towards the police. This anger combined with the city councils refusal to negotiate and Faderhusets apparent "crusade" against Ungdomshuset would later lead to the riot in December 2006.

• Police baton-charging the demonstration on September 24th

• Protesters getting ready to confront the police on September 24th

• Protesters sitting down during a demonstration