20th March 2010
Climate Activists on Trial in Denmark
Mark Hanson
Two climate protesters are on trial for terrorism-related offences allegedly planned for the Copenhagen Climate Summit last December.
Natasha Verco, an Australian student, and Noah Weiss, a Denmark resident of US citizenship, are charged with a variety of offences under strict Danish anti-terrorism laws.
The evidence is disputed by the pair, but covers planning for major disruption to the summit, including attempting to organise violence and criminal damage.
At the Copenhagen summit, the police were heavy-handed and the legitimate protests of thousands were met with a hard response from the Danish authorities.
It seems likely that there have been a number of breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights, and this current trial indicates that the laws passed in many countries aimed at preventing another 9/11 are now being routinely used to suppress political dissent.
We must trust in the Danish legal process, yet it could be asserted that civil freedoms have been undermined so much that genuine political expression is now classed as terrorism.
It should be well-noted that these activists are being tried under “conspiracy laws”, in that no violence or damage actually occurred, but merely the authorities have taken the view that they were being planned.
Such use of conspiracy laws seems to have increased in recent years, and cover a far wider range of criminal acts than they once did. Protesters in the UK were infiltrated and then arrested for conspiring to disrupt a power station last year.
