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Ungdomshuset
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Ungdomshuset (literally "the Youth House") was the popular name of the building formally named Folkets Hus ("House of the People") located on Jagtvej 69 in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, which functioned as an underground scene venue for music and rendezvous point for varying autonomen and leftist groups from 1982 until 2007 when — after prolonged conflict — it was torn down.
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Ungdomshuset (literally "the Youth House") was the popular name of the building formally named Folkets Hus ("House of the People") located on Jagtvej 69 in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, which functioned as an underground scene venue for music and rendezvous point for varying autonomen and leftist groups from 1982 until 2007 when — after prolonged conflict — it was torn down. Due to the ongoing conflict between the municipal government of Copenhagen and the activists occupying the premises, the building has been the subject of intense media attention and public debate since the mid-1990s.
Police started to clear the building early on Thursday, 1 March 2007. Demolition began on 5 March 2007 and was completed two days later.
Ever since the eviction in March 2007, former users and supporters have held weekly demonstrations for a new Ungdomshuset, the demonstrations starting from nearby square 'Blågårds Plads' every Thursday at 5 p.m. and going to various places in Copenhagen. The starting point has recently been changed to Gammel Torv in response to the demonstraters saying they are getting closer to the politicians concerning a solution for a new Ungdomshus at an old school.
Faderhuset has, as of 20th of September, put the lot at Jagtvej 69 for sale at 15 million DKK.
In the summer of 2007, an initiative known as G13 announced that on the 6th of October they'd stage a massive public attempt to squat an old public waterworks located on Grøndalsvænge Allé 13 in northwestern Copenhagen to be used as a new Ungdomshuset. The event, which gathered several thousands, was announced as non-violent, but was met with heavy opposition from the police who arrested 436 people and threw large amounts of tear gas Recognizing that the event, which had received heavy public attention, had been carried out with peaceful means, Ritt Bjerregaard - the Lord Mayor of Copenhagen - on October 11 invited spokesmen from Ungdomshuset to have negotiations concerning a peaceful solution to the conflict. The new Ungdomshuset opened successfully on July 1, 2008 in North-West Copenhagen's Bispebjerg area.
History
The building was completed on 12 November 1897, with the name "Folkets Hus" (The People's House). The house functioned as one of the resorts for the then-incipient labour movement of Copenhagen. Since labour organisations were unpopular in the eyes of the authorities, and reprisals were often carried out against them, the organisations had to build their own headquarters — Folkets Hus was the fourth of these to be built. The roots of several demonstrations and meetings were planted in Folkets Hus, and as a result it was strongly linked to the great demonstration against unemployment in 1918 when workers stormed the Danish Stock Exchange (Børsen). In 1910, The Second International held an International Women's conference at the house, during which Clara Zetkin launched the idea of an International Women's Day. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg visited the centre.
During the 1950s it was still primarily used by the different sections, associations and unions of the labour movement. All kinds of different activities took place: for example, boxing matches and end-of-season dances.
Several years later Brugsen, a Danish chain of co-operative supermarkets, bought Folkets Hus, planning to tear down the building and build a supermarket in its place. However, as this was prohibited due to the historic importance of the place, Brugsen sold the ground to the folk music ensemble Tingluti in 1978. As a consequence of a burst water main which they could not afford to repair, Tingluti had to sell the ground to the municipality of Copenhagen. The price at the time was DKK 700,000.
In 1982 Folkets Hus was assigned to a group of young people — the original founders of Ungdomshuset — although the municipality of Copenhagen still owned the building. It was at this time that the building was given its current name: Ungdomshuset. Nick Cave and Björk played there.
In January 1996 Ungdomshuset was ravaged by a fire and found to be plagued by fungus and rot. The municipality of Copenhagen made plans to renovate the building for safety reasons, but encountered resistance from the occupants.
In 1999 the building was put on sale to the highest bidder by the municipality following controversy on the renovation of the building and a refusal from the inhabitants to pay the rent agreed upon in the original contract. This prodded the users of the building to post a large banner on the facade with the message: "For sale along with 500 autonome, stone throwing, violent psychopaths from hell.". Despite this ominous warning, a company called Human A/S bought the building in December 2000 (although ownership did not actually change hands until 2001), after which Human A/S was sold to the independent Christian sect "Faderhuset". However, the squatters refused to leave the house. Until 1 March 2007 the young squatters used the house as if the change of ownership had not happened and the new owners were not allowed inside at any time.
The Ungdomshuset received more than 500 visitors a week.
Ownership controversy
In August 2003, Faderhuset served a writ upon Ungdomshuset and its users and claimed ownership of the building. In December the same year, the trial began at the Copenhagen County Court.
On 7 January 2004 the verdict from City Court arrived, stating that Faderhuset was entitled to sue four activists (rather than Ungdomshuset itself) since Ungdomshuset functions without a hierarchical management and is therefore not regarded as an organisation. The court, however, denied Faderhuset compensation.
Both sides appealed against the decision; Faderhuset demanding compensation and Ungdomshuset demanding future right of usage. On 28 August 2006 the National Court stated, as the City Court did, that the right of ownership and usage of Ungdomshuset belonged to Faderhuset and it was free to evict the inhabitants.
Originally, this decision ordered the current occupants out by 9:00 a.m. on the morning of 14 December 2006. Ungdomshuset was also denied the right of appeal to the Supreme Court, meaning that they had no further options within the legal system. The police, however, stated that they would not evict the activists until 2007.
The activists refused to leave the house and barricaded themselves inside. In addition, an open-letter stating "Troublemakers of the World; We bid you Welcome!" had been sent to different autonomous groups around the world, asking for help defending the house in the event of a forced eviction.
On 12 December, Faderhuset refused an offer from the foundation "Jagtvej 69" to sell the house for DKK 13 million.
On 16 December, around 2000 activists, some of them foreigners, demonstrated in Copenhagen in support of Ungdomshuset. The police had not been notified of the demonstration. The vanguard of the demonstration wore masks or helmets, which is not permitted by law during demonstrations in Denmark. The police ordered the demonstration to break up and the demonstrators to disperse. The demonstrators attacked the police; stones and fireworks were thrown at the police and burning barricades set up. The demonstration degenerated into what the police characterised as the worst riots in Denmark in many years — they used teargas, which is a very rare occurrence in Denmark. Both police and demonstrators were injured.
By the end of the night 273 people had been arrested. The majority of those arrested were released the following day, 17 December. The total number of demonstrators arrested was amongst the highest for a single event in Denmark since World War II. The fury of the demonstrators was described by the police as the worst since 18 May 1993, when another violent demonstration (this time against Danish EU membership) by the extreme left injured 92 officers and 11 demonstrators.
Clearance
On 1 March 2007 Ungdomshuset was cleared of its occupants by the police at about 7:00 (CET) in the morning. A 50 metre area surrounding the building was sealed off. The building was taken with assistance from a military helicopter, an airport crash tender and two boom cranes, used as a form of modern day siege towers. Special forces entered the building from the roof, the windows and the ground, while the house was covered in foam to diminish the effectiveness of possible counter attacks such as molotov cocktails. Afterwards the supporters of Ungdomshuset announced that it was "either an Ungdomshus or a battle for an Ungdomshus — the clearing will never be forgiven". Rioting broke out, including a blockade of Nørrebrogade, the main street of Nørrebro, and fires in the areas surrounding Freetown Christiania and south of Nørrebrogade. Containers were turned over, windows were broken. Molotov cocktails were thrown out by the demonstrators, at the cries of "The street are ours!" Setting up barricades, they played alter-globalization songs such as Manu Chao from trucks. Riot police used tear gas on several occasions throughout the riots; more specifically CS gas (2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile).The entire area was unsafe and neighbors to Ungdomshuset were told to stay indoors. It was unsafe to walk the streets because of the riots and because the police proclaimed that anyone without a valid reason for being on the streets would be arrested. There were also demonstrations in Oslo carried out by the Blitz community. The Police moved out with police dogs and were prepared to use tear gas
On 3 March 2007, there was more rioting outside Ungdomshuset, and by 12:36 am local time, the area of Nørrebro was completely overrun. At the same time further riots were taking place in the area around Freetown Christiania. Rioters used cars and rubbish bins to build barricades and set fires on the streets. One fire spread to a nearby kindergarten but was quickly extinguished. In a secondary school, the library and media room were ransacked and books and computers were burned on the street. Cost of the damages at the school were estimated to be around 1 million Danish kroner (133,000 euros).
On the same day, the famous Little Mermaid was painted pink and a graffiti '69' and circle-A was painted on the stone on which the statue rests. Although police would not confirm a link between this event and the Ungdomshuset riots, the graffiti seems an obvious reference to the squat's address, and news sources around the world used the incident to mention the March 3 riots at the same time.
Also that morning, police raided 6 to 8 addresses in Nørrebro in an attempt to find and deport foreign activists. Although foreigners were the primary target of these raids, a larger number of those arrested were Danes. The members of Ungdomshuset's legal support group (retsgruppen) were supposedly amongst those arrested, but police described this as 'purely coincidental'.
In total, the police carried out raids searching for activists for six days and six nights, for example at the People's House of Stengade, at an independent collective in Baldersgade, at the Solidaritetshuset and in many personal flats in Copenhagen. More than 140 foreigners were arrested on the grounds of "presumption of danger", without being charged. This was denounced by the Association of Parents against Police Brutality. Many under-age people were arrested and registered in data bases. The frontiers were controlled. In total, 690 arrests were made in three days.
The operation had an international scale, and has even been qualified by Le Monde diplomatique as "a 'laboratory experience' in police repression." Twenty Swedish police vehicles were brought over from Malmö, and five senior Swedish police officials invited for observation. Witnesses have claimed that plainclothes police agents, wearing earphones, circulated in the scene of the riots, speaking foreign languages (German, French and English). Asked by a Danish newspaper, the Copenhagen's police's spokesman denied the presence of active units from others countries. However, he recognized that, "if there had been" some, it was "in quality of observers". Other analysts noticed that the same tactics used by the French police during the 2006 students' protests against the First Employment Contract (CPE) had been used: special units of undercover agents moving around the demonstrators, and suddenly grabbing those who seemed to be the leaders. Since the Internet had been used by the demonstrators to coordinate their movements, hour by hour, informing about the police's whereabouts, a new priority of the police forces, according to Le Monde diplomatique, was to pirate this information.
Demolition
Demolition of Ungdomshuset began at 8:00 am on 5 March 2007. A demolition crane started its work at the back of the house with the top floor. The logos on the crane were covered and workers wore masks to conceal their identity. The union representing Ungdomshuset was on the ground trying to persuade the workers to stop working and reveal the company they were working for. At 10 am the Danish Working Environment Authority (Arbejdstilsynet) had the demolition interrupted due to reported concerns about dust and the potential presence of asbestos. The demolition resumed at 11 am. At 4 pm, about one third of the house had been removed. The demolition was broadcast live by webcam on TV2 News' website.
In protest at the eviction of the centre, demonstrations have been held across Europe.
Germany has seen more than twenty actions and there have also been solidarity protests in Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Poland. There were also protests in front of Denmark's UN Consulate in New York City — although it only counted eight persons during the -8 Celsius weather.
A women's demonstration took place on 8 March, comprising more than 3 000 people. The police carried out systematic identity controls. In total, more than 750 people were arrested during the events (among them, about 140 foreigners). Based on a population of approximately a million in Copenhagen, the Monde diplomatique noticed that if the same proportion of arrests had been carried out in Paris, 8 000 persons would have been detained. Since the police did not have the facilities to detain this number of people, many of them were transported to the Fyn island or in the Jylland. A penitentiary building of Copenhagen had to be partially emptied of its common law detainees to make place for the arrested youth. From March 10 to March 19, Nørrebro and Christianshavn were decreed zones where any citizen could be searched and registered on data bases, even without reasonable grounds for suspicion.
On 16 March, 2007, Danish police admitted to having mistakenly used a potentially lethal form of teargas canisters. The gas, known as Ferret 40, was used against crowds during the riots following the demolition, although the launching mechanism is designed to penetrate doors and walls.
According to professor Lars Dencik, from the University of Roskilde, the Danish state used the opportunity of this evacuation to test its anti-terrorist security forces (as any other opportunity, or real danger, was non-existent).
On Monday 22 December 2008, 5 women and 10 men who were present in the house at the time of eviction, received sentences of imprisonment. 11 people sentenced to 1 year and three months, 3 people to one year and one (aged under 16) to nine months. They were sentenced with preparing to assault police officers, and preparing violence. The court case started on 22 August 2008 and the sentences were based on the fact that police officers found, among other things, Molotov Cocktails and illegal fireworks during the eviction.
See also
External links
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- , Nathue.dk
- , Youtube.com
- , Politiken
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- , BBC News
- , Google News
- , with video. Jyllands Postens
- , Ungdomhuset's interview in Indymedia 30.11.2006
- , Indymedia
- (Indymedia DK)
- (Soundtracksforthem)
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