News from the battles for free space in Copenhagen

Strug­gles around free space and squats con­tin­ue abounds in Copen­hagen, Den­mark. Not only are there still week­ly demos still for the cam­paign to have a new Youth­house (Ung­domshuset) but a new exten­sion to the famous squat­ted Chris­tia­nia has been occu­pied with great suc­cess. It also looks like the coun­cil has giv­en in to pres­sure from the squat­ters move­ment and agreed a new Youth House for the kids!!

69 WEEKS for UNGDOMSHUSET:
69 weeks. At least 1 demo every week. Thurs­day demo num­ber 69 was obvi­ous­ly sym­bol­ic (It was the street num­ber of the Youth­house) and the demo crew had announced it was going to last 24 hours, going through most parts of Copen­hagen with dif­fer­ent sorts of activ­i­ties planned through­out — four meals dur­ing the 24 hours, open air cin­e­ma, pirate par­ty, block­ing traf­fic, speech­es, con­certs and hap­pen­ings.
Ini­tial­ly there was some scep­tis­cism from both activists and police, but it soon became appar­ent that peo­ple were going to stick it out all 24 hours. The demo moved around Copen­hagen, stop­ping in dif­fer­ent loca­tions to give speech­es or show polit­i­cal films. At many points there were dis­agree­ments with the police fol­low­ing the demo, but the demo always got its way in the end, often stop­ping for long stretch­es in main roads block­ing traf­fic. After 21 hours — on Fri­day around 2 pm — the police had final­ly had enough of the demo act­ing autonomous­ly and con­fined the demo to a square in Vester­bro. This result­ed in a big pub­lic man­i­fes­ta­tion on the square with both bands and DJs com­ing from oth­er parts of the city to play.
After 24 hrs the demo end­ed in a count down and a big greet­ing to the activists and the city which had both been upside down for 24 hrs through sun and rain, light and dark­ness.
PICTURES: http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/180

A NEW YOUTH HOUSE COMES SLOWLY INTO BEING:
On Wed June 11th, the last city coun­cil meet­ing before sum­mer, the politi­cians of the coun­cil vot­ed in favor of the agree­ment on a new Ung­domshus in the build­ings of Dortheavej 61. The votes were 38 pro and 13 against. The votes were giv­en after 2 hours of dis­cus­sion. Activists has promised mil­i­tant activ­i­ty in the streets again if this meet­ing was unable to come to a deci­sion on a YES vote for a new place and an address.
The new house will be in what is now a local cul­ture cen­tre under the coun­cil. It will be in two con­nect­ed build­ings, one of which will be split in half. The cul­ture cen­tre will remain in the oth­er half of the build­ing and the city coun­cil has agreed to build a new add on to com­pen­sate for the space lost to the new Ung­domshus.
The first part of the take over (the small­er build­ing com­pris­ing 600 m²) will hap­pen on July 1st. After that the main build­ing will be avail­able for take over on Jan­u­ary 1st next year.
There has been very pos­i­tive con­tact between the left rad­i­cal scene and the lead­ers of the cul­ture cen­tre, who are wel­com­ing the new house.
PICTURE: http://english.indymedia.dk/system/photo/file/111/616161.jpg

CHRISTIANIA EXPANDING!!
The area on Ref­shalevej right next to Chris­tia­nia that was squat­ted on the 31st of May is stil grow­ing and the dif­fer­ent hous­es and con­struc­tions are tak­en shape. Nei­ther the City coun­cil or the state approves of the sit­u­a­tion but can’t fig­ure out who has the author­i­ty to act on the squat since half the road is state prop­er­ty and the oth­er half belongs to the city.
Nei­ther the City coun­cil nor the state approves of the sit­u­a­tion but can’t fig­ure out who has the author­i­ty to act on the squat since half the road is state prop­er­ty and the oth­er half belongs to the city. Appar­ent­ly ‘the con­struc­tors’ on Ref­shalevej for once are ben­e­fit­ing from the bureau­cra­cy, since noth­ing will be done to clear the street until the two admin­is­tra­tions agrees on who’s doing what,
Mean­while small hous­es are being built both on water and on the ground as well as road­blocks to slow down car traf­fic has been estab­lished. Around 28 dif­fer­ent projects are cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion and ‘the con­struc­tors’ invit­ed more peo­ple to join in!

PICTURES OF NEW SQUATTED REFSHALEEVEJ:
http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/175
http://english.indymedia.dk/publish/show/178

BUT EVICTION NOTICE NOW SERVED
The new area squat­ted near Chris­tia­nia — Ref­shalevej — has been giv­en notice. The evic­tion date is not finalised but will be up soon.
For some weeks activists have been build­ing in the new­ly squat­ted ground just out­side Chris­tia­nia called Ref­shalevej. Now the builders have been giv­en notice by the city coun­cil and the state who have joint own­er­ship over the area. An evic­tion is said to be pend­ing although no date has yet been offi­cial­ly giv­en.
The activists have stat­ed that they intend to resist the evic­tion non vio­lent­ly, and that they intend to resquat the area immideaite­ly fol­low­ing the evic­tion.

COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE STRUGGLE FOR UNGDOMSHUSET
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungdomshuset

EVICTION AND RIOTS CHRONOLOGY + PICTURES/VIDEOS
http://www.emoware.org/ungdomshuset.asp
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/363973.html

COMPLETE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANIA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania