Cross-posted from Climate Collective
Note: Stine Gry Jonassen was accredited by Global Justice Ecology Project to attend the 15th Conference of the UN Climate Convention in Copenhagen, Denmark. Stine was one of the Danish organizers and spokespeople for the Reclaim Power action that occurred on the 16th of December in Copenhagen. She spoke about the action the day prior to it during a press conference in the official UN venue. She is now part of a group being persecuted for their role in organizing this non-violent event during which observers and delegates marched out of the UN climate talks to join a mass march on the outside for what was called “A Peoples’ Assembly.” GJEP decries this unjust persecution of non-violent activists who were attacked and beaten by the Danish Police.
Read Climate Collective’s press release in Danish or in English
Day one has finished
The first day of trial against Tannie and Stine has just ended.
The day started with a small action outside the courthouse, where activists from Climate Collective held a banner stating that “We all shouted PUSH!” and set up an installation with pictures of people that “shouted push” in support to the defendants. (Pictures can be seen here and here).
In the morning, the prosecutor showed video clips from the Reclaim Power action, and Stine was interrogated both by the prosecutor and by her lawyer. While the prosecutor asked about Stine’s involvement and about her understanding of how crowds can be a danger (also trying to compare Reclaim Power with the tragedy happened 9 years ago at Roskilde Festival, where many died squeezed in the crowd during a concert!), many of the defendant’s lawyer’s questions regarded the role of CJA’s spokesperson and whether their statements were their own thought, or were expression of the network’s position. It clearly emerged how spokesperson doesn’t equal organizer, and how both her and Tannie were involved in media work and not in the logistical preparations of the action. Also the dialogue process between CJA and the police was brought in, to show how the action had been clearly communicated, had been authorized by police and had a clear codex of “non violent civil disobedience”.
After the lunch break, the prosecutor asked the same questions to Tannie. Answering to his and then her lawyer’s questions, Tannie explained (yet again!) what the role of the spokespersons was, or the fact that the communal sleeping spaces were not exclusive CJA spaces.
Throughout the day, other clips and newspaper articles were shown or read, explaining the formation of CJA, the concept of climate justice and the development of Reclaim Power from the CJA March meeting onwards. Also, one of the defence witnesses was considered not pertinent, and will therefore not be called in to testify.
The day ended with the prosecutor showing several other video footage from the day, that didn’t show much but police violence and a peaceful crowd, being beaten, pepper sprayed and still not breaking the action codex.
It seems already clear from now that the next two days (October 27th and 28th scheduled for the trial will not be enough, and the two additional dates could be December 8th and 15th. This will be confirmed later on.
Join the campaign “I also shouted PUSH!”
