(TibetanReview.net, Mar29’22) – Giving in to pressure from China, Denmark’s Foreign Ministry as well as intelligence and security service had put pressure on the Copenhagen police to violate the Danish Constitution to bar anti-China demonstrations during official visits from Beijing, a government-appointed commission has said in its report on Mar 28. Justice Minister Nick Haekkerup whose office had ordered the report, said in a Mar 28 statement that it was “completely unacceptable that freedom of speech and assembly have been trampled on in connection with official Chinese visits.”
The AP Mar 28 cited the Commission as saying it was “highly reprehensible” that the Foreign Ministry “encouraged and cooperated in preventing anti-Chinese demonstrations,” and the ministry put pressure on the police “to avoid offending Chinese guests”, thus placing it “above the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.”
The commission has also stated that the ministry’s handling of Chinese visits to Denmark was characterised by an “administrative culture in which the concern to avoid offending Chinese visitors was placed above the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights,” noted the euractiv.com Mar 28.
The Commission has also said that the security service, known by its Danish acronym PET, “made recommendations regarding the actions of the Copenhagen Police by repeatedly passing on the Chinese wishes to avoid being confronted with anti-Chinese demonstrations etc.”
The police actions included blocking demonstrators behind police vehicles to make them not visible to a passing Chinese delegation in 2012. In the same year, police officers also wrenched Tibetan flags from the hands of protesters shortly before a delegation from China drove by, the AP report noted.
The police were stated to have acted unlawfully against protesters critical of China in 2002, 2004, 2012 and 2013.
The report has also said that in a previous report from 2017, the commission had concluded that the police had given illegal orders in connection with the protests, which prevented people from gathering and violated their right to free speech during official visits from China in 2012 and 2013.
The government had decided to reopen the 2017 Commission’s work four years ago after new information emerged about the police handling of official Chinese visits, the report noted.
However, the commission has maintained its earlier conclusion that there was no basis for assuming that ministers or employees in the prime minister’s office, the justice ministry, the court marshal’s office or the top management of the National Police knew the specific orders of the Copenhagen Police, noted the euractiv.com report.