Stockholm: Confrontations between police and activists at mayday-street party

Stockholm (yelah.net)

On mayday a streetparty was arranged in Stockholm by the group
"Parliament of the Street", which ended in heavy-handed police
intervention.

The street party was, according to the organizers, a protest
against amongst other things the privatization of public
utilities in Stockholm, the harsh sentences in connection
to the EU-summit in Gothenburg last year and a manifestation
in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Between 1500 and 3000 people attended the party, which
according to witnesses was a calm and vibrant event,
despite the bad weather. Two soundsystems on trucks
lead the dancing youth through the city.

The organizers say that the police first tried to stop
the partying by cutting the cablles to the speaker
systems.

After two hours the party was finished. About 500
participators then moved towards a mall. On
the way there windows were smashed. According to police,
the number of smashed windows amounted to hundreds, which
also the big newspapers reported, when surveys of the
grounds later revealed that the vandalism was limited
to 10-20 windows. A cinema which police and media also had reported
had been attacked had not even been touched.

- Six destroyed shop windows. Two broken windows at a busstop and
two in a telephone booth. The Rigoletto cinema was completely
intact. Seven-eleven wholly untouched (according to the police
it had been looted), citizen witnesses wrote in a statement
to the newspapers the day efter.

After this about 200 riot police proceeded with sealing
the area off and blocking in about hundred youths at
a street.

Witnesses report that the police were behaving very aggressively.
Groups of riot police pushed activists who were outside the
sealed off area backwards, and some violent clashes occured.

Five buses were filled with activists, who were driven to
different non-central parts of the city. Seven people were
arrested.

After the arrests during the demonstration against the EcoFin-summit
in Malmö in april 2001 it was decided that all police should
carry helmet marked with numbers, to make it easier to identify
police who use excessive force and commit other crimes. Despite
this, many police at the action against Reclaim The City
did not have markings on their helmets.

- One does not feel safe, says Jonas Embring, who was videodocumenting
the street party. If you can't identify the police in any way they
can do just about anything.

Several police have used non-marked helmets during demonstrations before,
amongst others at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm.

- I have interpreted it such as that all helmets now should be marked
with numbers, says Ove Hagdahl at the local police force to yelah.net.
I have not heard anything about any exceptions to this.

Summary of three news articles from  http://www.yelah.net