Tag: Feet / knees on the nape of the neck / chest or face

Cut Ties with Genocide, action in front of Maersk offices, Copenhagen – February 24, 2025

R. : “People die in crushes, and so to instigate that just to get people to move is inhumane and unbelievably hurtful”

“We walked collectively in a line to get to Maersk headquarters, where the police tried to block us, but experienced no police violence as of yet. Later, as I was sitting down along with others in front of the building, the word came that we should disperse, but we did not hear that at all while we were seating, we didn’t know what was coming, we saw people coming suffering from pepper-spray, so we were kind of expecting pepper-spray, but when they came, they came with dogs and were holding their batons ready.

I was not amongst the first persons they got at, I was sitting against police officers, I had a knee pressed against my back like everyone in the row. When we tried to get them to stop kneeling on people (to the point that one person fainted), we told them many times that this person could not breathe, even chanting loudly “We are peaceful, what are you?”), they laughed, finding it funny. Otherwise they kept a stone face on.

We were filmed and photographed repeatedly by the police and non-comrades persons, even though comrades were trying to block them.

The police officers behind us was constantly trying to push us forward and further down, at least the people closest to them. At some point they put their helmets and gas masks on, and they immediately became more aggressive.

They started throwing other protesters who were sitting further out and at the same time the police behind us started to kick us, pushing us down on the ground and they all started beating us with batons multiple times, pretty randomly. I was struck multiple times on my right arm on the same spot, so I have multiple bruises covering my whole upper arm, I still haven’t had it properly X-rayed yet.

I was frightened the whole time. When I was beaten up while sitting down I was afraid because I was in terrible pain. I was really scared when we were pushed to a crush, because people die in crushes, and so to instigate that just to get people to move is inhumane and unbelievably hurtful.

They were cordonning us into this moshpit of awful pain of tear gas. I was with a buddy but he was carried away while I was still on the ground, lying on my back after being hit multiple times, with my left arm under my body, I could not move, I was pressed against other activists lying on the ground as well, and at the same time they were coming towards us threatening, still beating people. Then I was thrown up on my feet then pushed down again, beaten a few more times on the arm and the wrist, 6 times on my arm and one on my wrist.

After that I was led by a fellow activist away from the cops through the tear gas that they had thrown, from which I had a reaction and was struggling to both see and breathe. I was disoriented, I did not know where I was, I did not have a clear picture of the situation, I was in shock at that point. There was someone who was struggling more than me, so I tried to guide them away from the cops, but then I lost track of them. I pressed on away from the cops, and at some point I was found by some friends of my affinity group, we were followed by the cops in the distance in the park, from all sides, that was really frightening. But eventually we managed to get away using a side road. That was the end of my interaction with the police that day.

The next day, the police trying to break in at the camp caused me a lot of anxiety, even though I felt safe between the wall of the encampment, like a prolongation of yesterday’s events. I’ve been dragged across the ground by a single cop before, like fairly roughly, but I’ve never been beaten or tear-gassed or pepper-sprayed at all. I’m really scared about the next days being alone.”