“I had been standing up for most of the blockade, facing towards a large group of activists that were sitting on the ground, with a line of police officers behind them. I stood observing the officers, as they would routinely knee activists in their backs and heads, claiming they were being aggressive (which they were not at any point).
Multiple times they would try to provoke a reaction, and start grabbing at activists, ripping their clothes, removing face coverings etc. One activist had their glasses broken, and many were punched and beaten from above by the police. Several times during these police escalations, police squad would rush in, trying to break up the blockade. They were called back by their superiors every time, as we activists remained calm and de-escelatory.
Suddenly the police started putting on gas masks. Once the police had all masked up, the activists on the side started being pepper sprayed, and beaten with batons by police. Police dogs were barking, activists were coughing and screaming, begging police to calm down, and stop beating them. I saw people crying from the pepper spray, some with blood all over them, either their own, or from helping their friends that had been beaten in the head so violently, they started bleeding.
As this happened, I sat down, and locked arms with my fellow activists, anticipating the same would soon happen to us. Police suddenly surrounded us, and drew their batons. They started violently beating the people sitting towards the back of the group first (people sat closest to the glass facade of the building). I could hear and see the loud thuds of their batons striking my friends in the arms, legs, heads, bodies, everywhere. Police surrounded us all around, and started beating us sitting in the front as well.
One of my friends was thrown and dragged from the back of the group, all the way to the front, away from her fellow activists. As she continuously asked police why they were beating her, and asked them to stop, they kept on going. As they were striking her all over, they kept up pushing her to the ground, while demanding she get up and leave. They were dragging her around by her kuffiyeh, strangling her, as other cops kept beating her.
While this was happening, police approached me, journalists and photographers stood in front of me, and the people I was sitting next to. First they attacked the photographers and journalists. As they were forced away, police started screaming at us to get up, as they tore at our clothes, beating up with batons wile hiding behind their gas masks, helmets and other riot gear.
In front, and to the sides of me the cops systematically singled people out, beat them, ripped them away from the group, continued beating them, and left them on the ground, to be dragged and pushed away by other cops, as they then proceeded on with choosing the next activist they would beat. Once the person to the right of me got beaten and removed, the officer started walking towards me. I locked arms with someone else on my right, as the policeman pulled at my clothes, while trying to kick people around me away. He did this with his baton raised up next to his head, ready to strike. His eyes were wide open behind his gas mask, filled with adrenaline and rage. I looked at him, asking him in Danish what the fuck he was doing, and if he could calm down please. He looked at me as he struck me with all his might on my right knee.
I again asked him to stop, still with my arms locked with my comrades, but the palms of my hands facing upwards to demonstrate to them I was doing absolutely nothing, being completely non violent. He and one of his colleagues tore me away, and pushed me onto the lawn. I limped along, trying to support my weight on just one leg, while the police grabbed the sleeve of my jacket so hard, it was causing pain, and constricting blood flow to my arm. As I was dragged along I explained to the officer (the same one why had struck my leg) that I couldn’t walk because he had hit me, and if he please could slow down, and loosen his grip on my arm. He angrily mumbled something, as I was shoved a final time, and found a tree to rest up against. I had been pushed behind a line of police, who were funnelling all the beaten activists away from the area where they had been sitting.
They stood in a line on a stone ledge which bordered the grass lawn I was on, and a foot path which activists were fleeing along. The ledge started low, and got higher as the foot path sloped downwards away from the building. While I was in a state of shock and pain, standing up against a tree, one of the cops in the line turned around, and ran towards me, screaming at me to get the fuck away. He grabbed me, pulled me towards the other cops. He, along with some other cops shoved me over a quite high portion of the ledge. I stumbled, but somehow didn’t fall. As I was stumbling, I started hearing loud bangs, people started screaming, and tear gas filled the air.
A tear gas canister came flying towards me from the left, and exploded about half a meter away from me, just above eye level. My adrenaline really kicked in, as I struggled to hear, breathe or see. I was on the footpath, with what I counted at the time, as three tear gas canisters within 5 meters of me, filling the air with smokey gas, being blown in the direction the police were making us go. I jumped up the opposite ledge of the footpath, as a fellow activist did the same, but fell. I stopped to help them up, and we continued.
It became impossible to breathe. My mouth, throat, lungs eyes and face were burning as I ran following my comrades in front of me. I picked up a bottle of water I saw on the ground. Once I was out of the gas, I rinsed my eyes by a park bench. Sitting on that bench was one of the activists that has been struck on the head. A medic and friend was removing the blood soaked bandage from their head, revealing a deep, and very swollen cut on the back of their head. As they were treating the wound, and me and other comrades were rinsing the tear gas from our eyes, a police van and several cops approached us from along the park path. They shouted at us to leave. We showed and explained we were treating a person they had severely injured, but they kept on shouting at us to leave, with batons drawn, not even looking twice at the injured activist.
We moved on to the next set of benches further away, which they again forced us away from. We finally reached the road, and joined the demonstration that was slowly forming of the nearly 1000 activists that had just been beaten, pepper sprayed, and tear gassed.
All escalation was done by the police. No violence was demonstrated by any activist. All pleading for help and for police to stop the beating was just met by more beating and absolutely no remorse. The physical pain, and anxiety caused by the police batons and tear gas, was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Such a completely and utterly disproportionate escalation caused by police, in response to a completely non-violent and peaceful protest against a company responsible for shipping weapons and weapon components to Israel.
I believe I got off lucky that day. Most of my friends and comrades were beaten far worse than I was. And yet, what we experienced is nothing compared to what Palestinians and other oppressed peoples experience globally every day, at the hands of western and western backed imperialism. It is disgusting to me how callous and violent these despicable, spineless people, were, all dressed up in protective gear, armed with offensive weapons. Truly a domestic military force, that acts at the beck and call of capital and big corporations. I hope all the badly beaten and bloodied activists I came across while running away from the tear gas are doing okay. Free free Palestine! Writing this was quite therapeutic for me:-) I hope its not too long…”
