As campers descend on Clapham Common ahead of the wedding, another camping phenomenon has just launched, where you can pitch in a stranger’s garden for £10 a night Usually the only canvas to be seen on Clapham Common are the shelters erected by optimistic fisherman seated around the pond. But by tonight a temporary canvas village will have sprung up, complete with toilets, hot showers and of course, plenty of bunting. The gates to Camp Royale , which is billing itself as London’s Royal Wedding campsite, opened at midday Thursday. While the site has failed to reach its full capacity of up to 1,000, several hundred campers are expected by this evening, each paying £75 for a three-night stay. A few are forking out rather a lot more. A spokeswoman for Camp Royale said several of the maharaja-style tents, provided by Camp Kerala and offering proper beds with Italian mattresses and Egyptian cotton bedding, have been booked – the poshest for a mere £3,500. Whether campers are glamping or slumming it in a two-man, it will be a short stroll across the common to the garden party area where festivities – from fairground attractions to a Pimm’s bus and, of course, a giant screen for the live show – will kick off early on Friday morning. If the idea of pitching your tent in the midst of a three-day, Pimm’s-fuelled mass bender doesn’t appeal, how about the peace and quiet of a private garden? Campinmygarden.com is a new website inviting people to advertise their private garden to cash-strapped travellers. Owners can charge up to £10 a night to people who want to pitch on their lawn. At the time of going to press, two Londoners – one north of the river and one south – were advertising their gardens. Campinmygarden is pushing itself as the affordable accommodation alternative for sports events, festivals and exhibitions in the UK, although a quick mosey round the site reveals a distinct lack of gardens so far. However, founder Victoria Webbon is optimistic that the concept will take off. “I hope that one day there will be thousands of private gardens being offered as temporary campsites across the world,” says a quote on the site. Meanwhile, wheretosleep.co.uk , which launched this week, provides a more comfortable alternative to a hotel, offering short-term lets in private homes in 10 countries. This weekend it is advertising a couch in Westminster for £10 . Camping London United Kingdom Budget Travel websites Royal wedding guardian.co.uk
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Senior US envoy Michael Posner puts pressure on Beijing over detained and missing dissidents during diplomatic talks China has experienced a “serious backsliding” in human rights, according to the US official handling bilateral talks on the issue on a visit to Beijing. Assistant secretary of state Michael Posner said the Obama administration was deeply concerned about the deterioration, as he concluded two days of discussions in the Chinese capital. Dozens of dissidents, activists and lawyers have been detained, arrested or have vanished in the last two months . Both the US and China had made unusually strong comments on the issue in the runup to the talks. “There is no question that the atmosphere [this time] was different, because the facts are different,” Posner told a press conference at the US embassy in Beijing on Thursday. He added: “It was not a discussion where voices were raised, but it was was very much based on the facts and the facts are not good.” Posner said he had raised the high-profile case of detained artist Ai Weiwei , adding: “We certainly did not get an answer that satisfies.” But he expressed particular concern about rights lawyers including Teng Biao, who has been missing for two months, and Chen Guangcheng , who has been unable to leave his home since his release from prison last year. “[Teng] is exactly the sort of person society wants and needs to be available to represent clients who are on the margin,” he said. He also voiced concern for Gao Zhisheng , a lawyer who has not been seen for a year, and Liu Xia. Friends have been almost entirely unable to contact the poet since early October, shortly after her husband, jailed writer Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel peace prize. “That isn’t to say there are not concerns about people going through the legal process. But the most unsettling and disturbing thing is when people simply disappear,” added Posner, who leads on democracy, human rights and labour issues. He said the US had also raised concerns about religious issues, the treatment of journalists and bloggers, and the situation for Tibetans and Uighurs. While critics have expressed concerns that the dialogue allows human rights to be marginalised, Posner said it was only part of the bilateral discussions on the issue and that human rights would also be on the agenda at the strategic and economic dialogue in the US next month. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the dialogue had consisted of “frank and thorough exchanges on issues of mutual concern”. He added: “At the same time we oppose the United States using human rights to interfere in China’s internal affairs.” Earlier, the state-run Global Times wrote in an editorial that most Chinese people “were disgusted” by outside pressure on human rights. “As China is a sovereign nation, there is zero possibility of it allowing the US to dictate its political development,” it added. Police have released Zuoxiao Zuzhou, a rock star who is close friends with Ai Weiwei, according to friends. The musician was detained on Wednesday . The Associated Press said Zuoxiao and a sports writer he was travelling with, Zhang Xiaodan, were released after questioning. Several more friends and colleagues of the 53-year-old artist are still missing. Ai was detained at Beijing airport on 3 April. Officials say he is under investigation on suspicion of economic crimes, but police have not informed his family that they are detaining him and relatives say the case is retaliation for his social and political activism. China Human rights Obama administration US politics Ai Weiwei Liu Xiaobo United States Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Senior US envoy Michael Posner puts pressure on Beijing over detained and missing dissidents during diplomatic talks China has experienced a “serious backsliding” in human rights, according to the US official handling bilateral talks on the issue on a visit to Beijing. Assistant secretary of state Michael Posner said the Obama administration was deeply concerned about the deterioration, as he concluded two days of discussions in the Chinese capital. Dozens of dissidents, activists and lawyers have been detained, arrested or have vanished in the last two months . Both the US and China had made unusually strong comments on the issue in the runup to the talks. “There is no question that the atmosphere [this time] was different, because the facts are different,” Posner told a press conference at the US embassy in Beijing on Thursday. He added: “It was not a discussion where voices were raised, but it was was very much based on the facts and the facts are not good.” Posner said he had raised the high-profile case of detained artist Ai Weiwei , adding: “We certainly did not get an answer that satisfies.” But he expressed particular concern about rights lawyers including Teng Biao, who has been missing for two months, and Chen Guangcheng , who has been unable to leave his home since his release from prison last year. “[Teng] is exactly the sort of person society wants and needs to be available to represent clients who are on the margin,” he said. He also voiced concern for Gao Zhisheng , a lawyer who has not been seen for a year, and Liu Xia. Friends have been almost entirely unable to contact the poet since early October, shortly after her husband, jailed writer Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel peace prize. “That isn’t to say there are not concerns about people going through the legal process. But the most unsettling and disturbing thing is when people simply disappear,” added Posner, who leads on democracy, human rights and labour issues. He said the US had also raised concerns about religious issues, the treatment of journalists and bloggers, and the situation for Tibetans and Uighurs. While critics have expressed concerns that the dialogue allows human rights to be marginalised, Posner said it was only part of the bilateral discussions on the issue and that human rights would also be on the agenda at the strategic and economic dialogue in the US next month. China’s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the dialogue had consisted of “frank and thorough exchanges on issues of mutual concern”. He added: “At the same time we oppose the United States using human rights to interfere in China’s internal affairs.” Earlier, the state-run Global Times wrote in an editorial that most Chinese people “were disgusted” by outside pressure on human rights. “As China is a sovereign nation, there is zero possibility of it allowing the US to dictate its political development,” it added. Police have released Zuoxiao Zuzhou, a rock star who is close friends with Ai Weiwei, according to friends. The musician was detained on Wednesday . The Associated Press said Zuoxiao and a sports writer he was travelling with, Zhang Xiaodan, were released after questioning. Several more friends and colleagues of the 53-year-old artist are still missing. Ai was detained at Beijing airport on 3 April. Officials say he is under investigation on suspicion of economic crimes, but police have not informed his family that they are detaining him and relatives say the case is retaliation for his social and political activism. China Human rights Obama administration US politics Ai Weiwei Liu Xiaobo United States Tania Branigan guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Lawrence O’Donnell After Shouting Match With Orly Taitz: ‘I Invited a Crazy Person on the Show’
April 28, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Lawrence… Lawrence… Lawrence… if you invite a crazy person on the air as you admitted here, what else did you expect you’d get from her? Lawrence O’Donnell invited birther queen Orly Taitz on The Last Word to see if she would finally admit that President Obama was born in the United States now that he’s released the long form birth certificate, and she was non-responsive and just started talking about her next conspiracy theory. O’Donnell finally had enough of her and threw her off the air. The media really needs to decide that this crazy person’s fifteen minutes of fame are up. We’ve got more important things to discuss, like getting Americans back to work.
Continue reading …Lawrence O’Donnell After Shouting Match With Orly Taitz: ‘I Invited a Crazy Person on the Show’
April 28, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Lawrence… Lawrence… Lawrence… if you invite a crazy person on the air as you admitted here, what else did you expect you’d get from her? Lawrence O’Donnell invited birther queen Orly Taitz on The Last Word to see if she would finally admit that President Obama was born in the United States now that he’s released the long form birth certificate, and she was non-responsive and just started talking about her next conspiracy theory. O’Donnell finally had enough of her and threw her off the air. The media really needs to decide that this crazy person’s fifteen minutes of fame are up. We’ve got more important things to discuss, like getting Americans back to work.
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Milorad Dodik faces heavy EU sanctions if vote goes ahead, international community’s representative in Sarajevo warns Bosnia is facing its worst crisis since the end of the war 16 years ago because of Serb secessionist policies aimed at paralysing the country, according to the top international official overseeing the state. In an interview with the Guardian, Valentin Inzko, the Austrian diplomat who is the international community’s high representative in Sarajevo, warned he would act to halt a referendum called by Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb leader, on whether to reject Bosnia’s state war crimes court and special prosecutor’s office established in 2005 by international decree. Since the Dayton agreement, which ended the Bosnian war in 1995, the country has been split into two political entities: a Serbian portion known as the Republika Srpska, and the Muslim-Croat alliance, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik, president of the Republika Srpska, pledged this week not to back down and to go ahead with the vote. Inzko said heavy European Union sanctions could be imposed on Dodik and his coterie if he did not back down from the vote, which the Bosnian Serb parliament approved by a huge majority this month. “This is definitely the most serious crisis since the signing of the Dayton agreement,” said Inzko. “Never before has such a referendum been planned. The intention is to roll back all the achievements. It challenges the role of the high representative. It would be a direct attack on the Dayton settlement. This cannot be allowed. I would repeal this law.” The parliament’s decision to stage the referendum was posted officially on Wednesday, meaning that the vote must take place within eight weeks. Dodik argued that the court and the prosecutors were biased against Serbs and that the court’s authority should be rejected. He claimed the Bosnian Muslim leadership, with international support, was bent on creating a domineering Islamic state. Dodik regularly taunts the international envoys, who have struggled to manage Bosnia since the 1990s, professes no loyalty to a state called Bosnia-Herzegovina, and constantly questions its viability as a country. The referendum is widely seen as his most destabilising move and a step towards Bosnia’s break-up, which could trigger a new war. “Many think this referendum is a rehearsal for a future one on Republika Srpska status [secession], but those are just speculations, unrealistic at this time,” he said last week. According to senior diplomats, Miroslav Lajcak, the EU’s Balkan envoy, will travel to Banja Luka (seat of Republika Srpska’s government and assembly), on Friday to order Dodik to call off the vote. Inzko indicated that the international community was heading for a showdown with Dodik and that at some point in the next fortnight he would invoke his official powers to try to prevent the referendum taking place. “I hope [Lajcak] can talk them out of doing this. Otherwise I will have to act. The [Bosnian Serb] law would be annulled. The deadline can’t be very long, 10 days to two weeks maximum.” Lajcak is expected to warn Dodik on Friday that if he defies the international referendum ban, he could have EU sanctions imposed on him similar to those placed on Robert Mugabe and Muammar Gaddafi: a ban on travel and the freezing of his assets and bank accounts. EU governments recently agreed on a new range of incentives and disincentives aimed at reversing years of failure in Bosnia. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, is about to appoint a new special representative in Sarajevo, who will have increased powers. Dominic Asquith, the UK ambassador in Cairo and great-grandson of prime minister Herbert Asquith, is tipped for the post. While Bosnia’s dismal condition has been worsening for five years, the showdown with Dodik stands to intensify its dangerous drift and paralysis. The political deadlock since elections last October has left the country without a central government for seven months, with no breakthrough in sight. Describing Bosnia as the “principal challenge to stability in Europe this year”, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, said last month that the country was “in disarray.” “Ethnic Serb rhetoric about seceding from Bosnia will continue to inflame passions,” he reported. “Ethnic agendas still dominate the political process … US-EU efforts to broker compromises have met with little success.” While Dodik is seen as the bigger problem, the Muslim-Croat half of the country is also acutely dysfunctional. The main Bosnian Croat leaders, based in Mostar in the south-west, are effectively boycotting the federation government and parliament after losing out in coalition negotiations on a new federation government. They are complaining bitterly about being ignored by the larger Bosniak Muslim community, and last week formed the Croatian National Assembly to co-ordinate policy-making across ethnic Croat majority areas. “I don’t have a problem with this if it is constitutional,” said Inzko. “We will see if they establish parallel structures or not. That’s very important. Then I’d have to do something.” The Croats are demanding that Bosnia be split into three along ethnic lines to include a separate Croatian entity. Dodik is encouraging the demands for Croatian autonomy to weaken the centre, and hasten the break-up of a country he constantly calls illegitimate and unworkable. Should he ultimately succeed, say senior diplomats in Sarajevo, it will mean a belated triumph for Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, the Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders of the 1990s who led the war effort to destroy the country and were indicted for genocide. “That would mean Srebrenica [where the Serbs murdered 8,000 Bosnian Muslim males] would be abroad for the Bosnian Muslims,” said a senior diplomat. “The international community will never accept that.” Bosnia and Herzegovina Europe Radovan Karadzic European Union Ian Traynor guardian.co.uk
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President Obama chided the news media Wednesday for continuing to focus national attention on the non-issue of his American citizenship. “Fascinating how many of Obama's birther remarks…were aimed at the media for stoking this,” tweeted Howard Kurtz shortly after the speech. The birth certificate issue was a distraction, Obama stated, and the White House decision to release his long-form birth certificate was an attempt to re-focus national attention on the important issues, specifically his budget proposal. But which media outlets were most guilty of sustaining attention on the issue? On cable news, at least, the answer runs contrary to the usual media narrative. As it turns out, if you watched cable news during the week of April 11 through 17, when Obama was touting his budget, you were 35 times more likely to hear about the birther issue on CNN or MSNBC than you were on Fox News. The cable network most often railed against as the birther-enabler was least likely – by far – to report on the issue. Here's what Obama had to say during his post-birth certificate release press conference: …two weeks ago, when the Republican House had put forward a budget that will have huge consequences potentially to the country, and when I gave a speech about my budget and how I felt that we needed to invest in education and infrastructure and making sure that we had a strong safety net for our seniors even as we were closing the deficit, during that entire week the dominant news story wasn’t about these huge, monumental choices that we’re going to have to make as a nation. It was about my birth certificate. And that was true on most of the news outlets that were represented here. It's worth noting that the president's statement was factually inaccurate. The dominant news story during the week after his budget address was, as one might expect, the economy. In fact, the Obama administration only accounted for about four percent of media chatter during that week – behind unrest in the Middle East and natural disasters in Japan, in addition to the economy – and only a portion of that four percent had to do with his birth certificate. That data was gathered by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, which also calculated those numbers for cable news coverage during that week. As quoted by Poynter : MSNBC including “The Ed Show,” “Hardball,” “The Last Word,” and “The Rachel Maddow Show” – 28% of airtime studied was devoted to the 2012 election – 10% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama – A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 92% of the Obama coverage Fox including “Special Report w/Bret Baier,” “Fox Report w/Shepard Smith,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity” – 16% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election – 5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama – A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 8% of the Obama coverage CNN including “The Situation Room,” “John King, USA,” “In The Arena,” and “Anderson Cooper 360″ – 11% of airtime studied was devoted to 2012 election – 5% of airtime studied was devoted to Obama – A subset of that Obama airtime was coded “citizenship and religion rumors” to include “birther” coverage, which was 100% of the Obama coverage. Ace crunched the numbers and found the following breakdown of birther stories as a percentage of total coverage for each cable news channel: – Fox News: 0.4 percent – MSNBC: 9.2 percent – CNN: 5 percent MSNBC devoted 23 times as much airtime as Fox to cover the birther issue. CNN devoted 12.5 times as much. So, as mentioned above, one was 35.5 times more likely to see a birther story on Fox's competition than on FNC itself. Ace also makes this key point: Now one can note, rightly, that MSNBC and CNN were always knocking, knocking down this issue. Fine. But who was distracted by this? If, as Obama says, this was a “distraction” from “real issues” and therefore “silliness” — which network(s) fed their partisan viewers a steady diet of this silliness? Which network fed them the least of it and, therefore, kept a better focus on things that were not silly? Of course even Fox News did its part to debunk the birther nonsense. “Special Report” conservative panelists, Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes, routinely opined on its absurdities. FNC contributor Karl Rove certainly did his part to combat the conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, simply by giving a megaphone to Donald Trump – the personality who undergirded much of the birthed coverage of late – news networks implicitly gave voice to the conspiracy theory. Simply ignoring the theory is generally the best way to combat it, and Fox led the field in that regard (on cable news, anyway). MSNBC, meanwhile, not only led the charge to promote the certificate hunt, it also promoted Donald Trump, host of sister network NBC's “The Apprentice” – a fact that recently earned the cable channel the ire of its own on-air talent .
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Scores of US state legislators are pushing new anti-abortion laws to roll back Roe v Wade. But the uterati are fighting back In Florida, “uterus” is a dirty word. A member of the state house of representatives drew a reprimand when he complained that while Republicans want to repeal rules and regulations on corporations, they are all hot to impose rules and regulations on individuals. Women, for example. The rightwingers who control both the house and the senate in Florida have introduced 18 bills to restrict abortion . Representative Scott Randolph, a Democrat from Orlando, said that his wife had decided the only way to protect her rights was to, as he put it, “incorporate her uterus”. Maybe then the business sycophants of the Republican party would stop trying to micromanage it with laws circumscribing reproductive freedom. Speaker Dean Cannon said he was shocked – shocked! – at such language on the house floor, deeming it a breach of “decorum”. Stephanie Kunkel, Planned Parenthood’s Florida director, rolled her eyes: “If the speaker can’t bear to hear or say the word ‘uterus’, he shouldn’t be legislating it.” Newspaper columnists amused themselves concocting acceptable euphemisms: Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post suggests “baby garage” . And that’s pretty much how Republicans see women – as a place to park a kid till he’s ready to pop out and go to Sunday School and learn that sex is filthy. Republican-controlled legislatures across the US are hell-bent on stopping women from exercising control over their own bodies. Florida is one of 13 states that would require women to have an ultrasound – which they would have to pay for – before terminating a pregnancy. In Indiana, Texas, Kentucky and four other states, a woman would be forced to look at the foetus. Doctors would have to describe to her, in great detail, the foetus and its physical functions. After all this, she would still have to cool her heels for several days before being permitted to actually have the abortion. Along with the waiting periods, which would seriously harm women in rural states who have to travel long distances to the only clinic or poor women who have to keep taking off work, some states want to allow only up to 20 or 21 weeks, the point at which many anti-choice activists claim foetuses feel pain. The medical evidence for this is highly disputed , but that doesn’t matter: science shouldn’t be allowed to get in the way of ideology. Mississippi, Alaska, Texas and Oklahoma tell women abortion increases their risk of getting breast cancer – even though the National Cancer Institute says that’s not true . Raising the ante, an Indiana legislator insists that women who are victims of rape or incest provide documentation – those chicks could so be lying! – while a Michigan legislator proposes a offering women a photograph of the foetus at least two hours before the abortion. Ohio Republicans want to ban abortions the minute a foetal heartbeat is detected, which could be as early as four or five weeks. In Texas, where they’re trying to restrict RU-486, the “morning after pill”, the legislature also threatened to cut funding for low-income contraception programmes on the logic that birth control among the poor leads to increased abortion rates. That’s bad and stupid, but not as bad and stupid as what’s going on in Louisiana where Representative John LaBruzzo has introduced a bill to outlaw all abortions – no exceptions, even where the life of the mother is at risk – and charge doctors who perform abortions with “foeticide”. On 26 April, Mother Jones reported that LaBruzzo would also like to make criminals of women who have abortions , but that he may remove that provision in his bill, making it easier to pass. LaBruzzo’s law would be, of course, unconstitutional. A lot of these new state laws (and some old ones) are unconstitutional. Women have a right to get an abortion (with some restrictions), and have had that right since 1973 when the US supreme court ruled in Roe v Wade. But unconstitutionality is the point. Anti-choicers no longer want to tinker with a state statute here and there; they want Roe v Wade overturned. They want to return to the bad old days of back streets and coathangers, of the wages of sin and Taliban-style circumscription of female sexuality. John LaBruzzo has admitted that he wants to “immediately go to court”. The plan is for one state of another’s illegal abortion laws to make it to a hearing before the US supreme court where Roe v Wade can be refought and, maybe, come out differently this time. At the moment, there are four solid pro-Roe votes (Kagan, Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor) on the nation’s highest court and four solid antis (Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalito). Justice Anthony Kennedy, always the swing vote between the court’s progressive and rightwing blocks, has, up to now, voted to uphold a woman’s right to choose. Nevertheless, some think he might change his mind. Or that he might want to let each individual state decide where it stands on abortion. Or, if a Republican president is elected in 2012, Kennedy may retire from the court, opening up a place for a Roe foe. And you thought the Republicans were only interested in the economy. Outlawing abortion is the long-cherished dream of every evangelical in the US, especially the ones born without ovaries. Back in Florida, the resistance is mobilising: the uterus has its own Facebook page . Susannah Randolph , now famous as the woman who threatened to incorporate her uterus, has suggested starting a political action committee called U-Pac . “Who’s in?” she blogged. “It’s time to bring power back to the uterus.” The sister speaks true. As Gloria Steinem said, so many years ago: “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” Abortion Women United States US politics Republicans Florida US constitution and civil liberties US supreme court Diane Roberts guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Killer tornadoes strike in Alabama, leaving dozens dead, massive destruction
April 28, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media [Unedited YouTube version here. ] As the obviously religious man shooting the video suggests, pray for Alabama : Tornadoes killed dozens of people in Alabama on Wednesday afternoon and evening, part of a violent storm system that left destruction and death across a large swath of the South. Two major cities, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, were hit hard by one huge tornado. President Barack Obama declared an emergency in Alabama, and Gov. Robert Bentley mobilized 1,400 National Guardsmen to help in rescue operations. The system of heavy winds, rain and tornadoes began late Tuesday and by Wednesday morning had left at least 17 dead in Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi. Then the latest round of storms hit Alabama on Wednesday afternoon and evening, pushing the death toll much higher. The Associated Press said the toll in Alabama was at least 58. A count by msnbc.com that included county-by-county numbers from The Weather Channel and NBC station WAFF of Huntsville showed at least 62 dead. The storm system was predicted to move on through the Carolinas. A giant tornado touched down near the Mississippi state line, then spent more than two hours on the ground tracking northeast. Local TV channels showed the black wedge cloud, estimated at a mile wide, moving through Tuscaloosa, then along Interstate 59 through Birmingham’s northern suburbs and just missing the airport. As you can see from the video above, the tornado that tore through Tuscaloosa was monstrous. More from the Tuscaloosa News , which reports that it the twister was “a mile wide”.
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Residents form barricade in freetown that Danish government wants to ‘normalise’ For four decades the freetown of Christiania has existed as a testimony to an alternative way of life, where hash was sold openly and squatters’ shacks jostled comfortably with architect-designed eco-sheds. For some the commune was a human jungle in the centre of Copenhagen, for others a bastion of irreverence. But now residents have erected its last line of defence against government attempts to “normalise” one of Europe’s most famous squats after 40 years of legal wrangling. Residents have erected fences at entrance points which they patrol, handing out flyers which declare that “Christiania will be temporarily closed until further notice”. Cafes and shops were closed as residents began meetings to debate their future. In what residents see as the final attack by the right-of-centre government, and property developers eager to get their hands on the valuable real estate, they have been given until 2 May to decide whether to take up an offer to buy the properties – collectively or as individuals – for 150m kroner (£18m). Many argue that, for residents who have renounced materialism, this is impossible. The other deal tabled by the government is to turn the freetown into a public housing association. For many, the battle has already been lost. In February the government won a legal tussle over the rights of use after the supreme court upheld a 2009 ruling which handed the state control of the area. Christiania, on the site of an old barracks and home to almost 1,000 people, has become a tourist destination. Cannabis is openly on sale, even if other bans – on arms, hard drugs and insignia on leather jackets – have been imposed by the commune over the years. Since its creation in 1971 by a group of hippies and squatters, its 34 hectares have become a warren of micro-neighbourhoods, with cutting-edge eco-houses placed alongside restored shacks. Initially labelled a social experiment by the government, in the last decade the Liberal-Conservative coalition has made a number of attempts to “normalise” the freetown. Critics argue the area has become a haven for criminals. Earlier this month police seized almost 1m kroner and 24kg of hash in a raid by more than 100 officers who were met with rocks and molotov cocktails as they ransacked various stands, reported the Copenhagen Post . Tensions between the state and the commune are long-standing. In 2009 four days of demonstrations saw 1,500 people arrested after protesters set fire to street barricades and hurled fire bombs at riot police, who responded with tear gas. Police were accused of being heavy-handed after using controversial kettle tactics, and more than 200 official complaints were filed. The government has been accused by its rightwing support party, the Danish People’s party, of being too generous in its recent offer, but Christiania residents fear any deal would lead to the end of the autonomous enclave. In the statement handed out at the blocked-off gates, the residents said: “We believe that the ultimatum issued by the Danish government about dividing up Christiania and selling off parts of the land will mean the destruction of the open, self-managed, experimental and socially inclusive Christiania as we know it.” The finance ministry, brokering the deal, has demanded that Christiania reopen. Meanwhile, the police were content to bide their time. “We will do nothing about the closure,” a local officer told the Ritzau news agency. “It would seem odd to me if the police were to use force to reopen something we have spent 39-and-a-half years fighting to shut down.” Denmark Europe Denmark Activism Protest Lars Eriksen Alexandra Topping guardian.co.uk
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