Greta Thunberg briefly detained at Copenhagen protest urging boycott of Israel
Climate activist is among group of protesters who entered university building, hung anti-Israel banner from window
Danish police detained activist Greta Thunberg at a Copenhagen protest against the war in Gaza and Israel’s military rule of the West Bank on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the organizers of the demonstration said.
Thunberg was later released from detention, according to Danish media reports, and the daily Ekstra Bladet showed video footage of her walking out of a police station.
Six people had been detained at Copenhagen University after about 20 people blocked the entrance to a building and three entered, a police spokesperson said, without commenting on individual detainees.
Police evicted the demonstrators after they hung an anti-Israel banner from one of the windows of the university’s old administration building in downtown Copenhagen.
Widely known for her campaign to end human-made climate change, Swedish-born Thunberg has increasingly taken up the Palestinian cause and said in May such protests “should be everywhere.”
A video posted by Students Against the Occupation, a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel student group, showed uniformed police officers leading Thunberg and other detainees into a police van while handcuffed or with their hands tied behind their backs.
Greta Thunberg is arrested by Danish police at a pro-Hamas protest at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark pic.twitter.com/OeW1KobkrH
— Paul A. Szypula ???????? (@Bubblebathgirl) September 4, 2024
Thunberg wore a scarf around her shoulders imprinted with the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh pattern, a common symbol among pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
The Copenhagen University may take disciplinary action against enrolled students who took part in the protest, Kristian Cedervall Lauta, prorector of education at the university said in an email. Thunberg is not a student at the university.
Greta Thunberg is released by Danish Police after being arrested earlier today in a protest at University of Copenhagen.
The protesters were criticising the university's cooperation with Israeli higher ed institutions.
Footage: @EkstraBladet pic.twitter.com/jKm3p6poKN— Hetav Rojan (@HetavRojan) September 4, 2024
Students against the Occupation said in an Instagram statement that “while the situation in Palestine only gets worse, the University of Copenhagen continues cooperation with academic institutions in Israel.”
“We are occupying” the university’s “central administration with one demand: academic boycott now.”
