Folkets Hus The building at Jagtvej 69 was completed on 12 November 1897, with the name "Folkets Hus" (''The People's House
). The house functioned as one of the resorts for the then-incipient labour movement of Copenhagen. Since labour organisations were unpopular in the eyes of the authorities, and reprisals were often carried out against them, the organisations had to build their own headquarters—Folkets Hus was the fourth of these to be built. The roots of several demonstrations and meetings were planted in Folkets Hus, and as a result it was strongly linked to the great demonstration against unemployment in 1918 when workers stormed the Copenhagen Stock Exchange (Børsen''). In 1910, The
Second International held an International Women's conference at the house, during which
Clara Zetkin launched the idea of an
International Women's Day.
Vladimir Lenin and
Rosa Luxemburg visited the centre. During the 1950s it was still primarily used by the different sections, associations and unions of the labour movement. All kinds of different activities took place: for example, boxing matches and end-of-season dances. Several years later,
Brugsen, a Danish chain of
supermarkets, bought Folkets Hus, planning to tear down the building and build a supermarket in its place. However, as this was prohibited due to the historic importance of the place, Brugsen sold the ground to the folk music ensemble
Tingluti in 1978. As a consequence of a burst water main which they could not afford to repair, Tingluti had to sell the ground to the municipality of Copenhagen. The price at the time was
DKK 700,000.
Ungdomshuset In 1982, Folkets Hus was assigned to a group of young people—the original founders of Ungdomshuset—although the municipality of Copenhagen still owned the building. It was at this time that the building was given its current name: Ungdomshuset. It hosted musicians like
Nick Cave and
Björk in its early years. In January 1996, Ungdomshuset was ravaged by a fire and found to be plagued by
fungus and rot. The municipality of Copenhagen decided to close the house, claiming that it would be too expensive to repair the damages and renovate the building. The activists of the house decided to fix the damages themselves and on 1 March of the next year, their work was approved by the fire prevention department. In 1999 the building was put on sale by the municipality. This prodded the users of the building to post a large banner on the facade with the message:
"For sale along with 500 autonome, stone throwing, violent psychopaths from hell.". Despite this ominous warning, a company called
Human A/S bought the building in December 2000 (although ownership did not actually change hands until 2001), after which Human A/S was sold to the independent Christian sect "
Faderhuset". However, the squatters refused to leave the house. Until 1 March 2007 the young squatters used the house as if the change of ownership had not happened and the new owners were not allowed inside at any time.
Ungdomshuset received more than 500 visitors a week. The activists refused to leave the house and barricaded themselves inside. In addition, an
open-letter stating "Troublemakers of the World; We bid you Welcome!" had been sent to different autonomous groups around the world, asking for help defending the house in the event of a forced eviction. On 12 December,
Faderhuset refused an offer from the
foundation "Jagtvej 69" to sell the house for
DKK 13 million. On 16 December, around 2000 activists, some of them foreigners, demonstrated in Copenhagen in support of Ungdomshuset. The police had not been notified of the demonstration. The vanguard of the demonstration wore masks or helmets, which is not permitted by law during demonstrations in Denmark. The police ordered the demonstration to break up and the demonstrators to disperse. The demonstrators attacked the police; stones and
fireworks were thrown at the police and burning barricades set up. The demonstration degenerated into what the police characterised as the worst riots in Denmark in many years—they used
teargas, which was a very rare occurrence in Denmark. Both police and demonstrators were injured. Image:Gadekampe1.jpeg|Demonstrators charging police on Jagtvej Image:gadekampe2.jpg|Vanguard of the 16 December demonstration Image:gadekampe4.jpg|Demonstrators attacking police riot van. Image:gadekampe5.jpg|The police used a large amount of teargas against the demonstrators By the end of the night 273 people had been
arrested. The majority of those arrested were released the following day, 17 December.
Clearance On 1 March 2007 Ungdomshuset was cleared of its occupants by the police at about 7:00 (
CET) in the morning. A 50-metre area surrounding the building was sealed off. The building was taken with assistance from a military helicopter, an
airport crash tender and two
boom cranes, used as a form of modern-day
siege towers. Special forces entered the building from the roof, the windows and the ground, while the house was covered in foam to diminish the effectiveness of possible counterattacks such as
Molotov cocktails. Afterwards the supporters of Ungdomshuset announced that it was "either an Ungdomshus or a battle for an Ungdomshus — the clearing will never be forgiven". Rioting broke out, including a blockade of Nørrebrogade, the main street of
Nørrebro, and fires in the areas surrounding
Freetown Christiania and south of Nørrebrogade. Containers were turned over, windows were broken.
Molotov cocktails were thrown out by the demonstrators, at the cries of "The street is ours!" Setting up
barricades, they played
alter-globalization songs such as
Manu Chao from trucks. There were also demonstrations in Oslo carried out by the
Blitz community. The police moved out with police dogs and were prepared to use
tear gas. On 3 March 2007, there was more rioting outside Ungdomshuset, and by 12:36 am local time, the area of Nørrebro was completely overrun. At the same time further riots were taking place in the area around
Freetown Christiania. Rioters used cars and rubbish bins to build barricades and set fires on the streets. One fire spread to a nearby kindergarten but was quickly extinguished. In a
secondary school, the library and media room were ransacked and books and computers were burned on the street. The cost of the damages at the school was estimated to be around 1 million Danish kroner (133,000
euros). On the same day, the famous
Little Mermaid was painted pink and a graffiti '69' and
circle-A was painted on the stone on which the statue rests. Although police would not confirm a link between this event and the Ungdomshuset riots, the graffiti seems a reference to the squat's address, and news sources around the world used the incident to mention the 3 March riots at the same time. Also that morning, police raided six to eight addresses in Nørrebro in an attempt to find and deport foreign activists. Although foreigners were the primary target of these raids, a larger number of those arrested were Danes. The members of Ungdomshuset's legal support group (retsgruppen) were supposedly amongst those arrested, but police described this as 'purely coincidental'. In total, the police carried out raids searching for activists for six days and six nights, for example at the People's House of
Stengade, at an independent collective in
Baldersgade, at the
Solidaritetshuset and in many personal flats in Copenhagen. Germany has seen more than twenty actions and there have also been solidarity protests in Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Sweden and Poland. There were also protests in front of Denmark's UN Consulate in New York City — although it only counted eight persons during the -8 Celsius weather. A women's demonstration took place on 8 March, comprising more than 3,000 people. The police carried out systematic
identity controls. In total, more than 750 people were arrested during the events (among them, about 140 foreigners). According to Professor Lars Dencik, from the
University of Roskilde, the Danish state used the opportunity of this evacuation to test its
anti-terrorist security forces (as any other opportunity, or real danger, was non-existent). This was after weekly demonstrations since March 2007. On Monday 22 December 2008, five women and ten men who were present in the house at the time of eviction, received sentences of imprisonment. Eleven people were sentenced to one year and three months, three people to one year and one (aged under 16) to nine months. They were sentenced with preparing to assault police officers, and preparing violence. In a
Channel 4 interview, broadcast on 14 November 2011, British undercover police officer
Mark Kennedy claimed that his inside intelligence was instrumental in the eviction of the original Ungdomshuset. == See also ==