Copenhagen, 19 December 2009 – Greenpeace today staged a candle-lit vigil outside Vestre Fængsel (prison), in Copenhagen, calling for the immediate release of four of its activists who face spending Christmas in a Danish jail. Three of the activists took part in the peaceful protest at the Danish Queen’s Heads of State dinner, last Thursday, during the Copenhagen Climate Summit.
Over 100 Greenpeace staff and supporters holding banners reading “Freedom From Climate Injustice” took part in the vigil where the activists are being held in isolation and without trial.
“Copenhagen has become a ‘climate crime scene’ after over 120 Heads of State squandered an historic opportunity to agree a climate saving deal,” said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.
“While the perpetrators of the real crime fled the country on private jets, it is shocking that the Danish authorities have decided to detain, without trial, four peaceful protesters over Christmas.”
“Their families will spend a bleak festive season knowing that their loved ones will be languishing in isolation for acting to save the climate. For standing up in defense of the hundreds of millions of people and countless species which will be severely affected by catastrophic climate change.”
All three activists have children at home who will be missing a parent this Christmas. The activists – Juan Lopez de Uralde, Nora Christiansen and Christian Schmutz – are the climate heroes who brought home to world leaders attending last Thursday’s banquet with Queen Margrethe the message that leaders were failing the climate.
The activists joined Heads of State from over 120 countries en route to the banquet at the Danish Parliament. Arriving in a three-vehicle convoy, immediately in front of Hilary Clinton, a Greenpeace ‘Head of State’ and his ‘wife’ stepped out onto the red carpet as representatives of the millions of people around the world who wanted
a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty to head-off climate catastrophe.
Holding up banners reading: “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act”, the activists demanded action and not merely words from Presidents and Prime Ministers during their Friday session of the climate summit.
Yesterday, police also arrested Joris Thijssen, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace International. He is being held under the same conditions as the other three activists.
“Like the outcome of the Copenhagen conference, this is a total sham and a climate injustice,” said Mads Flarup Christensen, Greenpeace Nordic Executive Director and husband of Nora Christensen. “The real crime was committed in the Bella Center, where the climate talks took place.”
