COPENHAGEN: Danish police detained more than 200 activists on Sunday on a second day of street protests over climate change as environment ministers met for informal talks to advance negotiations on a new pact.
Police stopped an unauthorized demonstration headed toward the city’s harbor and carried out a security check of some of the participants, Copenhagen police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch told The Associated Press.
The hundreds of demonstrators were outnumbered by police officers in riot gear who surrounded them. Steen Munch said police found bolt-cutters and gas masks when they searched a truck that led the demonstration. Over 200 activists were detained, he said.
Police said only 13 of the 968 people detained during and after a mass rally a day earlier in Copenhagen remained in custody on Sunday. Of those, three — two Danes and a Frenchman — were set to be arraigned in court on preliminary charges of fighting with police.
An estimated 40,000 people joined the mostly peaceful march toward the suburban conference center where the 192-nation UN climate conference is being held.
Riot police detained activists at the tail end of the demonstration when some of them started vandalizing buildings in downtown Copenhagen. Windows were broken at the former stock exchange and the Foreign Ministry.
