BATTLE OF CHRISTIANIA FLARES AS HASH-SELLER BURN OWN STANDS

The hash sellers of Denmark's famed Christiania Freetown dramatically
burned their own stands on the community's Pusher Street Sunday
afternoon. The self-immolating move came in response to increasing
pressure from the Danish government to crack down on soft drug sales
in the enclave, which has been an autonomous, self-governing community
since hippies swarmed into an abandoned military base in downtown
Copenhagen in 1971.

"The stalls with open hash-trade, which have caused one of the main
conflicts between the free-state Christiania and the Danish
government, have now been removed by the pushers themselves," said
Christiania spokesperson Pernille Hansen in a statement Sunday. "The
trade is now as visible, as anywhere else in the world, in street,
parks and apartments where hash-trade is taking place.

The only point where there will be no normalization is the continuing
successful ban on hard drugs."

"What's happening in Christiania is that the people working in the
open air market for cannabis in the middle of Christiania voluntarily
demolished their improvised shops and redrew to the cafes and other
places where they are expected to continue selling," said Hansen.
"This is a strategic reply to the threat of the Danish government (a
coalition of liberal and conservatives heavily influenced by the
extreme right-wing) to use the drug issue as a justification to
eradicate Christiania in order to build luxury apartments in the area.
In spite of the fact that Christiania is Copenhagen's third most
important tourist attraction, the government claims that the area
could serve better as an object for property development. Recently, it
has won a court case in the dispute, and since then, police raids
against the cannabis market have been increasing."

"In Christiania, in the middle of a modern Western city, an
alternative economy, society and life style has been created, which
involves much more than only an alternative drug policy.

It has survived several attacks from both illegal and legal interest
groups, and although it has been forced to give up some of its ideals,
it has also become an integrated part of the city and the region," the
statement continued. "The cannabis market in Christiania is not the
only provider in Denmark. As all over Europe, there are local
providers everywhere. The percentage of regular cannabis consumption
among the Danish population is one of the highest in Europe. What the
Danish government is doing is fighting a war on drugs in the interests
of big time capitalists."

Since its establishment three decades ago, Christiania has become a
global counterculture icon, with its open cannabis sales, its
psychedelic spirit, its radical democracy, and also for what it lacks:
cars, police and government. Christiania residents banned hard drugs
in 1979, and the Danish government regularized the 84-acre, 1000
strong community's status a decade later. While tensions between
Christiania and the Danish state have risen and fallen over the years
- -- a 1976 effort to shut it down was countered by tens of thousands of
anarchists from all over Europe -- the current Danish government
announced last month that it could legally evict Christiania's
residents, and that has raised alarms in the enclave and among its
supporters worldwide.

"We don't want Pusher Street to be a lever for the government's
illegal and amoral plans to close our Christiania," said the community
in a statement. Police raids have been increasing in recent months,
making a dent in Christiania's estimated $1.3 million in annual hash
revenues and otherwise disrupting the Danish cannabis market.

But Danish police and the Liberal-Conservative government headed by
Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen see no reason to let up the pressure
just because the hash stands are gone. "The open sale of hashish
continues and that means that we will continue as we always have
done," Copenhagen police spokesman Flemming Steen told reporters
Monday, promising to press the crackdown.

The latest crackdown is fully in line with the government's expressed
policy since it took office in 2001, the first conservative government
in Denmark in some 30 years.

Prime Minister Rasmussen has promised to stop the open sales of
hashish and to "normalize" the area by redeveloping it. "Any step
toward legalizing Christiania is a good step," Rasmussen said in a
televised interview last month.

"This is the first time the right wing has found its way to power
since the 1960s," said Gert Nope of Fri Hampe (Free Hemp), a
pro-cannabis Danish organization, "and they think they can make big
money on redevelopment. There is also definitely a cultural element
involved," he told DRCNet. "I also suspect, though I can't prove it
yet, that the US government and Swedish prohibitionists are exerting
some influence here now."

"All the millionaires want fine fancy apartments here, they want to
park their fancy cars in front, they want to make Christiania a
fashionable neighborhood," said Klaus Truxen of the Danish Hemp Party.
"They don't talk about that; they talk about the drugs, but we know it
will go step by step. First it's no pushers, then it's no illegal
houses, then it's no Christiania. We don't trust the government," he
told DRCNet.

"The Hemp Party supports Pusher Street because it is a protest against
a stupid cannabis law," said Truxen. "We have members in Christiania.
I use Pusher Street myself.

It's a nice place to buy hash, and it is also free of hard drugs since
they threw out the junkies all those years ago. The government is
fucking conservative; it is run by a party of farmers," he fumed.
"Christiania has always been a free town. I spent my youth here, it is
a symbol of freedom, and there is much more to it than hash culture.
There is theatre, culture, craftsmanship, there is
free-thinking."

Christianians are plotting a survival strategy, said "mother of
Christiania" Britte Lillesoe. "I've only been sleeping about three
hours a night," Lillesoe told DRCNet. "We are having meetings, we will
fight further, we are meeting with politicians, we will meet with the
Lord Mayor of Copenhagen Friday," she said. None of the people who
spoke with DRCNet expect an imminent confrontation. "The government
doesn't want a confrontation," said Lillesoe. "They are a law and
order government; they don't want to create disorder.

We are in dialogue even with the rightists. The pushers were happy to
tear down their stands, because it removed this excuse."

"What I expect is the government will let the police harass the
pushers every now and then, usually once or twice a month until a
government deadline passes in four months," augured Nope, "then they
will occupy Pusher Street with hundreds of police until the pushers
surrender -- they hope -- and while they're there they can start
evicting some of the inhabitants as well. There could be some
Pan-European planning for this going on right now, but it will
probably be some months until the shit really hits the fan."

"It may get worse," conceded Lillesoe, "but we will stay. This is so
strange. We banned hard drugs here in 1979 because prohibition made
the crime come in. Our solution was to throw out the dealers, but we
said cannabis was okay. It's a soft drug, so you can push it if you
keep the hard drugs out. And we said you can sell it only on Pusher
Street. It got bigger and bigger because nothing happened elsewhere.

Now the right-wing government has closed hash clubs in Copenhagen, and
the customers come here. I'm just an old hippie and we're just a
little tiny place that tried to set the best example for ending
prohibition," she said.

"The people love that we are here," Lillesoe continued. "Black sheep
of all classes unite!" she laughed. "In this old barracks ground, this
former ground for war, we create a more caring, more spiritual way of
thinking.

We keep the good of the hippie days. We are not hard-core
left-wingers, we are not reds, we are hippies.

There are many old hippie pushers here," she said. "They must be crazy
to try to get rid of the pushers.

I don't like my friends to be criminalized."

Visit http://www.christiania.org to learn more about Christiania.
Visit http://www.hampepartiet.dk for information (in Danish) about the
Danish Hemp Party.