As they used to say, ‘Tis to laugh’

This was written by a friend of ours for us who was at the For Freedom march in Denmark last night, April 27th.

Waiting for the evening’s event I sat at a cafe across from xxx where our Monday evening “For Freedom” marches start.

Earlier in the evening I had received a notice from a friend who would be unable to attend that there was a planned counter-demonstration by an extreme-left group called “The Revolutionary Antifascists” against the evening’s demonstration. I arrived at a café across from Axels Torv at 17:00, intending to eat dinner before the demonstration at 18:00 when I noticed that at that time police were already beginning to arrive and more were arriving all the time. Some were carrying riot gear.

That told me that the evening’s protest would likely not be very peaceful. And I was correct. At 18:00, when the demonstration began, there were about 200 counter-protesters and almost as many police officers in the area, plus 3-4 police vans. We stood in the middle of the square while the counter-protesters were on the periphery, shouting and trying to get by the police and get to us. The police did an admirable job holding them back.

There was contact here and there between the other group and us, though our actions were not violent, merely protective and defensive. We kept our cool as we usually do. There were, however, quite a few scuffles here and there, and the protesters were violent and belligerent. At one point a group of them grabbed our banner and tried to rip it out of the hands of the two guys holding it. There was a scuffle involving some of us, police, and the leftists, and we got our banner back.

I was standing with a sign when suddenly I was violently thrown to the ground by a counter-protester who had seen an opening in the police ranks and had propelled himself forward at a run wanting to grab my sign — which incidentally read “For Freedom, Against Racism and Violence”. Rather ironic.