Danish police make more arrests to calm violence

4 Mar, 2007 12:35 / Updated 17 years ago

Danish police have raided houses in Copenhagen to find activists who have helped fuel a wave of violence that has seized the capital in the last 3 days. Saturday night was reported to have been much calmer.

Clashes were sparked by the eviction of squatters from a youth centre on Thursday. Police have detained around 100 people, half of whom are foreigners. The detained foreigners are expected to be deported from the country. The arrests followed some of the worst violence early on Saturday, when police fought street battles with hundreds of youths who hurled Molotov cocktails and stones. The organisers sought to rally supporters for fresh demonstrations via mass mobile phone text messages. However, the police were braced for new clashes.  They had drafted reinforcements from other districts and borrowed police vans from Sweden. Attempts to restart violence on Saturday night were quickly stopped by police.