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Crackdown on hippie enclave
05/01/2004 18:20 - (SA)
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| Visitors to Christiania walk past demolished dagga stands in Copenhagen, Denmark. (John McConnico, AP) |
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Copenhagen - Police vowed on Monday to continue their crackdown on the sale of illegal drugs in Copenhagen's famed hippie enclave, a day after residents and vendors demolished the stands where they sold hashish from for decades.
Drugs are illegal in Denmark but sales of dagga in Christiania were tolerated. Residents banned the sale of harder drugs in 1980.
Many of Christiania's residents believe the drug crackdown will lead to the eviction of the more than 900 residents and the realisation of government plans to redevelop the 34-hectare area for upscale housing. Residents tore down the stands along the sparsely paved but well-travelled Pusher Street on Sunday and burned them in a bonfire in a bid to pre-empt any government action.
"The destruction of the booths is a symbolic move more than anything else," Copenhagen police spokesperson Flemming Steen Munch said. "The open sale of dagga continues and that means that we will continue as we always have done."
On Monday, a group of dealers sold dagga from small tables near the charred remnants of the booths.
"It is an illusion to believe that it will disappear totally," said Peter Plet, who has lived in the downtown enclave in 1973.
In May, police launched a series of anti-drug raids. By end of 2003, 175kg of hashish and 1.6 million kroner (US$271 200) in cash were seized, along with illegal weapons and stolen goods. The raids at Christiania also resulted in the seizure of 600kg of dagga elsewhere in Denmark.
The illegal dagga sales are estimated to bring the community at least 8 million kroner (US$1.3m) every year.
Last month, a government lawyer concluded that residents could be legally evicted from the enclave because the Danish state gave them the right to borrow the land, not rent it, in 1989. The present contract to use the land ends on June 30.
A full report on the enclave's fate is expected later this year.
Christiania took root in 1971 when dozens of hippies moved into the derelict 18th-century fort on state-owned land behind the capital's old ramparts.
They proclaimed their freewheeling society Christiania and it became a counterculture oasis with psychedelic-coloured buildings, free dagga, no government, no cars and no police.
In 1987, Christiania was recognised as a "social experiment" and two years later parliament gave residents the right to use the land, but not ownership of it.
Christiania has become a tourist destination, with some travel guides mentioning it prominently, and Pusher Street appears on several city maps. In May, one of the booths that sold dagga was donated to Denmark's National Museum.
- SAPA
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