PARIS — When Danish police officers raided a church this week in Copenhagen to dislodge Iraqi refugees living there, they hoped to end a three-month-long stalemate.
Instead, the raid, and videos that are said to show the police beating the refugees’ supporters, have generated intensive news coverage, sparked a demonstration by thousands who demanded the Iraqis be allowed to stay in Denmark and led to a hunger strike by some of the refugees.
The trouble began Wednesday when the police arrived at the church to detain about 20 men who had been living there with permission from the church’s leader. Officials said they wanted to round up the men, who had been denied asylum, because they were not keeping in touch with the authorities who were working on their deportations.
When the men refused to leave the church, the police said they began to remove them against their will. But local activists who supported the refugees and had learned of the raid blocked the police vans in an attempt to stop the detentions.
Videos that are said to show the confrontation that followed show some activists being dragged away and one being clubbed by the police. In the end, the police arrested 19 of the refugees, all men, and, according to The Copenhagen Post, numerous protesters as well.
A woman identified as Christina Sondergaard, who was beaten by an officer with a baton , told Denmark’s TV2 on Friday that she would file a complaint against the police.
Katrine Jensen, 27, a spokeswoman for Kirkeasyl, a volunteer group supporting the Iraqis, said the police used batons and pepper spray to clear those trying to block them. She said that she was outside the church during the confrontation and that a number of the demonstrators were injured.
The raid was a joint operation by the National Police and the Copenhagen police. Flemming Steen Munch, a Copenhagen police spokesman, declined to comment on the accusations of brutality.
Justice Minister Brian Mikkelsen was quoted in the Danish news media as saying: “I think we would have preferred not to have to use force. But we happen to live in a democratic society which is built on people abiding by the country’s laws and rules — and there’s no special treatment just because you occupy a church.”
But The Copenhagen Post reported that a former prime minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, criticized the police action, saying, “It went beyond the bounds of common humanity and decency.” Iraqi refugees had been living at the Brorson Church since May, and the group that was there this week included about 40 women and children, who were not taken away.
The news of the raid on the church led to a peaceful demonstration on Thursday night in Copenhagen seeking asylum for all the refugees. Organizers said 20,000 people had gathered, but the police put the number at 12,000.
The arrested refugees were sent to the Sandholm immigration holding camp outside Copenhagen and nearly all have refused food since Thursday, according to Helge Norrung, a lawyer representing some of those detained. He said the Iraqis’ lives could be endangered by militants if they returned home.
An immigration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would not talk about individual cases but said Denmark turned away refugees if it believed they would not be endangered by returning home.
An Iraqi delegation is scheduled to visit Denmark next week to discuss the fate of the refugees, officials and lawyers said.
Danish officials said that 300 Iraqis were granted asylum out of 562 who requested it last year.
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