Denmark to probe removal of pro-Tibet demonstrators in 2012

The Danish government said today it would investigate why police forcibly kept pro-Tibet activists from demonstrating and holding up Tibetan flags during a 2012 state visit of then Chinese president Hu Jintao.
"The case raises doubts over whether the authorities adequately protected fundamental democratic freedoms," Justice Minister Soren Pind said in a statement.
Denmark's government was led by the Social Democrats at the time of the visit in June 2012. The country is now ruled by the conservative Venstre party.
A court last week ruled that the removal of a demonstrator during the three-day visit had been unlawful, and said that police had tried three times to prevent people from displaying the Tibetan flag.

Amateur footage aired by national public broadcaster DR showed police officers grabbing a Tibetan flag from the hands of a female demonstrator, reportedly outside the parliament, and trying to take another down from a pole on an activist's bicycle.
According to a Copenhagen police document made public today, police were ordered to make sure no one in the Chinese president's convoy could see the demonstrators.

Denmark's PET intelligence agency believed it was "crucial" for the Chinese delegation not to "lose face" during a potential confrontation with pro-Tibet activists, the document added.
The document surfaced after Copenhagen police previously told the justice ministry and parliament's legal affairs committee that they did not order the removal of demonstrators.

Denmark's Independent Police Complaints Authority has also launched its own inquiry.
China froze relations with Denmark in 2009 after two successive prime ministers welcomed Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama at the official government residence.
Relations were repaired in late 2010 when the Danish parliament made it clear that Copenhagen had a one-China policy and did not back independence for the Himalayan territory.