Denmark court rules counterculture group lacks property rights to community

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Denmark court rules counterculture group lacks property rights to community

May 27, 2009 07:04:00 am

[JURIST] The Eastern High Court of Denmark [official website, in Danish] ruled Tuesday that the Copenhagen counterculture group Christiana [community website, in Danish] had not acquired permanent property rights [press release, in Danish] to the abandoned Copenhagen navy base and that the Danish government [official website] was within its rights to cancel the group's use of the property. The court found that from 1971 until the creation of the 1991 Framework Agreement, which specified the property rights of the self-governing community, Christiana had acquired rights of use, but no absolute ownership status of the property occupied by the community's 900 residents. Furthermore, since there existed a contractual agreement between the parties after 1991, no subsequent squatters' rights were accrued by the community. Conceding that the community had not acquired absolute ownership status, Christiana representatives nonetheless maintained that the 2004 Christiana Act [text, in Danish], which terminated the group's use of the specified land, was void and cited the government's long-standing acceptance of the community and the various extensions to the 1991 framework agreement as supporting evidence of their claim. The court ruled against the community because it determined that all formal agreements between the community and the government were for specifically limited periods, the agreements contained no safeguards against dismissal, and that the government gave ample notice to the community before terminating its rights of use in 2004. The businesses and residents affected by the ruling plan to appeal [Politiken report] the decision in the Denmark Supreme Court.

The Christiana community has become a cultural and touristic attraction within Copenhagen, and a symbol of counterculture. The Danish government tolerated the existence of the community until intensifying its efforts to combat the illicit drug trade in 2004. No cars are allowed within the boundaries of the community and the community also serves as a center for gay rights activism.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.

Former communist countries admitted for EU accession

On April 16, 2003, the 2003 Treaty of Accession was signed by 10 countries, admitting them for European Union (EU) ascension. After Malta and Cyprus, eight of the ten new EU nations (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former communist countries. The signing of the treaty in Athens marked the first time that former members of the Soviet Bloc joined the EU.

Learn more about EU expansion from the organization's website.