The European Union of Jewish Students called for a day of action, protesting the presence of Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Copenhagen on Thursday 17th December 2009. The day was meant to begin with a full page ad, sponsored by EUJS and Stop The Bomb, in The Copenhagen Post (a Danish newspaper in English, circulating 15,000 papers daily), condemning the Iranian president and it’s regime for it’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb, support for terrorism as well as it’s ongoing violence against the Iranian people.
EUJS and Stop The Bomb were however angered and disappointed to receive news from The Copenhagen Post as they had decided not to publish the ad for unconvincing and unclear reasons. This open violation of freedom of speech and press lie in direct contrast and irony of the UN’s continued insistence to give one of the worst human rights violators in the world an international stage to disseminate his constant rhetoric of hate and violence without limitation.
EUJS had at the same time, in collaboration with a number of Iranian dissident groups, organised two vans to circle Copenhagen city centre and the Bella Center Conference Hall. Both cars were draped with posters, 2×4 Meters in size, graphically showing the human rights abuses that occur on a daily basis in Iran. The cars received a high level of public visibility, and continued to raise awareness and concern on the subject.
The cars will continue to be driving the streets of Copenhagen on Friday. In the afternoon EUJS chairperson Jonas Karpantschof alongside a number of high profile Danish MP’s and Iranian Human rights activists addressed a protest organised by Frit Iran against Ahmadenijad’s presence in Copenhagen. The Protest was attend by some 600 people.
This was followed immediately by EUJS’s own protest outside the Danish Parliament, The Folketing, which elaborated on message of the Iranian human rights violations, but, having collaborated with Stop The Bomb, introduced the new and vital message of stopping the Iranian regime developing Nuclear weapons. The protest, despite the bitter cold, was attended by some 200 people carrying images and banners condemning the Iranian regime. EUJS hopes that the combined efforts of all of the days actions has served to awaken and direct public consciousness towards to the dire threats that the Iranian regime presents to the world, and how Ahmadinjad’s presence should not and will not go unnoticed or without protest in Copenhagen, or any other European city in the future. Pictures of all events to come.
