Riots test Danes tradition of tolerance for rebellion

COPENHAGEN, Mar 7 (Reuters) Three days of violent clashes between youths and police in Denmark's capital have left public sympathy for the protesters in tatters, even among those who have long lived outside the law.

Although Copenhagen's streets are now empty of rioters and demolition teams have torn down the youth centre at the heart of the protests, the violence appears to have drained Denmark's traditional tolerance for rebellion.

Danes say that tolerance had anyway been dissipating in recent years and plunged further when protesters angry at the eviction of squatters from the youth centre burned cars, ransacked a high school and fought police in the streets.

Lars Ewe, who has lived in Copenhagen's famous ''free town'' hippie enclave of Christiania for 24 years, said he and fellow residents started a neighbourhood watch group over the riots.

''Even if we support the cause of the young people, we cannot support the violence and rioting,'' Ewe said. ''A lot of people are scared that the violence might escalate and burn their houses down.'' The daily clashes began on Thursday, after a police raid on a Copenhagen youth centre to evict a group of squatters engaged in a long-running dispute with authorities.

In a city with a long history of non-conformism, Christiania's squatters have lived undisturbed in a military barracks since 1971 without recognising Danish laws or paying taxes. Until recently, they ran a thriving open-air drug market.

''Many people are tired of the violence and feeling irritated that it's taken too long,'' said Rene Karpantschof, a sociologist at the University of Copenhagen.

''It's a symbolical issue in public debate right now. There is a hostile reaction against rioters, but many also feel they can understand the anger of the young people.'' Initially, the evicted youths found sympathy among Danes and received generally neutral coverage in the Danish press.

Hippies from Christiania marched in solidarity with the youths on Thursday. Two old ladies brought fresh pastries to teenage girls blockading the entrance to the Social Democratic party headquarters on Friday.

MOOD TURNS SOUR But as rioters torched cars, smashed shop windows and set scores of stolen bicycles on fire to build makeshift barricades, more residents became fed up with the riots, which resulted in more than 600 arrests.

''The youngsters are doing this the wrong way,'' said Peter, a resident of the mostly working-class, multi-ethnic Norrebro neighbourhood that has seen the worst violence.

Peter, who declined to give his last name because he used to sell drugs in Christiania, lost a bicycle in a barricade fire while a friend's car was torched.

''They could have had many people marching alongside them, but the violence is too much,'' he said.

Newspapers echoed the impatience of Danish citizens.

''Even the readers who previously supported the youth having a place of their own, now have lost patience after the last days' violence in Copenhagen,'' wrote tabloid BT in a two-page spread headlined ''The Sympathy Is Gone Now.'' Michael Kristiansen, a former media adviser for Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, wrote in daily Berlingske Tidende that in past clashes like the 1993 anti-EU riots, protesters could claim police brutality caused the violence.

But live television coverage at the weekend showed a measured approach by police and helped shift public sympathy.

''Media-savvy police cleared the youth house while activists where left looking like cry-babies and with sagging support,'' he wrote.

The conflict over the youth house has simmered since 2000 when local government, which had lent the building to the youngsters since 1982, sold it to a religious group.

The eviction fulfilled a court order issued last year.

As the building owners began tearing it down on Monday, left-wing newspaper Politiken argued the demolition would provide a chance for a new start and would prevent the building from becoming a lightning rod for trouble.

The youths can still count on sympathisers like charity store clerk Gudrun Hansen, who said she helped three youngsters evade police this weekend by letting them dash through her ground floor apartment.

''It's wrong with all the violence, but most of the youngsters are peaceful people who are just sad about the situation,'' she said.

But supporters like Hansen are a shrinking minority.

''Denmark is still a democracy, we have freedom of speech and the right to vote,'' said Ewe. ''People are still allowed to protest peacefully. Rioting is an overreaction.'' REUTERS SY VC1010