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ISRAEL

Davis Cup protests underway in Malmö

Around 20 demonstrators braved the chilly morning temperatures in Malmö on Friday to protest against Sweden’s Davis Cup tennis match with Israel.

Davis Cup protests underway in Malmö

If enough protesters show up, they’ll do their best to try to postpone the day’s match, said one of them to the TT news agency.

The demonstrators are with the International Solidarity Movement, an international protest movement against Israel’s policies.

In the parking lot of the nearby Coop grocery store, opposite the stadium area, some of the protesters played tennis with plastic rackets, while others held up the Palestinian flag and pro-Palestinian banners.

The morning’s demonstration should be seen as the start of a series of protest actions, according to demonstrator Oscar Schön.

“If there are enough of us, we’ll try to block the entrance to the stadium area and, for example, try to make sure the match is postponed. But we aren’t going to use any violence,” he told TT.

Police helicopters are circling above the area and nearby there is a large police presence, as well as many journalists and photographers.

PROTESTS

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

The chairwoman of the Police Association West Region has said that police special tactics, known as Särskild polistaktik or SPT, should be available across Sweden, to use in demonstrations similar to those during the Easter weekend.

Calls for special police tactics to be available across Sweden

SPT, (Särskild polistaktik), is a tactic where the police work with communication rather than physical measures to reduce the risk of conflicts during events like demonstrations.

Tactics include knowledge about how social movements function and how crowds act, as well as understanding how individuals and groups act in a given situation. Police may attempt to engage in collaboration and trust building, which they are specially trained to do.

Katharina von Sydow, chairwoman of the Police Association West Region, told Swedish Radio P4 West that the concept should exist throughout the country.

“We have nothing to defend ourselves within 10 to 15 metres. We need tools to stop this type of violent riot without doing too much damage,” she said.

SPT is used in the West region, the South region and in Stockholm, which doesn’t cover all the places where the Easter weekend riots took place.

In the wake of the riots, police unions and the police’s chief safety representative had a meeting with the National Police Chief, Anders Tornberg, and demanded an evaluation of the police’s work. Katharina von Sydow now hopes that the tactics will be introduced everywhere.

“This concept must exist throughout the country”, she said.

During the Easter weekend around 200 people were involved in riots after a planned demonstration by anti-Muslim Danish politician Rasmus Paludan and his party Stram Kurs (Hard Line), that included the burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

Police revealed on Friday that at least 104 officers were injured in counter-demonstrations that they say were hijacked by criminal gangs intent on targeting the police. 

Forty people were arrested and police are continuing to investigate the violent riots for which they admitted they were unprepared. 

Paludan’s application for another demonstration this weekend was rejected by police.

In Norway on Saturday, police used tear gas against several people during a Koran-burning demonstration after hundreds of counter-demonstrators clashed with police in the town of Sandefjord.

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