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July 14, 2005

Copenhagen Post - Home Page (English)

Protestors who burned U.S. and Danish flags during last week's presidential visit might face arrest.  

Burning the Stars and Stripes is illegal in Denmark, but the country's red and white Dannebrog is strangely enough not protected by law.

Police are currently studying the law books in order to find a way to charge protestors who set fire to U.S. and Danish flags during a protest of President George W. Bush's visit to Denmark last week. 

Anti-Bush Protest Near U.S. Embassy in Denmark

When protestors found themselves in front of the U.S. Embassy, they set fire to a U.S. flag. At a later point in the march, they also burned the Danish flag.

Copenhagen Police Chief Per Larsen explained that the police chose not to arrest anyone during the march to avoid a confrontation with demonstrators.

"It's not as if we just let people get away, but in this situation, we thought it would be better to clean up the demonstration peacefully," said Larsen.

Larsen said that the police nevertheless had a good idea of who was responsible for the act.

He was not in doubt that burning the U.S. flag was a violation of paragraph 110 E of Denmark's criminal code, which prohibits disgracing flags or other symbols of foreign states.

If found guilty, the protestors could be punished with a fine or up to two years imprisonment.

Larsen was somewhat unsure about the penalty for burning the Danish flag, however.

"I think that it might be just as bad or even worse to burn one's own flag. I have to admit I can't find it in the criminal code, but one could always cite it as a disturbance of the peace," he said.

Gorm Toftegaard Nielsen, a professor of criminal law at Aarhus University, also had difficulty citing a specific law broken by the burners of the Danish flag.

"As far as I know, it does not say anywhere that you can't burn the Danish flag," said Nielsen.

Nielsen noted, however, that punishing people for disgracing a flag could be considered an infringement of their freedom of speech.

"Desecrating other nations' flags is often an expression of political convictions which are protected by freedom of speech," said Nielsen.

He noted that the last time the paragraph 110 E had been cited was in 1936.