Reykjavík Grapevine - des. 2020, Blaðsíða 8

8 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10— 2020
Words: Andie Sophia Fontaine Photos: Art Bicnick
Icelanders have developed a positive
reputation for their protests. Praised
for having driven a government out
of power, for pressuring authorities
to prosecute bankers and for organis-
ing the draft for a new constitution, to
any outside observers it would appear
as though protesting has become an
acceptable, even respectable, way to
exact change in Icelandic society.
However, in the course of several
interviews with lawyers and activists
alike, the Grapevine found that police
have sweeping powers to arrest, that
courts take a very narrow interpreta-
tion of police power at the expense
of these protestors, that prosecu-
tors often severely limit or outright
restrict defense lawyers’ access to the
evidence against their clients, and that
appealing these cases has such a high
threshold that they can have a chilling
effect—all of this sometimes in breach
of the Icelandic constitution and Euro-
pean human rights laws.
How did things get this way, and
what must be done to bring Icelan-
dic law in line with the principles of a
democratic society?
Article 19
Much of the issue rests upon Article 19
of the Law on Police, a single sentence
with far-reaching implications:
“The public is obliged to obey orders
which police give, such as in traffic
control or in order to ensure law and
order in a public space.”
This article has not only been used
by the police to justify arresting people
participating in peaceful protests—
something which is supposed to be
protected by Articles 73 and 74 of
Iceland’s constitution and other inter-
national laws—the courts have often
times taken a very narrow interpreta-
tion of this law; asking only if a police
order was disobeyed, not if the order
was lawful or even justified in the first
place.
Elínborg Harpa Önundardóttir
and Borys Ejryszew are two activists
currently facing charges that include
violating Article 19 [Note: at the time of
this writing, Borys has been convicted
of violating Article 19 and ordered to
pay over 300,000 ISK in legal costs. He
plans to appeal]. Elínborg and Borys
have worked extensively with Icelandic
refugees who have organised for better
living conditions and fair treatment by
Icelandic authorities. Efforts to bring
these grievances directly to the Direc-
torate of Immigration (ÚTL) in March
2019 were blocked by around a dozen
police officers.
“We were saying, ‘Well, we're going
in, we have every right to go in there,’”
Elínborg recalls. “Then the police took
out the pepper spray and were ready to
use it. It says that in the police report
from that protest, that they were
ready to use the gas when people were
‘threatening to break in’ to ÚTL during
opening hours.”
The demonstrators then decided to
change tactics: as police had prevented
them from bringing their demands
to immigration authorities directly,
they opted instead to demonstrate at
Austurvöllur, the square in front of
Parliament.
Austurvöllur,
ground zero
for protests
Austurvöllur has been the scene for
numerous protests in Icelandic history.
It was there that the famed “pots and
pans revolution” grabbed international
headlines as Icelanders gathered in
the thousands. It was also the scene of
the largest protest in Icelandic history,
when some 23,000 people showed up in
April 2016 to call upon the government
to resign in the wake of the Panama
Papers revelations.
At that protest , police simply
observed proceedings and held the
line. But when about two dozen protes-
tors arrived at Austurvöllur on March
11th of 2019, police response was vastly
different.
“We got to the point where the refu-
gees decided that they would like to
try occupying the Parliament square,”
Borys recalls. “When the refugees were
trying to set up their tents, the police
came over and pushed people around,
taking the camping equipment. And
then, for whatever reason, the unit
commanders came up with the idea
that the demonstrators wanted to start
a fire. They confiscated a pallet that
people had brought, believing that the
refugees were going to use that for a
bonfire, but that isn't true—we mainly
used it to sit on as insulation from
the ground. It was March and it was
freezing. After they took the pallet, the
police further decided they wanted to
take away the cardboard banners, too.
This is when the police line approaches
and starts pushing people around
in a very aggressive and escalatory
manner.”
Met with no resistance, the police
nonetheless began using force against
the protesters, including the use of
pepper spray, sometimes against
people attempting to leave the scene.
All of this was captured on video. Two
arrests were made.
How peace-
ful is a protest
supposed
to be?
Despite public outcry against police
violence at this small demonstration,
organisers decided to switch tactics.
“After the police riot, people were
quite stressed and tired, so we decided
it was time to do something peace-
ful and symbolic,” Borys says. “We
organised a silent performance where
a bunch of refugees and their friends
stood in front of Parliament with their
hands marked with 'no deportations'
and tape over their mouths. There were
parliamentarians passing through, so
no one was stopping anybody. But the
police decided this was also an unlaw-
ful protest and, citing the 19th, they
came over, shouting in Icelandic to a
crowd of people—many of whom don’t
speak the language—and arrested
three entirely random demonstrators,
one of them Elínborg.”
Tactics were changed again, with
organisers deciding this time to take
their concerns to the Ministry of
Justice, which holds authority over
ÚTL. This would take place in the form
of peaceful sit-ins, held during open-
ing hours, in the lobby of the Ministry.
Over the course of three sit-ins,
no arrests were made; police dragged
people outside of the building and left
them there, sometimes using force.
The fourth sit-in was a different story.
“ The fourth time around they
arrived at the Ministry when we
had been protesting for about 10-15
minutes,” Elínborg says. “They came in
shouting at us to get out or we would
get arrested. They did not explain on
what premises nor did they tell us
that the ministry was closed. Then
they gave us all of 3-4 minutes before
they began arresting people. We were
asking them to give the orders in
English as well, because in the arrests
before, the order [to disperse] was only
given in Icelandic.”
A Stacked Deck:
Police, Courts
And The Right To
Protest In Iceland
Iceland’s legal system
needs to change to
ensure democracy
Ragnar Arnalds, human rights lawyer