
3:53pm UK, Sunday December 13, 2009
Danish police have detained more than 200 climate change activists in a second day of street protests.
Police surround protesters as trouble brews in Copenhagen on Saturday
Police stopped an unauthorised demonstration heading toward Copenhagen's harbour and said they found bolt-cutters and gas masks when they searched a truck at the head of the protest.
Only 13 of the 968 people detained during and after a mass rally in the city on Saturday remain in custody. Of those, three - two Danes and a Frenchman - were due to appear in court on preliminary charges of fighting with police.
An estimated 40,000 people had joined the mostly peaceful march toward the suburban conference centre where the United Nations climate conference is being held.
Riot police detained activists at the tail-end of the demonstration when some of them started vandalising buildings, including the former stock exchange and the Foreign Ministry.
A police officer received minor injuries when he was hit by a rock thrown from the group and one protester was injured by fireworks, a police spokesman said.
Saturday's demonstrations turned violent - 1,000 people were arrested
Critics blasted the Danish law that allows police to make preventative arrests if they believe a demonstration will turn violent and hold suspected troublemakers for up to 12 hours without a court appearance.
"They arrested 1,000 people. And they only followed up on three of them," said Amnesty International spokeswoman Ida Thuesen. "There are lot of people who haven't done anything and had no intention of doing anything."
Dr Rowan Williams
At the conference, the pledges on emissions cuts so far are short of the minimum proposed in a draft agreement to keep temperatures from rising to a dangerous level.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams is in Copenhagen to call for people to show greater respect to each other.
Dr Williams is also calling for a scaling down of the use and waste of energy across the world.
Church bells across Britain and other countries rang 350 times, a number that refers to what many scientists consider a safe level of carbon dioxide in the air.

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