The Ministry of Justice is to reopen a formal investigation into the conduct of authorities in relation to a pro-Tibet demonstration in 2012, the first time an officially closed inquiry has been reopened in decades.
Key documents were not submitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Tibet Commission, and a parliamentary majority is now in favour of reopening the inquiry, Ritzau reports.
The investigation relates to police management of Copenhagen demonstrations against China’s treatment of Tibet during then-president Hu Jintao’s official visit to the Danish capital in 2012.
Demonstrators said subsequent to the visit that police vehicles had blocked their protests from the view of the Chinese delegation during a demonstration on June 15th, 2012.
Police officers were also accused of wrenching Tibetan flags from the hands of protestors during the incident.
In 2015, then-justice minister Søren Pind established a commission to investigate the allegations. The aim of the inquiry was to establish why police decided to intervene in the protests in the manner they did and where the involved officers’ instructions came from.
The Tibet inquiry conducted interviews with around 70 people from police security agency PET, the Danish police and the foreign ministry as well as Royal Palace, given that Hu met Queen Margrethe during the visit.
The commission concluded in December 2017 that the police had given illegal orders in connection with the protests, which prevented people from gathering and violated their right to free speech during the 2012 visit, as well as during a second Chinese official visit in 2013.
A ”particular atmosphere” was created by both PET and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, influencing the actions of police, the commission found.
