Hundreds protest Bush visit to Denmark
Around 200 demonstrators, mostly black-clad youths, marched to the US Embassy in Copenhagen to protest a brief visit by President George Bush on his way to the G8 summit in Scotland.
More protests were expected today.
The demonstrators, some shouting, “Death to Bush, death to imperialism”, were surrounded by an even higher number of police officers in riot gear yesterday, before Mr Bush’s arrival.
The protesters burned Danish and US flags as they marched in pouring rain to the embassy shortly before the President’s expected arrival in Denmark.
Police arrested two people, but there was no violence, police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.
Mr Bush arrived in Denmark late yesterday on his fourth trip to Europe this year.
He will discuss transatlantic relations with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen today.
Denmark’s centre-right government is a staunch supporter of the Bush administration and has committed troops to US-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More than 2,000 police officers have been deployed to block off streets and keep an eye on demonstrators in one of the biggest security operations the Scandinavian country has ever seen.
Protests started even before the President had arrived, with a few hundred people turning up for a peaceful anti-Bush rally in the north-western city of Aarhus.
In Copenhagen, organisers said around 5,000 people came to a central park for a rock concert staged to urge Mr Bush to do more to fight poverty and HIV/Aids.
Yesterday morning, police and bomb experts briefly examined two suspicious packages at the US Embassy in Copenhagen, but determined they were harmless.
Today, several anti-Bush rallies are expected to converge outside the US Embassy and organisers estimated they would draw around 20,000 people.
Police have sealed manholes and set up barbed wire around Marienborg, the Danish prime minister’s official summer residence, located north of Copenhagen, where he will host Mr Bush today.
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