Tadzio Müller arrested at climate summit protests

Being a "global warming sceptic" myself, I didn't plan on writing about the climate summit in Copenhagen. One more futile exercise owed to the hubris of man who basks in the sham glory of being the only species able to "destroy Earth". Really, though, it is only mankind and/or our way of life that we might be destroying. And would that be all bad?

It is not in our hands to destroy Earth. Unlike us, Earth has been around for billions of years, and – albeit changing incessantly – existed through warmer and colder periods much the same. That's one of the things Alex Higgins and I didn't see eye to eye on when founding the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) back in 2006.

Enough is being said about this. No point in adding to it.

However, I just learned that in Copenhagen again someone associated with SCIS has been arrested – and remains imprisoned – for his political stance.

Among the many graduate students and doctoral candidates at the fringes of SCIS when it was founded at the University of Sussex, and a repeat guest in the original centre when it was still on campus, was one Tadzio Müller, a German alter-globalization activist who did his DPhil in International Relations at Sussex.

Obviously, with his left-leaning ideas, he fitted the Sussex profile much better than I ever did. That didn't save him from being arrested, though.

As the media and various blogs report, Tadzio – who is now a spokesperson for an organization called Climate Justice Action (CJA) – was selectively arrested on 15 December by plainclothes police officers following a press conference he gave at the summit venue. He stands accused of preparing for violence against the police and incitement to riot.

A charge that seems only the more ludicrous if one has seen the violence with which the Danish police are trying to contain protesters on the streets of Copenhagen, freely employing dogs, batons, and pepper spray (check out videos on Youtube). No chance that they will be held responsible for their actions.

More interestingly even, it has been revealed that Tadzio's arrest was only possible because of covert surveillance measures. The Danish police not only infiltrated protesters' preparatory meetings on a broad scale, but also tapped their mobile phones (calls and SMS), and intercepted the e-mails of known activists.

"People have to break the rules", Tadzio is reported as saying. Protesters should not allow themselves to be stopped by fences or other physical barriers. Or police intimidation, one might add.

Even if one does not believe in the great climate myth, one may be sympathetic with the activists who try to turn the climate debate into a debate against global capitalism. "Climate" merely seems a catchword for many of the protesters in Copenhagen.