IDENTIFYING POLICEMEN

A recent trend in Denmark has been an increase in the number of complaints against the police. Not only individual cases, such as deaths in custody. Some of their more general actions, notably pre-emptive arrests before and during the big climate change conference in Copenhagen a number of years ago, have been deemed illegal by the courts.

In order to succeed, complainants have to be able to identify the policeman involved. In many countries such as the U.K., that can be done because policemen have an identification number on their uniforms. As is the case in Norway and Sweden.

But not in Denmark. This makes it difficult to complain, because the police are adept at not being able to find - definitively - the person involved. The Government has decided to introduce what seems an eminently sensible change, and give everybody an identification number. What is surprising is the vehemence with which the police union is resisting that change, and the increasing ridiculousness of the arguments they are using to support that resistance.

It is sometimes the case when you live in a foreign country that things can seem bizarre; this is one of them.

Walter Blotscher