Saturday, 14 February 2015

Shootings in Copenhagen

Danish media is reporting that one person has died following a shooting at a public meeting of Lars Vilks committee called Kunst, Blasfemi og Ytringsfrihed (Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Speech) at the Krudttønden theatre in Østerbro, Copenhagen. At least three people, apparently law enforcement, were injured. The suspect fled the scene in a car and is still at large.

A second shooting incident took place hours later past midnight in a synagogue near Nørreport. Copenhagen's police is asking people to stay indoors and has released images of a suspect on its twitter account. A young Jewish man has been shot dead while two policemen took a bullet in their extremities. Areas near the metro station in Nørreport were closed and with helicopters in the scene, the situation appeared chaotic. The suspect again fled the scene.

Finally in a third shootout with the police close by the other two incidents early in the Sunday morning, the suspect was killed. Law enforcement officials say that everything points to this person being solely responsible for both attacks.

In addition to the apparent target of the afternoon shooting, the famous Swedish Prophet Mohammed cartoonist Lars Vilks, Inna Shevchenko of the feminist group FEMEN and Passion for Freedom Arts Festival visual artist and curator Agnieszka Kolek were scheduled to lead the discussion. French ambassador Francois Zimeray had just spoken at the event when the shooting took place.

The discussions in the gathering were supposed to delve into the limits of political messages in art, if artists should put their life at risk as activists and do we have the right to be blasphemous. Just around a month ago, 17 people were killed in France on an attack on satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had also been utilizing controversial images of Mohammad. Reuters reports that French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will head to Denmark as soon as possible.

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