In Copenhagen, Sydney-based climate justice advocate Natasha Verco and US activist Noah Weiss faces charges under Denmark's "terrorism" laws. Verco faces up to 12-and-a-half year jail for her role in organising protests against the United Nations Copenhagen climate summit in December.
The two activists appeared in court on March 16 and 18. So many supporters of the pair turned up that the trial was moved to a larger courtroom to accommodate them all.
Verco was arrested while riding her bike on December 13, the day a day of mass protests she was helping organise, a March 18 statement by Mobilization for Climate Justice (MCJ) said.
She said: "I asked them, 'Are you randomly picking me up?' and they said 'No, we hunted you'."
Verco was then held in isolation in an underground carpark for about 16 hours before being taken to Copenhagen's Vester prison. She was held there for a further 23 days.
MCJ said: "Verco and Weiss say they both had their phones tapped, along with 17 other activists, which is legal under recently introduced terror legislation in Denmark. "
The charges against the pair are patently ridiculous. It is based on crimes, such as "gross public disorder", that police admit Vero and Weiss never committed. People argue this is only because they were arrested before they could.
Verco said the evidence for this was "spurious at best... they have trucked out tiny bits of conversations from tapped phones [and] radically reinterpreted what we and others have said".
In one instance, a reference in Verco's notebook to "bolt cutters" was seized on by the prosecution as evidence of plans to commit a crime. This caused widespread laughter when the item Verco was referring to was brought into court and revealed to be a giant cardboard prop.
Verco said: "[The case] would be hilarious if it didn't carry such serious consequences for us personally and for democracy in Denmark.
"The Danish state is using us as a test case for the new anti-activist laws they have passed, [extending] terror legislation to cover any form of political protest."
One of the four terror-related charges against the activists, "gross disturbance of public infrastructure", was dropped during the hearing. Verco and Weiss will reappear in court in August. Protests in support of Weiss and Verco are being organised around the world.