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Denmark: Christiania - the "normal" neighborhood

April 29, 2011

Forty years on the inhabitants of the "Freestate of Christiania" have to make a choice: either they buy their properties or they abandon the legendary hippie republic.

https://p.dw.com/p/RKmc
Image: AP
Christiana, Kopenhagen Liebe für Alle ! Die Polizei in Pusher Street
Image: Helle M Jeppesen/DW

Denmark's highest court has awarded the state the complete right of use of the land. In 1971 thousands of young Danes squatted the abandoned barracks in the Christianshavn district and turned it into a center of alternative lifestyle. But recently the community has faced accusations of organized criminality. Police drug raids in an area notorious as "pusher street" led to clashes between officers and the squatters.