Greta Thunberg at University of Copenhagen 'Saint Lucia' procession demo

The pro-Palestine group Students Against the Occupation did their last action of the year on Friday 13 December: a pop-up Lucia procession.

The location, building 13 on South Campus at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH), was carefully selected. That same evening there was a Christmas party for staff there, and they were all dressed up and festive, when a long line of students suddenly came by singing in the traditional Scandinavian candlelit pageant.

The students were dressed up with partisan scarves, and several of them had a picture of UCPH rector Henrik C. Wegener on like a mask. The traditional Lucia text had been replaced with stanzas like:

This is a global movement among students throughout the world that is rising up and demanding an academic boycott

Greta Thunberg, climate activist

»Now death is carried forward / proudly in our school / around Israel / Zionism shall be sounded.«

Several of the employees stopped their conversations, fished out their cellphones and filmed the students. Pictures were taken when one of the participants in the middle removed their Henrik Wegener mask and revealed their identity.

Behind the mask was the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who had come to participate in the students’ protest and show her dissatisfaction with the treatment the students have received from management during recent protests.

READ ALSO: No more tent camps and sock protests: Students against the Occupation evicted by the police

She said this to the University Post when we caught up with her for an interview after the procession.

Supports Danish students

Greta Thunberg, you are not a student at the University of Copenhagen. Why are you here today?

»I am not a student at this university, but this is a global movement among students throughout the world that is right now rising up and demanding an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Both at their own and other universities.«

And why should universities do academic boycotts?

»If they continue to cooperate with Israeli universities, they will legitimize Israeli apartheid, the occupation, and the genocide in Palestine. And that’s not all. If they don’t do an academic boycott, they will help Israel and thus be complicit in the genocide,« she says and continues:

READ ALSO: Minister on student protests and police: It is only fair that management sets limits

»We want to show the management here at UCPH that we will not give up. While these people here are celebrating with a Christmas party, a lot of people are dying.«

Most people know you as a climate activist – how does this kind of activism relate to that?

»Climate justice is about human rights. And right now we are seeing a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Palestine. So anyone who has the slightest empathy and humanity left should use their voice to demand an end to the genocide.«

Will we be seeing you demonstrating here at UCPH again?

»Yes, I think so.«

Students won’t give up

Oli Justsen Badoli is a student of political science and is active in Students Against the Occupation. He says that students have recently found that their freedom of speech has been »drastically suppressed.«

»The Lucia procession is to show that we are still here, and that we would like to have more face-to-face contact with the rectors. That’s why we put on the masks. We will stay here and fight for the academic boycott until they give it to us,« says Oli Justsen Badoli.

READ ALSO: In-depth interview with rector: This is why there will be no academic boycott of Israel

What were your thoughts on the Henrik Wegener masks – which might be interpreted as masking?

»We had a lot of thoughts about this beforehand. But this was a very, very mild demonstration, so we didn’t think it would be a problem. Some people – myself, for example – were not wearing a mask, and we tried to make it very clear that we were not trying to seem scary in any way,« says the student.

We will stay here and fight for the academic boycott until they give it to us

Oli Justsen Badoli, student

The actual Lucia procession consisted of about nine students, and a small handful of other students moved around the procession to film and take pictures for the group’s social media accounts.

There weren’t that many of you at the action today. Is the rector right when he says that you are just a very small group of people that is trying to disrupt the inner life of the university?

»I wouldn’t say that. A lot of people are here at different times, and right now we are in the middle of an exam period. When you look at how many people have supported us through our various actions, it is several hundred people,« says Oli Justsen Badoli.

»This year we also went out and encouraged students to vote for the Student Council in the university elections – and the Student Council had its best election ever. We are a big movement with many people. And every time we’re on campus, a lot of people come up to us and say that we’re doing a great job.«