Hundreds have signed a petition calling for charges to be dropped against nine protestors who were arrested after rushing into parliament on 8 December 2008.
The statement accompanying the petition says that if these nine people are charged, then everybody – the thousands who descended upon parliament to call for the government to step down – be charged as well.
They quote Article 100 of the General Penal Code, which states that anyone charging into parliament and disrupting proceedings can be charged from anywhere to one year to life in prison. This being the case, the statement points out, the state considers it illegal to interrupt the business of government. Which was entirely the point of the protests.
The statement goes on to say that they look at the arrest of these nine people as an affront to everyone who protested a government that used the police to protect the interests of Iceland’s wealthy.
Hundreds have already signed the petition, many of them well-known Icelanders. A decision on what will be done with the nine who were arrested has not yet been made, but charges against them still stand.