(The following article is from theSeptember 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers and  overseas readers - $50 per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

The Communist Party in Denmark (KPiD) has released fascinating information on the illegal practices of the Danish police.

     Back in 1968, the Danish Minister of Justice declared in parliament that the Intelligence Service was no longer allowed to register Danish citizens solely on the grounds of legal political activities. In June 1999, the Parliament formed a commission to investigate whether the Intelligence Service had acted according to the law.

     The commission has now published a 15 volume report, containing over 4,000 pages covering the years 1945 to 1989. While the commission concludes that the police had acted correctly, this is not supported by the contents.

     The report found that the police closely followed the activities of the Danish Communist Party and the Danish Communist Youth organisation. All leading members were registered by the police, who also placed agents inside the party. The party's headquarters and telephones were bugged, and the secrecy of its mail was violated. This practice continued after Justice Minister's 1968 statement.

     Non‑members who attended public meetings organized by the Communists also ended up in the secret files of the police, along with people who signed petitions circulated by the party.

     The same thing happened to trade unions, the peace movement, solidarity organisations, and organisations for friendship with the Soviet Union and the GDR. Even the politically broad Public Movement Against the EU was spied on.

     People who sailed on the ferry from Copenhagen to Warnemunde in the former GDR systematically had their passports photographed by the police, and the same thing happened to tourists travelling to other socialist countries. The report includes descriptions of the close cooperation of the Danish police with the CIA and other foreign intelligence services.

     A statement from the KPiD says, "We the communists have always been aware of the illegal work of the Danish Police Intelligence Service. Others have accused us of being paranoid. But the report shows that it was not the communists but the police and other authorities who suffered from paranoia. In total more than 300,000 persons ended up in the secret archives of the police in a small country with about 5.5 million inhabitants!

     "Parts of the large report are rather funny as they show how amateurish and ignorantly the police very often worked. For many years the police made very big efforts to find hidden weapons among the communists ‑ but without success as there were none to find, as it is not a part of the policy of the communists to plan an armed revolution...

     "The police had the idea that the Communist Party, beside its open and public organisation, also had a hidden and secret organisation with a secret leadership. The fact is that the Communist Party was not so big that it would be possible to duplicate its leadership with a secret one. The party having such an idea is just a result of the imagination of the police.

     "The police were very interested in finding Danish communists who were working as agents for the Soviet Union or the GDR. Of course these countries had agents, as all countries do. But the most stupid thing to do for a foreign intelligence organisation would be to use local communists as agents, since everybody knew that they were under constant surveillance.

     "The report describes how the intelligence system worked in Denmark ‑ but it might be interesting to others as the methods used in Denmark undoubtedly were used in many other countries."

     Communist Party of Canada leader Miguel Figueroa notes that "In Canada, there was a similar exhaustive investigation (the McDonald Commission) into the wrong‑doings of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police published in 1981. It detailed countless illegal undercover operations, provocations and other crimes committed against the Communist Party and its members, and against left‑wing unions and people's organizations (especially those led by the Communists). This damning report forced the Canadian government to sharply restrict the activities of the RCMP, especially its activities abroad and those directed at political surveillance and intelligence. In its place, the government formed the (supposedly `civilian') Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 1984. However, this action did not end these `dirty tricks'; instead it only added another agency to the repressive arsenal of the Canadian State."