FOUR Danish youths faced charges yesterday after clashes at a protest marking 10 years since the demolition of the famous Copenhagen Youth House.

Nine protesters were arrested, including two minors, after they clashed with riot police on Wednesday night in the Norrebro district. Police tried to break up the march of around 1,000 people before it reached the now-vacant site of the Ungdomshuset.

Clashes broke out later when police tried to eject a small group protesters from the new Youth House nearby. Riot police were pelted with paint bombs cobblestones, fireworks and bottles and several bank branches had their windows smashed.

The building was originally constructed in 1897 as the “People’s House” by the Danish workers’ movement. Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin and German communist Rosa Luxemburg both visited the People’s House, and in 1910 it hosted a women’s conference of the Second International where and Clara Zetkin proposed the establishment of International Working Women’s Day.

Plans to turn the site into a supermarket fell through and in 1982 it became a music venue known as the Youth House. But it was knocked down in 2007 after being bought out by evangelical Christian sect Faderhuset (Father’s House).

Procasa, the current owners of the Jagtvej 69 [69 Hunters Way] address, have said they now want to install a temporary container for housing homeless people on the site they have left empty for a decade.

But the new Youth House opposes the plan, saying that rather than helping young people it would be quickly transformed into a commercial building.