Protest Weekend against Bush in England + Worldwide

posted by ewing2001 on Friday September 26, @10:38AM

Thousands stage Iraq demo

BBC -27 September 2003

...Police estimated there were about 20,000 marching, although organisers estimated up to 100,000 had attended the event.

Independent -28 September 2003

..Among the speakers was Dima Tahboub, the Jordanian widow of Tariq Ayyoub, an al-Jazeera journalist who was killed when the network's office in Baghdad was hit by an American missile on 8 April. "It is time to stop these people doing all their vicious deeds," she said.

ThisisLondon.co.uk -September 27

Thousands of protesters came in coaches from across Britain to protest against the US and UK invasion of Iraq earlier this year.
The marchers assembled in Hyde Park at noon, and walked peacefully to Trafalgar Square through Picadilly...

Ananova -September 27

...Veteran Labour politician Tony Benn was greeted with loud cheers when he walked onto the stage at Trafalgar Square.
He told the crowd: "The war has been a disaster and what has happened in Iraq is the armed robbery of Iraq.

"America went in and stole the oil and is now trying to sell all the other Iraqi companies and properties."

Guardian

...Demonstrations this weekend in Algeria, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, the UAE, and the United States...

The Protest in England was organised by Stop War.org.uk.
On Sunday, a protest march is planned in New York, at Columbus Circle, 1 PM EST

Advertisement

Protest Report Roundup

Canada.com

Greece: 3,000 protesters joined the rally after attending an open-air concert in central Athens.

Spacewar.com

South Korean activists took to the streets here Saturday to urge the government to reject a controversial US request to send troops to Iraq and avoid becoming an "accomplice in the invasion".

About 2,000 protestors marched some three kilometers (two miles) along the street in downtown Jongro district, chanting slogans and carrying banners.

SF Chronicle

Some 4,000 protesters in the Turkish capital, Ankara, shouted slogans and unfurled banners to support the Palestinian cause and demand an end to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Rock bands played at the rally and celebrities demanded that Turkey not deploy any peacekeepers. Hundreds more gathered at a similar rally in Istanbul and burned American and Israeli flags.

Reuters

...Chanting "Troops out of Iraq and Blair out of Number 10," thousands of anti-war protesters took to the streets of London on Saturday to demonstrate against Britain's continued military involvement in Iraq. Coordinated global protests, from Seoul to Spain and San Francisco, also called for an end to the U.S.-led occupation and Israel's hold on Palestinian territory, but were small and only a faint shadow of huge pre-war peace rallies.

In the first major protest in Britain since the war ended in April, demonstrators -- some 20,000, by police estimates -- vented their anger at the invasion and the reasons given for it. The march added to pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose popularity and trust ratings have sunk in the aftermath of the Iraq conflict, in which Britain was America's staunchest ally.

The failure to unearth any weapons of mass destruction -- the main justification for war -- and the public inquiry into the suicide of a government expert on Iraq have plunged Blair into the worst political crisis of his six-year tenure.

"It was all lies," protester Peter Mason, 45, told Reuters. "The millions who demonstrated before the war were right."

Newsletter ANSWER -Saturday 27 Sep 2003

...In Paris, dozens of French, Palestinian and Arab non-governmental organizations (NGOs) demanded Israel and the U.S. pull out their troops of the occupied Palestinian and Iraqi territories. Thousands marched in Paris, where a wide banner read, "American Imperialism: Take your bloody hands off the Middle East." Others held posters that read "Wanted: George W. Bush -- War Criminal."

Thousands of Turks took to the streets in two separate demonstrations on Saturday to denounce the U.S.-led occupation of neighboring Iraq and Israel's policies against the Palestinians. "Freedom to Palestine, long live the global Intifada," chanted the demonstrators.

In downtown Cairo, activists and journalists staged a peaceful protest against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and Israeli attacks on Palestinians.

In Warsaw, 100 young people protested the Polish military presence in Iraq, marching with banners saying "Down with the global U.S terrorism" and "We don't want to occupy with Bush."

An estimated 1,200 demonstrated in Brussels, while about 400 people marched through downtown Berlin. In Stockholm, police said about 250 people staged a demonstration.

In the Spanish capital Madrid thousands protested against Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for the war.

Up to 1,500 protesters marched through Dublin today to demonstrate against the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Crowds gathered in Parnell Square, which is named after the Irish revolutionary Charles Stewart Parnell, and made their way across the River Liffey and up to government buildings. A retired army commandant returned military medals awarded to him by the Defense Forces and the United Nations in protest at what he described as Ireland's role in the Iraqi war.

South Koreans took to the streets here Saturday to urge the government to reject a controversial U.S. request to send troops to Iraq and avoid becoming an "accomplice in the invasion." "U.S., Leave Iraq," read one banner. "Don't make young Koreans murderers," another said.

Some 5,000 people marched in the streets of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Saturday to express support for the Palestinians and to protest against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. The procession, led by about 50 children from the dozen Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, came to a halt outside the United Nations building in Beirut.

Tomorrow, thousands more will take to the streets, protesting against global occupation.

In New York City a coalition of labor, community groups, activists, and students, along with thousands of others will gather Sunday, September 28, at Columbus Circle at 1 pm and march to the Israeli Mission.

Iraq demo 'message to Labour'

Photo: Anti-war march, 15 February 2003
The police said February's march was the biggest ever in the capital

BBC -Saturday, 27 September, 2003

Organisers of a rally in London say they want to draw Labour's attention to their concerns over the situation in Iraq, ahead of the party's annual conference.

The Stop the War Coalition says about 150 coaches have been booked to bring protesters in from around the country to march under the slogan "No more lies, no more war".

"The Hutton inquiry has proved, as we said all along, that the war in Iraq was an utterly fraudulent war and people are very upset about this," said a spokesman for the coalition.

The Metropolitan police said 2,700 officers had been drafted in to cope with the rally.

We are holding this demonstration to put as much pressure to bear as possible on the Labour government

Demonstrators will march from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square, where they will hear speeches from Tony Benn, filmmaker Ken Loach and RMT union leader Bob Crow, among others.

This is the fifth protest this year against Britain's intervention in Iraq, again organised jointly with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain.

A demonstration on 15 February attracted a record-breaking turnout of about one million protesters, attracting worldwide attention.

George W Bush to visit Britain in November - official