Anti-war protests around the world

Staff and agencies
Saturday March 15, 2003

http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/s...,914907,00.html

Excerpts:

Anti-war protesters took to the streets around the globe today, determined to keep the pressure on world leaders as a US-led attack on Iraq looms.

The outpouring of anti-war sentiment came one month after millions turned out for some of the biggest demonstrations in decades in capitals around the world. But amid the chants of "give peace a chance" were pessimistic voices as well.

Across the Middle East and Europe, protesters called for a peaceful resolution of the Iraq crisis. Speakers in Stockholm, Sweden, where 3,000 demonstrators gathered, urged an end to "the US and British war hysteria."

About 7,500 activists chanted "Yankee go home!" in the Turkish port city of Iskenderun, where the US military has been unloading equipment for use in a possible war.

About 10,000 Japanese - double last month's turnout - chanted "No war!" as they moved through Tokyo's business district with handmade placards such as "World Peace" and "Bush the terrorist."

Two thousand South Koreans threw paper doves into the evening sky in downtown Seoul, while some of the 300 protesters in Hong Kong wore mock oil barrels - suggesting that oil, not Iraqi disarmament, is behind the war drive.

In Thailand, about 1,000 people protested outside a UN office in Bangkok, listening to speeches from a makeshift stage that was later turned over for karaoke singing.

Tens of thousands of Yemenis heeded President Ali Abdullah Saleh's call to turn out for anti-war rallies that were held amid tight security measures. Jordanian activists were to march to the UN offices in Amman.

Some 3,000 Greek Cypriots marched to the US embassy and hung cloth banners with anti-war messages on the barbed-wire barricades.

More than 10,000 people marched to the American embassy in Athens, Greece, carrying "Stop the war" banners, and more than a thousand communist and leftwing demonstrators protested in Moscow.

Hundreds of mostly young people marched through Bucharest calling for US troops stationed in Romania to leave and protesting their government's fervently pro-U.S. stance in a possible war in Iraq.

British Muslims planned to march past the London embassies of Islamic countries including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Qatar and Pakistan.

The anti-war campaign was to continue Sunday with candlelight vigils in more than 1,000 cities.

Hundreds of people from Britain's Iraqi community were today protesting outside the Houses of Parliament in support of an attack on Iraq, and a petition was being delivered to the French embassy in central London to register opposition to the stance of the French president, Jacquest Chirac.

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