British protesters plan major weekend anti-war march
STOCKHOLM, London
SyriaTimes
politic
9-4-2003
Ð Unidentified vandals daubed an entry to Sweden's government with red swastikas and skulls overnight in a protest at their country's weapons sales to the United States, police said Tuesday.
In Copenhagen anti-war militants of the Globaler Roedder (Global Roots) movement meanwhile dumped red paint on the steps of the Danish parliament, while in Rome a peace concert by Milan's prestigious La Scala orchestra was disrupted by students.
Up to seven activists were arrested after painting the symbols on the facade and the entrance to the Swedish government's information office in Stockholm.
On leaflets activists also protested at continuing arms sales as the US-led war against Iraq was in its third week.
Under Swedish law no military materiel must be exported to countries involved in an armed conflict but Stockholm has said that such exports were in Sweden's interest as its own security was at stake.
In Denmark a Globaler Roedder spokesman said the protest was to highlight "that a (right-wing) majority has blood on their hands" after giving the green light for a Danish participation in the Anglo-American campaign against Iraq. Police said no arrests were made.
Globaler Roedder militants overnight also broke the windows of the Maersk Data company, a subsidiary of the A.P. Moeller group whose pro-US stance is well-known, throwing containers with red paint at the facade and painting "No War" on a wall.
A 27-year-old man was arrested after the incident.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller had been targeted in a red paint attack two days before the Iraq war began on March 20.
That attack came after Rasmussen announced that Denmark would contribute a submarine, a corvette, liaison officers and medics to any US-led war effort in Iraq, but he dropped an earlier plan to also send a corps of elite soldiers.
In Rome, some 50 anti-war protesters disrupted a Concert for Peace by conductor Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Milan's La Scala opera house late Monday, shouting "Stop the war" and "No peace, no party". The protesters, mainly students, also deployed several anti-war banners.
But Muti told the protesters, "We are here to remember those who suffer and for peace".
Muti recalled that he had played in Sarajevo, Beirut and Jerusalem to bring home his message of peace.
Meanwhile, British anti-war activists said Tuesday they were planning a major weekend march against the US-UK war on Iraq.
"The notion that the anti-war movement has melted away is not the case," said Lindsey German, a spokeswoman for the Stop the War Coalition, the main anti-war group in Britain.
"There is widespread opposition to this war and the more people see of the civilian casualties and the bombing of Basra and Baghdad, it makes people's revulsion even stronger," she said.
A national demonstration in London on Saturday is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of protesters from across Britain, including prominent MPs from the ruling Labour party.
"Every day hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi women, children and men are being killed and injured which is one of the reasons why the international anti-war movement is still on high alert," German said.
On February 15, more than one million people took to the streets of London to protest the then looming war on Baghdad in what police said was the largest demonstration in the British capital.
On March 22, two days after the start of hostilities, between 200,000 and 700,000 people protested in the British capital.
In Tehran Molotov cocktails were thrown at the British embassy here on Tuesday as around 250 Iranian students demonstrated against the war in Iraq.
Riot police immediately arrested two demonstrators who threw the home-made petrol bombs which hit the gates and fell inside the compound but did no damage to the main building.
The protestors comprised mainly of members of Basij Islamic militia from Tehran University medical department.
The demonstrators, who were calling for the expulsion of the British ambassador, burned US and British flags and chanted "death to America, death to Britain", while throwing tomatoes and eggs at the embassy.
They also distributed the photograph of the driver who was killed as his car smashed into the wall of the embassy compound on April 1, with a note reading "martyr of a suicide operation".
The car carrying containers of petrol and diesel slammed into the walls of the embassy compound and burst into flames, killing the driver but injuring nobody inside the building.
The Iranian authorities insisted it was an "accident" but British diplomats do not reject a possibility of an attack.
The embassy has been the scene of anti-war demonstrations since US-led coalition began their assault on Iraq on March 20. Hundreds of protesters hurled stones at the embassy on March 28, breaking several windows.
"Where is the United Nations? Where are human rights?" read one placard on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day several hundred female students from Tehran schools had assembled outside the United Nations office in Tehran shouting slogans against the war and the "massacre of innocent Iraqi children".
"Bush and Blair are worse than Hitler", "Death to three evils, US, Israel and Britain" they chanted.
Similar demonstrations were also organised by seminaries in a number of cities on Monday.
Iran has adopted a policy of "active neutrality" over the conflict but Tehran has been the scene of several demonstrations, mainly outside the British embassy.
On Monday, the embassy was again the target of protests as demonstrators called for the expulsion of the British ambassador. |
