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News :: Miscellaneous |
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50,000 March in London |
Current rating: 0 |
by Michael Walcher
Email: solaraycer (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!) |
13 Oct 2001
Modified: 14 Oct 2001 |
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50,000 March in London by the Stop the War Coalition. |
STOP THE WAR COALITION
07951 235 915
PO Box 3739, London E5 8EJ
NEWS RELEASE: Saturday 13 October 2001
* 50,000 march for peace in central London
* "Blair does not speak for Britain"
The Stop the War Coalition hailed today's huge anti-war protest in central London as "the tip of an iceberg of dissent and outrage".
Less than one week after the US and Britain began their military assault on Afghanistan, 50,000 people from all over Britain joined one of the biggest and most diverse demonstrations seen in central London in many years.
"The extraordinary turn-out for this demonstration proves that the there is a substantial, diverse and rapidly growing coalition of people strongly opposed to this unjust and immoral war," said Mike Marqusee, on behalf of the Stop the War Coalition. "Along with the protests taking place today in other cities and towns across the country, this is the tip of an iceberg of dissent and outrage.
"It's clear that Tony Blair does not speak for Britain - and we hope the world will now take note of that fact.
"From now on, neither the media nor the political establishment in this country can afford to ignore the palpable reality of a mass anti-war movement embracing a wide variety of social constituencies."
Anti-Racist campaigner Suresh Grover, chair of the National Civil Rights Movement, and a member of the Stop the War Coalition steering committee, described the march as "probably the most multi-racial protest ever seen in central London. It's a huge success. People of south Asian descent in Britain have served notice on Blair: we will not accept the cruel hypocrisy of this war."
Among the groups taking part in the march were Muslim organisations, peace organisations, student unions, anti-racist and community organisations,trades unions, Palestinian campaigners, environmentalists, Lawyers Against the War, Media Workers Against the War, Medics Against the War and many, many others. Coaches arrived from Birmingham, Cardiff, Cambridge, Sheffield and elsewhere.
The Stop the War Coalition has announced that the next national demonstration against the war will be held in central London on Sunday, 18 November.
The Stop the War Coalition was formed in London out of a meeting of more than 2000 people held at Friends House a fortnight ago. Sponsors include: MPs George Galloway, Tam Dalyell, Jeremy Corbyn, and Alan Simpson, Harold Pinter, writer George Monbiot, Bob Crow of the RMT, Mark Seddon (Labour NEC and Tribune editor), Mick Rix (ASLEF), John Foster (NUJ), Tariq Ali, Bernard Regan (NUT Executive), peace activists Hugh Stephens and Jim Addington, Suresh Grover (chair of the National Civil Rights Movement), Asad Rehman from the Newham Monitoring Project, Andrew Murray from ASLEF, Dave Nellist and Liz Davies from the Socialist Alliance, Mark Seddon (Tribune), Rosie Boycott
(journalist), Jeremy Dear (NUJ), Hilary Wainwright from Red Pepper, Chris Nineham from Globalise Resistance, broadcaster John Pilger, playwright Caryl Churchill, writer Mike Marqusee, novelist and screenwriter Ronan Bennett, lawyer Soraya Lawrence and writer and comedian Mark Steel.
For more information call Lindsey German 07810 540584 or Mike Marqusee 0207 275 9399 |
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Huge Demos around the World |
by Michael Walcher
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
14 Oct 2001
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Reuters. 13 October 2001. Anti-American Riots Rock Nigeria, Protest
Elsewhere.
KANO, Nigeria -- At least 16 people were killed in Nigeria in
anti-American riots on Saturday and thousands of demonstrators joined
peace marches in London and Berlin.
Nigerian authorities ordered police to shoot on sight and clamped a
night curfew on Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim north, after
some of the most violent anti-American protests in Africa since U.S.
air strikes on Afghanistan began.
Army tanks criss-crossed the streets to quell riots which followed a
pattern of Muslim-Christian clashes that have killed thousands in
oil-producing Nigeria over the past two years.
"There is rampant shooting in the streets," said resident Jibrin Idris,
who said he was trapped in a building with scores of people in the
city's commercial district.
"Churches, mosques and shops are on fire. There is smoke everywhere," he
said by telephone.
In London, Muslims and Christians marched side by side in a protest
against the bombing of Afghanistan that attracted more than 20,000
people, according to police estimates.
"We're here because there are thousands of people across Britain who
know that the bombing of Afghanistan is not going to put an end to
terrorism," said Carol Naughton, chairman of the protest organizers, the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
Germany also saw its biggest protest so far against the air strikes,
launched a week ago in retaliation for the attacks on the United States
last month that killed around 5,500 people.
Protest organizers said some 30,000 people turned out in Berlin.
Protesters came from some 140 different groups, including from far-left
Marxist parties.
"The horror of World War Two makes all of us in Germany leery of war,"
said physician Hannes Wand, 54, at the rally held under blue skies and
unusually warm autumn weather.
"I'm against this war because it's not justified and innocent people are
being killed and forced to flee their homes."
In Berlin, there were minor scuffles with police as protesters marched
through the central government quarter and past the Brandenburg Gate,
foreign ministry and city hall.
Banners read: "War is genocide," "War is not the solution" and "Stop
Bush's war." Singers performed anti-war folk songs of the 1960s from the
backs of flat-bed trucks.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder criticized the peace rally.
Police said an estimated 5,000 people protested in the Swiss capital
Berne, and about 4,000 in the southwest German city of Stuttgart.
Smaller protests were held in other parts of the non-Islamic world,
including Australia.
In Nigeria, the army moved tanks into Kano's Sabon Gari market area
early on Saturday after Christian churches and mosques were set on fire
in rioting on Friday.
Community leaders said rioters killed at least six female school
students on their way to take university entrance exams.
Police said they found another two bodies in the street, one hacked by a
machete, and a witness said he was seeking refuge in a police station
when eight more bodies were brought in.
Mike Idika, a leader of the predominantly Christian Igbo community,
which accounts for most of city's merchants, said more than 200 people
were injured and sent to hospital.
Local residents said the protests were hijacked by hoodlums from the
city's army of unemployed youth, who chanted "May God destroy America!"
and "Americans are terrorists."
Brandishing posters of bin Laden, they burned American flags and
effigies of President Bush and Nigerian Foreign Minister Sule Lamido,
who has backed the U.S. attacks. |
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