Global Anger Erupts As Bombs Batter Baghdad
March 23, 2003
Massive global anti-war protests coincided with the third day of the U.S.-led aerial assault on Baghdad.
In London, some 200,000 denounced British involvement in the Iraq war. Thousands of placard-waving demonstrators gathered peacefully in central London’s Hyde Park to put pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair, as some 45,000 British troops fight alongside American forces in the current war. "Blair Out!" and "Bring our Boys Home!" read some of the posters.
Elsewhere in Europe, similar demonstrations were visible in several cities including Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Stockholm, Helsinki, Amsterdam and Berne.
Protests at U.S. bases in Germany
In Germany, some 100,000 took to the streets, including some 40,000 in Berlin where demonstrators marched near the American embassy and shouted demands to end the conflict.
Scuffles broke out between demonstrators and police outside a U.S. military base in Stuttgart, where 800 protestors gathered. Police used truncheons to remove strikers who held a sit-in demonstration in front of the U.S. European command headquarters. Demonstrations were also held in front of U.S. bases in Heidelberg and Spangdahlem.
In Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, some 18,000 Kurds from across Europe rallied to protest the war and demand a free Kurdistan. Thousands of anti-war protestors also filled the streets in Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Munich, Cologne, Wuppertal and Würzburg.
In Paris, a huge police presence was visible as thousands carrying banners saying, "Yankee go home" headed towards the central Place de la Nation.
Widespread demonstrations in America
Even in the United States, despite a New York Times/CBS News poll finding that the number of Americans who approved of Bush's handling of the Iraq conflict had jumped to 70 percent, anti-war protests were in full swing.
In Manhattan, at least 150,000 marchers stretched more than three miles down Broadway, shouting, "No Blood for Oil" and bearing signs that read, "Support our Troops. Bring Them Home."
Other demonstrations were also underway in Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago and several other cities
Muslims in Asia take to the streets
Earlier Muslims in Asia also staged peaceful anti-war rallies and voiced angry protests against the United States.
About 2,000 demonstrators gathered outside the heavily-guarded U.S. embassy in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, shouting anti-American slogans. Similar protests were reported in neighboring Malaysia.
In Bangladesh, protestors burned American flags and called a half-day general strike in the capital Dhaka. More than 15,000 Muslims rallied in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta and nearly 5,000 marched to the U.S. embassy in New Delhi. Some carried bottles they said contained blood and gasoline, shouting, "Take this, this is what you want, and stop attacking Iraq."
Some 3,000 amassed in the South Korean capital of Seoul to protest against the war and their government’s decision to send up to 700 non-combatant troops to assist it.
Emotions high-strung in the Arab world
But the protests were the fiercest in the Middle East, as thousands of livid Arabs took to the streets for the third day. Tensions were high as television sets beamed images of a burning Baghdad and hundreds of wounded civilians.
In Egypt, the region’s most populous country with almost 70 million people, thousands of students staged anti-war rallies at universities amid tight police security.
Some 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza marched through the streets holding pictures of the Iraqi president. "We are with you Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq," they chanted.
Compiled from wire reports