News
Monday, October 17, 2011
Anti-capitalist protests rage on; 200 arrested* Thousands of protesters fill NYC’s Times Square, clash with police
* Hundreds camp out in London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam
NEW YORK/LONDON: Around 200 people were arrested in the United States on Saturday as anti-capitalism protests continued to rage in various parts of the US, Canada, Europe and other parts of the world.
At least 88 people were arrested in New York after police on horseback clashed with thousands of protesters in Times Square during a global day of demonstrations against corporate greed.
Police loaded at least 45 “Occupy Wall Street” protesters detained at the square onto waiting vans.
The clashes took place at the corner of 46th Street and Seventh Avenue after a day of marches that began in the city’s financial district – the nerve center of New York’s protest movement.
Mounted police pushed back protesters who were trying to enter Times Square. Dozens of panicked people then began to run and a woman fell down. She suffered a head injury and was swiftly carried away on a stretcher.
“All day, all week, occupy Wall Street!” demonstrators shouted.
Police arrested 24 other protesters earlier for trespassing at a Citibank branch, a New York Police Department spokesman said.
Fourteen people were arrested in Washington Square Park after the Times Square rally for violating the midnight curfew, an NYPD spokesman said.
Five other protesters wearing masks were arrested elsewhere in the city, taking the total number of arrests to 88, police said.
Chicago police said on Sunday they arrested about 175 protesters in a downtown plaza where some had set up tents and sleeping bags in a protest inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York.
The protests attracted more than 2,000 people to a march from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to Grant Park, which had been the site of anti-war protests during the 1968 Democratic convention.
The protesters were arrested for allegedly violating a city ordinance by being in the park after it closed and ignoring repeated warnings from police to leave, police said.
Demonstrations were held in dozens of cities including Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been gathering steam for the past month, culminating with the global day of action on Saturday. The protests worldwide were mostly peaceful apart from Rome, where the demonstration sparked riots.
Hundreds camped out in London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam on Sunday after clashes in New York and Rome in worldwide protests seen as the start of a new global movement against corporate greed and budget cuts.
An estimated 500 people spent the night outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London’s financial district where around 70 tents could be seen.
Some 200 people also camped in front of the European Central Bank building in Frankfurt and 50 tents were seen outside the stock exchange in Amsterdam. There were rallies in 951 cities in 80 countries around the globe on Saturday in an extension of a campaign born on May 15 with a rally in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square by a group calling itself “Indignados” (“Indignants”). agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk