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A protester yells slogans during a march against
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SYDNEY,
November 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Hundreds of
demonstrators burned a U.S. flag and disrupted traffic for five hours
around Sydney Thursday, November 14, in an anti-globalization and
anti-war protest ahead of a major meeting of world trade ministers here.
Sydney
police arrested 15 campaigners and one journalist was rushed to hospital
after being trampled by mounted police as they charged their horses into
a crowd, officials said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Police
superintendent Glen Harrison announced an independent inquiry into the
incident, saying the woman’s “welfare and condition is our major
priority.”
He
said police had acted in a restrained and professional manner despite
“a certain element intent on causing disruption and violence.”
However
some of the demonstrators, who were advocating a peaceful protest,
criticized police for their “heavy-handed” tactics, AFP said.
“It
is absolutely outrageous, the behavior of the police,” said Damien
Lawson, an activist with the “No-one is illegal” refugee advocates
group. “They acted stupidly and dangerously today.”
Police
had outlawed all demonstrations in the city ahead of the two-day World
Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting starting later Thursday and
were out in large numbers.
But
there were no attempts to halt the protest, which saw more than 1,000
people parade through the city center, past buildings housing the U.S.
consulate, major businesses and multinational retail outlets.
The
cheers of the crowd reached a climax when an American flag was set
alight near the U.S. consulate and cardboard cut-outs of the dollar sign
were burned outside a McDonald’s outlet.
Police
doused the flag with an extinguisher and hustled the burners into a
police van.
They
also detained three young women who stripped naked and splashed
themselves with red paint before lying on a homemade U.S. flag under a
sign “Stop the war on women".
While
authorities had earlier warned that protestors would try to attack
businesses and police, the only violence occurred after officers
detained a man who climbed on top of a city bus to photograph the
swelling crowd.
A
scuffle broke out and as mounted officers charged a group of people
while trying to make arrests, a woman reporter for The Australian
newspaper was trampled by two of the horses.
She
was taken away by ambulance suffering suspected pelvic injuries.
Otherwise the demonstration was largely good natured, with protestors
playing drums and didgeridoos, dancing and skipping to chants against
the WTO and U.S. threats to launch war on Iraq.
The
protestors, who were mostly students, environmentalists and unionists,
criticized the WTO for caring more about profit of big business than the
rights of people in the developing world.
They
said they had succeeded in bringing their concerns to the public’s
attention and planned larger demonstrations for Friday when 25 trade
ministers meet to discuss issues central to the WTO’s Doha round of
trade liberalization talks.
Earlier
this week, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched through
Florence to oppose a war on Iraq in what could prove to be the world’s
biggest street protest yet against U.S. saber-rattling toward Baghdad.
The
protest came a day after the U.N. Security Council passed by unanimity a
U.S.-proposed resolution which required Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to
abolish Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.
On
November 1, thousands of protesters held a rally in central London to
condemn British support for possible U.S. war against
12-year-sanction-hit Iraq.
The
Stop the War Coalition and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the
principal organizers of the demonstration, which coincided with
Halloween, said they wanted to “frighten” British Prime Minister
Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush.
