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Community leaders and celebrities lead Australians in a peace march through Sydney |
SYDNEY,
November 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Thousands of anti-war
demonstrators, including many Middle-Eastern refugees, marched through
Australian cities Saturday, November 30, protesting Australian
involvement in an eventual U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Rallies
in Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra were part of a nationwide campaign of
protests organized by an alliance of left-wing activists, students and
trade unions to try to shift public support for sending Australian
troops to Iraq, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Similar
protests will be held in
Melbourne
,
Brisbane
,
Darwin
and
Perth
on Sunday, December 1.
Prominent
members of
Australia
's Arabic and Muslim communities, including the grand Mufti of
Australia
Sheikh Taj Aldin Alhilali, joined show business personalities, left-wing
politicians, church figures and other celebrities at the rally Saturday
in
Sydney
.
The
number of demonstrators at the
Sydney
protest, attended also by some of the anti-globalization activists
involved in a protest against a recent World Trade Organization meeting,
was estimated at more than 10,000-strong, with BBC News Online putting
the figure at 15,000.
They
marched from the Town Hall to the Domain public park where they were
addressed by speakers.
Among
the banners on display was one depicting the red and white colors of the
logo used by fast food chain KFC, emblazoned with the slogan
"unlucky fried children" along with caricatures of Australian
Prime Minister John Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush.
The
head of
Australia
's union movement, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sharan Burrow,
told demonstrators that acts of terrorism could not be justified under
any circumstances.
However,
a clear message had to be sent to Howard that it was unacceptable for
Australia
to be dragged into a U.S.-led attack on
Iraq
, she said.
"We
must not confuse the need to rid ourselves of terrorism with a
pre-emptive strike on
Iraq
," she said.
"It's
a threat to world peace that must be resisted."
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Around 15,000 Australians took part in the anti-war rally |
Many
of the protesters are concerned that the
U.S.
is motivated by a desire to seize Iraqi oil rather than by security
concerns, according to the BBC.
One
of the participants, Iraqi Migrants Council President Kassim Abood, said
before the
Sydney
rally that the Iraqi community in the city was deeply opposed "to
any intervention in our country."
He
said the last war against
Iraq
in 1991 cost more than 200,000 lives and half a million children died as
a result of sanctions imposed against
Baghdad
over the last decade.
About
2,000 protesters who attended the
Adelaide
rally were urged to bombard radio phone-ins and newspapers to sway
public opinion against Australian involvement in a war.
Professor
Ian Maddocks said he was frightened about the health consequences of a
military attack, in light of what happened during the 1991 Gulf War.
"From
the point of view of the Americans, in particular, there were relatively
few casualties and everything went very nicely indeed," he said.
"But
as far as the Iraqi people were concerned, there were over 100,000
military casualties and there were almost as many civilian casualties
immediately after that war."
An
estimated 400 to 500 people took part in the
Canberra
rally.
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