Protestor brutally arrested by U.S. police

SAN FRANCISCO, March 21 (IslamOnline.net& News Agencies) - The anti-war movement took to the streets for demonstrations and civil disobedience campaigns across the United States, resulting in well over 1,300 arrests as U.S. military aggression intensified in Iraq.

Meanwhile, governments around the world used arrest policies, tear gazes and batons to control the anti-war protests that broke in almost every country in the world.

In San Francisco more than 1,300 anti-war activists were arrested Thursday, March 20, as they blocked streets and struggled with police in a civil disobedience campaign, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.

The campaign coincided with hundreds of other protests around the country involving tens of thousands of Americans, as the war in Iraq got underway.

Thousands of roving protesters blocked intersections across the city centre and bound themselves together in a bid to resist arrest on the first day of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, witnesses said.

They chanted "Stop the bombing" and "No war for oil," as they lay down in intersections, tied themselves to poles or joined arms through metal pipes, forcing police to use chain saws to separate them.

The arrests began along with the protests early in the morning continued well into the evening as demonstrators attempted to block one of the city's main thoroughfares, the Bay Bridge.

"More than 1,300 people have been arrested so far and we expect that number to rise considerably during the evening," San Francisco Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Eileen Hirst told AFP.

In Boston up to 4,000 protesters, including students and workers, marched through the city and temporarily closed the Massachusetts Avenue bridge over the Charles River.

We Do Not Support This War

Hundreds of protesters marches up California Street in San Francisco

"We do not support this war. We do not believe that the voice of the people has been heard in making the decision to go to war, and we just want to make sure that that's heard," said student organizer Christine Ortiz.

At certain points, the marchers were heckled by pedestrians who shouted "Support our troops."

In New York's Times Square, where crowds gathered Wednesday, March 19, evening to watch President George W. Bush announce the start of the invasion of Iraq on giant TV screens, hundreds turned out for a rally in torrential rain.

The demonstration continued throughout the evening, with a mass protest march through Manhattan planned for Saturday, March 22.

Protests, ranging from simple rallies to mass candlelight vigils, were also planned for Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

And about 4,000 peace activists rallied in Chicago late Thursday for one of the largest anti-war demonstrations seen in this Midwestern city to date.

Chanting "Drop Bush not bombs," they packed a downtown plaza and then marched along a lakeshore highway, making stretches of one of the city's main arteries impassable to traffic.

Many said they felt compelled to come out even though hostilities had started because they felt it was important to show there is still strong domestic opposition to the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

"Bush may not consider us important enough to pay attention to, but the rest of the world will," said 27-year-old Jennifer Abu-Awad who said she wanted her two children and Iraqi children to be allowed to grow up in a peaceful world.

In Philadelphia, scores of arrests were made as protesters blocked entrances to the downtown federal building downtown, snarling traffic.

On Wednesday, United for Peace and Justice, the coalition of pacifist groups responsible for mass protests in major U.S. cities one month ago, issued a general appeal for people to voice their opposition to the war.

"With the war now having begun, we call on you to join with us and other groups around the country in visible and passionate protest," the coalition said in a statement posted on its website.

And peace group Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) called in a statement for an "emergency response of protests and walkouts," as it announced the start of a terrorist assault on Iraq by the Bush administration.

In Washington D.C., police used pepper spray to disperse several hundred demonstrators who managed to shut down a bridge and disrupt traffic, while 50 more protesters on bicycles -- carrying signs that read "Bikes not Bombs" -- moved through the downtown area.

War=Terror

Meanwhile, around 50 demonstrators blockading an entrance to the European headquarters of U.S. forces in southwest Germany were forcibly removed early Friday, police said.

The activists had been blocking the road to the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) base outside Stuttgart for about an hour when they were removed and detained without trouble.

The demonstrators were waving banners with slogans such as "No Bush, No War" and "War=terror."

EUCOM coordinates the "operations" of U.S. forces in some 93 countries, including Africa and parts of the Middle East as well as Europe.

Germany is home to about 70,000 U.S. soldiers spread around 100 US and NATO bases.

Police Teargas Anti-U.S. Protest In Kashmir

In India as well, police in insurgency-hit Indian Kashmir used batons and teargas Friday to disperse hundreds of Muslims protesting the war by the United States and Britain against Iraq, witnesses said.

Over 300 protestors took to the streets in the Maisuma locality of Srinagar, the divided state's summer capital, chanting "down with U.S., down with UK."

The protesters, mostly youths, also set fire to an American flag before police swung into action to disperse them.

Witnesses said police charged at the slogan-shouting protesters with batons and finally used dozens of teargas canisters to break up the procession.

The youths retreated into narrow lanes and threw stones at police, resulting in ding-dong brick battles, according to resident Mushtaq Ahmed.

Police, meanwhile, have been deployed in strength at sensitive places in Srinagar to prevent anti-U.S. protests, an official said.

Dozen of policemen, equipped with batons and shields, were seen around Srinagar's main mosque Friday morning.

"The deployment is to prevent protest demonstrations after Friday prayers," a police officer near the main mosque told AFP.

"It is going to be a hectic day for us today (Friday)," the officer said, as Muslims prepared to take part in the weekly Friday sabbath, during which imams were expected to condemn the U.S. for attacking Iraq.

'Right Of Might'

Meanwhile, the international press condemned the U.S. invasion of Iraq in their Friday's editions.

In line with Moscow's official position, the Russian press Friday slammed the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq as the right of might that made Russia feel vulnerable.

"Total vulnerability as American game rules became international," headlined the Vremya Novostei daily, which compared the launch of the strikes against Iraq with the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

"Over the past month, the world changed more fundamentally than it did after September 11. Then the world shuddered, vulnerable before an invisible danger. Now there was no shudder because this vulnerability is total -- every state outside the United States shares it," the Vremya Novostei mourned.

"The Baghdad WAR," the Kremlin's official mouthpiece, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, splashed over an image of a airborne missile that filled the front page.

"International law gives way to the right of might," it added, using a quote from Thursday's speech by President Vladimir Putin.

The Nezavisimaya daily compared Washington with the Nazi leaders of the 1930s, who "were among the first to discredit the League of Nations."

"Now the United States' democratic leaders do the same thing to the United Nations," the daily said.

However, any attempt to win back a multipolar world would mean "a serious confrontation with the United States," something none of Washington's current opponents are in a position for, the respected Kommersant daily opined.

"Aware of this impossibility, opponent states now fight for certain rules to the new world, not the multipolar system," the daily added.

Capital Crime

Similarly, the U.S.-led war against Iraq was roundly condemned by the majority of Friday's German press, which called on European leaders not to allow Washington to set the world agenda.

"Can a bad war lead to good results?" the Berliner Zeitung daily asked rhetorically. No, it replied, "you cannot bomb the world for its own good".

The centre-left Sueddeutsche Zeitung accused Washington of "a capital crime in modern international law -- an attack on another state in violation of the UN charter".

It urged Europe to "equip itself to find a common place" in the "new world order" the United States was trying to set up.

The centrist Tagesspiegel said the war was bad but that in spite of it, "we should try to douse down the war of words, rebuild fragile alliances".

Perhaps the mass demonstrations - some 200,000 people took to the streets on Thursday across Germany in protest at the war and similar rallies were staged around the world - "will manage to ruin the United States' pleasure in going it alone", the paper said.

U.S. Under Fire In Asian Newspapers

The opening salvo of the U.S.-led war on Iraq dominated the front pages of newspapers across Asia on Friday, but it was mainly the United States that came under fire for acting without UN sanction.

In China, a vocal opponent of U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to use military force against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, newspapers lambasted Washington for going to war without international approval.

"Mark the day: March 20, 2003. History will record it when bombs, instead of international laws, started to count in regional or world conflicts," the China Daily said.

"Who gave them the authority and duty to invade a sovereign country?" the English-language paper asked. "The UN Charter is clear. No such war is permitted unless it is self-defense or authorized by the Security Council."

In Vietnam, the state-run Nhan Dan (The People) drew parallels to the Vietnam War and expressed sympathy for the Iraqi people.

"Dominated and invaded by colonial and imperialist forces for decades, the Vietnamese people understand the suffering caused by an unjust war and sympathize with the suffering of the Iraqi people," it said.

In Jakarta, the newspaper Media Indonesia said it was "mind-boggling that we live in such an unjust world, which lets a country, a president, decide on the life and death of other human beings and countries.

"The U.S. should be isolated globally. Let that country live alone and die alone."

The New Straits Times in Malaysia echoed the acting prime minister.

"As acting Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in his address to this nation, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is 'a black mark in history,'" it said.

Bush A Global Dictator

Taiwan's government may have come out in support of the United States but the United Daily News questioned the legitimacy of the war and said Bush "has virtually become the global dictator who belittles the whole world."

In India, the Hindustan Times said it appeared the United States had acquired "imperial ambitions" and wants to "reorder the world according to its own likes and dislikes."

Newspapers in Japan, whose Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi gave the United States a strong show of support, were not as convinced.

"Although there was still a possibility that the Iraqi regime could be disarmed without a war, the Bush administration chose to take military action anyway. We do not support this war at all," said the liberal Asahi Shimbun.

In South Korea, which is sending 700 non-combatant troops to the Gulf, the English-language Korea Herald said the war "cannot be justified morally."

In Hong Kong, newspapers criticized the United States and expressed concern for the economy.

The Straits Times of Singapore, which has come out in support of the United States, ran an editorial entitled "Let the war be swift."

Newspapers in the Philippines were critical of the United States, despite the show of support for Washington from President Gloria Arroyo.

Thai newspapers expressed resignation over the war on Iraq but called into question Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's obfuscation of his stance.