Police officers push back anti-war demonstrators in Greece

WORLD CAPITALS, April 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Sea of anti-war protestors took to the streets in different parts of the world Sunday, April 6, for the 18th consecutive day to protest the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

In Greece, between 1,500 and 4,000 people protested against the war outside a key NATO naval base hosting U.S. ships on Crete near the city of Chania, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Protestors threw stones and firebombs at the base and police used tear gas to disperse them.

The organizers of the protest, the anti-globalization Greek Social Forum, erected a large banner outside the base reading: "No to war. Close down the base."

Demonstrators also took to the streets of Chania Saturday, April 5, and then marched to the base where they camped out overnight.

Opposition parties have called since the start of the war for the base to be closed. But the government of Socialist Prime Minister Costas Simitis, has said a U.S.-Greek agreement on use of the base by U.S. warships will not be changed.

In Athens, dozens of people demonstrated against the war in front of the U.S. embassy.

In Spain…

Thousands of Spaniards show the palms of their hands as they demand peace during an anti-war rally

Police sources said 15,000 people attended an open-air concert in central Madrid, under banners reading "music for peace" and "stop the war."

Organizers said at least 500,000 people had gathered for the concert near the city's Alcala gate to listen to performances by some 20 Spanish artists including Ana Belen and Joaquim Sabina.

"Peace is with us, in homes, in streets, in parliament, in factories, in universities. No one will silence us," Spain's top anti-terrorist judge Baltasar Garzon told the crowd.

"To gag a people and take hostage their freedom of speech is the same as trying to finish them off," Garzon said.

The concert was one of a string of anti-war efforts -- including legal action against the government -- organized in Spain, where the public overwhelmingly opposes the staunch support for the war by Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

Sunday's concert was organized by the "Culture Against the War" group, the Socialist party's Social Forum, a coalition of far-left parties and the country's two main unions.

It took place at a venue smaller than originally planned, after the city authorities requested a last-minute change of location.

In the northwestern region of Galicia, police said 20,000 people demonstrated against the war in Santiago de Compostela.

The ruling right-wing Popular Party (PP) said five of its regional offices were vandalized overnight, apparently in protest at the war.  

In Egypt…

More than 10,000 Egyptians crowded into a stadium in the northern city of Tanta Sunday to protest against the war in Iraq, and called for a jihad, or holy war, against the invading U.S. and British forces.

In an officially-sanctioned protest in a sports stadium in Tanta, 90 kilometers (56 miles) of Cairo, the crowd chanted anti-American and pro-Iraqi and pro-Palestinian slogans, according to an AFP photographer.

"To jihad, to jihad," they chanted, while others cried out that "Iraqis, Palestinians, your country is my country and your religion is my religion," said another.

The ruling National Democratic Party and several opposition parties were represented at the rally.

Meanwhile, in Khartoum, 2,000 Sudanese children also took to the streets to protest against the war.

The children, nearly all under the age of 10, marched from the International People's Friendship Council to the United Nations offices where they handed in a message for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan demanding observance of the right to life for Iraqi and Palestinian children "like other children of the world."

In Pakistan…

Hundreds of Pakistani anti-war protesters shouting "death to America" took to the streets Sunday demanding protection of sacred Muslim sites in Iraq.

Some 500 people including lawyers, laborers, women, students of Islamic seminaries and religious scholars at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore torched the effigies of U.S. president George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The marchers carried banners calling "Bush and Blair: enemies of Islam," "Stop bloodshed for oil" and "Stop attacks on the land of prophets."

Placards carried by the protesters also called on the international community to ensure safety of holy Muslim shrines in Iraq.  

Hundreds more at a rally earlier in the day vowed they would not allow desecration of sacred places in Iraq.

On Friday, April 4, some 30,000 protesters took to the streets of the central city of Multan, chanting slogans against the U.S.-led troops and torching U.S. flags.

In Indonesia…

Indonesian youth carries a placard depicting Bush as the source of the lethal SARS virus

Thousands of Indonesians on Sunday took part in anti-war protests in several cities across the country, including in the capital.

In Jakarta, some 700 people took part in a rally organized by the Golkar party in front of the U.N. mission.

Party chairman Akbar Tanjung addressed the rally, telling protestors the demonstration was "to convey Golkar's stand of condemning and rejecting the aggression on Iraq."

In Kediri, East Java, thousands of members and supporters of the Nahdlatul Ulama, the country's largest Islamic organization which claims some 40 million members, rallied in front of the city's main mosque to protest the U.S.-led invasion and to pledge moral support for the Iraqi people, AFP said.

In Bandung, West Java, some 1,000 people took part in street convoys held by the Prosperity and Justice Party to protest the war. Riding cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles, the protestors displayed anti-U.S. posters.   

Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-populated nation, has seen daily protests since the U.S. attacks on Iraq have begun but almost all have been peaceful. The government has strongly criticized the war as an act of illegal aggression.

In India…

Iconic U.S. firms Coca Cola, Pepsi and McDonald's are keen to stress their ties with local communities after a series of attacks by Indian anti-war protesters and repeated calls for a boycott of American products.

Recent incidents have included an assault by Maoist rebels on a Pepsi warehouse in Hyderabad and further attacks on Coca Cola depots in other parts of Andhra Pradesh state.

In Calcutta this week, students smashed the shopfront of a store selling Nike running shoes after calling for a boycott of U.S.-made goods.

Last week an estimated 10,000 anti-war protestors marched through the streets of Hyderabad and pledged to boycott Coca-Cola, Pepsi, pizzas and hamburgers to protest against the war in Iraq.

And hundreds of children staged a rally this week in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, urging a boycott of U.S. and British products.

Ramesh C. Bajpai, executive director of the American Chambers of Commerce in India, said the attacks were "isolated incidents."

He added that Indian consumers had not discriminated against U.S.-made goods or responded to calls for boycott.

U.S. firms have dubbed the assaults as "misguided adventures" and stressed that their operations were heavily localized.

"What agitators need to understand when they call for boycott of U.S. MNC products in India is that they are not hurting any global economy, but the Indian economy," Coca Cola India spokesman Sunil Gupta told Economic Times.

"Coca Cola India has 10,000 Indian employees and a million retailers," he added.

Another prominent American symbol, the McDonald's restaurant chain, said that it had not been affected by anti-war protests.

"We have not seen any impact of the U.S. war on McDonald's Indian operation," said Amit Jatia, managing director of Hardcastle Restaurants, which oversees McDonald's operations in western India.

"It is probably because the operations are seen as local business as more than 90 per cent of the ingredients are sourced from local farmers and more than 2,500 people employed at the outlets across India," he told AFP.

On Saturday, April 5, three people, including a young girl, were lightly wounded when a stick of dynamite exploded in a crowded McDonald's restaurant on the outskirts of Beirut.

In Bangladesh…

Around 30,000 people Sunday demonstrated against the Iraq war in the southeastern Bangladesh city of Chittagong, witnesses said.

The city's firebrand mayor, A.B.M. Mohiuddin Chowdhury, led the protestors who marched through the streets shouting slogans against the United States and Britain and torched dozens of effigies of Bush and Blair.

The mayor, who is also a leader of the main opposition Awami League, announced a 10-day protest program in the city which includes hoisting black flags in memory of Iraqi civilians killed in the U.S.-led bombings. 

He also threatened to raise Bangladeshi volunteers to fight for Iraq.

Police guarded offices and businesses linked to the United States and Britain.

The tight security follows violence which erupted during an anti-war demonstration in the capital Dhaka on Friday, when American offices came under attack.

Bangladesh, the world's third largest Muslim majority country, has repeatedly called for an end to the war and has seen almost daily anti-US and anti-war protests.

In The U.S….

A sea of anti-war demonstrators flooded Oakland, California, on Saturday to protest the U.S.-led war.

America should get its troops out of South America, Asia, and the Middle East and eliminate war as an option in international relations, legendary crooner and veteran civil rights activist Harry Belafonte told the crowd.

"The terror we need to fight is the terror of poverty, ignorance, and oppression," he argued, adding that the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction was here in the United States.

A few blocks from the park, a pack of students from the California State University, Berkeley, merged with the massive group at noon.

"All of us need to hunker down," said student organizer Derek Wright. "We have a war to stop."

Venders sold snacks, silver jewelry, along with Malcolm-X books, peace T-shirts, anti-war pins, and more.

"We are here trying to save lives, not send people to die," one protester said.