More anti-war protests worldwide

12.10pm

BOSTON - Tens of thousands of people have marched through the streets of Boston to protest the war in Iraq, the latest in a wave of peace demonstrations around the globe.

In what officials and historians said was the biggest protest in Boston in at least 30 years, thousands chanted "This is what democracy looks like" as they paraded through the elegant streets of America's education capital on Saturday (Sunday NZT).

The diverse crowd included not just students and faculty from New England college campuses but families and retired people - many of whom said the US-led war had triggered a political awakening in their souls.

"This war spoke to me as being wrong, unjust, immoral and certainly not what American values are all about," said Susan Hughes, a former member of President George W. Bush's Republican Party.

"Bush started this war to depose a dictator, but now we have an administration that is acting like the dictatorship we are trying to take out," the 46-year-old said as she prepared to march through Boston.

In Melbourne, protesters ripped up an American flag and accused Australian Prime Minister John Howard of betraying the rule of law by backing the war, local media reported.

In New York, a few hundred protesters, primarily pro-Palestinian and also opposed to the Iraq war, marched down Broadway from Times Square to Union Square in downtown Manhattan. Demonstrators waved large Palestinian flags and chanted for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian areas and against the war.

Last week, an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 people protesting the war marched along same route.

Earlier, tens of thousands rallied in France, Italy, Germany, and in the cities of Moscow and Budapest, to call for an end to the US-led invasion launched to rid Iraq of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Demonstrations in Europe followed similar anti-war protests in Asia and Africa, home to some of the world's biggest Muslim populations. Malaysian police used tear gas to break up an unauthorised protest, while authorities in Bangladesh rolled out barbed wire to keep marchers from the US embassy.

More than 10,000 people marched on the US consulate in Cape Town, South Africa.

In a rare move, Chinese police allowed 100 demonstrators to rally in a walled park in eastern Beijing today.

In Rome, small groups of protesters hung black sheets from the sides of 16 bridges spanning the River Tiber, some of them crossed by invaders and victors in past centuries.

In a symbolic gesture, around 30,000 people in Germany formed a human chain between the northern cities of Munster and Osnabrueck, a 35-mile route taken in 1648 by negotiators who ended Europe's Thirty Years War.

Police said more than 23,000 people took part in two separate marches in the German capital, culminating at the country's "Victory Column" in the Tiergarten park. A giant globe-shaped map of the world emblazoned with the slogan "No War" marked out the destination.

Police arrested 25 people who tried to block a highway leading to the US Rhein Main air base in Frankfurt during a protest by more than 1,000 people. Some 4,000 others formed a chain around the US European Command headquarters in Stuttgart.

Hundreds of protesters, some carrying Iraqi flags and posters of Saddam Hussein, gathered in Caracas, Venezuela, and chanted slogans against US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"This is an illegal war, it has no justification," said 18-year-old Muslem Fuad, a Venezuelan student of Syrian origin.

Bangladeshi protesters, mostly from the radical Islamic Constitution Movement, burned American flags and effigies of Bush.

Demonstrators called for Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be tried as war criminals.

Hundreds of Russian protesters gathered in front of the US embassy in Moscow, waving red banners and calling on the Kremlin to form an international coalition to oppose the US-led strikes and to help Iraq.

Thousands marched through Paris in the city's fifth protest since the war began, but organisers this time stepped up efforts to avert anti-Semitic violence after two Jewish youths were beaten up at a similar march last week.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq