Saturday 18th March 2006
Saturday March 18th saw the third anniversary of the US led invasion and occupation of Iraq. There were over 250 demonstrations around the world including protests in Iraq itself – in Basra and Baghdad. The UK demonstration was in London where a march was held from Parliament Square to Trafalgar Square. The police estimate of 15,000 was widely quoted by the media including the early evening Channel 4 news and the BBC Radio 4 news. The march organisers feel this was the figure at the start of the march in Parliament Square but many more people joined afterwards giving a total of 80,000 to 100,000.
Here is how the BBC website reported the event:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4818952.stm Here is an early report from Indymedia along with some photos:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/london/2006/03/336104.html Here is the Channel Four News website report:
http://www.channel4.com/news/content/news-storypage.jsp?id=137580 There were demonstrations in Australia where 500 took place in Sydney and in South Korea where an estimated 3,000 are due to take part on Sunday. Here is the early Al Jazeera report:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/97746722-6CDE-434A-9931-79720A4B99DF.htm There were demonstrations in cities across the USA including New York, Washington DC, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Diego as well as smaller communities like Naples, Florida and Boise, Idaho. In Canada there protests in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.
Here is how CBS news reported the worldwide demos:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/18/world/main1419342_page2.shtml Here is the CNN version:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/18/iraq.protests.ap/index.html Here is a round up of reports in the Seattle Post Intelligencer:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_War_Protests.html Across Europe there were demonstrations in Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Almeria and Valencia) in Italy (Rome), in Denmark (Aalborg, Arhus and Copenhagen) in Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Stockholm and Paris. Eastern Europe saw demonstrations in Warsaw and Slovenia.
Africa saw events in Egypt, the Sudan and South Africa while South American protests took place in Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Ecuador.
In Scotland there was a small but lively protest by the Donald Dewar (former Scottish first minister) statue. Several dozen people carried placards and banners reading `Make War History`, `No to Nuclear War` and `Hands off Iran`. The Bob Dylan song `Masters of War ` was played:
♫ Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks ♫
There were chants of “Troops out of Iraq, hands off Iran!” as the 2 and a half hour protest finished around 2.30pm.
The US military are engaged in a savage bombing campaign against Samarra, north of Baghdad – there was little coverage of this in the media. There was a small piece on page 6 of the `Daily Mirror` headlined `US Troops in major air attack`. The Daily Express had a paragraph at the bottom of page 25 saying `-1,500 American and Iraqi troops intensified their blitz on insurgent strongholds 60 miles north of Baghdad. ` There was no mention at all of this in the Sun or Daily Record and nothing on the front pages of the Independent, Times or Guardian. There was nothing about this attack, which involved some 50 US helicopters, on the early evening Channel Four news or 7.30pm BBC1 news or BBC Radio 4 10.00pm news.
8 labelled photos are attached.
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