KUALA LUMPUR, 15 March 2003 — Fresh protests and street demonstrations were staged around the world yesterday against a looming US-led war on Iraq.
Muslims in Malaysia and Bangladesh marched yesterday to denounce US plans for war in Iraq while in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, Christians also appealed for peace in the Middle East.
Protesters in remote but volatile Central Asia yesterday joined the global anti-war demonstrations, as 300 banner-waving people demonstrated in Bishek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard came face to face with public anger over his policies yesterday when protesters pelted his motorcade with eggs and tomatoes during a visit to Adelaide. Further anti-war protests are planned in several cities over the weekend, including a “sit-down” outside Howard’s Sydney residence.
Hundreds of slogan-shouting Muslims gathered near the US Embassy in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, after Friday prayers to show their opposition to any US-led war against Iraq. Dozens of riot police, backed by two water cannons, kept an eye on the demonstration, organized by the opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia.
In neighboring Indonesia, a group representing Protestant churches urged US President George W. Bush and Iraq President Saddam Hussein to “hear the voice of people all over the world who love peace and are against the war”.
The Christian group said in a statement the Iraqi crisis was “not a conflict between religions”, and neither Bush nor Saddam represented their respective theologies.
About 10,000 Bangladeshis chanting “No war, vote for peace”, marched in the capital Dhaka in fresh anti-war protests.
In Germany, tens of thousands of workers took part yesterday in a 10-minute stoppage against a war on Iraq. The powerful engineering union, IG Metall, said more than 100,000 of its members had stopped work in the major industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia alone.
The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior yesterday staged a blockade at the joint Spanish-US naval base at Rota in southern Spain, in protest at Madrid’s support for the US hard-line stance on Iraq, sources said.
Two activists, one Spanish and one American, were arrested aboard an inflatable dinghy for “serious disobedience” as they tried to clamber ashore inside the naval base, according to Spanish police, who dispatched several patrol boats to the scene.
In Moscow, about 40 Russian Greenpeace activists protested on the banks of the Moskva river outside the Kremlin walls yesterday to urge the Russian government to use its UN veto to override US war plans.
In Britain, police were holding two anti-war protesters who allegedly damaged support vehicles after breaking into an air base used by US giant bombers.
