TOKYO, 22 March 2003 — Shouting anti-US slogans and burning US flags, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of cities across Asia yesterday to denounce the US-led war on Iraq. The largest protests were held in Tokyo and in Melbourne while smaller anti-war demonstrations were staged in cities in India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
A group of some 50 foreigners held an unusual anti-war protest in Beijing while Malaysia reportedly imposed a ban on unofficial demonstrations. In Tokyo’s Shiba Park, demonstrators demanded an immediate end to the war and urged people to boycott American-made products.
“The United States must end this foolish war. I cannot sit still knowing that innocent Iraqi civilians are being killed by US attacks,” said Satoru Sugimura, a 25-year-old graduate student majoring in sociology.
Anger was also directed at Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi who announced Japan’s support for the United States. “Shame on him. I am furious about his decision. He should have made every effort to avoid a war,” said Toshio Takasugi, a 60-year-old office worker. Organizers put the number of people who took part in the protest at 50,000 while police said they numbered just some 10,000.
In Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, thousands of anti-war demonstrators denounced their country’s role in the war in Iraq. Building workers walked off construction sites to join shoppers, office workers and children who took time off school for a rally that stretched several blocks around the city, bringing lunch time traffic to a standstill. Post-work crowds gathered later in the day at the State Library, swelling protest numbers to an estimated 25,000.
Protests were staged in several cities in Indonesia. Some 600 people gathered outside the heavily guarded US Embassy in Jakarta, witnesses said, and dozens of Muslim activists protested near the British mission. Demonstrators shouted “Hang Bush” and some burned posters of him.
In the country’s second largest city, Surabaya, some 2,000 people rallied outside the US Consulate, which was closed yesterday. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-populated nation but protests so far have been relatively small, even though the government has strongly criticized the US attack as an illegal act of aggression.
Britons and Americans living in Indonesia face a serious threat of violence during the war against Iraq, the British Embassy said. The embassy upgraded an earlier warning that Westerners were likely to face harassment from extremists in bars and nightclubs. “There is also a serious threat of more widespread harassment of British (and American) citizens, including the threat of violence, during military action in Iraq,” it said in Friday’s updated advisory.
Both the US and British embassies have also warned of a terrorism threat against Westerners. In Hanoi, more than 200 Vietnamese students staged an anti-war protest outside the US Embassy, witnesses said, carrying red and yellow banners reading “No war, no bombs, no blood” and “War is not the answer.”
In Bangkok, some 100 mainly Muslim anti-war demonstrators gathered outside the US Embassy for a peaceful protest against the war, witnesses said. In Colombo, hundreds of anti-war demonstrators burned American flags and shouted anti-US slogans, witnesses said.
Thousands of Bangladeshis took to the streets in the capital Dhaka and the port city of Chittagong yesterday, witnesses said. In downtown Dhaka, more than 10,000 Muslim protesters from the Islamic Law Implementation Committee, a vocal Islamic group, marched through the streets in a noisy anti-war campaign. “No war, we want peace” read the main banners carried by the protesters after several clerics, including Mufti Amini, in fiery speeches warned US President George W. Bush and his allies of serious consequences of their “aggression” on Muslim Iraq.
Earlier, some 2,000 protesters from several other Islamic groups staged separate demonstrations outside Dhaka’s Baitul Mukarram National Mosque after Friday prayers, shouting anti-US slogans and burning US flags and effigies of Bush.
