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Last Updated:  Sunday, 30 March, 2003, 10:39 GMT 11:39 UK
Anti-war anger spreads worldwide
Protestors in Indonesia
Indonesia's demonstrations have been the largest to date
At least 100,000 people have marched through the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in protest against the war on Iraq.

"Bush, Iraq is not your killing field," one banner read amid the sea of people at Sunday's event.

The BBC's Jonathan Head says this was the biggest anti-war demonstration to take place so far in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

But he says that, despite the efforts of militants to use the conflict to mobilise the Muslim majority, it is not being seen as a war against Islam.

Islamic groups dominated the gathering, but Christians, Buddhists and people of other faiths could be seen among the demonstrators.

The peaceful family atmosphere was in stark contrast to the angry protests which greeted the United States operation in Afghanistan.

Chinese rally

China has held its first, officially sanctioned anti-war protest - although it may represent the smallest protest in any world capital to date.

Around 200 foreigners were permitted to shout anti-war slogans as they marched past the US embassy in Beijing on Sunday.
Anti-war protester flees from US base in Vicenza, Italy

But police ordered around 100 Chinese students to surrender their banners and blocked them from entering a park where local people had secured permission to demonstrate.

One Chinese man was hauled off for handing out anti-war leaflets, reported Reuters news agency.

Rallies have been taking place around the world since Friday, when mass demonstrations erupted in many Muslim states after traditional Friday Prayers.

Naked protest

Protesters' tactics have ranged from rallies under banners to a "die-in" in Genoa, where people lay down in busy streets to simulate Iraqis killed in air raids, to a naked march through the streets of Bogota.

In the US, the city of Boston held what observers said was the biggest march since the Vietnam War.

Protesters also turned out in Washington DC, while pro-army activists rallied in San Francisco and other cities.

Anti-war protester in Boston
The White House does not have total support at home
Latin America saw rallies in Santiago, Mexico City, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Caracas after anti-war protests on Friday in Bogota and Lima.

  • In the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, artists and sculptors displayed anti-war works in city squares while dance troupes joined protestors in the streets

  • Colombian students stripped naked in the rain to march through Bogota, bodies painted with anti-war messages

Human chain

Europe, a focus of anti-war feeling, saw demonstrations in many major cities and near US military facilities on Saturday.

  • "The Yankees are gangsters," one speaker told a rally in Moscow, asking who would be the next US target after Iraq.

  • In Rome, groups of demonstrators hung black sheets from the 16 bridges across the River Tiber as "mourning" for the war dead

  • At least 40,000 protestors were involved in a human chain in Germany, between the northern cities of Munster and Osnabrueck, 55 kms (35 miles) apart

  • About 23,000 took part in marches in Berlin, culminating in a rally in the Tiergarten park, and more Germans held protests in Stuttgart and Frankfurt, where 25 people were arrested as they tried to block the entrance to a US air base

  • Several thousand demonstrators marched through Paris in the fifth mass protest there since the war began, and peace marches were also held in Moscow, Budapest, Warsaw and Dublin



WATCH AND LISTEN
The BBC's Lainy Malkani reports from Jakarta
"Around 200,000 people...marched through the Indonesian capital Jakarta"




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