By Nigel
Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
The
Independ
20
March 2003
Thousands
of pupils walked out of classrooms across Britain yesterday to protest against
military action.
Impromptu
rallies were staged in London, Sheffield, Birmingham, Swansea, Leeds,
Manchester, Leicester and Edinburgh, and police chiefs are preparing for dozens
more demonstrations within hours of the first strikes on Baghdad.
The Stop
the War Coalition is urging employees to walk out of work the day war starts and
gather at 6pm in city centres. The group, which is organising the action with
the Muslim Association of Britain and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
predicted thousands of protesters would join a march in London on Saturday.
One man
was arrested as 40 banner-waving demonstrators converged on the south London
home of Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, at 6.30am yesterday. Shouting slogans
and sounding air-raid sirens, they delayed his departure by half an hour. Nick
Buxton, the protest organiser, said: "We got the message across that the
war is going to have a very huge humanitarian impact and people are angry about
this war."
The
rowdiest scenes erupted in Birmingham where an estimated 4,000 children joined a
march, and stone-throwing protesters tried to storm the city hall. A march
organiser, Jacob Hunt Stewart, 14, son of Lord Hunt of King's Heath, who
resigned from his position as a Health minister this week, blamed the media for
the violence. He added: "We've walked out of school and we've got
attention. We're putting a message across."
Amid
heavy security, students staged a noisy sitdown protest in Westminster to
coincide with Prime Minister's Question Time. Traffic was brought to a halt as
police, who ringed Parliament Square, were forced to drag protesters off the
road.
Protests
in Edinburgh, where students broke through police lines to demonstrate outside
the United States consulate, ended with two arrests.
Three
people were arrested as 3,000 demonstrators marched through Manchester. In
Leicester, protesters gathered around the central clock tower.
About 20
teenagers were suspended from Cape Cornwall School in St Just, west Cornwall,
after joining an anti-war march. Robin Kneebone, the headmaster, said: "It
is not the protest per se that I'm against. It is the impossibility of
managing a school of hundreds of youngsters if they are going to walk out. It
can't be allowed."
The
Secondary Heads Association advised headteachers to treat all cases where pupils
missed school to take part in demonstrations as truancy
By
Andrew Cawthorne
LONDON
(Reuters) - Anti-war campaigners have blocked roads, boycotted schools and
workplaces, and begun gathering in public places in protest at the start of the
U.S.-led war against Iraq, activists say.
And in a
bid to avert inter-religious tension, various Christian bishops in cities with
big Muslim populations invited them to conduct Friday prayers in cathedrals
instead of mosques.
"I
am surprised how quickly the protests have kicked off," John Rees, of the
umbrella Stop the War Coalition, told Reuters as he dashed to a gathering in
London's Parliament Square. "The protests we anticipated both here and
across Europe are starting to emerge on quite a big scale. It will be huge by
the evening."
The
campaigners, enraged by the involvement of British troops in a war they see as
an illegitimate grab for oil by the United States, said the first demonstrations
began in the northern cities of Manchester, Leeds and Bradford.
There,
they said, protesters managed to block various major roads. Police reported no
serious disturbances, however.
Many
schoolchildren, who took a day off classes to protest on Wednesday, were out
again with renewed vigour after overnight developments in Iraq. Some workers
were also staying away in protest, the activists said.
"People
are really angry at the start of war," said Ben Miller, of the Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament (CND) which became famous during the Cold War for its mass
protests on the streets and outside U.S. military bases.
"There
is a bit of concern about what may happen at Whitehall (UK government offices)
later. An awful lot of people are on their way there ... We are encouraging
people to bring whistles and drums to make as much noise as possible."
ANOTHER
MILLION TO MARCH?
The
anti-war movement is planning another huge march through London on Saturday
which they hope will rival last month's unprecedented demonstration that drew
more than one million people on to the street.
Polls in
recent months showed about two-thirds of Britons opposed war on Iraq without
specific U.N. endorsement -- something Prime Minister Tony Blair fought
fruitlessly to obtain. But the latest survey, in Wednesday's Daily Telegraph,
said opposition had dropped, with about half now backing war.
Stop the
War spokesman Andrew Burgin said Britons' support for troops at a time of crisis
should not be confused with backing for war. "This is a day of shame for
Britain... an outrage against world peace," he said.
The
Muslim Association of Britain was also backing protests.
"We
will continue to speak out and try to persuade the government to make this a
very short campaign if at all possible," a spokesman said. "The
attention of the Muslim community is on the humanitarian aspect."
The UK's
other umbrella Muslim group, the Muslim Council of Britain, called the start of
war "a black day in our history".
The
Anglican Church said bishops in at least half a dozen cities had taken the
unusual step of inviting Islamic leaders to organise Friday prayers -- the main
religious ceremony of the Muslim week -- in cathedrals in a show of religious
unity.
Christian
leaders, who led efforts to prevent the war, expressed despair that their
appeals for peace had been ignored.
"We
have questioned whether this military action is justified, and history alone
will reveal the truth," the Bishops of Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Stafford and
Wolverhampton said in a joint statement shortly after the attacks.
Church
leaders in East Anglia, traditionally one of the most heavily militarised
regions of Britain due to its proximity to continental Europe, issued a
statement expressing unease.
"We emphasise that whatever the reasons for acting at this time it is not a religious conflict," they said.
Scottish
Socialist Party Defends Pupil Protest
The
Scotsman
By:
JEANETTE OLDHAM -- 20-Mar-03
TOMMY
Sheridan, the leader of the Scottish Socialists, was accused of exploiting
schoolchildren last night after urging more than 2,000 taking part in an
anti-war march to engage in a campaign of civil disobedience.
Many of
the youngsters had played truant to take part in the day-long demonstration in
Edinburgh, which ended with two arrests. Most of the youngsters were aged 16 or
under, and onlookers expressed shock at the sight of an eight-year-old child
handing out Anarchist Worker leaflets.
The
education spokesman for the Scottish Tories, Brian Monteith, said: "This is
political exploitation of children and Sheridan should be thoroughly ashamed of
himself.
"Pupils
are entitled to their views, but if they wish to protest about this issue then
they should do so in their own free time, not while they should be at
school."
But Mr
Sheridan rejected the claims, telling the protesters: " I think your
actions today prove that the young people of this country care about what is
done in their name. Those who are irresponsible are Tony Blair and George Bush
and the other politicians who are going to support the invasion of a country
with 3,000 bombs and missiles in the space of 48 hours."
As the
One o'Clock Gun sounded from Edinburgh Castle, the pupils, from both state and
private schools, lay down in Princes Street in what they described as a
"die-in".
After a demonstration outside the Parliament, the crowd set off for the US consulate in Regent Terrace, where they broke through police lines.
Protests
in Reaction to War
By
Tom Mulligan
Reuters
Thursday, March 20, 2003; 7:38 AM
LONDON
-- A wave of anti-war protests began to roll across Europe and the Middle East
on Thursday after the opening salvos of the war against Iraq sparked angry
demonstrations in Asia and Australia.
Barely
three hours after the first U.S. missiles struck Baghdad, a crowd that
organizers put at 40,000 and which police said numbered "tens of
thousands" brought Australia's second largest city, Melbourne, to a
standstill.
In
Germany, 50,000 school students marched from Berlin's central Alexanderplatz
past the guarded U.S. embassy and through the Brandenburg Gate.
The
crowd whistled and chanted and carried banners saying "Stop the Bush
fire," "George W. Hitler," "No blood for oil."
"The
war is illegal and it should be resolved by the United Nations," said
18-year-old David Stassek, carrying a banner that read: "Stop U.S.
imperialism." Pia Telschow, a 14-year-old from Berlin, said: "Bush is
just carrying on his father's war."
Bigger
demonstrations were planned for later on Thursday in the capital and in dozens
of other towns and cities. Some 5,000 pupils were also demonstrating in Cologne.
In
France, the most vocal Western opponent of the war, a string of organisations
planned a 1700 GMT rally outside the U.S. embassy in Paris. The mission was
barricaded off to the public by mid-morning and surrounded with 15-20 police
vans, a water cannon and scores of police, some with riot shields.
By
midday a small group of pro-Iraqi protestors had gathered at the adjacent Place
de la Concorde and were joined by some 70 students from an Iraqi secondary
school who shouted "Bush-Blair Assassins!" and other chants in Arabic.
In
Italy, anti-war activists and labor unions staged demonstrations and downed
tools. Protesters in Milan held a vigil in front of the city's cathedral while
in Venice and Rome groups of hundreds gathered for spontaneous sit-ins.
"We
want to bring cities to a standstill," said Luca Casarini, one of the
organizers. "We don't want people to get used to the idea of war, to think
it's normal."
Thousands
more were expected to take part in a march to the U.S. embassy in Rome in the
afternoon. Public sector workers declared a day-long strike while Italy's three
biggest unions, with a combined 11 million members, said they would strike for
two hours to protest against the attacks.
In
Greece, where there is bitter public and government opposition to the attack on
Iraq, the center of Athens was turned into a huge protest arena. Nearly 10,000
people including many schoolchildren gathered to march to the U.S. embassy.
Greek police rushed reinforcements to the embassy to protect it.
BOYCOTT
OF WORK AND SCHOOL
British
anti-war campaigners blocked roads, boycotted schools and workplaces, and began
gathering in public places.
"I
am surprised how quickly the protests have kicked off," John Rees, of the
umbrella Stop the War Coalition, said as he dashed to a gathering in London's
Parliament Square.
In
Spain, several hundred chanting demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy
in Madrid.
Austria's
capital Vienna saw a protest march by thousands of schoolchildren. Some 20 towns
in Switzerland were preparing for demonstrations, with students and school
pupils boycotting studies.
ANGER IN
THE MIDDLE EAST
In the
Gaza Strip, Palestinian children marched in the Rafah refugee camp, holding
Iraqi flags and posters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and setting fire to
Israeli and U.S. flags.
About
150 people marched in the West Bank city of Bethlehem waving Iraqi and
Palestinian flags and carrying portraits of Saddam.
Egyptian
police in Cairo's central Tahrir Square beat back protesters trying to reach the
nearby U.S. embassy and cordoned off the area, restoring order, security sources
said.
Australia,
a staunch ally of the United States, deployed armed police for the first time
around parliament in Canberra and increased their presence at U.S. diplomatic
missions.
ASIAN
PROTESTS
Anti-American
sentiment was stronger still in Muslim Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, where
many saw the attack as the beginning of an American campaign to subjugate the
Islamic world and seize control of oil.
In
Pakistan there were scattered but peaceful rallies across the country against
what some called "American terrorism."
Hundreds
of people took to the streets of the commercial hub of Karachi, the cities of
Multan and Lahore, and Peshawar on the northwest frontier with Afghanistan, as
well as Rawalpindi.
Indonesia's biggest rally was in Jakarta, where 2,000 people from a conservative Muslim party sang and chanted anti-American slogans outside the heavily-fortified U.S. embassy. There were also protests in the cities of Bandung, Yogyakarta and Makassar. Local radio said police in the central Java city of Semarang had clashed with 50 students after they burned an effigy of President Bush. Several students were slightly hurt
British
Students Protest War
BBC
News 20 March 2003
School children across the UK have walked out of lessons to stage demonstrations against the start of the war with Iraq.
Hundreds
of children are among crowds protesting at Westminster and anti-war campaigners
expect hundreds more to join them later on Thursday.
Demonstrations
are being staged outside some schools and at others, children plan to express
their opposition to the war with sit-ins or other protests.
Student
leaders are calling on students to join the protests across the country.
Mandy
Telford, president of the National Union of Students (NUS) said: "The NUS
is strongly opposed to a war on Iraq.
"We
do not believe that destroying one of the oldest civilisations in the world with
bombs and killing thousands of innocent people is the best way to effect change.
"Saddam
Hussein's regime is a brutal one, however there must be a more sophisticated way
of bringing about change than heaping further misery on a country that has
already endured waves of air strikes and sanctions.
"Freedom
for the Iraqi people must not be brought about by needless bloodshed."
School
children picketed many schools across London this morning to gather protest
supporters, because they said they thought their teachers would stop them
leaving if they went inside.
Sinead,
who is 18 and from a north London sixth-form college called Le Swap, is at the
Westminster demonstration.
"When
I woke up this morning, I was so incredibly nervous. I felt sick," she told
BBC News Online.
"Tony
Blair might have got the Commons' vote but so many people are against this.
People are angry and frustrated at being ignored."
Sinead
said about 100 chidren from her college walked out and headed for Parliament.
Sixth-former
Sam Beste, from Fortismere School in north London, has organised many protests
against the war. He is staging a demonstration with dozens of others in Muswell
Hilll before heading for Westminster.
He said
many older children were trying to walk out of school this morning.
"Many
of us thought the war was inevitable but we are not going to start backing it
now it has started," said Sam.
"People
are angry. We must keep trying to stop the war"
The
school had been anxious about the involvement of younger children in the
previous marches.
Sam said
the school had reached a compromise this time and the younger children would be
allowed to voice their opposition to war through a sit-in in school.
Older
children who wanted to demonstrate have given the school letters of permission
from their parents.
Henna,
who is 18 and from Coombe Girls' School in New Malden, is part of a network of
schoolchildren from south London protesting in Westminster.
She says
she expects about 3,000 children from her area to take part in the
demonstration.
"I'm
here to get my message across. Two million people walked through London against
this but war is still going on.
"Standing
outside Tony Blair's house is a way to show him what we think."
In
Carlisle, the police were called to a school after hundreds of pupils staged an
anti-war demonstration.
Around
200 11-to-16 year olds from the Caldew School in Dalston marched into the centre
of the village chanting anti-war slogans.
Head
teacher Andy Abernethy said he supported the students' rights to demonstrate,
but could not rule out disciplinary action against some of the protestors.
Expelled
A Stop
the War demonstration in Edinburgh is causing extensive disruption in the city
centre.
The
demonstrators are mainly school-age youngsters who gathered near the Scottish
Parliament and have since split in to smaller groups which have been stopping
traffic in various locations.
It is
thought there have been several arrests.
It is
thought Stirling University will be closed Thursday afternoon due to protest
action.
In
Nottinghamshire, more than 100 pupils walked out of lessons at West Bridgford
School to stage a demonstration on a nearby playing field.
They are
now back in class.
A number
of students have been expelled from a South Devon college because of their
actions during an anti war demonstration.
The group
from Torquay Community College are accused of spitting at police, verbally
abusing staff and refusing to move from a zebra crossing.
In
Manchester, about 200 school children joined a big demonstration.
Split
With
feelings running high, many schools face a challenge in how to manage children's
desire to express their views on the war.
Teachers
and head teachers appear split on the best way to handle the situation.
While the
National Union of Teachers says children who walk out to join protests should be
treated more leniently that general truants, the Secondary Heads Association
says head teachers should not allow children to walk out and to treat those who
leave school as general truants.
Many
pupils are facing suspension over their protests.
On
Wednesday, thousands of children across the UK walked out of lessons to protest.
About
3,000 left schools in Manchester and there were also big demonstrations by
children in Sheffield, Edinburgh and Swansea.
In the
West Country, 20 pupils at Cape Cornwall School in St Just, near Penzance, were
suspended after joining a march on Wednesday.
The
Guardian
20 March 2003
John Vidal
Up to 8,000 schoolchildren walked out of classes yesterday to stage sit-ins and
anti-war demonstrations, in what are thought to have been the first national
political protests by pupils since the 1970s.
There was chaos in Birmingham as more than 4,000
children, including Jacob Hunt, 14, son of Lord Hunt, who resigned as a health
minister this week, defied their schools and met in the city's Victoria Square.
Unprepared police tried to stop them occupying the city council offices.
In Liverpool, 800 pupils, some in school uniform,
joined other anti-war protests and closed Birkenhead tunnel and several motorway
junctions. In Manchester, up to 2,000 schoolchildren and university students
blocked traffic and staged a protest outside the BBC offices.
Similar demonstrations and sit-ins, mostly
organised by text messages, were held in other cities and in schools around
Britain.
In Edinburgh, hundreds of pupils from Broughton
high, James Gillespie's and Drummond high staged a "die-in" which
stopped traffic on Princes Street for nearly an hour.
In Exeter, pupils occupied the constituency
office of the local MP, Ben Bradshaw, demanding - and getting - a meeting.
In London, more than 1,000 pupils, mainly girls,
from at least 20 schools joined university students for a protest in Parliament
Square. "This is about priorities," said one pupil from Pimlico
school. "This is more important than the science and English lessons I was
going to have."
"School has always told us to have our own
opinions and think about the things that affect us," said Zoe Bauillie, a
sixth former at George Abbot school in Guildford. "We've done that and this
seems the best action we can take."
"We are here for the children of Iraq,"
said Ella, a sixth former at Pimlico school. "We would not want to be in
their situation."
Many children said schools had tried to stop them
going on the protests by locking the gates. Pupils from one school in south
London said they had to break out; others said they were warned at assembly not
to go on any demonstrations.
As US
missiles made their first strikes on Baghdad this morning the UK anti-war
movement called on workers and students to stage a mass walkout from offices and
colleges around the country.
Describing the outbreak of hostilities as a
"day of shame", the Stop the War Coalition hopes to draw on public
feeling that saw over a million people take to the streets of London last month.
"The country has been dragged into a
reckless war at the instigation of a US administration that has demonstrated its
contempt for world opinion", said Stop the War spokesman Andrew Burgin.
"We call upon the people of Britain to act
today in support of peace by walking out from work, school or college to join
protest meetings and peace demonstrations in their community against this unjust
war."
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament also urged
Britons to protest against the "illegal, immoral war". It called on
campaigners to gather outside Downing Street at 6pm with whistles and drums to
make as much noise as possible. The group also encouraged British soldiers to
disobey orders and refrain from entering combat.
CND chairman Carol Naughton said: "Crimes
against humanity will be perpetrated in this bloody war. We will support any
members of the military who refuse to carry out an order that would cause death
or suffering to civilians. That is their individual right and I hope they will
use it."
The Muslim Council of Britain, which fears
military action against Saddam Hussein will sour relations between Britain and
Muslim countries, condemned the outbreak of war and said it was a "black
day in our history".
"Our government should not have been a party
to this conflict which has only undermined the United Nations, our own democracy
and the rule of law," said its secretary-general, Iqbal Sacranie.
A statement from five aid agencies in Britain
called for coalition forces to take "all possible precautions" to
avoid civilian casualties in Iraq, and demanded extra funding to rebuild the
country after war.
Speaking on behalf of the agencies, the Christian
Aid director, Daleep Mukarji, said: "The warring parties have obligations
under international law to avoid civilian casualties and to ensure civilians
have safe access to food, shelter, water and medical attention. These
obligations must be met.
"Furthermore, we are also calling on the UK
government to massively scale up its funding to the UN, in the hope that a
humanitarian disaster can be avoided."
The statement, signed by Christian Aid, Cafod,
Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Action Aid, also demanded that any funding not
be diverted from other humanitarian projects elsewhere.