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40.000-strong union demo, against austerity and for a social EU, ends in clashes
Last edited Fri Apr 4, 2014, 05:11 PM - Edit history (1)
As per the first link in this rediff search:
According to AFP, the clashes erupted on Friday as some 25,000 people protested against austerity measures imposed across the European Union member states.
Police officers used water cannons and pepper spray against protesters in a bid to disperse the crowd, as protesters threw oranges and cobblestones at the officers.
The violence left one police officer injured and paralyzed traffic in the Belgian capital while sending the US Embassy into lockdown.
The demonstration was called by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to protest against the implementation of spending cuts in response to Europe's economic crisis.
Police officers used water cannons and pepper spray against protesters in a bid to disperse the crowd, as protesters threw oranges and cobblestones at the officers.
The violence left one police officer injured and paralyzed traffic in the Belgian capital while sending the US Embassy into lockdown.
The demonstration was called by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to protest against the implementation of spending cuts in response to Europe's economic crisis.
A malaysian source has this image:
I have no decent picture of the crowds, as per usual the focus is on the clashes. VRT (flemish state tv) has a good clip describing the peaceful part.
Protesters came from Belgium, France and Germany mainly. The demonstrators in orange are port workers of Antwerp, who are threatened to lose their exception status - where they alone can load & unload ships, so cheap labor can't be imported for that. One of them gets pepper sprayed in this photo from sott.net, who have a good detailed account, at least of the confrontational part.
I've put the headline at 40 k, since MSM here has 30 K whilst organizers claim 50 k.
I see NBC has a good video up.
My favourite belgian news site has an uplifting photo collection or two, from which the below pic comes,
by Raisa Vandamme
Can you imagine what the coverage would look like if this was Ukraine and not the heart of Europe?
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
so much is going on...it's hard to keep up. My internet connection keeps going out...so I do what I can.
Missed your post...but most protests from International News posted here keep going off to archives.
This is a great post. I tried to do it...but the pictures didn't come through as well as yours...and I didn't see you had posted this.
April is always the month when protests and wars break out. Creepy thing that... Maybe it's just Springtime and folks are pent up...but there's much going on WorldWide.
