Global protests against war on Iraq

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Thousands of small and large global protests against war in general, the U.S. plan to invade Iraq and the war itself were held from 2002 to 2004.

[edit] Pre-war

These protests are said to be the biggest global peace protests before a war actually started; the peace movement is compared with the movement caused by the Vietnam War.

[edit] January 16, 2002

Protests were held worldwide in opposition to the war, including in Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Argentina, and the United States, where Americans attended a rally in Washington, DC. The U.S. Park Police, which oversees activities on the Mall, stopped providing estimates of crowd size after being threatened with lawsuits by the organizers of the Million Man March, but said that protest organizers only had a permit for 30,000 demonstrators. According to rally organizers, 200,000+ Americans were in attendance.

[edit] October 26, 2002

A protest rally in Washington, DC to express their opposition to war against Iraq, with 40,000+ Americans in attendance, according to rally organizers.

[edit] January 18, 2003

Image:ProtestJan18DC.jpeg
January 18 peace protest in Washington, D.C.

On January 18, demonstrations against war in general or the expected war in Iraq in particular took place in villages, towns, and cities around the world, including Tokyo, Moscow, Paris, London, Dublin, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Cologne, Bonn, Gothenburg, Florence, Oslo, Rotterdam, Istanbul and Cairo. NION and ANSWER held anti-war protests in Washington D.C. and San Francisco, California. In San Francisco, between 150,000 and 200,000 people attended the demonstration. The San Francisco police had originally estimated the crowd size at 55,000, but admitted later that they had badly underestimated the number and changed their estimate to 150,000.

[edit] 2003-02-15

February 15 protest attendance
Rome	3,000,000
Barcelona	1,300,000
London	≥1,000,000
Madrid	≥660,000
Berlin	≥500,000
Sydney	250,000†
Seville	≥200,000
Damascus	200,000
Montreal	150,000
Melbourne	150,000†
Paris	100,000
New York	≥100,000
Oviedo	100,000
Dublin	100,000
Cádiz	100,000
Los Angeles	100,000
Glasgow	80,000
Amsterdam	75,000
San Francisco	65,000†
Oslo	60,000
Buenos Aires	60,000
Seattle	60,000
Brussels	50,000
Athens	50,000
Montevideo	50,000
Bern	40,000
São Paulo (one figure)	35,000
Stockholm	35,000
Girona	30,000
Belfast	30,000
Copenhagen	25,000
Gothenburg	20,000
Newcastle	20,000
Vancouver	20,000
Helsinki	15,000
Perth	15,000
Vienna	15,000
Luxembourg	14,000
Mexico City	13,000
Trondheim	11,000
Canberra	10,000
Calcutta	10,000
Thessaloniki	10,000
Toronto	10,000
Auckland	10,000
Austin	10,000
Beirut	10,000
Cape Town	10,000
Johannesburg	10,000
Porto	10,000
Leipzig	10,000
Philadelphia	10,000
São Paulo (one figure)	10,000
Zagreb	10,000
Wellington	6,000
Istanbul	5,000
Malmö	5,000
Lismore	5,000
Tokyo	5,000
Calgary	5,000
Ljubljana	5,000
Eugene	4,000
Colorado Springs	4,000
Reykjavík	4,000
Bangkok	3,000
Byron Bay	3,000
Quebec City	3,000
Tel Aviv	3,000
Sarasota	2,500
Bellingen	2,500
Ottawa	2,000
Manila	2,000
Kiev	2,000
Christchurch	2,000
Dhaka	2,000
Sofia	2,000
Warsaw	2,000
Chicoutimi	1,500
Kuala Lumpur	1,500
Dunedin	1,500
Flagstaff	1,000
Hong Kong	1,000
Knoxville	650
New Orleans	500
Akureyri	500
Cyprus	500
Maribor	500
Quito	350
Poznan	300
Lima	300
Moscow	300
San Salvador	250
Srinagar	100
Mostar	100
Wanganui	70
Tallinn	60
Almaty	50
McMurdo Station	50
Tauranga	10
(Total of above figures)	≥10,245,590
†: 14th or 16th February
Source: The Globe and Mail and others

Millions of people protested, in approximately 800 cities around the world, and it was listed by the 2004 Guinness Book of Records as the largest mass protest movement in history.

In Rome one to three million people were on the streets in one of the Italian capital's largest ever mass demonstrations. In London, estimates of the number of marchers varied from 750,000 (by the police) to over 1.5 million (by the organisers, the Stop the War Coalition) and was the largest demonstration in the city's history. In Berlin there were half a million in the largest demonstration for some decades. There were also protest marches all over France as well as in many other European cities, drawing attendance figures in the tens of thousands per city. In Ireland, one hundred thousand turned out in Dublin, for a parade that was originally expected to draw one fifth that number. Protesters demanded that the Irish government stop allowing the United States military to use Ireland's Shannon Airport as a trans-atlantic stop-off point bringing soldiers to the Middle East.

In Spain, Barcelona city hall and the Guardia Civil cited 1.3 million protesters, marching from the Passeig de Gràcia to the Plaça de Tetuan [1], though the Delegación de Gobierno said 350,000. Government sources estimated protests at 660,000 in Madrid. The small Asturian city of Oviedo (pop. 180,000) had a turnout of 100,000. [2]

Protests were held in Australia (the previous day), South Africa, Syria, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and the USA, among many other countries. Hundreds of thousands turned out in New York City, near the United Nations Building. In Colorado Springs, 4,000 protestors were dispersed with pepperspray, tear-gas, tazers and batons. More than one hundred thousand people protested in Montreal despite wind-chill temperatures of below -30 °C, and in Chicoutimi 1 500 people braved a -40 °C wind-chill temperature including gusts of wind reaching 50 km/h, in what was surely one of the coldest marches on the 15th of February.

In San Francisco, a protest was held on February 16. Protest organizers and police agreed that the crowd count was 200,000. A San Francisco Chronicle photographic investigation, on the other hand, estimated that the number at the peak period was closer 65,000, although it did not say how many people attended during the entire time of the demonstration. [3] This dispute highlights the continuing debate over the accuracy of crowd estimates in large public demonstrations.

In Baghdad several thousand Iraqis - many carrying Kalashnikov rifles - also joined with the global protests.

Protests continued on February 16 in Australia, with 600,000 demonstrating in cities around the country.

Cities that participated in the 15 February 2003 protests

[edit] March 15, 2003

Image:Mar15-peace-protests-mtl.jpg

March 15 peace protest in Montreal

Another round of protests took place on March 15. Once again, Spanish and Italian cities showed some of the largest turnouts against their governments' pro-war stance. More than 400,000 protested in Milan. More than 300,000 protested in Barcelona, forming a mile-long human chain [5]; more than 120,000 marched in Madrid [6]. Marches also took place in Seville, Aranjuez, Palencia, and in the Canary Islands. [7].

Many of the protests were smaller than those in the same cities a month ago; an exception was that in Montreal, which upped its turnout to 200,000 people, one of the largest in the world and by far the largest in Canada. The turnout may have been related to solidarity against American anti-French sentiment, which was a common theme for many of the protesters.[8] A further 15,000 protested in Quebec City. [9] 55,000 protested in Paris, and 4,500 to 10,000 in Marseille. [10]

100,000 protested in Berlin, some 20,000 protested in Athens, close to 10,000 people marched in Tokyo, and tens of thousands in Washington DC. Organizers claimed between 30,000 and 45,000 people turned out, while The Oregonian and the Associated Press estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 people attended, closer to the number in Portland who participated in the January 18 protest. [11] Thousands more marched in cities worldwide including Bangkok, Seoul, Hong Kong, Amman, Calcutta, Melbourne, Christchurch, Dunedin, Paris, London, Portsmouth, Leeds, York, Exeter, Newcastle upon Tyne, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Nicosia, Moscow, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Vancouver, Halifax, Ottawa, and Toronto, as well as cities in Yemen, Turkey, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

[12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

More than 6,000 candlelight vigils for peace were held on March 16 in more than a hundred countries. [17]

[edit] March 19, 2003

A "Walkout" happened in many schools in the United Kingdom where students walked out of school, some risking expulsion and detention, in order to protest at Westminster.

[edit] After the war began

[edit] March 20, 2003

Image:AntiWarProtestersWashington.jpg

Protesters attend a demonstration in Washington DC against Bush's Iraq policy

The day after the invasion of Iraq had begun, thousands of protests and demonstrations around the world were held.

Demonstrations occurred in many cities across the U.S. In some cities — including Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, New York and Portland, Oregon — demonstrators blocked traffic in the city centers with the goal of shutting the cities down, resulting in the arrests of over 2,000 people nationwide. Other cities, such as Boston, Atlanta, Georgia, and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, demonstrations were more peaceful, while in still other cities, people engaged in counter-demonstrations in support of the war.

Approximately 300 protesters demonstrated outside of the federal building in San Francisco, California. Many of the protesters apparently began vomiting on the sidewalks and plaza areas in front of the building and behind the building. Spokesmen told reporters that it was the protesters way of saying that war in Iraq "made them sick."

Seven demonstrators were arrested after attempting to block about 20 federal employees and other visitors trying to enter the building.

Over 100 protesters were arrested in Philadelphia after blocking the entrances to the federal office buildings.

In the morning of March 20, 2003, school students all over Germany held spontaneous marches in Berlin (20,000 participants), Munich (15,000), Stuttgart (15,000), Freiburg (10,000) and Kassel (5,000). Actions started also in Heidelberg, Frankfurt, Leipzig and Nuremberg. Some students reported that their teachers and principals had tried to prevent them from doing so. In Munich, students gathered in front of the university and then marched to the U.S. consulate where they demanded that the American flag be lowered in honor of the killed Iraqi civilians. They walked to the central place of Munich afterwards, where th