Thousands of Anti-War Demonstrators March

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators, stretching across several blocks of midtown Manhattan, marched down Broadway today to voice their opposition to the ongoing war against Iraq.

"We all want peace," read one sign in the crowd as the marchers headed downtown from Herald Square on a spring afternoon.

"We gather here as New Yorkers determine to add our voices to the global movement calling for peace," said Leslie Cagan, co-chair of march organizers United for Peace and Justice.

Among the early arrivals were actors Roy Scheider, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and singer Patti Smith. Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania and the general secretary of the National Council of Churches, was also waiting to march.

"I believe if you really want to show shock and awe, you should show love and justice," said Edgar. "That would shock the world."

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said that joining the march did not mean a repudiation of patriotism.

"We support the troops, but we do not support the president," said Rangel, a Korean War veteran.

The city granted antiwar protesters a permit sanctioning a march starting at West 35th Street and continuing down Broadway, where it jogs around Union Square. The route resumes down Broadway before cutting west to Washington Square Park, where demonstrators are to disperse.

Organizers predicted it would be the largest protest among several planned across the nation on Saturday.

Other celebrities invited to march were the Rev. Jesse Jackson, rapper Mos Def, rock singer Patti Smith, and several labor leaders and politicians.

Unlike past protests, there are no plans for a stage and speakers.

Granting the permit was a switch for the city: In February, officials cited security risks in denying a permit to United for Peace and Justice for a march past the United Nations.

The city instead allowed a rally outside the United Nations that drew 100,000 people. Some protesters clashed with police, resulting in 274 arrests.

This time, officials expect a turnout of about 20,000 people, while organizers say the number could go higher. The NYPD — its resources already tested by wartime security demands — will deploy hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes officers along the route.

Since the war began, smaller groups of protesters have rallied for peace each day in Union Square.

Saturday's march was expected to draw protesters from outside the city. Ben Goodman, a college student from Albany, N.Y., said he would be there "to protest the administration's cowboy diplomacy."

Bloomberg, speaking Friday on his weekly radio show, questioned the motives of some demonstrators.

"There's always somebody who isn't trying to protest — they're trying to get arrested," he said. "They're trying to create an incident."

Anti-war protests were planned today for New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Paul, Minn., and other cities. Protests to show support for U.S. troops also were planned.

On Friday, raucous bands of demonstrators marched through the streets of San Francisco in the largest of the nation's anti-war protests, and remained on the streets late into the night.

Two side-by-side rallies, one attacking and the other defending U.S. policies, were held in Pittsburgh's downtown Market Square. Printer Bryan Reiter and co-workers left their job for a pro-U.S. rally, and held a sign that read: "War is evil, but sometimes it is the lesser of evils."

At a Columbus, Ohio, rally to support U.S. soldiers, several hundred people brought shaving cream, toothpaste and other supplies for the troops. In return, Gov. Bob Taft's office distributed 1,000 red, white and blue ribbons.

Protests were far more subdued on Friday than on Thursday, when police made more than 2,000 arrests, including more than 1,300 in San Francisco. On Friday, about 900 people were arrested in San Francisco, 65 in Chicago, 26 in Washington, D.C., and at least six in Portland, Ore. None were detained in New York.

Though earlier protests had been peaceful, even festive, some demonstrators scuffled with police, and San Francisco police on Friday vowed to be more aggressive in controlling the crowds.

"We went from what I would call legal protests to absolute anarchy," Assistant Police Chief Alex Fagan Sr. said. His department said it spent $450,000 containing the demonstrations.

The policy was evident Friday night, when San Francisco police divided, cordoned off and arrested a crowd of a few hundred, some of whom said they were not demonstrating but caught up in the marching crowd. Several journalists who were covering the protests were detained.

Many anti-war demonstrations focused on federal buildings and the offices of politicians, including Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman in Hartford, Conn., and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer in New York. All three voted in October to authorize President Bush to use military force, if necessary, to disarm Iraq.

Three anti-war demonstrators were arrested as they tried to enter the Nashville office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and in San Francisco, police blocked hundreds from entering the offices of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

In Olympia, Wash., a vigil at the Capitol entered its third day Friday. Peace activists with candles arrived shortly before the first bombs fell over Iraq Wednesday, and have since maintained a presence.

The turnouts were considerably scaled down from Thursday, when an estimated 2,000 people protested the war in downtown Seattle, hundreds more marched in Bellingham and Olympia, and smaller groups turned out in Yakima and Spokane.

In the nation's capital, about 100 people gathered outside a park near the White House. Atop the stroller of 2 1/2-year-old Margot Bloch her mother, Nadine, had written: "Be nice. No hitting. Peace now." Police said 22 people were arrested for disrupting traffic.

Smaller groups of protesters staged "die-ins" at major intersections near the White House, lying down and drawing chalk lines around their bodies, or smearing fake blood on themselves and the street.

Fake blood was also tossed Friday in Lawrence, Kan., where a man dressed as Uncle Sam stopped traffic as he dribbled red liquid on mock victims lying in the street.

At a federal courthouse in Baltimore, about 45 people were arrested after blocking a driveway. University of Maryland students staged a mock "funeral for democracy" in nearby College Park and about 70 protesters waved anti-war banners before trying to enter the building. When security guards blocked them, they dropped to the damp ground to simulate war casualties.

"We are mourning the deaths of innocent Iraqis who have no responsibility for anything their government may have done," said Ellen Barfield as she lay on her back in the grass.

In Boston on Friday, a five-week peace march culminated with a 200-person rally on City Hall Plaza.

"It's more important than ever that we continue to walk and pray and raise our voices against this war," said Sister Clare Carter of the Buddhist Peace Pagoda in Leverett, Mass., where the march started Feb. 16. "If we give in to war, there really is no hope."

RALLIES IN BRITAIN

Demanding "Blair Out!" and "Bring Our Boys Home!," tens of thousands of anti-war protesters massed in central London to put pressure on British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government over the Iraq conflict.

"I think Blair has gone totally against the wishes of the British people," said protester Rick Edwards, out with his eight-year-old daughter for a demonstration that organisers said was quickly swelling to number more than 100,000 people.

"I want to stand up and be counted as against this," he added.

Police said it was premature to estimate numbers by early afternoon on Saturday, but confirmed the protests were passing off peacefully as they did when more than a million turned out for the UK's biggest ever peace march last month.

"Today's will be the biggest ever demonstration against war in British history during wartime," said Carmel Brown, a spokeswoman for the umbrella group Stop the War Coalition.

Blair's commitment of 45,000 British troops alongside nearly a quarter of a million American forces for a war without U.N. blessing has divided Britain and put him in the most precarious position of his six-year premiership.

Many Britons have rallied round once the troops went in, and latest polls show support for the war rising to about half from only a third in favour for months before. But there is still militant opposition from some, widespread suspicion of U.S. motives, and a split within Blair's ruling Labour Party.

"I'm ashamed to be British because of the way they are treating the Islamic world," a British convert to Islam, who gave her name only as Noora, said on the march. "I think it's a war on Islam. The U.S. won't stop at Iraq."

Marshalled by hundreds of policemen, demonstrators including children and many Muslims banged trumpets and blew whistles.

"Bush, Blair, CIA, how many kids can you kill today?" they chanted. Placard slogans ranged from "Why?" and "No War, Blair Out" to "Blair kills kids" and "We Arm Dictators And Bomb Their People."

"This has shown so many people that Blair doesn't want to listen to what they have to say. This isn't just about the war. It's a question of democracy," another protester Jacqui Freeman, 28, said near the banks of the River Thames.

Despite the deadly seriousness of events in Iraq, there was a carnival atmosphere at the UK protest on a clear, sunny day.

RALLIES IN ASIA

Muslims in Asia staged peaceful anti-war rallies on Saturday, as thousands of protesters took to the streets across the region to condemn the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.

About 2,000 protesters rallied outside the heavily fortified U.S. embassy in Indonesia's capital Jakarta, shouting anti-U.S. slogans before marching to the U.N. office a few blocks away.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country and generally a U.S. ally, has long opposed any attack against Iraq. Political and religious leaders had warned a strike could spark a widespread, possibly violent reaction.

In neighboring Muslim-majority Malaysia, about 8,000 people shouted "Destroy America" as they took part in a "peace run" in eastern Kelantan state. Officials canceled a similar event in the capital Kuala Lumpur, fearing it could stoke emotions, as the U.S.-led war against Iraq entered a third day.

Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S. war on terror and a hotbed of Islamic militancy, saw only scattered protests.

About 500 students from Islamic schools marched through Lahore, shouting: "Iraq, we are with you." In the restive commercial capital of Karachi, students burned U.S. flags and lawyers called for a boycott of American products.

In Muslim Bangladesh, protesters burned American flags and called a half-day general strike in the capital Dhaka. There were no reports of violence.

But analysts caution the muted protests do not reflect the degree of anger among the overwhelming majority of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims — whether they support Iraq's Saddam Hussein or not — and point out the war has barely started.

NORTH KOREA NEXT

In South Korea, some 3,000 protesters, including students and religious leaders, gathered in the capital Seoul to protest against the war and their government's decision to send up to 700 non-combat troops to assist the U.S.-led war.

South Korea is a close U.S. ally but many people chafe at the presence of 37,000 U.S. troops there. Some protesters worried North Korea could become Washington's next target.

"This war shows that the United States can strike North Korea anytime it wants, just like it hit Baghdad without a U.N. agreement," said 29-year-old designer Kim Soo-myung.

In New Zealand, about 4,000 people, many blowing trumpets and banging drums, some splattered with mock blood, marched to the U.S. Embassy in the New Zealand capital Wellington.

The Wellington demonstrators chanted: "We don't want your bloody war," before hurling toilet rolls and vials of red liquid into the heavily fortified U.S. embassy compound.

Around 3,000 protesters, some sporting gas masks and black arm bands, marched through the streets of Brisbane in neighboring Australia, bringing traffic to a standstill.

A poll on Saturday showed support had jumped for Australia's involvement in the war. Australia, which deployed around 2,000 troops to the Gulf, said on Saturday its special forces had been involved in fighting deep inside Iraq.

More than 15,000 Muslims gathered at a rally in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta, where speakers attacked the United States for an "anti-Islamic" war.

"The United States is fighting against Islam and humanity and has destroyed the United Nations by ignoring it and attacking Iraq," S.M.N. Rahman Barkati, a senior Muslim cleric, told the crowd, in which many men wore white skull caps.

"Allah-o-Akbar" (God is Great) and "Down with America," the crowd roared in response.

Nearly 5,000 men and women marched to the U.S. embassy in the Indian capital New Delhi. Some carried bottles, which they said contained a mixture of blood and gasoline, and shouted: "Take this, this is what you want, and stop attacking Iraq."

Other protests were held in Thailand and Vietnam.