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United in Struggle!
Proletariër - 15.09.2002 00:27
14 september 2002.
Italië - Rome, 14 september 2002.
Italië - Rome, 14 september 2002.
Oostenrijk - Salzburg, 14 september 2002.
Oostenrijk - Salzburg, 14 september 2002.
14 September 2002: At least 100,000 protesters gathered in central Rome's Piazza San Giovanni, accusing conservative Premier Silvio Berlusconi of using political power for his personal benefit, and saying opposition parties aren't doing enough about it -- and (second photo) to oppose US plans for attacking Iraq.
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14 September 2002: Demonstration against racism and capitalism in Salzburg, Austria, ahead of the European Economic Summit, starting on upcoming Monday at the city's congress center.
 Website: http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2002/09/6327.shtml
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| supplements | | | Quarter of a million rally against Berlusconi | Proletariër - 15.09.2002 19:55
AFP (with additional material by Reuters, BBC and AP). 14 September 2002. A quarter of a million rally against Berlusconi in Rome.
ROME -- Around a quarter of a million people thronged central Rome for a citizen's protest against planned legal reforms by the government of Silvio Berlusconi, which opponents say are designed to scupper his own trial on corruption charges.
Police estimated that 250,000 had turned out for the citizen's protest organised by Oscar-winning film-maker Nanni Moretti.
Moretti, who addressed the crowd from a stage erected in St John in Lateran Square, blasted Berlusconi's reforms as being tailor-made for himself.
"Berlusconi is not against democracy, he's a total stranger to democracy because he doesn't know it and he doesn't understand it and considers it something which is a total waste of time."
Moretti, who leads a grassroots citizens' movement which sees itself as a non-parliamentary opposition, said he hoped the size of Saturday's demo would galvanise the centre-left opposition, which he criticised for internal bickering that only played into Berlusconi's hands.
"Please, don't fight among yourselves any more about nothing. Stop squabbling like children. Talk about politics, public education, war and peace, but stop talking about nothing."
Moretti said centre-left leaders like Francesco Rutelli and Piero Fassino, who were in the crowd but not invited to speak, should feel encouraged but he warned them that the voters should "no longer be relied upon for blind support."
A good natured crowd, some holding banners declaring "We are outraged," and "No Democracy without Justice," packed into the square for the festive protest as pop bands provided entertainment from the stage.
"There are more than 200,000 of us. We are protesting that all Italians are equal before the law," one of the organisers, University of Florence geography professor Francesco Pardi told AFP.
Demonstrators who form part of Moretti's citizens' movement arrived late Friday and early Saturday in special trains and coaches from all over the country.
Francesca, a woman in the 60s, said she had come from Milan to take part in a demonstration for the first time in her life.
"We are outraged," she said. "More than a dozen MPs in our parliament should be in prison. Starting with Berlusconi. We don't want him humiliating Italy."
Inevitably, the demonstration also took on the tones of an anti-war protest.
The demonstration came as Berlusconi -- a media magnate who is Italy's richest man -- was in the United States, meeting with President George W. Bush about possible military action in Iraq.
Italian public opinion is heavily against joining in any military action against Iraq.
Alda Armando, a 62-year-old former teacher, flew down from Turin for the rally, saying it was the first time she had been politically involved.
"The government's behavior is disgusting," she said. "It is too much too bear."
Ahead of Saturday's rally, Nobel literature prize winner Dario Fo and his wife and literary partner Franca Rame attended a demonstration outside Rome's central Regina Coeli prison.
Prisoners hung banners out of the windows of their cells saying that since they had to undergo trials, Berlusconi should do the same.
Since February, Moretti has organized a series of demonstrations known as "ring-around-the-rosy" protests, named because the activists join hands and march around in circles. Moretti -- whose film "The Son's Room" won top prize last year at the Cannes Film Festival -- became politically active this year because of frustration with Italy's left, whom he accuses of internal bickering.
Protester Marco Tagliaferro, a 36-year-old from outside the northern city of Parma, came down to Rome by bus, saying he hoped the protest would strengthen the opposition.
"Today's demonstration is a seed for the future for a sterile left," he said.
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