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THE
DAY THE WORLD DEMONSTRATED AGAINST WAR
ON IRAQ |
At the European Social Forum, anti-war organisations in 11 European
countries agreed to demonstrate against Bush and Blair's war on the
same day: 15 February 2003. A follow-up meeting in Copenhagen
on 15 December agreed to co-ordinate European-wide action. In December
a landmark conference in Cairo
initiated a new International
Campaign Against US Aggression on Iraq [add
your support].
In the run-up to the 15 February, alongside many other organisations around
the world, we called for unity for a world-wide protest on the same
day or the weekend, against the prospect of war. Our solidarity,
thanks and international respect goes out to everyone who organised
protests against the war. Over 30 million people worldwide
demonstrated as a result. We have to keep building the
movement, bigger, deeper and stronger against the war and its aftermath.
In the UK, up to 2 million people demonstrated
in London while 100,000 protested in Glasgow outside
the Labour Party Conference where Blair was speaking. The demonstration
in London was jointly organised by the Stop
the War Coalition, Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim
Association of Britain and represents the biggest ever
political demonstration in British history. The demonstration in
Scotland was organised by the Scottish
Coalition for Justice Not War.
Leaked minutes of Cabinet meetings and Blair's
own confession to the Sun newspaper indicate just how close
we came to stopping Blair going to war. The problem for the government
and Labour MPs was that this would represent such a U-turn that
Blair and the cabinet would have had to resign. There was no New
Labour Plan B. Our demonstrations created the biggest post-war political
crisis for a sitting government, but a demonstration in itself could
not force their hand. Nonetheless, in the months ahead, we should
not lose sight of just how close we came.
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Stop the War - Around the World |
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were demonstrations in every continent
(total over 600) including: Adelaide,
Albacete, Alicante, Amsterdam,
Antwerp (12.02), Aotearoa/NZ,
Athens
[Greece], Auckland,
Bangkok, Barcelona
[and 9 more across Catalunya], Beirut, Belfast, Berlin,
Berne,
Brisbane,
Brussels,
Budapest,
Busan, Cairo, Calgary,
Canberra,
Cape
Town, Chicago,
Chittagong, Copenhagen,
Cyprus
British Army Bases, Damascus, Dhaka, Dili, Dublin,
Edmonton,
Foster, Geelong,
Glasgow, Granada, Guernsey, Havana, Helsinki,
Hobart,
Hong Kong, Huelva, Islamabad, Istanbul,
Jaén, Jakarta, Jersey, Johannesburg, Kiev,
Kigali, Kuala
Lumpur, Lahore, Launceston,
Lisbon,
Lismore,
Llubljana,
London,
Los
Angeles, Luxembourg,
Madrid,
Málaga, Manila, Martinique, Melbourne,
Mexico
City, Montreal,
Moscow,
Murcia, New
York, Newcastle
[Australia], Osaka, Oslo,
Oviedo, Paris
[and some
50 cities in France], Perth,
Philadelphia,
Poznan, Prague,
Ramallah, Reunion
Island, Reykjavik,
Rockhampton,
Rome,
Salamanca, San
Francisco, San Juan, Santander, Santo Domingo, Sao
Paulo, Seattle,
Seoul, Shetlands, Skopje, Sofia, Stockholm,
Strahan, Sydney,
Takaka, Tallinn, Tel
Aviv, Tokyo,
Toronto,
Vienna,
Valetta, Vigo, Vilnius, Warsaw,
Wollongong
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Selected pictures are also available at a higher resolution (typically
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