NEW YORK - They have protested naked, used pedal
power, marched and rung bells in the days leading up to the
Republican convention, but on Sunday political activists were
expected to turn out in the hundreds of thousands to rally
against President Bush's policies.
Tensions are high between activists and police, who have
negotiated for months over Sunday's planned march past the
Madison Square Garden convention site by up to 250,000 people
under the banner, "The World Says No To The Bush Agenda."
Ralliers for reproductive rights gather next to City Hall Park in lower Manhattan, August 28, 2004. Planned Parenthood organized the march, which began in Brooklyn, marched over the Brooklyn Bridge, then gathered next to City Hall. The protest was one of many scheduled in conjunction with the Republican National Convention which begins August 30 at Madison Square Garden in New York. Photo by Henny Ray Abrams/Reuters
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Protesters were denied a permit to gather in Central Park
after the march because city officials feared damage to the
grass, but many demonstrators have vowed to go to the park
anyway and that is when many fear arrests.
"We're looking forward to a very large crowd to raise our
voices," said Bill Dobbs, spokesman for the United for Peace
and Justice anti-war coalition, which organized the march.
"People are streaming into New York for this protest despite
efforts to scuttle it."
Police have arrested more than 300 people since Thursday
for disorderly conduct in anti-Bush protests before the Aug.
30-Sept. 2 convention to nominate the president for a second
term in the White House. He will face Democratic candidate Sen.
John Kerry of Massachusetts in the November election.
New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Saturday
that the city's 37,000-member police force was prepared to deal
with all the demonstrations.
The stage was set on Thursday when activists protesting the
Bush administration's AIDS policy stood naked in the street in
front of Madison Square Garden. On Friday night, about 5,000
cyclists roamed central Manhattan, some chanting "No More
Bush," bringing traffic to a virtual standstill.
On Saturday, nearly 20,000 women marched across the
Brooklyn Bridge to support a woman's constitutional right to
have an abortion. The Republican Party platform supports a
constitutional amendment banning abortions.
Then 2,000 people circled the site of the World Trade
Center destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and solemnly
rang bells to protest the Bush administration's military and
diplomatic responses to the attacks on America by Islamic
militants.
"We felt September 11 was being appropriated by
(Republican) spin doctors and they were turning it into a
grotesque endorsement of world domination and domestic
repression," said demonstration organizer Christian Herold.
Police said in a statement that 25 people were arrested in
various other protests in the city on Saturday, bringing the
total number of arrests in three days to 313, including 264 in
the demonstration by cyclists.
Political activists who oppose Bush's economic,
environmental and legal policies have vowed to make themselves
heard by Republicans at the convention, being held under the
tightest security in the history of U.S. political gatherings.
© Copyright 2004 Reuters Ltd
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