BBC - Tuesday, 1 May, 2001, 10:57 GMT 11:57 UK

May Day protesters take to streets

Arrests followed an attempted blockade of Sydney's stock exchange

After violent protests in Australia and Germany, cities throughout the world - including London - are bracing for further May Day demonstrations.

In Australia, about 30 people were injured after thousands of anti-globalisation protesters fought with police in Melbourne and Sydney, blockading buildings and burning political effigies.

Two policemen were injured, one stabbed in the leg, and about dozens of marchers were arrested after demonstrators attempted to blockade the Sydney stock exchange.

Protestors blockaded streets in Sydney

Protesters in Brisbane threw themselves on the road to try to prevent police vans taking those arrested away.

"The world belongs to the people. The streets belong to the people," shouted protesters in Brisbane.

In Germany, riot police in Berlin clashed with anti-capitalist protesters in two separate locations in former east Berlin, one on the site of the Berlin Wall itself.

Demonstrators blocked roads, erected barricades, and pelted police with bottle and stones.

Dozens of rioters were arrested as police moved in with water cannon and armoured cars. A police spokesman said many officers have been injured.

German riot police clashed with left-wing demonstrators

Authorities had banned the march - organised by militant anarchist groups - in an attempt to prevent violence breaking out.

However, the neo-nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) has been given clearance for a march on the eastern outskirts of the capital.

In the UK, more than 6,000 police have been deployed as thousands of people prepare to stage an anti-capitalist protest in the heart of London.

Police have warned they will use 'zero tolerance' tactics to stop hardcore activists from hijacking the demonstration.

In Zimbabwe, riot police moved in to break up trouble at a traditional May Day rally between trade unionists linked to the opposition, and self-styled war veterans backed by the government.

The police are said to have moved in to protect a war veteran leader who was jostled as he attempted to address thousands of workers gathered in a stadium in central Harare.

The war veterans, who have been attacking businesses in Zimbabwe's cities, say they can better represent the rights of urban workers.

South Korean workers protested against job cuts

In Pakistan, police have arrested about 100 pro-democracy protestors attempting to defy a ban on public meetings imposed by the military regime.

Large numbers of police and paramilitary have been deployed on the streets.

In South Korea, thousands of South Korean workers marched through Seoul to protest against economic reforms that have resulted in layoffs.

Meanwhile, demonstrations in the Palestinian territories, against Israel, and in Turkey, against a wage freeze, are also planned.

The Palestine Labour Union said in a statement it had organised May Day demonstrations in the autonomous towns of the West Bank and marches to "protest against Israeli occupation and support the intifada".

In Cuba, workers will mark May Day with their traditional protests against the United States.

In India, the Taleban leadership in Afghanistan will be the target of protests by prostitutes in the city of Calcutta.

They are planning a march to highlight what they say is the oppression of women in Afghanistan.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001

Answers

And for those of us who follow some of the Old Ways, May Day was far more peaceful. I started this morning with the traditional custom of bathing my face in the dew. Then I made 17 bouquets of 6 different kinds of daffodils for teachers and other staff at Thumper and Elphine's schools, loaded the home-made cupcakes for Thumper's class into the car.

Sunday I danced the maypole after walking between the sacred bonfires, our fires echoing fires being lit all over the world, and a mere shadow of the inner fires blazing in us. Did you know that the rule of thumb for the length of maypole ribbons is that they should be three times the height of the pole? That you need to have an even number?

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001

Ah, traditions!

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001

Maypole dancing in Quorn Village

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001

We had about 40 people dancing at our maypole, ranging from a guy who is about 6'4" and 250# to a little girl about 40" and 50#, so you can imagine the contortions some folks had to go through. This year was not as well-danced as other years, due to a lot of newcomers. But the thing to remember with public maypoles done by amateurs, if someone is coming at you and determined to go over or under you whether that is the direction they should be doing, it is better to gracefully submit and move on. We'd have knots of order, then eddies of chaos -- it was probably an illustration of some esoteric mathematical principle at work.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001

BBC - Tuesday, 1 May, 2001, 21:14 GMT 22:14 UK

Police disperse London protesters

Riot police have dispersed crowds of anti-capitalist protesters who had converged on London's main shopping street on May Day.

The mass protest - a loose alliance of anti-capitalists, environmental campaigners and animal rights protesters - was contained in the centre of London by a huge police operation.

There were clashes throughout the day and some looting, but no repeat of last year's rioting and widespread damage.

Up to 6,000 police officers corralled about 5,000 demonstrators in and around Oxford Circus, the hub of London's West End.

There was a tense stand-off for more than eight hours as police and demonstrators came to blows in a series of minor scuffles.

But as night fell police drip-fed demonstrators out of the main crowd and by 2200BST just a few hundred remained in the Oxford Street area.

Earlier, there were violent demonstrations in Australia and Germany as May Day prompted protests against multinational corporations and trade bodies around the world.

Minimal damage

Buildings were blockaded in Melbourne and Sydney and dozens were arrested as police moved in with water cannon in Berlin.

In London about 50 people were arrested and more than 12 injured, but minimal damage was caused.

Many demonstrators were angry at being hemmed in by police during the day, and said police had stifled their right to peaceful protest.

The Metropolitan police said that at 2030BST about 50 protesters, who had been previously contained in the Oxford Circus area, broke away into Oxford Street and regrouped.

In a very short space of time they overturned a car, tried to set fire to a Tesco store in Goodge Street and smashed up to 20 windows in Tottenham Court Road.

"A number of those responsible were swiftly arrested but tension in the area remains high," said a police spokesman.

Sit-in protest

Schools and a library in Westminster were closed on May Day and dozens of London businesses lost millions of pounds after being forced to shut.

Fifteen activists, masked by balaclavas, stormed into a Sainsbury's store in central London screaming anti-capitalist chants, while others hurled concrete slabs at police.

Officers exchanged blows with demonstrators at several points around Oxford Street as crowds surged earlier in the day.

At one stage demonstrators staged a sit-down protest outside the Niketown and H&M shops at Oxford Circus.

There were reports of fighting between the protesters themselves, the Met spokesman said.

Most of the arrests - which include eight foreign nationals from Poland, Denmark, Belgium, and the United States - were for relatively minor offences.

London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, said there was a marked contrast between London and other capitals where violence flared.

The Met said several officers had been injured during the day's events. A female PC was taken to hospital after sustaining crush injuries in the Oxford Circus area.

Early protests 'peaceful'

The day's demonstrations began with a 500-strong go-slow cyclists' protest, disrupting morning rush-hour traffic on some of London's busiest routes.

Police held up several hundred cyclists in a side-street at Euston Square to try to prevent further traffic problems.

Other organised events such as bird feeding in Trafalgar Square and a demonstration outside the Queen's bank, Coutts in The Strand, passed peacefully with police heavily outnumbering protesters.

Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Mike Todd denied police had over-reacted by predicting widespread violence.

He told the BBC the aim was to deter violence and the peaceful start to the day had "vindicated" the Met's strategy.

Police forces elsewhere in the UK were dealing with smaller anti-capitalist demonstrations in Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001