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| Zuccotti Park |
In the U.S., the authorities against the camp of "Occupy" movement. The New York Police Department has started the night with the eviction of the protest camps of critics Bank in Manhattan. According to the "New York Times," the action of the security forces started to clock 01.00 (local time). Who the invitation is not to leave the park nachkam came into police custody.
According to observers on the ground hundreds of protesters seized at the request of many official one their tents and left the premises. Before use, the police have distributed leaflets in the camp and asked the protesters to leave the camps, it said. In turn, activists demanded the police to help resist their service instructions. On the edge of the park there were scuffles.
The police had circled only a small group in the center of the park, it said. Participants reported a broad approach by the police. "I was shocked. They've pulled their hands back on the back. They were really brutal," said a 35-year-old. A spokesman for the Police said 15 people had been arrested. They were accused of disturbing the peace. Police said most people left the park peacefully.
In the camp had in recent weeks, hundreds of people camped and demonstrated for a closer monitoring of the banks, and higher taxes for the rich. The office of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the demonstrators left the area only temporarily so it could be cleaned.
By the protesters as "Freedom Square" called Zuccotti Park was more intense in the past two months the scene of protests. The movement "Occupy Wall Street" ("Busy Wall Street") was in September in New York took its origin and spread to other cities. Even in Germany, had critics of the financial system under the slogan "Occupy" extensive protests organized. Tent villages are on the edge of the financial district or to the government district it in Frankfurt / Main and Berlin.
The ongoing since mid-September protest is directed against the effects of the financial and economic crisis on the middle class and the poor. The mostly young participants described as the "99 percent" - in allusion to the richest one percent of the U.S. population from which they feel betrayed. In the U.S., their arguments come in many parts of the population of sympathetic understanding.
One dead as an excuse?
On Monday the police a similar protest camp in Oakland, California, had cleared a large contingent. Police Chief Howard Jordan said loudly, "San Francisco Chronicle" of 32 arrests. Officials in heavy equipment encircled the camp in the city and tore down the tents of the protesters. Mayor Jean Quan, according to a murder case was in the vicinity of the camp of the reason for the action.
However, whether there is indeed a connection is not yet clear. Observers spoke of a pretext. An adviser to the mayor submitted his resignation in protest. Already weeks before New York authorities had tried to evacuate the center of the protests in Zuccotti Park having regard to the hygienic situation temporarily.
New blockade announced
Shortly before the eviction activists for next Thursday, a blockade of Wall Street had been announced. It should be the largest protest movement. The New York Stock Exchange should be paralyzed with a street carnival, it said on the Facebook page of the New York activist. It would be expected up to 10,000 people, said a spokesman Occupy.
The protesters wanted the campaign claims to celebrate her two-month anniversary. Since its first action on 17 September, the movement has expanded to other cities in the U.S. and other countries. At the weekend there was again in Berlin and Frankfurt demonstrations against the power of the banks and from the perspective of the participants unjust financial system.
This Thursday, the protesters really wanted to march from her in a nearby park erected tented camp on Wall Street and spread from there to the subway through the city. Later they wish to once again gather for a march across the Brooklyn Bridge. Last month had been taken for a sensational protest march over the bridge more than 700 demonstrators into custody after they blocked traffic there.
So far it is unclear whether the plan is affected by the evacuation of the camp in Zuccotti Park. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the New York Stock Exchange will open on time. "People can go to work," Bloomberg made it clear who was himself formerly a stockbroker.
