Protesters clashed with riot police on Sunday as an anti-NATO protest turned ugly in Chicago when several hundred demonstrators demanding an end to war ignored orders to clear the streets.
As NATO leaders held talks focused on Afghanistan, officials said up to 2,200 people had marched in the city, but later, some protesters faced off with baton-wielding police.
A correspondent saw more than a dozen protesters roughly shoved to the street, handcuffed and hauled away as the angry crowd threw water bottles, wooden sticks and anything else at hand at police clad in riot gear.
Photo: Reuters
News crews captured images of protesters bleeding from head wounds, but officials would not provide information about the number of protesters injured.
Police said 45 people were arrested as of 9pm and four police officers suffered minor injuries.
A tight security blanket has been thrown over Chicago, the hometown of US President Barack Obama, which is hosting more than 50 world leaders for the two-day summit.
While police were able to eventually disperse the protesters gathered near the summit, the crowd simply shifted to the central business district, where noisy scuffles continued as darkness fell.
The hours-long standoff began after an otherwise peaceful march led by a group of veterans who spoke passionately about their opposition to the war before tossing their medals into the street.
One man marched with a guitar and sang Give Peace a Chance, while others around him chanted: “This is what democracy looks like” and “The people yes! NATO no!”
Peter Andamczak, 27, hand-rolled his wheelchair for miles because he thinks money being wasted on wars would be better spent on social services.
“NATO is the military arm of the international ruling class, and we are sending our US tax dollars of citizens here in America to them to fight wars and to create death and destruction,” he said.
High school student Isabel Olivia, 18, joined a Code Pink contingent and played with a pink cardboard gun that declared: “NO NATO.”
“They’re spending money on wars instead of school so we can’t get into college because it’s too expensive,” she said.
Police began to move in to clear the streets after the speakers wrapped up, but a core group of several hundred protesters refused to leave.
Tensions grew after several black-clad youth were dragged away by police.
Then officers in riot gear with masks lowered began to march slowly down the streets as a loudspeaker boomed in English and Spanish: “Attention! This is the Chicago Police Department. You must disperse to the west.”
Five protesters hooked arms and kicked up their feet in a can-can singing: “You’re sexy, you’re cute, take off your riot suit” to no avail.
One young woman cried after begging police not to force the protesters away from a security fence surrounding the sprawling convention center where the summit was being held, pushed out by a thick line of police holding batons and yelling: “Move! Move!”
Fears of violent demonstrations have put Chicago on edge, with some downtown businesses boarding up their windows and others telling office workers to ditch their suits and ties to avoid being hassled.
Four protesters were arrested prior to the march on terrorism charges and accused of plotting to toss Molotov cocktails and attack Obama’s campaign office, police stations, banks and the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.
The city’s Web site was also hit by a cyberattack, police said.
Police and protest organizers had vowed that there will be no repeat of the trouble that erupted at G20 summits in London and Toronto or the riots that scarred Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing