More than 700 anti-Wall Street activists were arrested on Saturday evening in New York amid chaotic scenes on Brooklyn Bridge after the protest movement’s march against “corporate greed” was broken up by police.
The activists, many of whom have been camped out in Manhattan for two weeks, were detained during their latest and biggest demonstration yet against government-backed bank bail-outs and corporate influence in US politics.
The “Occupy Wall Street” movement said it had staked its ground in downtown Manhattan “as a symbolic gesture of our discontent with the current economic and political climate.”
Photo: Reuters
Some of the demonstrators carried hand-drawn placards that read “End the Fed” and “Pepper spray Goldman Sachs” in what police described as a peaceful protest that nevertheless saw hundreds detained for public order offenses.
“More than 700 people were arrested. Most of them for disorderly conduct,” a New York Police Department (NYPD) spokesperson said.
The anti-Wall Street activists began their campaign by occupying Zuccotti Park, in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, on Sept. 17 and have since held protests outside the New York Stock Exchange and NYPD headquarters.
Some of those arrested at the bridge on Saturday were released after a few hours, while others would likely be held for a day or could receive a court summons, police said.
“We are the majority. We are the 99 percent. And we will no longer be silent,” Occupy Wall Street, which describes itself as a resistance movement inspired by the Arab Spring, said in a statement.
Saturday’s protest forced authorities to shut down the bridge for several hours as police placed protesters in handcuffs while others chanted slogans.
Another NYPD spokesperson said there were “several hundred protesters who decided to walk on the roadway and who blocked traffic. Some heeded the warnings, some left and arrests were made.”
Police shut down the Brooklyn Bridge “for a couple of hours” in the late afternoon, the NYPD said, adding that many protesters had remained on the bridge’s pedestrian walkway without incident.
Protesters have added police brutality to their lengthy and still vaguely defined list of grievances after a senior officer used pepper spray against four demonstrators who had already been shut inside a police pen a week ago.
Meanwhile, in Boston on Saturday, 24 protesters were arrested and charged with trespassing as a vast crowd marched outside Bank of America offices.
Right to the City, the coalition of advocacy groups that organized the demonstration, said the event was held to protest corporate greed and to stop bank foreclosures.
According to organizers, about 3,000 people marched outside the bank. Police did not provide a crowd estimate.
CARROT AND STICK: While unrelenting in its military threats, China attracted nearly 40,000 Taiwanese to over 400 business events last year Nearly 40,000 Taiwanese last year joined industry events in China, such as conferences and trade fairs, supported by the Chinese government, a study showed yesterday, as Beijing ramps up a charm offensive toward Taipei alongside military pressure. China has long taken a carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan, threatening it with the prospect of military action while reaching out to those it believes are amenable to Beijing’s point of view. Taiwanese security officials are wary of what they see as Beijing’s influence campaigns to sway public opinion after Taipei and Beijing gradually resumed travel links halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the scale of
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
Pope Francis is be laid to rest on Saturday after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff. The cardinals met yesterday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10. The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
RSS