Women protest against Trump in Europe, Asia

World Saturday 21/January/2017 18:57 PM
By: Times News Service
Women protest against Trump in Europe, Asia

London/Vienna: Thousands of women took to the streets of European capitals to join "sister marches" in Asia against newly installed US President Trump.
Waving banners with slogans like "Special relationship, just say no" and "Nasty women unite," the demonstrators gathered outside the American embassy in Grosvenor Square before heading to a rally in central Trafalgar Square.
Worldwide some 670 marches were planned, according to the organisers' website which says more than two million marchers are expected to protest against Trump, who was sworn in as the 45th US president on Friday.
Celebrities including rights activist Bianca Jagger, singer Charlotte Church and actor Ian McKellen expressed their support for the protest on social media.
Several marchers carried banners with slogans.
In Europe, marches also took place in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Geneva and Amsterdam.
Around 2,000 people marched in Vienna, according to estimates by the police and organisers, but sub-zero temperatures quickly thinned the crowd to a couple of hundred.
In Geneva police estimated around 1,000 people, mainly women and children, marched through the Swiss city.
In Africa, hundreds of protesters in Nairobi's Karura Forest waved placards and sang American protest songs.
Emily MacCartney, a 28-year-old documentary maker with a Texas tattoo on her arm, said she felt the new president did not respect women's rights.
Kenyan Muthoni Ngige, 28, said, "I'm here in solidarity with the women of America."
Many marchers were also irate about the New York real estate developer's demeaning comments about immigrants and Muslims, and his apparent lack of interest in environmental affairs.
In Sydney, Australia's biggest city, about 3,000 people - men and women - gathered for a rally in Hyde Park before marching on the US consulate downtown, while organisers said 5,000 people rallied in Melbourne.
"We're not marching as an anti-Trump movement per se, we're marching to protest the hate speech, the hateful rhetoric, the misogyny, the bigotry, the xenophobia and we want to present a united voice with women around the globe," organiser Mindy Freiband told Reuters.
In New Zealand, there were marches in four cities, involving around 2,000 people, Wellington's march organiser Bette Flagler told Reuters.
Elsewhere in Asia, hundreds of people joined protests in Tokyo, including many American expatriates.