"No room for Nazis." jonje - 09.05.2002 01:13
8 May 2002. Left-wing activists protest right-wing gathering on anniversary of Nazi surrender. Wenen, 8 mei 2002. VIENNA --Thousands of students and left-wing activists demonstrated in downtown Vienna Wednesday to mark the anniversary of Nazi Germany´s surrender to the Allies and protest a gathering of right-wing student fraternities elsewhere in the city. Authorities deployed 2,000 police officers across the city to prevent clashes between left-wing activists and far-right extremists. Several thousand students and left-wing activists first gathered near Vienna University, then joined others to march through downtown streets with banners denouncing fascism and right-wing student groups. Police said 3,000 people took part in the march; organizers put the number at up to 6,000. Several people carried Soviet flags with the hammer-and-sickle emblem, others held pictures of Lenin and some were seen carrying banners of Che Guevara. One banner said, "No room for Nazis." Alex Burian, 29, a computer programmer, wearing a bright red T shirt emblazoned with the words "Anti-Nazi League," carried a sign saying "Haider is Hitler," a reference to far-right populist Joerg Haider, the former leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which is part of the Austrian coalition government. "I came here to demonstrate against the fascists, to show that there is a democratic force opposing them and negating their ideology and to show the world that there are more anti-fascists than fascists in Austria," he told a reporter near the university. Meanwhile, some 400 right-wing student fraternity members gathered on a square near the former imperial Hofburg palace and then walked in a torch-lit parade under police escort to a courtyard inside the Hofburg complex for a commemoration mourning the death of Nazi soldiers. Police turned sections of the centre into no-go zones and erected barricades at the entrance to Heldenplatz, or Heroes´ Square, where Hitler addressed thousands of Viennese shortly after Austria was absorbed into Nazi Germany in 1938. Several store owners had boarded over windows in the central shopping district ahead of the rallies but little trouble was reported, with only some minor skirmishes between police and a hardcore of activists at the entrance to Heldenplatz. Petra Kimm, a 19-year-old university student, said: "I think it is a scandal that the right extremists are allowed to demonstrate twice within a month. It is important to show that the people who don´t support such policies are many more and much stronger." On April 13, leftists staging a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally clashed with police, and 33 officers and 18 protesters were injured. The melee began when far-right activists gathered in protest of a museum exhibition on atrocities that German soldiers committed during World War II. Wednesday was the 57th anniversary of Germany´s capitulation and the end of World War II in Europe. The Nazis surrendered on May 7, 1945, and the next day was declared Victory in Europe Day. AP (with additional material by Reuters). Website: http://www.DeWaarheid.nu |