Protests against Iraq war simmer in Asia, Mideast

Protests against Iraq war simmer in Asia, Mideast

Agencies, Dhaka

Opponents of the U.S.-led war against Iraq rallied outside U.S. embassies in Asian and Middle Eastern countries on Tuesday, keeping up a barrage of criticism of President George W. Bush and urging a boycott of U.S. movies and music.

Protests were held in the Muslim-majority countries of Bangladesh and Malaysia. In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, there were calls to boycott Western movies and music.

In Australia's cold and damp Tasmania, women stripped to the buff and lay down to spell out "No War".

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators again took to the streets of Middle East capitals on Tuesday to protest against the war on neighboring Iraq, burning U.S., British and Israeli flags.

Members of the crowd in Damascus called Bush a "pig" and a "criminal" and described British Prime Minister Tony Blair as Bush's "lackey and dog".

"We will sacrifice ourselves for Iraq," they chanted as they marched from the Hijaz train station to parliament.

"Bush, Blair, (Israeli President Ariel) Sharon, the triangle of international terrorism," read their placards.

The demonstrators, mostly civil servants, students and members of Syria's Baath party-led ruling coalition, also carried portraits of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Iraqi counterpart Saddam Hussein.

Syria has been a strong critic of the ongoing war.

Antiriot police posted around the U.S. Embassy prevented the demonstrators from approaching the mission.

Elsewhere in the Arab world, thousands of Libyans as well as other Arab and African nationals demonstrated in Tripoli, where they burnt effigies of war allies Bush and Blair.

"With our blood, we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Iraq," chanted the crowd estimated to number 30,000 outside the Iraqi embassy.

Police cordoned off roads leading to the embassies of Britain and Kuwait, where a Kuwaiti flag was torn down on Sunday by protesters angry at the emirate's support for the war on its neighbor Iraq.

In Egypt, thousands of students kept up their daily pro-Iraq demonstrations held around the country since the start of the war aimed at toppling Saddam, organizers said.

"Open the borders, let us go fight," students chanted in Kafr al-Sheikh, north of Cairo. "Bush, Blair, Sharon, go to hell."

More than 3,000 students at Menufiya university, also north of Cairo also demonstrated, as did 2,000 from the women's section of Al-Azhar Islamic university in the capital.

Students in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast said they had launched a solidarity campaign, calling random telephone subscribers in Iraq to pledge their support for Baghdad.

Nearly 2,000 antiwar protesters scuffled with security forces in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka as they broke through police lines set up to guard the U.S. Embassy.

Police chased and dispersed the protesters, who stormed through the barbed wire barricade set up several blocks away from the embassy, witnesses said.

The protesters, chanting "Drop Bush, not bombs" and "No war for oil", burned a U.S. flag and an effigy of Bush.

In Malaysia, about 100 ruling and opposition party supporters protested together outside the U.S. embassy in a rare show of unity, demanding an immediate end to the attack on Iraq.

It was the first street protest in the capital Kuala Lumpur since the war began and came a day after the parliament of the mostly moderate Muslim country passed a motion condemning the attack.

Protesters shouted "Bush is a devil" and "The U.S. is a gangster". Others chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) and recited Muslim prayers.

The opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS) called for a review of economic ties with the United States and defense ties with Australia and Britain. Britain and Australia are the main U.S. allies in the war against Iraq.

"We should also apply economic pressures against the U.S.," PAS youth leader Mahfuz Omar told reporters.

In neighboring Indonesia, a youth wing of the vice president's party called on cinemas in a major city to stop showing movies from the United States, Britain and Australia, a radio reported.

The Muslim-oriented group also called on radio stations to stop playing songs from the three countries, said Jakarta-based Radio Elshinta.

In the southern Australian island of Tasmania, 35 women stripped off and lay down in a paddock to spell out "No War" in a disrobe for disarmament protest.

With the temperature around five degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit), they were naked for about 40 minutes, after which most headed off to work.

Meanwhile, antiwar demonstrators thronged the streets of San Francisco on Monday, blocking entrances one of the city's top landmarks as part of a dogged campaign against the U.S. war on Iraq, police said.

The protests were among scores that have erupted across the United States since U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq last week.

More than 150 people were arrested in Germany after scuffles broke out Monday as some 20,000 protesters, most of them school students who skipped class, protested at the war on Iraq, police said.

Police used water cannon after some demonstrators in the northern port city of Hamburg had pelted them with stones. The marchers had already moved away from the agreed route to try to reach the U.S. consulate, but it was sealed off.