BRUSSELS - Belgian police on Saturday detained at least 150 pacifists who staged an anti-NATO protest, including some who tried to get into the organisationÂ’s headquarters, an AFP photographer witnessed.
The protest was organised by the group Vredesactie, translated as action for peace. Most of the demonstrators were picked up by mounted police close to the NATO building although there was no violence.
Hundreds of people responded to the group’s call to stage protests demanding the abolition of NATO, which is holding a summit from April 3 to 4 in Strasbourg in France and at Kehl in Germany to mark its 60th anniversary. “Sixty years is enough,” said organisers of the protest in a statement.
The demonstrators demanded also that troops from the Western military alliance be pulled out of Afghanistan ...
| Even though the Belgian troops aren't doing much other than barbering ... |
... and that hundreds of American nuclear weapons at air bases in Europe, including in Belgium, be relocated to the US.
| We could do that. We had the nukes there to deter the Soviets and the Soviets are gone. I don't know how many nukes we keep in Europe today but if that number is greater than zero, then bring them home. And let the Belgians figure out what to do if Putin turns off the natural gas. |
Meanwhile, in Strasbourg, French police forced local people to take down rainbow peace flags hung from apartment balconies with the slogan “No to NATO,” residents said. “Some police came at the start of the week and explained that they had received an order to ask people to take down the flags,” said one man, Christian Grosse, also a Communist party activist. |