Europe

Europe

London anti-capitalism camp notches up two months

16 December 2011 00:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Up to 200 anti-capitalist protesters on Thursday celebrated two months camping outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London and vowed that they will stay into next year, APA reports quoting AFP.

The crowd braved the wind and chilly temperatures for a rally addressed by US rights campaigner Jesse Jackson among others in front of the cathedral where nearly 200 tents have been pitched since October 15.

The demonstrators also marched to the headquarters of the Lloyds banking group in the City of London financial district where they chanted slogans in a noisy but peaceful protest as police looked on.

Back at the camp, the protesters brushed off the threat of legal action from the authorities of the City of London financial district to remove them.

"There’s morale and also resolve," said Mark Weaver, 31, ahead of a court hearing on the future of the "Occupy the London Stock Exchange" demonstrations on Monday.

"Everybody in this movement is very determined. I’d say we have a very good chance to stay until the New Year. We have a strong case, this is a peaceful camp, and we meet all the health and safety requirements."

Behind him, meals were being prepared in the kitchen tent among a small sea of multi-coloured canvas, where a make-shift village has been set up in reaction to the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York.

In a rousing speech to between 150 and 200 people, Jackson urged the protesters to hold fast, telling them that Martin Luther King would support their cause.

"If Dr King was here today, he’d be occupying. Occupying is a just cause, a moral cause," the veteran campaigner said.

Targeting a common target of the anti-capitalist movement, which has been spurred on by the global economic crisis, Jackson said: "Banks got bailed out. People got left out.

"Protests are criminalised but not a single banker has gone to jail for their crimes for their crimes of corruption and greed, that drove the global economy to the brink of collapse," he said.

Two months after it was set up, the protest is still attracting new supporters.

Hannah, 15, who insists her family approve of her being in the camp instead of school, told AFP: "I’m sick of the way things are being run in this society. There are enough resources to feed the world twice but people are starving."

In the United States, protest camps from New York to Los Angeles have been closed down by officials wielding varying degrees of force.

But in London, the protesters have been allowed to stay until now although their presence has sharply divided top officials at the landmark cathedral, one of whom resigned over the issue.