Women’s March On Washington Goes Worldwide : 670 Sister Marches Planned

Washington, 23 Rabiul Akhir 1438/222 January 2017 (MINA) – From Capetown to Tokyo and Dublin to Melbourne, more than 2 million activists inspired by the Women’s March on Washington turned out worldwide Saturday in a show of solidarity a day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president, usatoday.com reported.

More than 670 marches were planned worldwide, according to the organizers’ website, which says more than 2.5 million marchers in all were expected to protest.

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Long before the sun rose in Washington on the first full day of the Trump administration, marchers were already on the streets in the Australian cities of Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney with a variety of messages, some supporting abortion rights, some pressing for women’s equality and some driven chiefly by an anti-Trump message. There’s even a march planned in Antarctica.

In Sydney, where as many as 10,000 marchers turned out, organizer Mindy Freiband told the crowd: “This is the beginning of something, not the end.” She said hatred, bigotry and racism are not only America’s problems: “Women of the world resist.”

In Canberra’s Garema Place, where 1,000 people turned out, speakers from unions, the YWCA and student bodies along with American expats addressed the crowd to raise issues ranging from LGBT rights to the wage gap to sexual assault, The Canberra Times reported.

Another 7,000 took to the streets in Melbourne carrying signs that included “Feminism is my trump card” and “Fight like a girl,” The Australian reported.

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Elsewhere marches planned

Elsewhere, events were planned in Botswana, the Czech Republic, Russia, Saudi Arabia and even a ship off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.

In London, where an estimated 100,000 marchers turned out, a banner reading “Build bridges not walls,” was unfurled across the Tower Bridge shortly after sunrise. At Westminster Bridge, near Parliament, protesters hung banners saying “Migrants welcome here” and “Migration is older than language,” The Guardian reported.

In Ljubljana, Slovenia, home country of first lady Melania Trump, organizers said they could not get permission from the city in time for a march and instead encouraged supporters to “get together with friends on this day and to walk.”

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Some 2,000 people marched in Vienna, according to estimates by the police and organizers, but the crowd quickly dropped to a couple of hundred in the sub-zero temperatures, Reuters reported.

In Africa, hundreds of protesters amassed in Nairobi’s Karura Forest to wave posters and sing American protest songs.    (T/RS05/RS01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)

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