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Tens of thousands protest austerity policies in Portugal
[Dawn] Tens of thousands of people on Saturday erupted into the streets of Lisbon to protest against the austerity programmes of the European Union...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and the International Monetary Fund. The large turn-out came just days after Portugal's rightwing coalition government announced a tough austerity budget -- one of the conditions of the 78-billion-euro EU-IMF bailout the country earlier this year. Organisers said 50,000 people of all ages marched peacefully through the streets of Lisbon to parliament, shouting slogans and carrying barriers denouncing the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank. The three international organizations have imposed tough austerity programmes on debt-hit Greece, Ireland and Portugal in return for multi-billion euro bail-out loans. Amid world wide protests about handling of the economy, demonstrators turned out for marches in nine other towns and cities around the country, organised by an array of campaigning groups, local news media reported, with turn-out particularly strong in the northern city of Porto. "We are victims of financial speculation and this austerity programme is going to ruin us," 25-year-old Mathieu Rego told AFP, as he marched in Lisbon. Posted by: Fred 2011-10-16 |
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