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Hundreds arrested in US protest
1 October 2011 Last updated at 22:51 ET
Demonstrator Henry-James Ferry: “‘The police moved in with orange mesh barricade”
About 500 people from the Occupy Wall Street protest movement have been arrested on New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge, police say.
Those arrested were part of a larger group crossing the bridge from Manhattan, where they have been camped out near Wall Street for two weeks.
Some of the protesters entered the bridge’s roadway where they were met by a large police presence and detained.
The loosely-organised group is protesting against corporate greed.
They say they are defending 99% of the US population against the wealthiest 1%.
Occupy Wall Street called for 20,000 people to “flood into lower Manhattan” on 17 September and remain there for “a few months”.
Several hundred remain camped at Zuccotti Park, a privately owned area of land not far from Wall Street.
A police spokesman quoted by Reuters said the arrests came “after multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway.
“Some complied and took the walkway without being arrested. Others locked arms and proceeded on the Brooklyn-bound vehicular roadway. The latter were arrested,” the spokesman said.
Some of the protesters said police had allowed them on to the roadway and were escorting them across when they were surrounded and the arrests began.
Traffic on Brooklyn Bridge was closed for a while as police arrested hundreds of protesters“It is not fair that our government supports large corporations rather than the people,” protester Henry James Ferry told the BBC.
“I only heard about the protest on day one when I came across it. I then decided to go back every day,” he said.
March on police HQ
The protesters have had previous run-ins with New York’s police.
On Friday, about 2,000 people marched under the Occupy Wall Street banner to New York’s police headquarters to protest against arrests and police behaviour.
Some 80 people were arrested during a march on 25 September, mostly for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic, but one person was charged with assaulting a police officer.
A series of other small-scale protests have also sprung up in other US cities in sympathy with the aims of Occupy Wall Street.
— ’re ’s , . : A ‘Malign Intellectual Subculture’ – George Monbiot Smears Chomsky, Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens.
