From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/31
‘The aim of this blockade is to prevent normal operations’ at powerful institution headquarters in Frankfurt
Jon Queally
Published on Friday, May 31, 2013 by Common Dreams
More than 3,000 anti-austerity protesters surrounded the European Central Bank in Frankfurt on Friday, saying that “normal operations” of the powerful bank would not be allowed and that the ECB should be held responsible for the pain and suffering its policies have caused across Europe in recent years.
Friday’s protest is part of a two-day series of actions planned to call out the damaging aspects of neoliberal capitalism that has blanketed the country with regressive and destructive austerity policies.
The campaigners barricaded the banking institution’s entrances in attempts to keep employees from entering while chanting slogans and holding signs reading “humanity before profit.”
“The blockade is standing. The business of the ECB is successfully disrupted,“ said Blockupy spokerperson Ani Dießelmann. “The Blockupy coalition has reached its first goal. We call up everyone to join our protests.”
The police presence was also massive, Al-Jazeera reports, with officers in riot gear, helicopters overhead, and water canon trucks on standby.
“Our main goal is to show that the regime that is governing Europe through this crisis is neither democratically-legitimate nor acting in any responsible way for the people. It’s really working for profit. One of it’s symbolic places is the ECB – the place that has economic and financial reign over Europe,” explained Dießelmann.
“The move from public protest to civil disobedience is necessary,” said Blockupy spokesperson Roland Süß. ” With the blockade of the ECB we are making the European resistance against the devastating poverty policy visible. It’s an expression of our solidarity with the people in southern Europe whose existence is threatened by the austerity programs.”
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