EU-DIGEST

Thousands of Israelis on Tuesday protested outside the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, demanding the embattled leader step down as he faces a trial on corruption charges and as his government comes under fire over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Protesters, defying orders to maintain social distancing requirements, chanted slogans and blew horns outside Netanyahu's residence. Anti-corruption activists had set up tents outside his home on Monday.

Israel: Thousands of protesters call on Netanyahu to resign | News | DW | 14.07.2020

The protest against the government's handling of the health crisis had originally been banned by The Hague mayor Johan Remkes, over fears that social distancing measures would not be respected and that unrest would break out, police said in a statement.

Read more at:
Dutch police use water cannon to disperse The Hague protest | Euronews

National Democratic Party supporters in Getmany have come together in Hanover to protest against journalists, but they were vastly outnumbered by counterdemonstrators. There were no serious clashes between the groups, police said.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-thousands-demonstrate-against-right-wing-extremist-npd-rally/a-51382691

After weeks of hype, white supremacists managed to muster just a couple of dozen supporters on Sunday in the nation’s capital for the first anniversary of their deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., finding themselves greatly outnumbered by counterprotesters, police officers and representatives of the news media.


Rally by White Nationalists Was Over Almost Before It Began - The New York Times

Riot police have used tear gas to disperse hundreds of people at a gay pride march in Istanbul. The city's LGBTI community and their friends had said they were determined to march.

Read more:: Istanbul police disperse gay pride march | News and current affairs from Germany and around the world | DW | 01.07.2018

Hundreds of demonstrators attempted to disrupt a Republican convention in California on Friday where presidential candidate Donald Trump was due to appear.

Protesters surrounded the entrance to the hotel venue in Burlingame forcing the billionaire businessman to enter through a rear entrance from a nearby freeway. True to form, Trump made light of the incident in his speech:

“That was not the easiest entrance I’ve ever made. My wife called. She said there are helicopters following you and we did, and then we went under a fence and through a fence and, oh boy, felt like I was crossing the border actually.”

After the event Trump again left by the back door. It was the second day of protests in a row against the Republican front-runner in the race for the White House. Earlier this week he referred to himself as the ‘presumptive’ nominee.

Read more: Trump jokes about protest in California | euronews, world news

Syrian and other refugees gathered in Cologne on Saturday to demonstrate their willingness to accept the German way of life, in an effort to ease tensions after New Year’s Eve sex attacks in the city that were blamed on migrants.

At least 300 people took part in an event aimed at showing the asylum seekers’ adopted home that they want to live in harmony with its lifestyle and culture.

‘We respect the values of German society’ and ‘No to Sexism, No to Racism’ could be read on banners held aloft.

Read more: ‘We respect the values of German society’ say Syrian refugees | euronews, world news

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was unhurt after a press conference was disrupted when a woman jumped on to the podium.

The protester, dressed in black, shouted: “End the ECB dictatorship.”

Draghi was visibly shaken and held his hand up in defence before the women was removed by security officials.

A Feminist activist group called Femen later claimed responsibility on Twitter for the protest. The press conference resumed shortly afterwards.

Note EU-Digest:  fortunately for the woman  representing Femen that she did not decide to do this protest at a US Central bank meeting, where she would have certainly been shot by "trigger happy" security there. 

Read more: ECB chief Mario Draghi unhurt after protest during speech | euronews, world ne

A sea of mourning Muscovites marched silently through downtown Moscow on Sunday in honor of Boris Nemtsov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most virulent critics, who was gunned down steps from the Kremlin on Friday night.

Black ribbons were pinned to the tricolor Russian flags many among the thousands of mourners waved as they filed onto Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, where Nemtsov took his final steps. The crowd brandished an array of photographs of the handsome politician, who had been a household name in Russia since the 1990s. “Heroes do not die,” read their signs.

Read more: Thousands March in Honor of Slain Opposition Activist Nemtsov (Video) | News | The Moscow Times

Over 1,000 people gathered this Saturday in Erfurt, the capital of the eastern state of Thuringia, to protest against the "Americanization" of Europe, amid a groundswell of xenophobia in eastern Germany and ongoing social movements in cities around the country directed against what's been called an "Islamization of the occident."

The Erfurt police told DW that the situation in front of the central train station on Saturday was "outright aggressive," as protesters held posters and chanted anti-American slogans abreast with some 600 counterdemonstrators who attempted to break police lines.

One of the main messages one could hear chanted by the mob was, "Ami! Go HOME," which translates roughly as, "Americans! Go HOME." A series of speakers attempted to deliver addresses to the crowd, but their speeches were drowned out by whistling from counter demonstrators.

Journalists on the ground in Erfurt confirmed to DW that the mood was characterized by an aggressive anti-Americanism, coupled with violence between demonstrators and counterdemonstrators. A brawl nearly broke out at one juncture as counterdemonstrators, mostly young members of the left-wing anti-fascist Antifa group, attempted to block the anti-American protesters.

Read more:Anti-Americanism hits Germany′s streets | Germany | DW.DE | 25.01.2015

The Israeli Prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu and the president of the Palestinian authority Mahmoud Abbas participated in the same demonstration. President François Hollande and his predecessor Nicolas Sarkosy marched side by side.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, was taking part in a street demonstration for the first time in his life.  “The Charlie Hebdo murders will not crush our spirit or our values,” he tweeted on his way to Paris this morning.

King Abdallah of Jordan and the brother of the Emir of Qatar marched alongside the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Nigerian and Malian leaders – more than 50 world leaders in all – in the two mile march from the Place de la République to the Place de la Nation in eastern Paris

Read more: Paris march: At least one million join 50 world leaders in 'overwhelming' demonstration on streets of French capital - Europe - World - The Independent

The western German city of Cologne has seen thousands march in a peaceful demonstration against xenophobia and right-wing extremism. The march comes amid worries of rising anti-immigration sentiment in Germany.

Read more: Thousands march in Cologne to protest xenophobia | News | DW.DE | 14.12.2014

Holding signs emblazoned with slogans like “Boycott Israeli Apartheid” and “New York Jews Say: Not in Our Name,” hundreds of protesters marched through lower Manhattan on Thursday demanding an end to American support for Israel’s operation in Gaza.

The event was one of many held in the U.S. and around the world as part of a “national day of action” against Israel’s Gaza campaign. Two Jewish groups, Jewish Voices for Peace and Jews Say No!, were among the march’s organizers, and numerous Jews came to protest Israel’s military campaign.

“I’m here because of the massacre that has recently happened, but also because of the ongoing occupation,” said Anna Jacobs, who was pushing her toddler in a stroller.

Standing nearby, Jews Say No! activist Dorothy Zellner lamented that outsiders assume the Jewish community uniformly supports Israel. “This is heartbreaking. Everyone thinks Israel represents us and speaks for us,” she said.

“I think there’s a myth that the Jewish community supports the Israeli attack on Gaza,” she added, and asserted that there are “hundreds of thousands” of Jews in the U.S. that oppose the Israeli occupation.

Most of the Jewish protesters interviewed opposed Israeli policies long before the current campaign. But they view the current hostilities as deplorable, or even criminal.

Read more: Jews March in New York Rally Against Israel War in Gaza – Forward.com

The Hague's mayor Jozias van Aartsen is being urged to get tough on anti-Jewish demonstrators after people were heard chanting 'death to Jews' at a protest rally in the city on Thursday evening.

During the rally, in which some of the 100 protesters carried pro-Isis flags, Muslim youngsters were heard to shout 'death to all Jews', news magazine Elsevier reports.

Esther Voet of the Israel information centre CIDI said on Twitter: 'people who made themselves unrecognisable, Isis flags, death to Jews and journalists take to safety.

Despite the anti-Jewish sentiment in some of the speeches, the police only got involved when a female journalist was verbally attacked by some of the demonstrators, the Telegraph says.

Many of the demonstrators had covered their faces - which is now illegal in Dutch law.

A spokesman for Van Aartsen told local broadcaster Omroep West no boundaries had been overstepped. 'I have received no signals that was the case,' the spokesman said.

However, the public prosecution department said in a statement on Friday afternoon it would be examining footage of the rally with an interpreter to assess if the law had been broken.

Earlier this month, Jewish groups met Van Aartsen after participants at another anti-Israel demonstration carried banners equating Israel with the Nazis.

Jewish organisations said they wanted to know why he did not take tough action against the ‘spreading of hatred and calls to violence’.

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