May Day Protests Across the Globe
Hundreds of thousands of people across the globe have taken to the streets to mark May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day.
In Athens, Jakarta, Madrid, Tunis and beyond, protesters are refusing austerity and demanding decent wages and working conditions.
Thousands of Turkish protesters gather at Taksim square in Istanbul during a May Day rally on Tuesday. (Bulent Kilic/AFP/GETTY)
The Jakarta Globe reports that Indonesia held Asia’s biggest May Day rally today with over 160,000 protesters across the nation demanding better labor conditions.
Helena Smith writes in the Guardian that “workers across Greece have taken to the streets of towns large and small to protest the unprecedented belt-tightening ordinary Greeks have been subjected to over the course of the past two years. ”
In the Philippines tens of thousands hit the streets to protest low wages and U.S. military presence. Xinhua reports that groups “unveiled a symbolic mural depicting the collective strength of masses as the ‘real political power.'”
Thousands of workers march towards the Presidential Palace in Manila. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
In Hong Kong, where thousands have staged protests today, one protester echoed the message of the Occupy movement, telling AFP that the “problem with Hong Kong is that the wealth is concentrated on a small number of people, many people are still living in poverty,” university professor Fernando Cheung, who teaches social work, said at the rally.
“That’s why Hong Kong has one of the world’s highest income gaps between rich and poor. We urgently need a redistribution of wealth,” he said.
Originally posted at Common Dreams.