More than 50 00 protestors marched from the top of th Passeig de Gracia, a wide avenue that runs through the center of the city, to Plaça Catalunya to show their refusal toward neoliberal globalization
The resistence in Barcelona begins
by editorial 6:18pm Sun Jun 24 '01

More than 50 00 protestors marched from the top of th Passeig de Gracia, a wide avenue that runs through the center of the city, to Plaça Catalunya to show their refusal toward neoliberal globalization.
The protest march filled the Paseig de Gracia with people of all ages, students, parents with children and even grandparents. More than 400 organization were present. The march took place in a festive environmnent with dancing, music and drums. As the march passed in front of the stock exchange the protestors expressed peacefully their refusal of neoliberal globalization. The protestors did not responde to the provocation of the armed police force stationed in front of the stock exchange.
The march ended in Plaça Catalunya with a manifest which put an emfasis on the three victories reached until today: the cancelation of the World Bank Conference, the last minute legalization of the march and the impressive participation.
After the reading took place a permormance which ended with a dance in which everone took part. During the dance the police charged against the people in the square but the protestores demostrated their refusal of the use of violence walking towards them with their hands in the air. Shortly afetr though the police charged once again, this time brutally, even hitting people who were sitting down dispersing the protestors every which way. The origin of this incident was the intervencion of policemen dressed up as protestors with their faces covered. Various people including the president of the NGO's in Catalunya witnessed as these plain clothed police men got out of the police vans and mixed with the protestors. These diguised police men damaged urban property and provoked the uniformed police men in order to justify the brutal charges to which the protestors were subject to. Their objective seems to be none other than to crimalize the march.
The police intervention has cuased over a dozen wounded and aproximately 70 arrestsMake a quick comment on this article.