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Tens of thousands of people took part in a protest against military action in Iraq on Saturday, organizers said it is one of Europe's biggest anti-war rallies.
The protesters from all over the country started their marches 12:30 p.m. GMT from Embankment near the Thames to proceed to Hyde Park where they staged the rally and listened to anti war speeches by 35 persons.
The marchers, carrying placards reading "not to attack Iraq" and "not in my name" and chanting anti-war slogans such as "one, two, three, four, we don't want your races war" and "Tony Blair, shame, shame, no more killing in my name," walked past Parliamentand up Whitehall to the rally.
Police said more than 250,000 gathered in the rally.
The rally was also meant as a protest against Israel's policiesin the West Bank and Gaza, and many protesters expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause. "Stop Israeli war crimes," one placard reads.
Rally organizers -- Stop the War Coalition and Muslim Association of Britain -- said there is growing opposition to Prime Minister Tony Blair's stance on Iraq.
The rally was organized following a publication of British government's dossier of evidence on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons program earlier this week.
The organizers said the dossier has increased public oppositionto possible war. A string of public opinion polls suggest that theBritish public is reluctant to support military action against Saddam without at least a firm UN mandate.
Among the speakers addressing the rally are London Mayor Ken Livingstone, former MP Tony Benn, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Peter Price, the Bishop of Bath and Wells.
Most speakers took the chance to call for ending the sufferingsof the Palestinians and restore peace in the Middle East, repeatedly stressing the words "no bombing in Iraq, Justice for the Palestinians."
London Mayor Ken Livingstone said the wrong motivations were driving the confrontation with Iraq.
"It's not about defense of British people or British interests,it's so that corrupt American politicians can get their hands on Iraqi oil," he stressed.
Benn told the crowds: "Nothing can take the British people intoa war that they do not accept and do not want."
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2002)
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