Street protests less dramatic than expected
There have been fears that the NATO summit could be accompanied by street violence such as Prague witnessed during the IMF and World Bank meeting in the year 2000. But so far the situation in the streets of Prague has been fairly quiet. The biggest protest took place on Thursday afternoon. Jan Velinger was there and now joins me in the studio...
Well, Daniela it's actually very difficult to say whether this was the biggest protest because when I was there, there were only about five hundred protesters at the scene, which is of course far less than any of the organisers had hoped. It was quite a paradox because there were so many journalists and TV crews there in these orange vests that, in a way, they were almost more dominant than the protestors themselves. Many of the people that I spoke to - and this is another aspect, do not actually ally themselves with anarchists, and this was supposed to be an anarchist protest, organised by anarchist groups. Many people told me they were just there to protest against NATO but they didn't want violence. Some of the people I spoke to even understood the strong police presence that is being felt - that was being felt even around this demonstration - they said that, you know, they weren't looking for looking for any opportunity to cause violence or damage or anything like that... That being said there were the usual types, who looked like sort of punk rockers, some of them with partly veiled faces, wearing shawls, hoods over their heads, and these sort of more hardcore groups were far less interested in talking to journalists - most of the time they just said 'No - we're not going to talk to you.' However, what you're going to hear now are some of the people who were willing to talk and express their opinions.
"I haven't come here to destroy any property, I just came here to take part in the demonstration, tell the others what I think about it, and to meet some people."
What is NATO for, that you are against?
"I'm not sure, to me it's not clear who the enemy is, I think it doesn't make any sense."
"It seems to me that they fight needlessly that they label people as terrorists and it all seems useless to me."
"We come from Rome and we are in the network of communists. There was a meeting of communist parties here in Prague."
And how do you view this morning's decision for NATO to be expanded?
"We think that this will create further wars in other countries, so it's a negative thing."
"It bothers me that they are trying to get everyone under their thumb, it doesn't strike me as a good idea."
"We are here on our own, we not here with any organization we are just here to express our opinions."
"I think that NATO is kind of not really useful anymore, the US needs to start with stopping bombing people and stop taking everybody's stuff."
"I feel bad about those countries that are joining it, that they are making the same mistake as the Czech Republic."
