According to an Associated Press report, 200,000 people took to the streets of the capital of Yemen, Sana, on March 1 to protest against a US attack against Iraq and demand that Arab leaders to take steps to avert war.
Protesters carried banners reading, "America and Israel are the axis of evil", They burned effigies of US President George Bush and Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The rally was organised by the ruling People's Congress Party and involved the overwhelming participation of the country's political parties and organisations.
Senior presidential adviser Abdulkarim al-Aryani read out a statement urging Arab leaders, who were meeting in Egypt for a summit, to take "effective steps" to avert a war. "We urge the Arab leaders to consider any aggression against Iraq as an aggression against the Arab world", he said.
Anti-war protesters also gathered in Egypt and Lebanon. In the Egyptian Delta city of Kafr el-Sheik, about 3000 university students held a peaceful anti-war march.
In Beirut, about 2000 people chanted anti-US slogans and burned Israeli and US flags outside the US embassy. The peaceful protest was called by left-wing and Muslim groups. The protesters carried banners reading, "Hands off Iraq" and "Americans leave us alone". They shouted, "Down with America, down with its policies".
A US citizen, Kirsten Scheid of Portland, Oregon, carried a banner that read in Arabic, "American against American terrorism".
From Green Left Weekly, March 12, 2003.
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