Balcony banners, e-rallies as pandemic curbs May Day demos
Workers of the world scaled back their traditional May Day demos Friday with coronavirus lockdowns forcing many to rally online while a determined few hit the streets in face masks. There have been arrests in the Philippines, Russia, Chile and Turkey, a riot in Indonesia and pepper spray in Hong Kong as some broke confinement rules to hold public assemblies. But from Havana to Helsinki and beyond, most gatherings upon this unusual Labor Day were small and without incident.
Cuba's celebrations were muted after the ruling Communist Party urged persons to celebrate at home. Around a million personnel and their own families normally be a part of the total annual May Day march, but on Friday, the iconic image of Che Guevara gazed down on an eerily silent Revolution Square in Havana.
Elsewhere in Latin America, labor unions in Honduras needed an end to the country's "monstrous corruption" and personnel carrying a banner reading "No Quarantine with Hunger" marched on government buildings in Buenos Aires. In Chile, police arrested dozens after protesters assembled in Santiago's Plaza Italia in defiance of a prohibition on public gatherings of more than 50 people.
With strict social distancing rules in most countries, many union leaders opted to delay gatherings or move events online as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak which has killed a lot more than 233,000 persons worldwide.
May Day carried extra significance this year following the epidemic sent the global economy right into a tailspin, put unprecedented numbers of folks unemployed, and cast some of the world's lower-paid staff -- nurses, garbage collectors, shop tellers and delivery drivers -- in the role of modern-day heroes.
"It is because of the labor we celebrate upon this day that the nation perseveres," said President Emmanuel Macron of France, where personnel celebrated the favorite holiday by banging pots, singing, displaying banners from their balconies and getting involved in online demonstrations.
In Turkey, some two dozen mask-wearing protesters including a senior union leader were arrested when planning on taking part in a small march in Istanbul in violation of lockdown measures, an AFP photographer witnessed. A huge selection of Greek personnel rallied outside parliament, wearing red scarves over their faces or masks bearing messages of solidarity with health workers.
"Covered mouths still have a voice," read some. In the Philippines, police detained at least three people as small sets of protesters banged on empty pots and organized placards demanding government aid and safe working conditions, in defiance of a ban on public gatherings.
Some 23 million people nearly 25 % of the population faced hunger because of "no work, no pay" provisions in their employment contracts, Jerome Adonis of the May First Movement labor movement told AFP.
A riot broke out in Indonesia's North Maluku province when employees of a nickel processing plant were barred from entering the compound to stage a protest demanding better working conditions, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.
The business's canteen building was set on fire as hundreds of personnel clashed with security guards. In Finland, traditional communal picnics were replaced by restaurants offering livestreams of wine tastings or cocktail-making lessons, and serving up traditional May Day food for home delivery.
"We've had to get innovative and try to find new ways that we are able to still interact and create togetherness," Helsinki restaurateur Filippo Phoumsavanh told AFP. Italians too greeted May Day in unusual fashion. A traditional concert on Rome's San Giovanni Square was replaced with a virtual performance broadcast live on public television for four hours until midnight.
In Hong Kong, meanwhile, riot police deployed with rubber bullets and tear gas after democracy activists threatened to defy a ban on gatherings to carry pro-democracy protests. The streets remained largely empty, but hundreds did gather in a retail center in the city of Shatin, chanting slogans and waving protest flags. Riot police used pepper spray to disperse them.
Police also deployed in good sized quantities in Germany to enforce a prohibition on gatherings of more than 20 people. Zaragoza in northern Spain was the scene of a unique rally May Day demonstrators formed up in an extended line of cars, each with an individual occupant sporting gloves and a mask.
In Vienna, a few hundred persons standing one meter (a little over three feet) apart gathered at the chancellery to demand an end to the coronavirus lockdown, bearing signs reading: "We don't want dictatorship."
Three far-right activists were arrested on a bridge near to the Kremlin in Moscow where they tried to mount a protest, according to the Left Front movement, critical of President Vladimir Putin.
Several hundred persons gathered on Martyrs' Square in Beirut, Lebanon, where economical hardship has fueled public anger at the government. "I came because I am hungry, I am sick and tired of this life," said Mohamed Ali, 25, who lost his job and said he hasn't a cent to his name.
