ckn-media.blogspot.com: OWS to stage sit-in protest for movement’s one-year anniversary (PHOTOS)

Monday, September 17, 2012

OWS to stage sit-in protest for movement’s one-year anniversary (PHOTOS)

Occupy Wall Street protesters planned to surround the New York Stock Exchange in a sit-down protest marking the movement’s one-year anniversary. Hundreds of police gathered in anticipation of a heated face-off, following related unrest on Saturday.

Protesters converged on the lower Manhattan financial district early Monday morning, with some 200 people gathering in Zuccotti Park – the movement’s birthplace – by 7:00am local time, the New York Times reported.

Miranda Leitsinger of NBC reported witnessing at least 4 arrests, with police ordering people to vacate the sidewalk because they were “blocking pedestrian traffic.” A large contingent of ‘white shirts’ – New York police commanders – gathered at the intersection of Nassu and Pine, a block north of the New York Stock Exchange.

The OWS movement, sparked by protests last year against corporate greed, income inequality and the corrupting influence of money in politics, was inactive for several months. Monday’s protest comes in the wake of three days of civic activism intended to breathe new life into the movement, ahead of its one-year anniversary.

Some 200 supporters of OWS descended on New York’s Washington Square Park on Saturday to mark the movement’s one-year anniversary. Police broke up the march and arrested 25 demonstrators.

After the movement set up tents in New York City’s Zucotti Park last September, OWS spawned a number of similar ‘Occupy’ protest groups across the US, and in major cities around the world. The group’s creators dubbed themselves the voice of the ‘99 percent,’ and protested chiefly against the wide gap between rich and poor in the US.

The Occupy movement was dealt a blow in November when a police crackdown broke up the group’s main encampment at Zuccotti Park, with some 200 people arrested in the process. Many of the group’s public protests likewise saw mass arrests, and related reports of police brutality against activists.