Keystone-SDA
Nearly a thousand women demonstrated in Zurich on Saturday to mark Women’s Day. Unauthorized, the event caused damage along the procession route, including smeared bus shelters and a UBS branch stained with paint.
(Keystone-ATS) Participants in the demonstration also lit pyrotechnic devices on several occasions, municipal police said in a statement. In order to prevent a police barrier from being breached, the police briefly used rubber bullets and tear gas.
On Paradeplatz at the start of the procession, some women, wearing hoods, stretched ropes above the tracks, thus blocking tram traffic. Shortly after the departure of the procession, the first graffiti appeared on the windows. And the hooded people painted the ground with red paint in various places.
The municipal police were present in force, with the support of the cantonal police, but rather let it happen. According to the press release, an investigation has been opened into the material damage. As of late afternoon, police had not received any reports of injuries.
Almost no men were visible in the procession. Heterosexual men were asked to show solidarity by refraining from participating. Alongside demonstrators waving purple flags, many Iranians, Kurds and other pro-Palestinian activists took part in the demonstration, whose slogan was “Feminist and activist”.
