[caption id="attachment_114115" align="alignleft" width="202"]
Protesters march along a main road during the first of hundreds of women’s marches organized around the world in a show of disapproval of US President Donald Trump in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday. — Reuters
[/caption]
SYDNEY — Thousands of protesters in Australia and New Zealand on Saturday joined the first of hundreds of women marches organized around the world in a show of disapproval of US President Donald Trump as he began his first day in office.
In Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, about 3,000 people — men and women gathered for a rally in Hyde Park before marching on the US consulate downtown, while organizers said 5,000 people rallied in Melbourne.
“Feminism is my Trump card” and “Fight like a girl,” were among the placards held aloft by the protesters in Sydney.
“We’re not marching as an anti-Trump movement per se, we’re marching to protest the hate speech, the hateful rhetoric, the misogyny, the bigotry, the xenophobia and we want to present a united voice with women around the globe,” organizer Mindy Freiband said.
Many of the protesters in Sydney and Melbourne wore pink hats.
The emergence of a 2005 tape in which Trump spoke of women in a demeaning way sparked widespread outrage and was one of the low points of his election campaign. In the tape he was heard saying: “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
In New Zealand, there were marches in four cities, involving around 2,000 people, Wellington’s march organizer Bette Flagler told Reuters by phone.
Elsewhere in Asia, hundreds of people joined protests in Tokyo, including many American expatriates.
“Trump presidency gets my blood boiling ... Everything we value could be gone. It’s time to speak your mind and concerns and to do our best to salvage the values we cherish in America,” said Bill Scholer, an art teacher.
Worldwide some 673 “sister marches” were planned for Saturday.
Thousands of women were expected to join a march in London as part of an international campaign on the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The rally is among events in the UK and elsewhere planned in solidarity with the Women›s March in Washington, which is expected to draw 200,000 people.
Organizers aim to highlight women›s rights, which they perceive to be under threat from the new US administration.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of protesters spearheaded by women’s rights groups were set to converge on Washington on Saturday to send a defiant message to America’s new president, Donald Trump.
The flag-waving crowds who turned out to cheer Trump’s inauguration will make way for a coalition of protesters who fear an erosion of women’s rights under the new Republican administration.
Powered by social media, the “Women’s March on Washington” aims to draw 200,000 people, illustrating the divisions of a country whose incoming leader faces levels of public mistrust unseen in recent decades.
Trump’s inaugural speech on Friday set the tone for his presidency: proudly populist, fiercely nationalist and determined to break with the legacy of his Democratic predecessor.
His first act in office — signing an executive order aimed at freezing Barack Obama’s signature health care law, before it is eventually repealed — was a potent gesture in that direction, with more such actions expected to follow on Monday.
Trump’s official schedule for Saturday, his first full day in the world’s most powerful job — includes just one engagement, a multi-faith service at Washington National Cathedral at 9:30 a.m. (1430 GMT).
But less than 24 hours after entering the White House, Trump will be faced with a show of force by demonstrators united by a common dread of what his presidency holds in store.
Backed by celebrity participants including Scarlett Johansson and Michael Moore, Saturday’s march comes on the heels of a first day of anti-Trump protests marred by sporadic outbreaks of vandalism, with windows smashed downtown and more than 200 people arrested.
Authorities will be on alert for any new flare-up of violence — although the stated goals of the women marchers are resolutely peaceful. — Agencies
