More than 100 arrests at Occupy Wall St protest

OCCUPY Wall Street activists clashed yesterday with workers and police outside the New York Stock Exchange, prompting more than 100 arrests on the two-month anniversary of the movement’s vocal anti-capitalism campaign.

As hundreds linked arms to block access to the NYSE building, one man in a blue business suit wrestled with a protester in a cowboy hat, one of several violent scuffles on a day in which organisers vowed a show of force for a movement that has had recent setbacks.

Chanting “Wall Street’s closed!” “We are the 99 percent” and “Whose street? Our street!”, about 1,000 demonstrators engaged in a tense face-off with hundreds of police, including many on horseback outside the iconic exchange.

“Over 100 people arrested,” a New York Police Department spokeswoman told AFP, but organisers said the figure was twice that.

The protests were part of a “Global Day of Action” announced by the website occupywallst.org, with hundreds of protests planned across the United States, combined with protests in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Nigeria, Poland and Spain.

Police evicted protesters in Los Angeles and Dallas yesterday, arresting dozens.

In London, protesters refused to budge as a deadline to leave their camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral by 6pm yesterday passed, with the City of London Corporation now expected to start legal action to remove the protesters.

Demonstrators at the site, where dozens of tents have been pitched since October 15, erected a banner saying “You can’t evict an idea.”

At least 15,000 protesters also demonstrated in Athens against austerity measures demanded by Greece’s unity government.

The level of participation in the rallies could provide a clear indication of Occupy Wall Street’s clout two months since the movement sprang up to denounce corporate greed and the world’s wealthiest “one percent.”

Picture: Police arrest a demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement