Brussels bans Indignants camp in city park

Brussels has banned Indignant protesters from setting up a camp in a city park. The anti-capitalist demonstrators have marched from Spain, aiming to hold a nightly alternative parliament in the week preceding a European Union leaders’ summit.

AFP/Zaere Belkalai

Los indignados, as they are known in Spain, have marched through France, some from as far away as the Atlantic coast and expect to arrive in the Belgian and EU capital at 14h00 on Saturday. They are to meet sympathisers from other European countries to set up a camp in the city’s Elizabeth Park.

 
But they could be also met by police, since the city authorities say they have refused permission for the plan on “commonsense grounds”.

"The muncipality, based on advice from the police and park authorities, refuses permission for a camp and overnight base to be set up,” the office of the mayor of Koekelberg, north-west Brussels, said in a statement.

Protest organisers say they will not drop their plan.

Over the last few months, there have been clashes between police and anti-austerity protesters in Brussels, as well as in Spain, Greece and, most recently, the United States.

The nightly parliament, which would last from 8-15 October, would be modelled on gatherings in Madrid, the rest of Spain and Athens’s Syntagma Square.
 

EU leaders will hold a summit, which is likely to concentrate on Europe’s debt crisis, on 17-18 October.