Protest Forces End To Toronto Pride Parade
The Toronto Star reports:
Thousands of people danced, sang and celebrated at Toronto’s Pride Parade on Sunday until the procession was suddenly stopped mid-route, and then cancelled, by a protest.
About 30 demonstrators, calling themselves the Coalition Against Pinkwashing, held banners and chanted on Yonge Street, just south of Wellesley Street, three and a half hours after the parade’s 2 p.m. start.
Floats and marchers making their way south toward the parade’s finish at Nathan Phillips Square were stranded behind the protesters, who chanted “Free Palestine” and “Pride is a protest.” And 45 minutes after the protest began, Pride Toronto announced the remainder of the parade — billed as Canada’s largest — was cancelled.
The New York Daily News reports:
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators climbed over barricades, tossed fake blood and held up New York City’s Pride March on Sunday. About a dozen protesters descended on the annual march as it approached Christopher St. and Waverly Place in Greenwich Village around 2:45 p.m.
They protesters splattered red paint on the parade route and on a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck inside the barricades, photos show.
The protesters sat in the roadway and refused to let the parade continue as they held signs declaring “no queer liberation without Palestinian liberation” and “Palestine will be free.” “They held up the parade for like, 45 minutes,” said one spectator.
The Associated Press reports: