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Hundreds of thousands of people blocked roads, boycotted schools and workplaces and gathered in towns to hold peace demonstrations across Britain on Thursday, the day the US warplanes bombed Iraqi capital Baghdad.
"Definitely there is an outrage against world peace and the democratic will of British people," Andrew Murray, the chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, told Xinhua.
The first demonstrations began in Manchester, Leeds and Bradford, where various major roads were blocked, causing motorists to queue for several miles in the morning.
Demonstrators also blocked roads in Edinburgh, Bristol, Exeter, Cambridge, Newcastle and some other cities.
In London, witnesses told Xinhua around 10,000 people gathered in Parliament Square outside the House of Commons and in Whitehall and briefly stopped traffic, before being moved by police.
A 100-strong group tried to stop traffic in Whitehall, before gathering outside Downing Street, while civil servants, including some working in the office of British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, took to the streets during their lunch break.
Many schoolchildren, who took a day off classes Wednesday, were out again on the streets and took part in the peace marches across the country.
"People are really angry at the start of war," said Ben Miller from the worldwide well-known Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
The CND, saying it was "appalled" by the start of the "illegal, immoral war against Iraq", was organizing campaigners to gather outside Downing Street at 1800 GMT Thursday with whistles and drums to make as much noise as possible to mark their opposition.
"Mr Blair has made a grave error of judgment when he abandoned the UN route to follow the US road to war," said a CND spokesman.
Billy Hayes, the General Secretary of the Communication WorkersUnion (CWU), said: "We want to see as many CWU members as possible out on the streets protesting against this war..."
Armed police were patrolling at RAF Fairford air base in Gloucestershire, southwestern England, where as many as 14 US B-52bombers are stationed and which has been the focus of peace protests.
Also on Thursday, four Church of England bishops expressed "great concern" over the British government's decision to declare war on Iraq.
"We have questioned whether this military action is justified, and history alone will reveal the truth," said the bishops of Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Stafford and Wolverhampton in a joint statement.
Earlier, the leader of Britain's largest Muslim organization called the start of war against Iraq a "black day in our history."
"This is a black day in our country's history," said Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain.
"Our government should not have been a party to this conflict which has only undermined the United Nations, our own democracy and the rule of law," he said.
Sacranie said about 1.6 million Muslims around the country were deeply disappointed that their government had committed its forces to battle in dubious circumstances.
He warned that the war would damage Britain's relations with the Muslim world "for a long time to come", urging all those opposed to the war to keep up their pressure on the British government through the national peace movement.
Local reports said there were heightened fears among British Muslim communities that they will face an increase in racist attacks in the wake of the war, similar to the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Earlier this week, Stop the War coalition chairman Andrew Murray told Xinhua the coalition would also launch a national demonstration against the war Saturday, with the expectation that the participants might reach "between one and two million people."
The group is one of the three key organizers of the record peace marches in London on Feb. 15, in which up to one million Britons joined. The other two co-organizers are CND and the Muslim Association of Britain.
"The war has started which is an outrage against world peace, against the population of Iraq and against law and democracy in Britain," Murray told Xinhua Thursday morning.
Labor left-winger Jeremy Corbyn said: "The ordinary people of this country are showing revulsion over what is going on."
(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2003)
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