Around 1,000 people demonstrated in downtown New York against the Republican hopeful for the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump.
The protesters, surrounded by a strong police contingent, gathered at Columbus Circle next to Central Park to slam Trump’s rhetoric of division, hate and extremism, according to the organizers.
Some demonstrators shouted “Donald Trump, go away, racist, sexist, anti-gay.”
Carrying banners and posters expressing such feelings as “Trump is hate,” “Love Trumps Hate” and “Will trade 1 Donald Trump for 25,000 refugees,” many protesters marched from Columbus Circle to Trump Tower, the well-known Fifth Avenue skyscraper built by the New York real estate magnate.
The demonstration was called by a number of groups including some associated with the “Black Lives Matter” movement, whose activists have staged protests over the past few weeks at various events of the Republican contender.
Several of these groups denounced on social networks the arrest of peaceful demonstrators during Saturday’s march, though without giving any concrete details.
In the estimation of several local media, around 1,000 people took part in the protest, while others spoke of “several hundred.”
Some Trump supporters were also present in the area, without any violent incidents being reported.
Organizers of the protest against the would-be Republican contender for the White House slammed the fact that “Trump’s policies threaten many of us in the Black, Latino, LGBTQIA+, Muslim, and other communities.”
“These policies and type of speech has no place in this country, and certainly do not have a place in the city that Trump grew his empire in, a city known as a melting pot and home for many of the same people Trump continues to wage war on,” they said in a statement.
Meanwhile, similar confrontations awaited Trump in Arizona, where dozens of demonstrators blocked a street northeast of Phoenix for an hour to block access to one of his meetings and to express their opposition to the Republican hopeful, who during the day had scheduled two campaign rallies in this southwestern state.
