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Protestors in Helsinki hope for U.S. to be "kind again"

Xinhua, January 22, 2017 Adjust font size:

Some 500 people gathered in central Helsinki to call for respect for women and continued attention to the environment on Saturday, one day after Donald Trump took the presidency of the United States.

The rally was held as a sister event of the Washington Women's March, a massive demonstration that gathered hundreds of thousands people mainly in Washington D.C. in reaction to Trump's campaign rhetoric.

Organizers in Washington said earlier that they saw the demonstration as not being solely anti-Trump but in support of a range of issues affecting women, including abortion rights, health, equal pay and gun violence.

The protest in Finland took place in the Civic Square opposite the Parliament building, the most prestigious site for demonstrations in Helsinki. The focus was the alleged impact of the Trump presidency on equality, minorities and also on environmental issues.

Protesters wrote their "reasons to march" on a number of black boards, and their slogans varied from "kindness" and "compassion" to "gender equality" and "no more silence."

A little girl held a placard reading "Make America kind again." The girl's mother Tracy Dolan, one of the organizers, told Xinhua that in her view the United States is "not only about being powerful, but it is about being kind too."

"There is much hatred now, and that is not the way of interacting with people," she said. Dolan said she did not want to see populism spread as more elections were coming in France and elsewhere.

The initiator of the Helsinki event was journalist Lissu Moulton, an American who has been living in Finland since 1991 and become known in Finland as a broadcaster and columnist. She had written in social media during the week: "When there's nothing you can do, you can't just do nothing."

Major political parties had been asked to attend, but the speakers mainly represented the greens, the left and liberal right. "We sent invitations late, and they may not have reached all, one of the organizers, artist Heli Kuchka told Xinhua. Endit