By IRNA,
Berlin : Germany will be the scene of mass protests against the war in Afghanistan this weekend ahead of next week’s vote in the German parliament to renew the Afghan mandate for another year, the Berlin-based daily newspaper junge welt reported on Thursday.
Several peace and anti-fascist groups have called on people to participate in the anti-Afghan war demos in major German cities on Saturday, including Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Duisburg, Essen and Bonn.
‘It is important to us to take to the streets against the criminal German war policy …,’ said an unidentified spokeswoman of one of the protest organizers.
Germany has deployed around 4,600 troops in Afghanistan as part of
the controversial NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Faced with mounting popular opposition to the Afghan war, Berlin hopes to begin the pullout by the end of this year and conclude the withdrawal by 2014, depending on the Afghan security situation.