Hundreds arrested for swarming NATO HQ in Belgium

Police in Belgium have arrested some 483 peace activists from hundreds of protesters, who tried to break into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels. The Sunday demonstration organized by the Belgian Association Action for Peace was called to protest NATO intervention in Afghanistan and Libya, and nuclear arming. The activists crossed fields and sought to climb over fences leading to the NATO compound but were stopped by the five to six hundred police officers who were deployed to counter the protesters. "We neither want the anti-missile shield, nor intervention by NATO in Libya or Afghanistan, nor nuclear bombs that are illegal in our country," a spokesman for Action for Peace, Benoit Calvi said. Demonstrators most of them in their twenties, came from 10 European countries including Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. "A military alliance that intervenes all over the world and has nuclear weapons is a threat to world peace," Action for Peace said. The protest came ahead of next month’s NATO summit in Chicago.