The 16th protest meeting organised by the Voice of the People group took place outside the Icelandic parliament in Reykjavik this afternoon with an estimated 5,000 participants.
The protesters gathered, as usual, to protest the handling of the economic crisis in Iceland and to call for the resignations of the government and the boards of the central bank and the financial supervisory authority.
Speeches today were made by Magnus Bjorn Olafsson, journalist; Hildur Helga Sigurdardottir, journalist; Jakobina Ingunn Olafsdottir, political scientist and Gudmundur Andri Thorsson, author.
The Voice of the People’s website says, among other things that despite the partial victory that comes with the announcement of new elections of the 9th May, the people still cannot stop applying pressure. They say the nation cannot suffer this “incompetent government” for a day longer. The same people remain in charge of the Central Bank of Iceland and the FME (financial supervisory authority), and the ‘Outvasion Vikings’ are still going about their business, the group argues.
They end with a plea to begin the process of “spring cleaning” the entire Icelandic political system.
People also met to show support to Hörður Torfa.
Now protest at the Central Bank instead!
Well done to the protesters in Iceland.People in Britain are watching with interest as we despeately want rid of our ‘Government’.
I hope Iceland recovers from its problems.
This is what should be published her:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/iris-lee/whats-next-for-iceland-en_b_160526.html
This is the real view from outside.
Strange to see an estimate of 5000 people here when most news agencies in Iceland talked about 6-7000, but that number is just the maximum amount of people at a given time. People were constantly coming and going so the total number of participants was probably much higher.