“Occupy” activists protest Davos economic forum

PanARMENIAN.Net - Activists linked to the global ‘Occupy’ movement used giant red weather balloons to stage a flying protest over the venue of the World Economic Forum Wednesday, January 24.

About a dozen protesters sent up a banner reading “Hey WEF, where are the other 6.9999 billion leaders?” to protest their exclusion from the high-security event where CEOs and politicians meet each year to discuss the state of the world, The Washington Post reported.

“We believe that the leaders at World Economic Forum are just trying to implement new systems to maximize their profits, not to help the world,” said Amadeus Thiemann, an engineer from Zurich who was among the protesters.

The event is one of a number of small, peaceful protests that have taken place in the Swiss ski resort of Davos this week. Later Wednesday, civil society groups including Amnesty International were planning to stage a protest against corporate excess which they claim is hurting the world’s poorest.

The balloon protesters, who call themselves “Occupy WEF,” have also built a small igloo village outside the security perimeter, where they have so far been tolerated by police. The group are following in the footsteps of the Occupy Wall Street movement that spread to cities around the world.

Davos is an exceptionally hard-to-reach place to protest, tucked in the Swiss Alps. Some 2,600 of the world’s most influential people are gathered for the forum this week, amid increasing worries about the global economy and potential social unrest because of rising income inequalities.