(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-20 09:07

GENEVA - Police in the Swiss capital Bern used tear gas and rubber bullets against left-wing anti- globalization demonstrators and detained about 200 of them on Saturday, the semi-official Swissinfo website reported.

The event, which came four days before the annual meeting of the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) in the alpine resort of Davos, had been banned by local authorities for fear of violence.

But the organizers of the demonstration, the "Alliance for a Global Opposition", said they would not respect the ban, with their leader, Giovanni A. Schumacher, claiming that the group wanted a march that was calm and without violence.

The group, which criticizes "the World Economic Forum, the capitalist system and repression", had originally been allowed to demonstrate by city officials, but the authorities reversed their decision after remarks made by Schumacher in a television interview.

Schumacher was among about 200 people detained by the police. Several hundred are said to have taken part in the demonstration.

Problems began in the late afternoon with police using tear gas and rubber bullets against activists, some hooded, who threw bottles and smoke bombs. Skirmishes followed, although damage to property was said to be limited.

In a related development, about 120 anti-WEF demonstrators in the northeastern city of St. Gallen protested peacefully on Saturday.

The city authorities had authorized the event but police were also out in force for the march.

The demonstration, organized mainly by the Greens and center-left Social Democrats, was noisy but passed without incident.

Protesters, who were fewer in number than last year according to local police, called for global solidarity and for people to fight neo-liberalism.