Anti-Wall Street activists fight on after 700 arrests

The activists, many of whom have been camped out in Manhattan for two weeks, were detained Saturday during their biggest demonstration yet against government-backed banking bailouts and corporate influence in US politics.

Police said most of those arrested were issued criminal court summons and citations for disorderly conduct before being released later in the day.

Only a "minimal amount" of protesters remained behind bars on Sunday, a New York Police Department spokesman told AFP, declining to provide exact figures.

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement, inspired by pro-democracy Arab Spring movements roiling North Africa and the Middle East, planned to hold more meetings and forums on Sunday a few blocks from the financial district.

Its next march on Wall Street was set for Wednesday afternoon.

During an impromptu protest to Brooklyn, demonstrators walked up to the bridge, then spreading to not only the pedestrian walkway but also the roadway, bringing traffic to a halt and forcing police to shutter the bridge for several hours.

Another NYPD spokesman said there were "several hundred protesters who decided to walk on the roadway and who blocked traffic. Some heeded the warnings, some left, and arrests were made."

Some of the demonstrators carried hand-drawn placards that read "End the Fed" and "Pepper spray Goldman Sachs" in what police described as a peaceful protest that nevertheless saw hundreds detained for public order offenses.

Claims that British rock group Radiohead would be performing in support of the movement in Manhattan proved false, and activists apologized for what they blamed on "miscommunication" about a "hoax."

The anti-Wall Street activists began their campaign by occupying Zuccotti Park, in the heart of Manhattan\'s financial district, on September 17 and have since held protests outside the New York Stock Exchange and NYPD headquarters.

"We are the majority. We are the 99 percent. And we will no longer be silent," Occupy Wall Street said in a statement.

"We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants."

Protesters have added police brutality to their lengthy and still vaguely defined list of grievances after a senior officer used pepper spray against four demonstrators who had already been shut inside a police pen a week ago.

Saturday also saw anti-Wall Street protests spread to Boston, Los Angeles and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In Boston, 24 protesters were arrested and charged with trespassing as a vast crowd marched outside Bank of America offices.

Right to the City, the coalition of advocacy groups that organized the demonstration, said the event was held to protest corporate greed and to stop bank foreclosures.

According to organizers, around 3,000 people marched outside the bank. Police did not provide a crowd estimate.

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