Report from Antwerp
We had a lot of bad luck: heavy rain and wind, the early hour (chosen in order not to compete with Gay Parade in Brussels and a music festival close to Antwerp), late start of publicity campaign as the authorities delayed the permission for weeks, the fact that we could not start in time because unexpectedly, there was a funeral going on in a church close to the venue, the overwhelming presence of police (at least a 100 cops, watercanoons, many officers in civilian at or around the place) and a counterdemonstration by the Flemish Block Youth Party, a fascist party we have here in Flanders (Dutch speaking part of Belgium).
The theatre started before we even had built our stage. Around the planned hour of start of the event the approx. 10 counterdemonstrators came marching on to the square. When the police tried to stop them, they threw a stink bomb, that spread quickly because of the wind. When they found out that this was affecting mostly the crowd who was just saying goodbye to a dead relative, the counterdemonstrators disappeared quickly.
Half an hour later we could finally start with entertaining presentations, music, explanation of the Belgian cannabis law, music, high class poetry by the antistresspoet and witnesses of the war on drugs.
At best, there may have been some 30 participants. But among them several journalists, who covered the event in newspapers and a local TV station and included that this was an event to denounce the war on drugs.
Joep