Berliners Protest Military Service
Several thousand young people demanding the abolition of military service marched through Berlin on Saturday in a peaceful demonstration capping a week of violent rioting in the city. Hundreds of police cordoned off the route, questioning or frisking anyone wanting to join the march.
The demonstrators were protesting the reintroduction of conscription in western Berlin since German unification and the ending of the rights of the World War II allies. City residents had been exempt from military service under an agreement among the four major war victors--the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France.
Earlier last week, police fought fierce street battles with militant building squatters in eastern Berlin and evicted them.
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