Yesterday’s protests were the largest ever in Iceland’s history according to multiple sources. Metropolitan Police said officers had never seen similar crowds at mass protests in downtown, saying there could have been as many as 10-15,000 people gathered downtown. Meanwhile, the organizers put the number of people who attended yesterday’s mass protest in Austurvöllur square at 22,000, a figure Metropolitan Police did not dismiss.
However, the protests could easily have been the largest in world history. Edward Snowden, who became famous for leaking a large cache of classified top secret US documents in 2013 said on Twitter yesterday that the protests in Iceland were probably the largest protests in world history, on a per-capita basis.
The population of Iceland is only 330,000. Largest protest by percentage of population in history? #PanamaPapers https://t.co/C1jjsYQodp
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 4, 2016
If 22,000 people attended yesterday’s protest as organizers believe, it would mean 6.7% of the entire population gathered in front of the house of Parliament to demand Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson’s resignation.
1975 Women's Holiday might have been larger
Stefán Pálsson, an Icelandic historian who spoke to the local news site visir.is said Snowden might quite well be correct. However, he pointed out that even larger crowds might have participated in the “Women’s holiday”, a mass action in 1975 when Icelandic women walked out of their jobs and homes to demand equal rights. At the time the number of Icelanders was significantly lower than today, only 250,000. Stefán points out that even if those protests did not demand anyone's resignation they made political demands.
Stefán also pointed out that while the small population of Iceland allowed Iceland to achieve remarkably high per-capita at per-capita measures other small nations could easily do the same.
“There are even smaller nations than we. We could for example look at island nations in the Caribbean where there are perhaps 20 thousand inhabitants. You don’t need very large protest marches there to get a higher per-capita participation rate. And then there are Faeroe Islanders whou might at some point get really angry!”
The population of the Faeroe Islands, which are located midway between Iceland and Norway, is slightly less than 50,000. Faeroese is the Nordic language which is most closely related to Icelandic.
Watch a recording of the protests from the local news site visir.is
Yesterday’s protests were the largest ever in Iceland’s history according to multiple sources. Metropolitan Police said officers had never seen similar crowds at mass protests in downtown, saying there could have been as many as 10-15,000 people gathered downtown. Meanwhile, the organizers put the number of people who attended yesterday’s mass protest in Austurvöllur square at 22,000, a figure Metropolitan Police did not dismiss.
However, the protests could easily have been the largest in world history. Edward Snowden, who became famous for leaking a large cache of classified top secret US documents in 2013 said on Twitter yesterday that the protests in Iceland were probably the largest protests in world history, on a per-capita basis.
The population of Iceland is only 330,000. Largest protest by percentage of population in history? #PanamaPapers https://t.co/C1jjsYQodp
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 4, 2016
If 22,000 people attended yesterday’s protest as organizers believe, it would mean 6.7% of the entire population gathered in front of the house of Parliament to demand Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson’s resignation.
1975 Women's Holiday might have been larger
Stefán Pálsson, an Icelandic historian who spoke to the local news site visir.is said Snowden might quite well be correct. However, he pointed out that even larger crowds might have participated in the “Women’s holiday”, a mass action in 1975 when Icelandic women walked out of their jobs and homes to demand equal rights. At the time the number of Icelanders was significantly lower than today, only 250,000. Stefán points out that even if those protests did not demand anyone's resignation they made political demands.
Stefán also pointed out that while the small population of Iceland allowed Iceland to achieve remarkably high per-capita at per-capita measures other small nations could easily do the same.
“There are even smaller nations than we. We could for example look at island nations in the Caribbean where there are perhaps 20 thousand inhabitants. You don’t need very large protest marches there to get a higher per-capita participation rate. And then there are Faeroe Islanders whou might at some point get really angry!”
The population of the Faeroe Islands, which are located midway between Iceland and Norway, is slightly less than 50,000. Faeroese is the Nordic language which is most closely related to Icelandic.
Watch a recording of the protests from the local news site visir.is
