Police warn of G20 protests in "summer of rage"

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - Police said on Monday they feared a "summer of rage" with mass protests over the economic crisis that could mar Prime Minister Gordon Brown's G20 summit in London in April.

Anti-globalisation protesters, environmental activists and anti-war demonstrators are all planning events before and during the meeting of world leaders.

Superintendent David Hartshorn, head of London's public order policing branch, said banks, multinational companies and other financial institutions could all be targeted.

"We've got G20 coming and I think that is being advertised on some of the (Web) sites as the highlight of what they see as a 'summer of rage,'" he told the Guardian newspaper.

A number of European countries have seen unrest in the wake of the economic crisis while previous G8 meetings have also acted as catalysts for violence.

Police arrested 91 people at a summit in Scotland in 2005 while anti-capitalist protests in London's financial heartland in 1999 and 2000 saw marchers clash with riot police, causing millions of pounds of damage.

Scotland Yard said there was no intelligence yet that there would be a "wave of potentially violent mass protests" or a return to riots that broke out in a number of cities during economic downturns of the 1980s.

"What police do believe is that there has been a re-emergence of some known activists who may attempt to once again become part of the protest scene in London," a police spokesman said.