Poll: New Yorkers support OWS

The first opinion poll, sounding out the public on Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrations, shows that the majority of New Yorkers approve of the protest campaign.

More than 85 percent of the Democrat NYC residents participating in the Quinnipiac University survey said they supported the anti-Wall Street movement, while only 35 percent of the Republicans backed the rallies, DPA reported on Tuesday.

75 percent of the respondents said they preferred tougher regulation of the financial services industry.

Most voters blamed former US President George W. Bush’s administration for the financial crisis the US was suffering from. 21 percent of the people said the banks had generated the economic doldrums.

“It’s a free country,” said Maurice Carroll, director of Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Let them keep on protesting as long as they obey the law, New Yorkers say overwhelmingly.”

The participants were divided over the way the New York police had been handling the protests.

Police officers have detained nearly 2,000 peaceful protesters across the US over the past month.

Protesters have been pressured by authorities to vacate their camps in a number of cities, including New York and Washington, DC, with police using pepper spray and batons to forcibly disperse them.

The OWS emerged on September 17, when about 150 people set up tents in New York’s Zuccotti Park to protest at ‘corporate greed’ and top-level corruption in the country.

Since then, the protests have spread to over 80 cities across the US and inspired many European rallies in countries such as Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal.

The outraged public has repeatedly vowed not to give in to the pressure until its demands are met.