'Shame' on Charles
2005-03-04 11:23
Australia - Two protesters opposed to Prince Charles's upcoming marriage cried out "shame" and held up a placard showing pictures of the late Princess Diana when the crown prince mingled with hundreds of well-wishers in Sydney.
Charles appeared to notice the demonstration against his scheduled wedding in April to longtime companion Camilla Parker Bowles, but ignored it.
A member of the prince's security detail and Governor Marie Bashir, the British Queen's representative in New South Wales state, tried to block the placard from view as the prince shook hands and chatted with members of the crowd.
Bashir described the demonstrators' action as "cruel" and "very unrestrained".
Charles was in Sydney during a five-day whirlwind tour of Australia that has been overshadowed by scrutiny of his plan to marry Parker Bowles, which has upset some observers because their romance began before Diana was killed in a 1997 car crash.
Renewed debate
Some of the people who saw the protest outside Sydney's landmark Opera House did not support it.
"I think he should be able to enjoy his life," royal enthusiast Greg Herbert, 63, said of Charles's plans to wed Parker Bowles on April 8.
Michael Neville, a 30-year-old nurse from Oxford in England, agreed saying: "He doesn't have to be lonely for the rest of his life. But maybe he should give way to his son."
The royal tour - Charles's first to Australia in more than a decade - has sparked renewed debate here over whether the former British penal colony should withdraw from the Commonwealth and become a republic.
Australians are now nominally subjects of the British crown and Queen Elizabeth II is Australia's head of state.
A recent newspaper poll showed that Australians were more inclined to support the country becoming a republic when reminded that Prince Charles would become the next head of state with Parker Bowles, his longtime mistress, as his wife.
The poll also showed that a majority of Australians, 59%, want Charles to renounce his claim to the throne in favour of his oldest son, Prince William.
- AP