Washington D.C., May 19 (Xinhua-RHC) Activists of the U.S. Occupy movement kicked off their weekend protests against the Group of Eight (G8) summit on Friday in Frederick, Maryland, some 20 miles away from the heavily-guarded Camp David presidential retreat where the G8 leaders met later in the day.

Unlike those large and sometimes violent protests seen at the previous G8 summits, an audience of several dozens joined a local library speech and discussion event, as part of the scheduled weekend protests titled "The Occupy G8 People's Summit."

"From its founding, the G8 has existed to represent the wealthiest people and financial institutions in a handful of nations and has been in conflict with everyone else," said Kevin Zeese, one of the organizers of Occupy Frederick. "The international community has called for these types of changes since the early 1970s and again recently, but has been ignored."

U.S. President Barack Obama decided in March to separate the May 18-19 G8 summit from the May 20-21 NATO summit, which will be hosted by Chicago. The G8 summit usually draws protesters against globalization, and Camp David of Maryland is believed to be an ideal location to protect the participating leaders from distraction.

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