At least 80 people have been arrested during an anti-Wall Street march in New York's financial district.

Several hundred people took part in Saturday's march, which was intended to draw attention to "corporate greed and corrupt politics" in the US. Participants carried banners supporting a range of other issues, including healthcare reform, an end to US wars and the scrapping of the death penalty.

The march came after a week of protests by the Occupy Wall Street campaign.

The loosely organised group says it is defending 99% of the US population against the wealthiest 1%, and had called for 20,000 people to "flood into lower Manhattan" on 17 September and remain there for "a few months".

"The enemy is the big business leaders of Wall Street, the big oil company leaders, the coal company leaders, the big military industrial leaders." A number of placards also called for "justice for Troy Davies", the US man executed in Georgia last week amid widespread criticism.

Police said most of Saturday's arrests were for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic, but one person was charged with assaulting a police officer. One officer also suffered a shoulder injury, said police.

They have not commented on protest organisers' comments that there had been an "unprecedented level of police aggression" on display.

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