Experiments with truth: 10/17/11
- Galvanized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, protests began in New Zealand, touched parts of Asia, spread to Europe, and resumed at their starting point in New York with 5,000 marchers decrying corporate greed and economic inequality in Times Square. Meanwhile, 24 people were arrested at a Manhattan Citibank branch while trying to close their accounts.
- Police arrested around 175 demonstrators at the Occupy Chicago camp in a downtown park early on Sunday, hauling them away in vans and buses even as protesters vowed to carry on their campaign against economic inequality.
- Yemeni security forces used live rounds as well as tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of people attempting to march on the city center in Sanaa from their stronghold in Change Square. At least 16 people were killed.
- The dissident group Ladies in White sent a message of defiance to the Cuban government on Sunday, having men join them for their weekly protest march for the first time since forming in 2003. It is also believed to be the first time in decades men had taken part in a public protest in Cuba.
- Author, commentator, civil rights activist and Princeton University professor Cornel West was arrested while protesting on the steps of the Supreme Court on Sunday about corporate influence in politics.
- Activists with the October 2011 Stop the Machine protest in Washington’s Freedom Plaza gathered outside the Supreme Court yesterday to draw attention to corporate influence in politics. Nineteen people were arrested, including author, commentator, civil rights activist and Princeton University professor Cornel West.
- Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was among 19 demonstrators arrested during an anti-Wall Street protest in Sacramento, California yesterday.
- More than 2,000 Tunisians have marched in favor of a secular state that allows press freedom and other rights. The demonstration is a response to protests and violence by Islamist extremists.
- Organizing for Occupation, a coalition of housing advocacy groups, disrupted a Brooklyn foreclosure auction on 60 homes last Thursday with a singing protest.
- Hundreds rallied in the disputed Iraqi town of Khanaqin on Sunday to demand the reversal of a central government ruling barring the flag of the autonomous Kurdish region in official buildings.
