Johnathan Fuentes is a student at Rutgers University and an intern at Waging Nonviolence. He blogs regularly about nonviolence at: www.nonviolenceblog.org
Articles by Johnathan Fuentes
Experiments with truth: 4/1/11
- In Yemen today, tens of thousands of people prayed in the streets for the end of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule, while hundreds of thousands of people attended anti-Saleh demonstrations in at least 14 other provinces, including Aden, Taaz, and Hadramout, around the country.
- In Sryia, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in several Syrian cities today, despite the government’s lethal crackdowns on protests.
- Prominent Jordanian journalists and rights activists staged a silent protest on Thursday over the detention in Syria of Reuters correspondent Suleiman al-Khalidi, who was arrested while covering Syrian protests.
- A group of Iranian university students staged a protest rally on Wednesday in front of the UN office in Tehran, condemning the crackdown of protests in Bahrain as well as in other Arab countries.
- Chinese paramilitary police crushed a five-day protest on Thursday by up to 2,000 Chinese villagers who complained that they weren’t being paid enough to relocate for one of China’s largest hydroelectric power projects.
- Thousands of protesters rallied outside the New Hampshire Capitol in Concord on Thursday to oppose budget bills they say curb collective bargaining rights for state workers.
- Students at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York walked out of class Thursday to protest state and city budget cuts.
- Teachers in South Florida held rallies Thursday as part of a countywide walk-in to protest deep state cuts in education.
Experiments with truth: 3/27/11
- 500,000 protesters took to the streets of London on Saturday to protest the massive $130 billion in cuts to public services now being rolled out by the coalition government.
- A flotilla of six boats sailed from Auckland New Zealand on Sunday to launch a protest against plans by a Brazilian oil company to drill for oil and gas off the East Cape of the North Island.
- University protesters in Venezuela have ended a month-long hunger strike on Saturday, saying President Hugo Chavez’s government has met their demands to increase budgets for university scholarships, cafeterias, transportation and other services.
- Three leading Mauritanian anti-slavery activists embarked on a hunger strike last Thursday to protest the delay in prosecuting a case of alleged slavery on children, which has been pending before the government for days.
- Pro-Kurdish activists in Turkey embarked on a campaign of civil disobedience on Saturday to push for greater cultural and political rights for Kurds.
- Thousands of people marched through the streets of Madrid on Saturday evening to protest the military intervention in Libya.
- About 100 people showed up Saturday morning at a strip mall in the town of County Line, Alabama to protest a proposed 219-acre landfill.
Experiments with truth: 3/25/11
- Hundreds of Jordanians set up a protest camp on Thursday in a main square in Amman to press demands for the ouster of the prime minister and wider public freedoms.
- Thousands of Syrians defied a crackdown by their government on Thursday to take to the streets in Deraa in funeral marches for protesters killed by police gunfire.
- Yemen’s opposition groups have dismissed President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s offer to stand down after a presidential election at the end of the year and are instead calling for mass demonstrations today with the intention of forcing the president’s immediate resignation.
- Relatives of at least 80 political prisoners on hunger strike held a demonstration in Cairo on Tuesday, accusing the government of holding them without charge.
- Truck drivers in the Gaza Strip began an indefinite strike on Tuesday to protest Israel’s closing of the Karni crossing, previously the main passage for goods into Gaza.
- University students in Las Vegas, Nevada staged the largest student protest in the state’s history on Tuesday over proposed cuts to higher education that could include laying off tenured faculty and declaring the equivalent of bankruptcy for the school.
- Citizens of Villa Park, California gathered outside a city council meeting on Wednesday to protest anti-Muslim remarks made by Councilwoman Deborah Pauly.
Experiments with truth: 3/21/11
- Several thousand Bahraini Shiites protested in the town of Diraz following Friday prayers, chanting anti-regime slogans, despite a government ban on demonstrations, calling for restraint and non-violence in the face of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.
- On Saturday In Islamabad, Pakistan, hundreds of activists from different political parties and members of civil society took to the streets to protest the release of Raymond Davis, the alleged official of the CIA who had shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore earlier this year.
- On Saturday in Pittsburgh, an estimated 500 opponents of impending Port Authority service cuts participated in a peaceful protest march and rally.
- As the Iraq war hit the 8-year mark on Sunday, hundreds of people, many of which were veterans of previous and current U.S. wars, gathered in front of the White House to protest with the war and current occupations.
- Three first-year Tibetan students from Delhi University on Saturday marched bare-chested from Rajghat to Jantar Mantar to pay their respects to 21-year-old monk Lobsang Phuntsog.
- Protesters interrupted a speech by Sunoco Inc. chairman and chief executive Lynn L. Elsenhans in Philidelphia on Thursday, sparked by layoffs and other business decisions made by Elsenhas.
- Environmental activists and opposition political figures staged a protest in Taipei Sunday against the government’s plan to continue the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project, as Japan battled to bring its quake-damaged nuclear plants under control.
- About 200 workers at two refineries staged demonstrations on Sunday, demanding higher wages, as a series of concessions by Oman’s veteran ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said have failed to quell discontent and unrest.
- On Saturday in Pakistan, a token hunger strike was observed on second consecutive day by the members of All Sindh Education Department Lower Staff Association (ASEDLS) in front of the Karachi Press Club (KPC) against failure of the provincial government in resolving their problems.
- On Friday in Michigan, hundreds of local high school students walked out of their classrooms to protest budget cuts proposed by the state legislature.
Experiments with truth, 3/18/11
- Security forces and government loyalists struck protest camps across Yemen on Thursday, hurling rocks, beating protesters with sticks and firing rubber and live bullets, hoping to break the will of thousands camped in squares for over a month, demanding their longtime authoritarian leader leave power.
- In Saudi Arabia, Shi’ite Muslims marched in the kingdom’s oil-producing east Wednesday, demanding the release of prisoners and voicing support for Shi’ites in nearby Bahrain.
- Nearly 100 University of Michigan students rallied Wednesday afternoon to protest a plan to have Gov. Rick Snyder as commencement speaker at spring graduation ceremonies next month due to his support for cutting funds to public universities.
- Taking the fight from the statehouse in Madison to the nation’s capital, protesters shut down major streets in downtown Washington, D.C. on Wednesday as they marched to the White House in protest against a fundraiser for Wisconsin GOP legislators.
- Raffi Hovannisian, the leader of the opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party, continued his high-profile hunger strike in Yerevan’s Liberty Square on Wednesday amid expressions of support from fellow opposition figures and the Armenian government’s silence.
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Hamas has agreed to meet with the Palestinian Authority after Palestinians held parallel national unity rallies in the West Bank and Gaza earlier this week.
- In Tennessee, troopers forcibly carried out seven union supporters from the Capitol on Tuesday after a protest against anti-union legislation disrupted a Senate committee hearing.
- In Tunisia, hundreds of people gathered in the capital city of Tunis on Friday to protest the visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Experiments with truth: 3/14/11
- In Wisconsin, more than 100,000 people packed the area around the state’s capitol Saturday to continue a month-long campaign against Governor Scott Walker’s attack on worker rights.
- Massive demonstrations rattled Yemen’s major cities on Saturday after police stormed a sit-in of nearly 100,000 protesters outside Sanaa University in the capital at dawn, leaving at least four protesters dead and over 300 others injured.
- More than 200 Saudis protested outside the Interior Ministry on Sunday to demand the release of detainees in the largest demonstration in the capital since the regional outbreak of pro-democracy unrest.
- In Kuwait, amid heavy security presence and in defiance of the warning issued by the Interior Ministry, the stateless residents (Bedouns) staged demonstrations after Friday prayers in Sulaibiya, Taima and Ahmadi areas demanding their civil rights.
- On Friday in Russia, 150 hunger strikers protested what they say is police pressure on Bashkir nationalists in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan.
- In Bahrain, thousands of people held a protest against the Bahraini monarchy outside one of the king’s palaces near Manama on Saturday, a day after a failed attempt to march on another royal palace.
- On Saturday, Azerbaijan police detained more than 30 activists of the opposition Musavat Party when nearly 200 of its members took to the street of Baku to protest against the ruling elite following a similar rally a day before.
- In Spain, thousands of employees of the high-speed AVE trains in Madrid have joined airline staff in their strike against privatization on Sunday.
- In Germany, tens of thousands formed a human chain on Saturday between the Neckarwestheim nuclear plant and the southwestern city of Stuttgart, which are 28 miles (45 kilometers) apart- some waving yellow flags with the slogan “Nuclear power – no thanks.”
