• About 20 people gathered on Thursday outside the Ritz-Carlton in New York City—where the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was said to be staying—to protest his trip to the United States for medical treatment and a deal he received that granted him immunity from prosecution for  crimes against protesters during uprisings last year.

• Thousands of Bahrainis held a peaceful anti-government protest in a suburb of the capital on Friday, demanding the release of political prisoners and political reforms in the troubled Gulf Arab state.

• Protesters defied a heavy security presence across Syria on Friday to commemorate the 30th anniversary of a deadly crackdown on Islamist opposition in the city of Hama, but were effectively prevented from turning out in the capital, Damascus.

• Several thousand people rallied in Bratislava and seven other Slovakian cities Friday to demand that early elections planned in March be postponed to allow a thorough investigation.

• Poland’s prime minister says he is suspending the ratification process for an international copyright treaty after widespread protests and attacks on government websites.

• Members of an Indian tribe in Panama are blocking roads in two provinces on the border with Costa Rica in a dispute over mineral exploitation on their lands.

• Cambodian police violently dispersed a group of around 150 women protesting forced evictions in the capital Phnom Penh on Thursday.

• Around 300 people gathered outside Budapest’s New Theater on Wednesday to protest its new director, an actor with links to far-right parties.

• Hackers associated with the activist group Anonymous posted a protest against Greece’s EU and IMF-inspired austerity policies on the website of the country’s justice ministry Friday

• Egyptian activist groups on Thursday launched an open-ended strike in Cairo to pressure the country’s military rulers  to expedite the transfer of power to an elected civilian  administration, a day after 100,000 Egyptians came out to Tahrir Square to mark the anniversary of the first massive protest that led to the overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak.

• Activists linked to the global ‘Occupy’ movement used giant red weather balloons to stage a flying protest over the venue of the World Economic Forum on Wednesday.

• Nearly 7,000 prisoners were on a hunger strike Wednesday in Kyrgyzstan with more  than 1,000 sewing shut their lips with staples and thread to protest jail  conditions

• On Tuesday, demonstrators with ACTA stickers on their mouths protested against Poland’s government plans to sign international copyright agreement ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), in front of the European Union office in Warsaw.

• Dozens of teachers turned out at six events across Seattle on Tuesday to protest and rally against budget cuts that are hurting education.

• Nepalese students chanted anti government slogans during a torch rally to protest against Nepal Oil Corporation’s decision to hike prices on major petroleum products, including petrol, diesel, kerosene and LPG in Kathmandu on Tuesday.

• On Tuesday, Cambodian victims held a demonstration to mark the third anniversary of a forced eviction in the Dey Krahorm community.

• Hundreds of Tibetans carried out day-long protests and candle light vigils in Ngaba on Monday calling for the return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from exile and demanding freedom in Tibet.

• Thousands of Zimbabwean civil servants conducted a one-day strike Thursday to protest low wages.

• Some 40,000 people were out on the streets on Thursday in various provinces across Turkey to commemorate Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot dead outside his newspaper’s office in Şişli on Jan. 19, 2007.

• Air traffic controllers in Cyprus walked off the job for four hours on Wednesday to protest a two-year government worker wage freeze and other deficit-reduction measures.

• Inmates in 13 Kyrgyz jails started a mass hunger strike on Wednesday to support inmates in detention center No. 1 in Bishkek, where security troops violently quelled a prisoner riot on January 16.

• On Tuesday, about 6,000 workers began an indefinite strike for higher wages at a $5.25 billion project to widen the Panama Canal to accommodate larger ships.

• Dozens of orphans in Jordan on Tuesday staged a sit-in in front of the Royal Court in downtown Amman demanding better services.

• A new anti-austerity 24-hour strike and protest hit Athens on Tuesday, as auditors of international creditors returned to Greece for talks on the release of a second aid package.

• Women employees at the Palestinian Women’s Affairs Ministry began a “hunger strike till death” on Tuesday to protest against corruption and harassment.

• The teaching fraternity in Ranchi, India carried out a sit-in rally on Tuesday, to protest Maoist atrocities against them.

I woke up early this morning to cook breakfast for what remains of the Witness Against Torture community. After almost two weeks, it was the first time one of us had cooked for each other, and as I sat down to reflect on our time here in Washington, D.C. for the “Hunger for Justice” campaign that so many have participated in, I find myself looking forward to be able to take a break. Most of my writing, time, organizing and reflection have dealt with some aspect of torture or detention and, to be honest, I have grown weary. I miss the work on the farm. I miss family and community. I miss being able to walk through the woods or enjoy a quite cup of coffee while reading esoteric political philosophy. And then it dawns on me. Those desires I yearn for and enjoy are the reason I am part of Witness Against Torture (WAT).

I had very little hesitation pulling the black hood over my eyes as I approached the White House sidewalk with almost 40 other Witness Against Torture activists yesterday. As a community, we were on day ten of a liquids-only fast and had plans to break it with a communal meal that evening. But there was always the chance that most of us would end up in jail for an uncomfortable night of restlessness, hunger, and stress and delay the breaking of our fast until morning. Still, the thought of a couple days in jail in exchange for a visible act of resistance to U.S. policies of torture and detention and an expression of solidarity to the men in Guantánamo was worth it.

We pulled our cage with a “Guantánamo prisoner” onto the sidewalk and we spread out—in the infamous orange jumpsuits and black hoods—along the pristine yet protective fence that secures the sanctity of the White House. The police quickly informed us that we were not welcome and that we had to disperse and move the cage. Some of us sat down around it, making clear our intention that we would have to be forcibly removed. The day marked the start of Guantánamo’s eleventh year and followed the January 11th day of action—the largest-ever protest against the prison and issues of indefinite detention, including the recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

After three hours on the cold sidewalk, the police began making arrests. We were assigned identification numbers, photographed, and detained in police cruisers and holding cells for a few hours before being released with a notice to appear in court in early February. All things considered—especially with the prisoners of Guantánamo weighing heavy on our hearts—it was a cakewalk. The mild discomfort of fasting, hours in plastic handcuffs, metal seats, and a rough ride in the back of a police van pale in comparison to the indefinite detention of innocent men and the physical and psychological torture they have received. Lawyers for the men in Guantánamo communicated to us that their clients were going to hold a three-day hunger strike. According to our friends at the Center for Constitutional Rights:

multiple clients have told counsel that the men at GTMO were so moved to find out that we were planning a big public demo that they have decided to try and hold a peaceful protest in solidarity *with us* and to protest the ongoing injustice of 10 years of indefinite detention at GTMO! We know there is buy into this among the men at Camps 5 and 6. Camp 6 is communal and there will be hunger strikes and peaceful sit-ins, with signs prepared. Camp 5 is more restrictive, so no communal sit-ins, but a protest involving a refusal to accept food for 3 days. The men informed camp guards about their intentions and reasoning on Monday night, and aim to peacefully protest on Jan 10, 11, and 12. We won’t know in real time if they were successful or were stopped — but we know that men on every cell block in camp 6 will seek to do this, and that men in Camp 5 will participate as well.

Of course it is we who are acting in solidarity with them. It is their plight we wish to draw attention to. It is their imprisonment we condemn. Our fast was an expression of our repentance for their continued mistreatment by the hands of a government that is supposed to represent us. Our protest, direct action, and civil resistance are our attempts to bring the illegitimacy, illegality and shame of Guantánamo and indefinite detention back into public purview for condemnation and closure. Our own brief detention and experience in the “justice system” is our meager expression of solidarity for their profound experience of prison and contrived courts and military tribunals.

The police released us just in time for us to break the fast together, but they kept our cage. All in all, it was a good couple of weeks of community, education, protest, media coverage, outreach, coalition building and nonviolent action. Interestingly, the fast has weakened our bodies but strengthened our resolve. We have another trial date—which is more than those in Guantánamo or Bagram can say—so our efforts continue. But the prison is still open and we—as a people and a nation—are perhaps in a worse-off political situation than we were a year ago. The political winds shift easily, but it seems unlikely that Guantánamo will close anytime soon. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of torture and unjust and inhumane detention practices are less scrutinized and more accepted than they were a decade ago.

Professor Juan Mendez, the UN rapporteur on torture and himself a survivor of torture, confirmed the bleak political reality for closing Guantánamo as we shared our first meal with him and members of the National Lawyers Guild chapter at American University School of Law. But the resistance is growing and the realization of our interconnectedness is deepening—especially at the grassroots level as evidenced by the Occupy movement’s protests against NDAA and the historic coalition of human rights groups on January 11. The new Close Guantanamo project has brought together a diverse group of individuals and communities to help facilitate the kind of knowledge that translates into action. When lawyers for the Guantánamo habeas cases took the stage at the January 11 rally, hundreds were voluntarily engaged in fasting and hunger strikes. Thousands more were engaged in protests around the world and we caught a fleeting glimpse of what a world united against torture might look like.

Looking forward, Witness Against Torture is asking itself what to do next. 2012 is a presidential election year and it is unlikely that politicians will willingly engage in questions regarding torture, detention or Guantánamo unless there is significant public pressure. Anti-torture and civil liberty groups have a lot of work to do in the public realm to raise awareness, educate and mobilize citizens. The upcoming trial date will be another opportunity to “put” Guantánamo and the NDAA on trial both in the courts and with the public. The coverage by mainstream media of the tenth anniversary of Guantánamo—in large part generated by our activism—is promising, as are the many op-eds calling for its closure.

WAT has grown tremendously since 25 people traveled to the Cuban prison to fast in 2005. Still, as a community we are asking ourselves what more can we do? In the coming months, in addition to preparing for our trial, we will take some time to think critically about what are the next steps necessary for closing Guantánamo. The fact that many of the prisoners at Guantánamo are encouraged by our actions helps us understand our work as having some effect—not the one we or the prisoners hope for—but worthwhile nonetheless. The American detention regime is complicated by both political and legal issues but never before have the issues of detention been so much in the spotlight. Regrettably, the passage of the NDAA reflects the difficult situation we are in. But with creativity and commitment Witness Against Torture’s work with grassroots activists to challenge the Guantánamo narrative will continue in whatever fashion we can. There will be conference calls and retreats, between now and next January to evaluate our past and plan for the future. Meanwhile the vigils, teach-ins, speak-outs, interviews and direct action will continue—always hoping but never knowing—until that tipping point to close Guantánamo is reached.

• Dozens of cars manned by Palestinians from the West Bank tried to leave Jericho on Tuesday morning in a non-violent protest action to protest and challenge the system of Israeli-only roads throughout the West Bank, but were stopped by Israeli forces, who blocked the four lanes entering and exiting the Palestinian city.

• On Monday, survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy staged a protest at a park as part of the international campaign to demand that the Organizing Committee of the London Games set to begin from July 27, cancel the sponsorship by Dow Chemicals.

• Workers at consumer goods giant Unilever staged a noisy protest outside the firm’s London offices in a dispute over pensions which is set to escalate into a series of strikes starting next Tuesday.

• More than 9,000 lawyers boycotted court proceedings in Pakistan’s major cities on Tuesday in protest of a senior attorney’s slaying outside his home in Lahore.

• Workers at a Freeport McMoran mine in Indonesia on Tuesday halted their gradual return to work one day after gunmen shot two contractors dead on the road to the Grasberg mine.

• As many as 231 Air India flight attendants refused to work on Tuesday, which delayed four international flights, to protest non-payment of salaries and sustenance allowance since August.

• A national strike paralyzed much of Nigeria on Monday, with more than 10,000 demonstrators swarming its commercial capital to protest soaring fuel prices and decades of government corruption in the oil-rich country.

• Tensions flared at the American Licorice factory Monday as protesters associated with the Occupy Oakland movement joined the month-old factory workers’ strike, blocking entrances and turning away delivery trucks.

• Over five hundred people in the French city of Clermont-Ferrand attended the silent march on Saturday, to show their support for Wissam El-Yamini, a thirty years old man who went into coma following his violent arrest on New Year’s Eve.

• Tens of thousands demonstrating in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Friday chanted “freedom to the detainees,” a slogan chosen by protest organizers for demonstrations in 18 cities across the impoverished nation.

• Around ten thousand people blocked railways and the Aswan-Cairo highway in the Upper Egyptian City of Nagaa-Hammadi, Qena, late on Friday, to protest the results of the ongoing parliamentary elections in their constituency.

• More than 20 Omanis continue their prison hunger strike, which began in mid-December, in protest at what they say are unfair sentences for taking part in demonstrations last year.

• In Turkey, police dispersed scores of anti-NATO activists in the southern city of Adana on Friday as they were setting up tents to stage a three-day hunger strike to show their opposition to the NATO missile system that will be established in the eastern province of Malatya.

• On Friday, thousands of shopkeepers in the Indian portion of Kashmir went on a daylong general strike to protest the killing of a student and frequent power cuts.

• A group of parents whose children attend Chicago Public Schools slated for “turnarounds,” closures or other adjustments protested the plan with a sit-in at City Hall Thursday, where they vowed to stay until Mayor Rahm Emanuel granted them a meeting to discuss alternatives.

• Dozens of street dance enthusiasts in Hangzhou, the capital of east China’s Zhejiang Province, participated in a flash mob activity advocating environmental protection last Tuesday.

The defendants file in—some looking neat and upstanding, some in their best approximation of the same. They all look tired. Sleeping on the floor of a church can do that to a person.

The white haired, slightly amused and always alert judge, the white noise machine when the lawyers confer with the judge, the stern and fit marshals, the wall to wall carpet and wood paneling. Yes—we are in a DC court. Take off your hats, gentlemen and ma’am, no knitting allowed in the court.

The matter before the court is unusual. The defendants are representing themselves, with legal advisors on hand. They stakes are high—if convicted, they could face up to a year in jail.

On June 23, 2011, a day the House of Representatives was scheduled to debate provisions that would eventually become the National Defense Authorization Act just signed into law by President Barack Obama that included a measure to strip funding from any efforts to repatriate Guantanamo detainees, fourteen activists stood one by one and addressed the men and women elected to represent their interests. Here is part of what they said:

Today the House of Representative is in the process of contemplating not the passage of a bill but the commission of a crime. Provisions in the proposed Defense Appropriations Bill grant the United States powers over the lives of detained men fitting of a totalitarian state that uses the law itself as an instrument of tyranny. The law would make the prison at Guantanamo permanent by denying funds for the transfer of men to the United States, even for prosecution in civilian courts.

Spread throughout the Gallery, the fourteen were able to complete their statements before being led away by Congressional guards. Many of the Representatives on the floor listened intently, while others jeered derisively. Everyone within hearing range understood that the activists were objecting to the continued abuse and detention of men at Guantanamo—many of whom have been cleared for release under President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama and continue to be held largely because of the political cowardice of Congress.

Only four completed the trial. The government failed to identify the other ten. One of the ones who went through the trial was Shakir Ami aka Brian Hynes.

Shakir Ami is not a name you hear every day in DC court. It is not exactly right, either. But its genesis is in an action Witness Against Torture did a few years ago at the Supreme Court, when 80 of us occupied those hallowed halls—shutting it down for (what we think is) the first time. None of us brought identification, opting to go through the system with the names of men at Guantanamo.

Thus, we symbolically brought them into the U.S. court system. For most of us, it meant just a very long processing through the DC jails and an opportunity to say the name of “our” defendant in a court of law. For some men at Guantanamo, it was the first (and some perhaps only) time their names were heard in the U.S. justice system. For Brian Hynes, it meant more—the correctional officers who processed Brian misspelled and garbled Shaker Aamer, rendering it Shakir Ami—but the symbolism remains striking and is pervasive. In the DC system, Shakir Ami is Brian Hynes’ alias and every time he is arrested, he’ll have an opportunity to talk about Shaker Aamer.

Aamer remains at Guantanamo. He is the last remaining British resident at Guantanamo. The rest were released years ago and have made documentaries, written books and become active in the international movement to shut down Guantanamo. Aamer is an educated man, born in Saudi Arabia but a legal resident of the United Kingdom who is married to a British national. He had been in Guantanamo for nearly ten years, and from early on was a leader amongst the prisoners, encouraging them to demand better conditions and organizing protests and hunger strikes in response to abuses. For this leadership, Aamer has been singled out for harsh treatment and remains in solitary confinement. In September, the BBC reported that Aamer was on hunger strike and being forcibly fed through a tube. In a letter quoted in the article, Aamer wrote that:

Inhumane treatment is taking place at the [Guantanamo] hospital among other areas, especially affecting the sick and those who are on (hunger) strike and our deprivation of real treatment, health, diet and appropriate clothing which are not provided to us, nor we are allowed to provide them for ourselves.

Shaker is the father of four. His youngest son Faris was born after he was in Guantanamo. They have never met or touched. Shaker was cleared for release from Guantanamo by the U.S. government in 2007, and yet he remains in Guantanamo.

None of the details about Shaker Aamer were admissible in the trial. Brian Hynes was interrupted and silenced every time he mentioned Shaker’s name. But the facts of Aamer’s case bear repeating as President Barack Obama used the New Year’s holiday to sign into law the National Defense Authorization Act, a piece of legislation that codifies into law a set of dangerous and controversial policies and protocols that have evolved over the last ten years of the global war on terror.

In response, the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote that it:

strongly condemns the U.S. Congress for passing, and President Obama for signing, the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which effectively endorses war without end and makes indefinite military detention without charge or trial a permanent feature of the American legal system. This is the first time since the McCarthy Era that Congress has written indefinite detention into law.

We had hoped that President Obama—a constitutional law professor and believer in the aspirational course of American justice—would uphold his promise to veto this radical law that threatens to roll back both decades-old legislation enacted to combat McCarthy-era excesses and 19^th-century limitations on domestic military policing. At the same time that heroic activists in the Arab world are risking their lives to rid themselves of the remnants of their authoritarian and militaristic regimes, the United States is embracing practices contrary to the basic aspirations of any constitutional democracy.

Brian Hynes and the three co-defendants rested their case on Wednesday. On Thursday they were found guilty. On Friday, the judge sentenced Mike Levinson to two days in jail and then suspended it, gave him 6 months unsupervised probation, told him not to engage in illegal activities on Capitol grounds or buildings for 6 months, and—in lieu of a fine—granted his wish to make a $150 charitable contribution to the organization of his choice. The rest of the defendants will be sentenced on Thursday, January 12.

This is not the end. It is the beginning. Opposition to the NDAA is coming from all quarters, and manifesting itself in flashmobs in Grand Central, arrests at the White House, and trials in Superior Court.

Our work continues in DC, as Witness Against Torture’s Hungering for Justice fast enters its fourth day and we gear up for “Ten Years Too Many: National Day of Action Against Guantanamo” on January 11.

We only wish the real Shaker Aamer and his family could join us.

• Several hundred anti-Wall Street protesters marched in a “human float” behind the 123rd Tournament of Roses parade on Monday, unfurling a 250-foot banner of the constitution and also displayed an approximately 70-foot octopus made of recycled plastic grocery bags.

• More than 950 relatives of inmates are refusing to leave a Venezuelan prison in a protest to demand faster trial for inmates.

• Troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir have opened fire on hundreds of villagers who were protesting against frequent power cuts, killing one person and injuring two others.

• Thousands of Indiana workers rallied outside, and inside, their state capitol on Wednesday to speak out against Governor Mitch Daniels‘ renewed effort to force through so-called “right to work” legislation designed to undermine labor unions and workers’ rights protected by collective bargaining.

• Skipping New Year Eve celebration parties, hundreds of people in Guy Fawkes masks gathered in downtown Kuala Lumpur last weekend in a peaceful protest to demand greater democratic freedom in Malaysia.

• Indonesians have dropped thousands of old flip-flops and other footwear at police stations and a child protection group to protest the heavy-handed treatment of a 15-year-old boy accused of stealing a policeman’s sandals in the northern state of Central Sulawesi.

• About 2,000 Peruvians marched in the northern city of Cajamarca on Monday, resuming protests that started in November against plans to develop a gold mine that would harm their water supplies.

• Thousands of people in Bangladesh’s northwest gathered over the new year period to demand government action to save a dying river which they said is vital to their livelihoods.

• A group of Nigerian protesters marched in the Niger Delta on Saturday calling on Royal Dutch Shell to do more to clean up last month’s massive oil spill.

• The mayor of a remote Armenian village joined on Thursday more than 100 environmental activists in a protest against a German-owned company’s plans to expand open-pit mining in the southeastern Syunik region.

Historically, the NDAA was a spending bill that set the annual budget for the US military. Recently, the guaranteed passage of the NDAA has been used by legislators—in spite of vehement rhetorical opposition by progressive and GOP legislators, the bill still passed, unsurprisingly, with overwhelming support (86-13 with one abstaining in the Senate; 322-96 with eleven abstaining in the House)—to craft the policies and politics of the war on terror.

The same day President Obama signed the NDAA, activists with Witness Against Torture (WAT) began preparing for a January 3, 2012 trial to defend themselves against charges stemming from a June 2011 protest when they interrupted House of Representative deliberations on a Defense Appropriations Bill—a precursor to the final NDAA.

The reason for WAT’s protest was not the provision that allows the president to indefinitely detain anyone, anywhere, which was not included in the early drafts of the 2012 military spending bill. Rather WAT was protesting the provisions in the bill—which did make it into the NDAA—that establish the prison in Guantanamo Bay as a permanent fixture in U.S. foreign policy and seriously question America’s commitment to human and civil rights. Journalist Andy Worthington describes the provisions that make it near impossible to transfer detainees for trial in civilian courts or release them to foreign countries.

The uproar regarding the NDAA’s potential treatment of U.S. citizens as “enemy combatants,” without rights to counsel or trial, in the war on terror is simply the realization of a misguided, immoral, and ineffective domestic and foreign response to terrorism. The chickens are coming home to roost. The American legacy of the 2000s is one of torture, illegal domestic spying, the flouting of international law, and unconscionable detention practices. Meanwhile, nonviolent alternatives for effectively dealing with terrorists—such as a long-stalled potential rehabilitation center for Guantanamo detainees or peer-group centers that challenge and shift the narratives of Islamist terrorism (such as Abdul Haqq Baker and the STREET center that WNV favorite Tina Rosenberg has reported on)—are not given much official consideration.

Instead, the net of repression continues to grow as it extends across the planet and all its peoples. The U.S. and its people have not been troubled much by the men, women, and even children who languish in its military prisons—secret or otherwise—in Cuba, Bagram, Afghanistan, Bucharest, Romania and countless other global locations. As Witness Against Torture activists, whom I am joining, begin an 11-day Fast for Justice on behalf of all those indefinitely detained, will ordinary Americans recognize the global assault on freedom that the Bush and Obama administrations have waged for over a decade?

As Gitmo proves, the policy and practice of indefinite detention is not new. It’s only the latest in a long, ugly succession of unjust detentions ranging from American Indian boarding schools to Japanese internment camps to slave plantations and Abu Ghraib. Even if Americans are aghast at the NDAA’s contents that quite clearly contradict the constitutional right of habeas corpus we hold so dear, it is foolish to think this is just a naïve lapse of judgment by the keepers of our best interests. The cat was let out of the bag a long time ago. Recall the famous words of Martin Niemöller, the anti-Nazi pastor and pacifist:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

We have failed to speak out for prisoners detained the world over. President Obama enters the final year of his first term, and his landmark executive order to close Guantanamo has been reduced to little more than a prank played on hopeful supporters; 171 men remain imprisoned—more than 60 of whom were cleared for release years ago by President Bush. It is not too late to speak out for them—or ourselves, for that matter—but the sun is setting and the dark night of indefinite detention threatens to rise on friend and foe alike. Join us on January 11.

The message written on this protester's hands reads: "Our demand is the trial."

• Thousands of Yemenis marched toward the capital on Thursday to demand President Ali Abdullah Saleh face trial for killing protesters during 11 months of demonstrations against him and to denounce a new government that would spare him prosecution.

• Several thousand Eyptian activists gathered in Cairo after Friday prayers today for a mass protest against the ruling military and its handling of a series of clashes between security forces and demonstrators that killed 17 people and drew international criticism.

• In Somalia, residents of Sool’s provincial capital of Las Anod took to the streets and went on strike on Thursday, bringing the city to a standstill, to show solidarity with prisoners staging a hunger strike at the city’s main prison.

• On Thursday, holiday strikes to protest austerity measures paralyzed ground traffic in Belgium.

• Camped outside Hungary’s public broadcaster, a small group of television editors is on hunger strike to protest what they say is widespread news manipulation by the government.

• In Pakistan, more than 2,500 members of seven labor unions from across the country gathered at the Railways Headquarters on Wednesday to stage a sit-in against the government’s ‘inability’ to rescue the Railways.

• In Sudan, dozens of students held a protest assembly at Jackson Square on Tuesday in the heart of Khartoum to show solidarity with the month-long Manasir protest against the the Merowe Hydropower Project.

• A group of asylum seekers who survived last weekend’s boat disaster off the Indonesian island of Java have begun a hunger strike after being moved to a detention centre where as many as 12 people are sharing each cell.

• In Kuwait, police used tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and smoke bombs to disperse a large protest on Monday by the country’s stateless people in Taimaa. Around 30 men who entered a hunger strike were arrested.

• South Korean protesters calling attention to the women forced into sexual slavery during WWII reached their thousandth weekly demonstration on Wednesday. Marking the occasion, a statue honoring the victims was erected in front of the Japanese embassy.

• Chicago activists progressively interrupted a school board meeting on Wednesday in an act of nonviolent resistance—eventually forcing the board members to retreat out of the room—in protest of proposed changes to low-income schools.

• Demonstrators opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline staged a ‘human oil spill’ in front of Speaker John Boehner’s office in Washington D.C. Wednesday.

• Portugal’s top trade union confederation CGTP on Monday launched a week of protests against the government’s austerity policies.

• Employees of the Lahore College for Women University in Pakistan held a boycott of classes for the second day on Tuesday, demanding better terms for school workers.

• Thousands of taxi drivers in Guinea Bissau went on strike Tuesday to call for an end to police extortion.

• Disabled persons in Athens held a rally on Tuesday to oppose further austerity measures being considered by the Greek government.

• Inmates at seven Kyrgyzstan prisons coordinated a hunger strike on Tuesday to agitate for better living conditions and meals.

• Around 200 Los Angeles high school students walked out of classes on Tuesday and marched several miles to stage a sit-in at district board meeting, decrying cuts to school budgets.

• Thousands of public sector workers in Cyprus staged a three-hour stoppage Tuesday in protest over government moves to freeze salaries for two years as part of an austerity drive to avoid an EU bailout.

• A network of progressive South Korean Christian groups began a four day hunger strike on Monday to protest vote buying and corruption in the country’s largest Protestant association.

In September 2011, the humanitarian aid group No More Deaths released a shocking human rights report entitled Culture of Cruelty: Abuse and Impunity in Short-Term U.S. Border Patrol Custody. This is the organization’s second report; in 2008, it published Crossing the Line which narrated the stories of over 400 individual accounts of abuse of migrants while in Border Patrol custody. Their new report contains even more detailed evidence, concluding that “the abuse, neglect, and dehumanization of migrants is part of the institutional culture of Border Patrol.” Data collected from almost 13,000 individuals in 4,130 interviews—over the course of a three year period while simultaneously providing direct aid to repatriated and deported migrants—unmask an often-untold (or at least, unheard) story of pervasive and systemic human rights violation committed by a federal agency in the United States.

Vicki Kline, a spokesperson for No More Deaths who also co-wrote the report, commented on the report’s findings:

We hope to achieve increased public (and policy-maker) knowledge of the complex set of contextual circumstances that have led to 1) the current border situation, and 2) an institution [Border Patrol] that has the capacity to institute simple changes that make them more accountable to the public and their stated policy of treating people with respect and dignity. They do not appear to be making those change and has, instead, continued to be a place the creates a culture in which abuses of people’s dignity are permissible.

Culture of Cruelty documents more than 30,000 instances of abuse from respondents—the most frequent being denied or provided insufficient food while in custody; length of custody ranged from a few hours to more than 2 days. This may not seem “that abusive,” but considering that migrants in detention are often held after having been arrested in the desert, the punishment is particularly harsh. It is not uncommon for migrants to have been in the desert for days at a time—many without enough food or no food at all. But there is more. The report highlights twelve areas of concern regarding Border Patrol treatment of detained migrants:

• Failure to Provide and the Denial of Water

• Failure to Provide and the Denial of Food

• Failure to Provide Medical Treatment and Access to Medical Professionals

• Inhumane Processing Center Conditions

• Verbal Abuse

• Physical Abuse

• Dangerous Transportation Practices

• Separation of Family Members

• Dangerous Repatriation Practices

• Failure to Return Personal Belongings

• Due Process Concern

• Psychological Abuse

The report copiously substantiates—quantitatively and qualitatively—its findings regarding the areas of concern. For example:

April 15, 2010, with Angélica from Mexico. Angélica has a son in Oregon. When the Border Patrol apprehended her group, agents handcuffed them to one another and made them walk in a line for 20 minutes in the dark. She fell because it was difficult to walk and agents pushed her. While she was in custody in Yuma on March 14, agents threw away all of her possessions, including medicine. Border Patrol agents kicked Angélica in the stomach and denied her medical attention. When No More Deaths volunteers met her on April 15, she reported persisting pain in her abdomen.

May 18, 2010, anonymous man from Mexico. He stated that he had lived in Wisconsin for 14 years and Texas for one year, and has family in the U.S. The interviewee and his group were apprehended by Border Patrol agents. Many people asked for water and did not receive it. Some were wounded and did not receive medical care. They were told neither where they were being taken nor where they were being held in custody. The agents used curse words and racial epithets and told the detainees, “You are illegal, you don’t have rights.”

The story CNN ran on the report detailed Border Patrol council President Brandon Judd denying the report’s findings; “it just doesn’t ring true,” Judd said. Analysis of news sources highlight similar institutional responses from the agency to deflect the reports’ findings by not responding to the findings directly or making unrelated statements affirming Border Patrol’s professionalism.

Yet what is remarkable about this report is not just its finding, but that the process that produced it—like its 2008 predecessor. It was born out of the painstaking work of a community-based human rights groups: non-professionals. That is, No More Deaths is an all-volunteer community group of concerned citizens (not all of whom are documented) who, for the most part, are rather ordinary. They are students, retirees, teachers, pastors, skilled workers, and social service providers. Bringing together young and old alike to “end death and suffering on the U.S.-Mexico border,” No More Deaths funds itself, has no paid staff, operates by consensus, and is rooted in a tradition of nonviolence called civil initiative. A problem was identified, the root causes were identified, and a small group of concerned people got together to come up with a response that took personal responsibility for finding solutions for the issue.

Both reports were a direct response from the aid work No More Deaths was engaged in and it informs decisions as to where its limited energies and resources should be put. “The abuse documentation project sprang out of humanitarian work; so that has always been really important—we started documenting things that people told us in the course of providing first aid, or responding to crises,” said Kline, who recently returned from presenting the report to the Human Rights Commission in Mexico City and migrant aid groups in Oaxaca. Kline continued:

We didn’t just go in with an idea that we wanted to document what we believed what was happening; we began documenting the repeated stories and experiences that people were sharing with us. The point of the reports is to inform people of the situation on the ground; policy and history; the lived experience of people who have been in short-term border patrol custody.

Culture of Cruelty represents an activist group at its best: relevant to the needs of a community, collaborative sharing of power, high quality results, accessible to the public and other institutions, and has the freedom to engage in activities that respond directly to the identified problems. “We’ve only focused mostly on abuses in short-term Border Patrol custody,” said Kline. “But our documentation uncovered other issues within the larger immigration detention system, issues related to the health impact of deportations of people who’ve been living in the U.S. for extended periods of time, and the impacts of changing demographics of repatriations and the flow of migration. The deportation impact report will be released this season. The rest is leading to other conversations about where do we go from here?”

• Protests were ongoing Sunday in Tahrir Square after thousands of protesters rallied on Friday for an end to the Army’s rule in Egypt.

• Despite strict controls on public speech, Singapore saw a rare public demonstration on Sunday as hundreds of activists participated in the global “Slut Walk” movement, calling attention to violence against women.

• Jordanian environmentalists staged a sit-in Saturday at the Prime Ministry, objecting to the country’s atomic program.

• Friday marked the seventh day of protests in Pakistan as demonstrators decried a NATO airstrike in Pakistani territory which killed 24 soldiers.

• On Wednesday, a mass rally took place in Bulgaria as thousands demonstrated against austerity measures, including a government plan to raise the retirement age.

• In India, several fired workers agitating for their union’s recognition were arrested Wednesday after protesting in front of a Hyundai plant’s gate.

• Millions of shop owners in India closed their doors on Thursday, striking and marching in protest of a bill which would allow foreign superstores like Walmart to have greater access in their country.

• In the United Kingdom, Wales was the center of one of the largest public sector strikes in a generation Wednesday as around 170,000 workers—including teachers—abandoned their posts in ongoing protests against government pension reforms.

• In the Philippines, hundreds of inmates continued a hunger strike Thursday, instigating noise barrages to agitate for faster case disposition, the release of political prisoners, and to address other grievances.

• Thousands of Greek workers participated in this year’s seventh general strike on Thursday, continuing their calls to end government austerity programs.

• Students from three high schools in Seattle staged a walk out on Thursday to gather at City Hall in protest of a Washington state proposal to fill budget holes with cuts to education funding.

• Building on a series of protests this month against Bank of America’s poor environmental record, a Thursday rally in Asheville, NC culminated in the arrest of several nonviolent resisters who wanted to call attention to BOA’s support of the coal industry.

Protesters against Guantanamo in Washington, D.C., on January 11, 2008. Photo by Keith Ivey, via Flickr.

In a world full of injustice—from battered women to clubbed seals to the Club of Europe, from neglected children to nuclear weapons to mountain top removal, from torture at Guantanamo to torture at Bagram to torture in Chicago’s prisons to the torture of the death penalty, from famine in Somalia to deforestation to families being broken by Arizona’s immigration laws—how do you choose what to work on?

Most people choose what affects them most personally, what they feel like they can change, what breaks their heart. Some people choose what seems most strategic: if this small thing changes here, it might move all these other things along in the right direction. Some people race from topic to topic to topic, needing to be everywhere and in the middle of everything. Some combo of the first and second stance seems like the right place to be, right?

I start with all this because I have been thinking about Guantanamo. The notorious and often forgotten gulag is in the news again this week because the Senate voted on Tuesday to retain a provision within the National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the military detain terror suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial. In addition, the measure—which passed in a bipartisan show of fear-mongering and brutality—would close the door to civilian trials for terror suspects and place restrictions on resettling the dozens of men at Guantanamo who have been cleared for release.

“Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge. We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as her fellow Democrats voted down Mark Udall’s (D-CO) amendment that would have killed the measure.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Feinstein’s words were true? But we don’t have to look as far at Guantanamo or Bagram to see people being locked up without charge. In fact, one of the tactics of the police’s response to Occupys around the country has been arresting people and then releasing them without charge—locking people up just to get them out of the way.

Back to Guantanamo. I have been working hard on this issue for six years. At just about this time in 2005, I was getting ready to fly to Cuba with 24 friends. We planned to walk to Guantanamo—right onto the U.S. naval base and visit the prisoners, spend time with the guards, and bring letters from the men out so that we could send them to their families. We got as close as the Cuban military zone that surrounds the base and there we fasted and prayed and maintained a 24 hour vigil for five days. We held a press conference and international journalists from many outlets based in Havana came to speak with us. We called U.S. Southern Command and the base constantly, alerting them to our presence and requesting permission to enter the base. We hoped that somehow—between our persistent prayer and our constant contact with authorities—the men imprisoned there would find out we were there and why. And they did. We don’t know how, but a month or so later, through a lawyer for a group of detainees, we received a message of gratitude and hope.

A lot has changed in those six years. Back then, there were more than 700 men at Guantanamo. George W. Bush was in the White House. Most Americans didn’t know much about the issue.

Today, there are 171 men who remain at Guantanamo, more than 60 of whom have been cleared for release but remain in detention because of White House cowardice, political horse-trading and Congressional intransigence. President Barack Obama, who campaigned on a promise to close Guantanamo, has replaced Bush in the Oval Office but not shuttered his terrible extra-legal creation. There are dozens of award-winning documentaries, countess important and informative books and thousands of column inches of news coverage of the prison, and even Harold and Kumar got in (and out) of Guantanamo.

But a lot hasn’t changed. Not for Shaker Aamer and the 170 others who are still at Guantanamo. But, we are still at it. Still trying. Why? Because we have been changed, maybe. Because the times demand our action and our effort. Why do I still care? Why am I still passionate about this issue after six years? Because in the name of justice for men at Guantanamo I have been pushed to do things I would have thought laughable and terrifying. To walk far and sleep on the ground, to go without food for days at a time, to court a big fine and possible jail time by flying to Cuba, to speak before thousands of people, to get arrested at the Federal Court, the Supreme Court, the Capitol, the White House, to stay up late and get up early and walk around in a decidedly unflattering orange jumpsuit in the January snow and July humidity. Because I have found an amazing community of people to work and struggle and weep and laugh with. Because no one is free when others are oppressed and shutting eyes and ears and hearts is not an option.

Right after New Year’s, Witness Against Torture is going to Washington again. I’ll be there. We begin our “Hunger for Justice” fast on January 2 and will fill the courtroom at Moultrie Superior Court the next day to support 14 friends who were arrested interrupting the House of Representatives with the call “shut down Guantanamo” in July. We’ll fast through January 11, which will mark 10 long years of detention and torture and lawlessness for so many. We’ll stand with Amnesty and Pax Christi and so many other groups in a human chain that will stretch from the White House to the Capital. We hope to have 2,771 people stand on that day, one for each of the men detained at Guantanamo and Bagram. The Center for Constitutional Rights will hold a press briefing and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture will host an interfaith service. There will be activities throughout the city to draw attention to this shameful anniversary. And then we will break the fast on January 12th.

To be honest, I would rather not go. I will be cold and uncomfortable and hungry. I will miss my husband and our little girl. But there are men at Guantanamo who paint amazing pictures of a life they can hardly imagine anymore. There are men who write poetry and who pray to God for justice, for release and for people like me not to forget them. So I won’t. That is my passion right now. Not forgetting, not getting comfortable with the suffering of others.

Burma is now seeing it’s own version of the Occupy movement. On Tuesday, a group of monks staged an occupation of the Maha Myat Muni Pagoda in Mandalay, which is one of the most revered Buddhist sites in Burma. They made their presence and intent known by hanging large banners that read “We want freedom,” “Free all political prisoners” and “Stop civil war now.” Throughout the day they gave speeches to the expanding crowd of monks, civilians, and secret police. People donated water, food and other supplies and sent it up to the occupiers via ropes.

This protest comes at a crucial time as Burma’s ruling officials are trying to win over the international community into believing that real democratic reforms are happening. On Monday, there was expected to be an additional release of political prisoners, however, the releases never happened. Despite growing conflict and human rights abuses in the country, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) granted Burma a huge prize by announcing on Tuesday that Burma could take the chairmanship of the regional body in 2014. So Burma’s political prisoners stay locked up, and even more get detained. Since the elections last year, Burma’s political scene has been a mixture of minimal changes followed by brutalities against activists and ethnic minorities.

This current protest is a direct challenge to the regime’s propaganda of reform. The monks’ demands are simple: a release of all political prisoners, an end to attacks against ethnic communities, genuine talks of national reconciliation and lifting of censorship laws that prohibit monks from preaching freely.

This is the largest public demonstration of monks since the 2007 Saffron Revolution and this protest aims to reignite that public memory. It is strategically important that they are holding this protest in Mandalay, which is Burma’s second largest city and is also where the country’s largest congregation of Buddhist monks resides. Many young monks have eagerly listened to the words of those protesting and reigniting their fervor can have huge consequences. There are as many monks in Burma as there are soldiers.

Local authorities don’t want to risk the public backlash that cracking down against the monks would cause, and so have been working to suppress the protest by utilizing elderly Buddhist clergy. These abbot monks have been pressuring the protestors to move locations and stop their actions. A negotiation was reached to move to another monastery, and when they did over 1,000 people followed them. The monks have vowed to continue their protest, but it is uncertain how long police will let it continue.

One of the leaders, Ashin Sopaka, is a friend of mine and I know he does not give up easily. He understands the risk of such an action, but also recognizes the importance of publicly testing Burma’s leaders to see if they are still just the same generals but in civilian clothing. You can stay up to date on what is happening via this Storify.