• Occupy protesters across the country celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday, bringing all the trimmings of a traditional meal to the unlikely location of a demonstration. In New York’s Zuccotti Park, organizers said they distributed some 3,000 individually wrapped plates for what they described as an “open feast.”

• Some 10,000 people from the majority Shi’ite community in Bahrain took to the streets of the town of Aali, chanting slogans that were taken from the inquiry led by international rights lawyer Cherif Bassiouni.

• Yemeni protesters—who have been in the millions for nearly 10 months—were out again Thursday, rejecting a provision that gives Saleh immunity from prosecution.

• Portuguese workers’ general strike halted public transport and some factories in many parts of the country on Thursday and thousands marched to protest austerity measures imposed as the price of an EU/IMF bailout.

• A Romanian mayor has begun a hunger strike to protest cuts in heating subsidies imposed under a government austerity drive, reawakening memories of the harsh final years of communism.

• Hundreds of people in Thailand’s Pathum Thani province north of the capital blocked cars from using the outbound lane of an elevated highway on Wednesday to pressure the government to accelerate the drainage of water.

• Iran’s main government-run newspaper was published Tuesday without a front-page headline, replaced by photographs of its headquarters during an assault a day earlier by forces working for the judiciary who briefly arrested the newspaper’s top official and more than 30 others.

• Several thousand Colombian students participated in multiple marches on Thursday to demand more funding for public education. In Argentina, about 1,000 student marched through Buenos Aires holding flags reading “the student struggle is walking through Latin America.”

• Thousands of Peruvians have protested a $4.8 billion open-pit gold mining project they fear will damage their water supply.

• Thousands of workers in southern China went on strike in the last week to demand higher pay and better treatment, disrupting work at companies including one that supplies equipment to International Business Machines Corp.

• The Occupy Wall Street movement marked its two-month anniversary on Thursday with a series of actions in New York City, including a massive rally in Foley Square and march across the Brooklyn Bridge in which an estimated 32,000 people participated.  There were also major protests, which led to scores of arrests, in cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Miami, Denver, Houston, Dallas, Seattle, St. Louis, Boston, Milwaukee, Nashville, Columbia (South Carolina), and Washington, D.C.

• Tens of thousands of people are rallying in Egypt today as part of the ongoing protests calling for a quicker transition from military to civilian government.

• In San Francisco, 95 protesters were arrested on Wednesday after occupying a Bank of America branch in the financial district. The demonstrators pitched a tent inside the branch before they were detained.

• Workers of Nigeria’s state-run power firm on Wednesday protested the deployment of armed troops to their offices across the country in the wake of an order by their union to launch a pay strike.

• Thousands of Kuwaitis stormed parliament on Wednesday after police and elite forces beat  up protesters marching on the Prime Minister’s home to demand he resign and calling for the dissolution of the parliament over corruption.

• On Tuesday, Palestinian activists describing themselves as ‘freedom riders’ were dragged by police off an Israeli bus they planned to ride into Jerusalem.

• As many as 10,000 students and Occupy activists overflowed UC Berkeley’s Sproul  Plaza on Tuesday night following a daylong classroom walkout and established a small camp in defiance of the university’s edict that no tents be erected.

• Student leaders in Colombia have called off a monthlong boycott of classes at public universities after the government met their demand to withdraw educational reform legislation.

• Some 1,000 Iranian students created a human chain Tuesday around the Isfahan uranium conversion facility to protest a recent UN report charging that Tehran may be developing nuclear weapons.

• More than 40 veterans of the Chornobyl cleanup have gone on hunger strike in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk to protest planned pension cuts.

This week was a rocky one for Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who were arrested by Iranian forces more than two years ago while on a recreational hike in Iraqi Kurdistan and recently sentenced to eight years for espionage, and their supporters. (A third hiker, Sarah Shourd, was freed last year.) First, Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that they would be released this week on $500,000 bail, only to have the Iranian courts step in and say that he did not have the authority to let them go.

In response to the continued imprisonment of Shane and Josh, a vibrant, multifaceted campaign has emerged to call for their freedom. The New York Times gives a good recap of the various ways supporters can plug in and get involved:

There is a Facebook group for supporters of the hikers… [that] has 30,000 members, and its information page lists six official online outlets, independent of the hundreds of groups and blogs created by individuals:

http://www.freethehikers.org
http://blog.freethehikers.org
http://twitter.com/freethehikers
http://www.youtube.com/FreetheHikers
http://freethehikers.org/take-action/sup …
http://www.freethehikersdonations.com

In a Paris metro station, United4Iran and Move4Iran organized a silent flash mob (video above) on June 9, to commemorate the second anniversary of the elections in Iran and raise awareness about the continuing human rights abuses in the country.

And in New York, Where Is My Vote – NY held a candlelight vigil (video below) at Union Square to show solidarity for those in Iran who are continuing the struggle for self-determination.

In the UK, four Iranians seeking asylum have sewn their mouths shut with fishing wire and have launched a hunger strike, which has now continued for more than 20 days.

As the Daily Mail reports:

The British government is planning on sending them back to Tehran, but the men claim that their lives would be in danger if that happened, as they all took part in protests against the Iranian regime in 2009 and were beaten, tortured and even raped as a result.

Mahyar Meyari, who is 17, explained how he was arrested and given brutal treatment after taking part in a demonstration.

‘I was blindfolded and taken to an unknown place where I was kept for a week,’ he told The Guardian.’ I was hit on the head by batons many times … and even raped. I prefer to die here than going back to Iran.’

Another protester, Keyvan Bahari, 32, says he feels their actions are a last resort to make the UK authorities take notice of their plight.

He told the paper: ‘We have sewn our mouths because there is no other way. Nobody in the UK hears us or cares what we say so we have no other option but to do this.’

While sewing your mouth shut is clearly an act of desperation and shocking, I question its effectiveness. It seems so gruesome that people’s first reaction may be just to turn away or to think they are crazy. On the other hand, it definitely shows how serious they are.

What do you make of this tactic? Do you think it’s nonviolent? Is it likely to be effective?

• 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.

• After Wisconsin Republicans pushed through Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union bill in the State Senate yesterday, an estimated 7,000 people entered the Capitol building. Many remain inside after staying overnight. The Wisconsin State Assembly is expected to vote on the measure today.

• On Wednesday, tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators were outside Sanaa University in Yemen. In Taiz, tens of thousands of protesters continued their sit-in protest, calling for Saleh’s ouster. Thousands were also in the streets of Ibb, Aden, Hodeidah, and Dhamar.

• Some 1,700 workers at a shoe factory in Rangoon have been on strike demanding better pay conditions since Tuesday, according to the factory workers.

• Nearly 300 illegal immigrants have ended a six-week hunger strike after the Greek government, fearing the death of one or more protesters, agreed not to begin deportation proceedings against them.

• Workers in Bulgaria’s ailing state railways staged a one-hour warning strike on Thursday to protest against job cuts planned as part of a restructuring programme to secure a 300 million-euro World Bank loan.

• Hundreds of protesters on Tuesday gathered at a parking lot in Kuwait City to demand for reforms and swift changes in the oil-rich emirate.

• Hundreds of employees and laborers of the Jordanian Electricity company protested on Wednesday in front of the company headquarters in Amman demanding increased wages.

• About 3,000 employees from the Yamaha Motor plant in Hanoi walked off the job on Monday. Workers are seeking an increase in the basic monthly salary from 1.65 million dong ($78.57) to 2.03 million dong along with a rise in their housing and other social allowances.

• Nine members of the Earth Quaker Action Team were escorted out of the Philadelphia Flower Show by Convention Center Security today after staging a protest at the PNC Bank Exhibit inside.

• In Iran, more than seventy political prisoners in Oroumieh prison have launched a hunger strike in protest to the restrictions and pressures implemented by the regime’s agents, including a ban on family visits.

• In Costa Rica, various union organizations have banded together to call for a general strike today and a protest march to demand better pay for the public and private sectors.

On Democracy Now! on Monday, Amy Goodman had an interesting interview with Hamid Dabashi, a professor at Columbia University, on how the nonviolent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have impacted the Green Movement in Iran.

Dabashi provocatively argues that the recent house arrest of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi will backfire on the regime by creating “the Iranian Mandela.” He also contends that:

The Green Movement went through at least two phases. The first phase was phase of mass street demonstrations that began back in June of 2009 and continued all the way until February 2010. The second phase, when Mousavi began to write a series documents culminating in a charter of the Green Movement which are extraordinary documents in the history of democratic movements in Iran. But in the aftermath of this massive, massive democracy movement in North Africa to Afghanistan, in fact, these events galvanized the Green Movement in Iran. And as a result, we have entered a new phase.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t explain exactly why this should be considered a new phase, separate from the street demonstrations that have taken place in Iran since the elections in 2009. Yes, there have been new demonstrations in Iran since the fall of Mubarak. But in my mind, there would need to be a substantive shift in strategy and tactics used by the Green Movement to consider what has happened a new phase in the nonviolent struggle, which doesn’t so far seem to be the case.

• In Bahrain, Friday began with funerals for three protesters killed by security police during earlier demonstrations. The funerals turned into protest rallies. Some 50,000 Bahrainis took part, about 10% of the population.

• Several thousand people rallied in Moroccan cities on Sunday demanding political reform and limits on the powers of King Mohammed VI, the latest protests demanding change that have rocked the region.

• In Djibouti, as many as 20,000 people joined in protests on Friday, where President Ismail Guelleh’s People’s Rally for Progress party has ruled since independence from France in 1977.

• On Friday, Algerian authorities surrounded about 1,500 protesters in a peaceful sit-in in the capital, Algiers. The demonstrators chanted slogans against the Algerian regime and called for democracy in the North African country.

• Kuwaiti authorities used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to break up a demonstration by 1,000 stateless residents west of Kuwait City on Friday.

• On Sunday, anti-government demonstrators in Iran took to the streets in several cities across the country, including Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan.

• A peaceful sit-in protest ended in tragedy in Aden, southern Yemen late on Saturday after police dispersed the protesters with gunfire. A 16 year-old boy was hit by a stray bullet and died in hospital. Protests also continued in Taiz, Yemen’s second city and flared in Karish.

• In Saudi Arabia, hundreds of workers at the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) and extension projects at the King Saud University (KSU) stopped work for a second day Thursday in protest of nonpayment of wages.

• In Venezuela, 65 people are participating in a hunger strike in Caracas that began on Jan. 31. The students have specifically referenced and asked for the release of 27 people they say are political prisoners and are demanding that the government let the Organization of American States investigate alleged human rights abuses under President Hugo Chávez.

• Police fired tear gas and violently dispersed hundreds of protesters in Libya this morning who gathered in front of police headquarters of in Benghazi demanding an end to Gaddafi’s 41-year rule.

• Anti-government protests in Shia villages around Manama, the Bahraini capital, left several people injured and one person reported dead on Monday.

• In Iran, clashes have erupted today at the funeral of a protester killed on Monday, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets in the largest Iranian protests since the aftermath of the nation’s disputed 2009 election.

• In Yemen, protests against longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh are escalating as they continue for a sixth consecutive day. Earlier today government supporters attacked pro-democracy demonstrators as they set off on a march from a university in the capital of Sanaa.

• Labor unions across Egypt have taken the country’s revolution as a cue to stop work and demand better pay and conditions. More than 12,000 workers at state-owned Misr Spinning and Weaving went on strike on Wednesday. In the coastal city of Damietta, about 6,000 spinning and weaving workers were also striking. And thousands of workers and employees from the Upper Egyptian city of Assiut have organized sit-ins.

• On Tuesday, an estimated 10,000 people gathered at the capital building in Madison, Wisconsin to protest against a bill that would eliminate almost all collective bargaining rights for public workers and slash their pay and benefits.

• Eighteen people were put in handcuffs and detained by sheriff’s deputies in San Francisco Monday afternoon after a sit-in at the county clerk’s office. The act of civil disobedience was carried out by gay and lesbian couples to protest same-sex marriage bans in California and other states.

• On Tuesday, the train schedule was badly disrupted while 13 locomotives were stranded at the Pakistan Railways Mughalpura workshops as workers went on strike and laid on the railroad tracks in protest against non-payment of salaries.

• Public transport came to a halt in Athens on Tuesday once again due to a 24-hour strike over the controversial new law which envisages a partial privatization of the debt-ridden Greek Railways, the restructure of the sector and transfers of employees to other public companies to save costs.

• “We pay taxes, Why don’t you?” protesters chanted as they carried signs and Valentine’s Day balloons on the sidewalk in front of the Bank of America building in downtown Hartford Monday in a demonstration designed to embarrass Connecticut’s largest bank into greater cooperation with delinquent homeowners.

• A strike by Portuguese train engineers on Tuesday caused severe disruption for commuters in the latest protest against government spending cuts designed to ease a debt crisis.

• One of Equatorial Guinea’s most prominent authors, Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, entered his fifth day on a hunger strike yesterday to protest the policies of Equatorial Guinean dictator Teodoro Obiang.