• About 20,000 Russians angry over an election campaign slanted in Putin’s favor and reports of widespread violations in Sunday’s voting rallied in Moscow on Monday. Riot police quickly moved in, dispersing the crowd and detaining hundreds of demonstrators.

• Lakotas on Pine Ridge Indian land in South Dakota were arrested as they blockaded tar sands pipeline trucks from entering their territory on Monday.

• Thousands of students and activists marched on the California State Capitol in Sacramento Monday to protest cuts in higher education in an action dubbed “Occupy the Capitol.”

• As U.S. President Barack Obama met with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington Monday, over 100 protesters converged at a park in front the White House, urging the United States not to support a potential Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

• A dozen female environmental activists in Ecuador were detained inside the Chinese embassy Monday for protesting Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa’s decision to sign a deal with a Chinese firm to open a massive copper mine in the Amazon.

• On Saturday, over 100 Bulgarian environmentalist staged a protest rally against looming amendments to the Forestry Act.

• On Friday, thousands of Bahrainis launched what they said would be a week of daily sit-in protests in a Shiite village to commemorate an uprising crushed a year ago.

• On Friday, over twenty-five hundred students protested the possible deportation of 18-year-old student and valedictorian Daniela Pelaez at the North Miami Senior High School.

• Several hundred public school students rallied in support of teachers at the offices of Premier Christy Clark at the World Trade Center in Vancouver on Friday.

Discussion about changes to a Syrian street name, via The Highest Monkey.

The opposition in Syria is not waiting for Bashar al-Assad to depart before drawing up new maps of their country. According to a recent Washington Post report, activists have been using a Google crowdsourcing program, Map Maker, to rename major streets, bridges and thoroughfares after their own heroes. The purpose has been to erase the remnants of the Assad family’s 40-year rule and to memorialize nonviolent challengers who have died during the course of Syria’s almost year-long uprising. Stefan Geens, author of the Ogle Earth blog, which tracks Google Maps, told the Post that Syria’s is the first rebellion of which he knows where activists have used online mapping programs to rewrite history.

Read the rest of this article »

In the midst of the excitement that continues to surround the Occupy movement, it can be unfortunately easy to forget that occupations tend to be anything but empowering. Creativity and imagination often fall by the wayside when the struggle of daily life becomes the main focus of thought. Yet it is those very positive traits that lead to liberation.

Last summer, while traveling in Paris, I met a Palestinian playwright named Abdelfattah Abusrour, who has made it his life’s mission to inspire the imaginations of the young people living in refugee camps in the West Bank. He runs a cultural center in Bethlehem’s Aida Camp called Al Rowwad (which is “pioneer” in Arabic), where children are taught, what he calls, “beautiful acts of resistance.”

Shortly after seeing him perform with his adult troupe–several members of which have been with Al Rowwad since they themselves were children–I sat down with Abusrour to get more of his story, which can now be read in the current issue of The Progressive. Here is just a quick excerpt:

Read the rest of this article »

• Thousands of Bahrainis gathered outside the United Nations headquarters in the capital, Manama, on Wednesday to demand the immediate release of the country’s top human rights activist. Late Tuesday, a Sunni youth group organized a rally of 20,000 people in central Manama protesting the dialogue between the regime and opposition parties.

• South Korean film, TV and music stars who enjoy massive popularity in China gathered in Seoul on Tuesday to protest China’s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors.

• A Palestinian who fasted for 66 days to protest his detention without charge ended his hunger strike on Tuesday after the Israeli authorities agreed to release him in mid-April, if no major new evidence is brought against him.

• Five demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday for trespassing at a state office in Vancouver, Washington where they were protesting a cut in the paid hours for some in-home care service workers.

• Occupy Wall Street protesters gathered in Harlem Monday to protest what they call mass incarceration of minority men by a racist prison system.

A cloud of tear gas disperses a peaceful march to the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, Bahrain, on February 13. Photo by Wafa A.S. Alnoimi.

On the long flight to the Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain on February 10, I had been studying the Lonely Planet guide to the region in order to be able to explain at the airport, if needed, that I had come as a tourist. As it happened, while most passengers on our plane sailed through passport control, my travel companion Linda Sartor and I were pulled from the line and subjected to a closer examination. My sketchy knowledge of the historic and cultural sights that I had come to see was good enough to satisfy official scrutiny. We were granted tourist visas and sent on our way.

That we had come as tourists was true. We had intentionally neglected to mention, though, that we had been invited to Bahrain along with a few other international activists to monitor the government’s response to demonstrations marking the one year anniversary of Bahrain’s “Arab Spring” pro-democracy uprising on February 14. This demand for basic rights was brutally suppressed by Bahrain’s police and military backed by the army of Saudi Arabia.

Read the rest of this article »

The Gdeim Izik protest camp outside the Moroccan-controlled Saharawi capital of El Aaiun in October 2011.

George Lakey’s important article “What About the rest of Africa?” correctly chronicles impressive pro-democracy struggles across the African continent. Lakey spotlights the work of the Global Nonviolent Action Database, a vital resource working to list, describe, and track a comprehensive set of actions and movements. Lakey was right to point out that PRI reporter Lisa Mullins’ contention that the Arab Spring “did not” have counterparts in countries south of the Sahara desert is fundamentally flawed. But I would take this point even further than Lakey did.

There is a significant problem which this all-too-often-accepted assumption brings to light: The “Arab Spring” was never confined to the “Arab world” or to the season of spring.

Read the rest of this article »

• In Cambodia, more than 500 employees at a shoe factory in the capital’s Dangkor district went on strike on Wednesday morning after managers failed to respond to a list of workers’ demands.

• Hundreds of protesters blocked streets in eastern Venezuela on Wednesday to demand clean water after a recent oil spill polluted rivers and streams that supply local storage tanks.

• Thousands of supporters of Iran’s opposition Green Movement marched silently through the streets of Tehran on Tuesday to urge the Islamic regime to release political prisoners.

• Outside the White House, hundreds of people rallied on Tuesday to protest China’s treatment of Tibet, ethnic Uyghurs and members of the Falun Gong. Alim Seytoff of the Uyghur American Association urged President Obama to pressure Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on alleged human rights abuses.

• Six Greenpeace protesters were arrested after unfurling a sign in front of the Duke Energy building Wednesday morning, protesting the company’s recently-approved rate hikes.

• In what was billed as a Valentine’s Day message to the state’s lawmakers,  hundreds of activists gathered on Tuesday at Alabama’s Statehouse to protest the state’s  controversial immigration law.

• Flight attendants and ground workers at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport marched in picket lines Tuesday to protest American Airlines’ plans to outsource jobs and cut pay and benefits under a bankruptcy reorganization.

• Thirteen people were arrested inside the lobby of the AT&T building in Atlanta on Monday during a sit-in to stop the company from laying off 740 union workers across the southeastern United States.

• Some 200 Indonesians converged on a Jakarta square on Tuesday to denounce an Islamic vigilante group known for its armed attacks on minorities and moderates.

For some time I have been increasingly convinced that, in spite of the horrific systems of violence and injustice that grind away, we are in the midst of a long-term “nonviolent shift.” By this I don’t mean we will create a utopia where conflict, violence, and injustice cease to exist. Interpersonal and structural violence—reinforced by a deeply rooted violence belief system—are grim realities that humanity will long have to face. The nonviolent shift, rather than portending an ideal society, here signifies a world where people are increasingly equipped with the tools to challenge, transform, and heal violence and injustice in a more powerful, creative, and effective way.

The Egyptian revolution, which began just over a year ago, was dedicated to ending a thirty-year dictatorship and sparking a long-term process of transformation within the country. But like many other powerful movements, it has also had unintended world-historical consequence that have helped to boost the momentum of this shift.

Read the rest of this article »

• In Portugal, as many as 300,0000 packed Lisbon’s Palace Square on Saturday in the largest rally against austerity and economic hardships since the country resorted to a European Union-International Monetary Fund bailout last May.

• In the largest protest against the government in months, thousands of opposition supporters marched through Manama’s streets today on the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain.

• Braving subzero temperatures, hundreds of thousands of Europeans across the continent took to the streets Saturday, protesting an international trade agreement many say will overrule democratic institutions, jeopardize civil liberties and stifle technological innovation.

• Thousands of protesters massed in Greece under heavy police watch Saturday after the government approved unpopular austerity cuts to get vital rescue funds and avoid the “chaos” of a default.

• Thousands of Japanese joined a march against nuclear power on Saturday as worries grow about the restarting of reactors idled after the March 11th meltdown disaster in northeastern Japan.

• Brazilian authorities claimed Saturday to have broken up strikes by thousands of police in two states after arresting labor leaders, but other police and firefighters had not quit their protest over pay.

• Thousands of Egyptians marched to the Defense Ministry on Friday to press demands for the generals to hand over power, a day before the first anniversary of President Hosni Mubarak’s fall.

• Hactivist group Anonymous took down the CIA government website on Friday.

• On Saturday, more than 100,000 turned out in the pale winter sunshine for a march in downtown Moscow against election fraud and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s plan to return to the presidency next month.

• Over 10,000 Bahrainis gathered on Sunday to begin a week-long sit-in protest in Meqsha, north of Bahrain, ahead of the one year anniversary of the revolution.

• Hundreds of flights in France were cancelled today, including 40 percent out of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, as unions ratcheted up pressure on day two of a strike over labor rights.

• Antiwar groups held rallies on Saturday in about 80 cities across the United States protesting a possible strike on Iran.

• In Singapore, two hundred foreign workers staged a sit-in on Monday morning in protest over unpaid wages.

• At least one activist died, and another 39 were injured on Sunday after police tried to break up a protest by indigenous groups—who have blockaded the Pan-American Highway for days—against the recent approval of mines and reservoirs in their region.

• In Canada, close to a thousand people marched through Prince Rupert’s streets on Saturday as part of a rally hosted by local first nations against Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the oil tanker traffic it would generate on British Columbia’s northern coast.

• At least 11 Occupy D.C. protesters were arrested Saturday just blocks from the White House as the U.S. Park Police evicted activists who had been sleeping in McPherson Square since October 1. On Sunday, police also cleared a second encampment at Freedom Plaza.

• In one of more than a hundred protests planned across Europe on Saturday, about 2,000 people marched in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

• Some 20 residents of Khirbat al-Tawil village, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, went on a 24-hour hunger strike on Friday to protest against Israel’s occupation of their lands.