Waging Nonviolence’s backbone: a round-up of protests and civil resistance actions around the world among people fighting for peace and justice.
Experiments with Truth
Russians occupy Moscow square, Chileans march, Moroccan judges strike
- Russian riot police broke up an Occupy-style protest against President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, forcing dozens of people out of a central Moscow park where they had staged a week-long sit-in and detaining about 20 people. Protesters then moved to Kudrinskaya Square in Moscow, where they remain encamped.
- In Chile, a crowd estimated at more than 100,000 marched through the streets of Santiago on Wednesday to support the demands of the nation’s students.
- Thousands of student protesters flooded the streets in Montreal on Wednesday evening after Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced a proposal for a new ‘emergency law’ in a bid to end the ongoing 14-week-old student uprising and strike.
- About 2,900 Moroccan judges began a week-long strike to protest against judicial corruption and interference by the executive branch that they say undermines their independence.
- Two Greenpeace activists were arrested after being pried from a giant iPod in front of Apple’s headquarters Tuesday during a protest against using dirty energy to power data centers.
- Dozens of Spaniards lined up outside a bank in Madrid on Monday to close their accounts to protest the unfair seizures of homes.
- Israeli and Palestinian officials announced Monday that more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners had agreed to end a nearly month-long hunger strike in exchange for concessions by Israel, including a modification to its practice of detention without charge or trial.
- A three-week-long protest on UC Berkeley agricultural research land in Albany came to a quiet close early Monday when police arrested nine protesters who had set up an urban farming camp.
Czechs rally against austerity, Egyptians protest military rule, Palestinian prisoners continue mass hunger strike
- Tens of thousands of Czechs staged one of the biggest protests since the fall of Communism on Saturday, marching in Prague against spending cuts, tax rises and corruption, and calling for the end of a center-right government already close to collapse.
- On Sunday, 150 Palestinian prisoners joined with 1,200 others being held in Israeli jails who started an open-ended hunger strike on Tuesday to protest the conditions in which they are being held.
- In Montreal, 89 people were arrested Saturday after trying to disrupt the second day of a conference on the development of northern Quebec.
- Tens of thousands of Egyptians demanded on Friday that their military rulers stick to a pledge to hand over power by mid-year after a row over who can run in the presidential election raised doubts about the army’s commitment to democracy.
- In Bahrain, tens of thousands people marched along a motorway from Budaiya, an area to the west of the capital, Manama, on Friday to demand an end to the crackdown on dissent, ahead of the Formula 1 Grand Prix on Sunday.
- Thousands demonstrated in the Rome on Friday to protest government plans to introduce legislation that will make it easier for companies to sack employees.
- Less than 24 hours after their release, University of Texas students arrested after staging a sit-in at President Powers’ office gathered with supporters Thursday on the steps of the UT Tower to continue in their campaign against sweatshop labor.
- Tens of thousands of teachers, doctors, police officers and other public workers went on strike on Wednesday in Slovenia over proposed pay cuts under austerity measures to rein in the euro-zone member’s budget deficit.
Canadians protest proposed tuition hikes, strike paralyzes Quetta, thousands march to support Russian hunger striker
- On Saturday, thousands of students in Quebec were joined by residents young and old for a protest against planned tuition hikes that coincided with the anniversary marking Premier Jean Charest’s taking power nine years ago.
- In Pakistan, a crippling strike paralyzed life in the provincial capital of Quetta on Sunday as people protested Saturday’s target killings of nine people, including eight Hazaras, and the government’s failure to improve the law and order situation.
- About 30 members of Afghan Young Women for Change staged a protest march in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul Saturday, denouncing violence against women.
- On Saturday, up to 4,000 opposition supporters marched through the southern Russian city of Astrakhan in support of a hunger-striking local politician who says he was robbed of an election victory by vote rigging.
- Police arrested about two dozen people who barricaded themselves inside the Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic on Chicago’s South Side on Friday to protest its planned closing.
- Ten Cuban former political prisoners protesting their “total abandonment” in Spain launched a hunger strike on Friday to press their demands for government assistance.
Trayvon Martin protesters block police station, Russians turn Red Square white, thousands march in Bahrain
- Trayvon Martin protesters on Monday blocked the front doors of the Sanford Police Department in Florida for nearly five hours but walked away peacefully after convincing city officials to hold a community forum.
- In Tunisia, police fired tear gas Monday to disperse a rally of hundreds on a central Tunis avenue where demonstrations are banned.
- Pilots for Spanish airline Iberia, part of International Airlines Group, went on strike on Monday, grounding 150 flights in the first of 30 one-day strikes to protest against the start-up of low-cost carrier Iberia Express.
- Egyptian train drivers staged a sit-in in Cairo’s Ramses Train Station on Monday, bringing rail traffic across the country to a halt for more than seven hours, to demand an additional allowance for working on Saturdays, bonus increases and risk allowances.
- Opposition supporters wearing white ribbons walked in a circle during a Red Square protest against the rule of Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Sunday. At least three activists were arrested after pitching a tent near Lenin’s Mausoleum.
- Thousands of Shiite Muslims from Islamabad and Rawalpindi on Sunday participated in a sit-in outside the parliament to protest the killings of Shiite Muslims in Pakistan and government crackdown against the innocent people of Gilgit City.
- Bahraini security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands of protesters marching Friday in support of a jailed human rights activist whose nearly two-month hunger strike has become a powerful rallying point for the tiny nation’s Shiite-led uprising against the Sunni monarchy.
- On Friday, police in India dispersed protesters who staged a sit-in protest against the gang-rape of a woman.
Thousands march in Hong Kong, Lakotas launch hunger strike, Palestinians protest land seizure
- In a march themed with fanciful allusions to Little Red Riding Hood, thousands of protesters swarmed Hong Kong’s streets on Sunday in the first large display of protest since the city’s elite tapped a Beijing ally to become the Chinese territory’s next leader.
- In the Dakotas, members of the proud Lakota Nation began a 48-hour hunger strike on Sunday in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline — and all tar sands pipelines — they say will destroy precious water resources and ancestral lands in the U.S and in Canada.
- Jordanian authorities arrested more than two dozen political activists during protests Saturday critical of King Abdullah II that called for a change of government.
- An estimated 800,000 homeowners in Ireland joined a tax boycott by refusing to pay a new flat-rate $133 property tax by Saturday’s deadline.
- On Saturday, nearly 100 people wore hoodies in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to protest the killing of Trayvon Martin.
- Thousands of Palestinians protested on Friday against Israeli policies of land seizure and control of Jerusalem, leading to clashes with Israeli troops in which a 20-year-old was killed and scores of others were injured.
- Three protesters were arrested Thursday at the UC Board of Regents meeting, when a few dozen activists, some stripped down to swimsuits, called for more transparency in state funding talks and an end to tuition hikes.
- On Thursday, hundreds of Bahrainis staged a sit-in outside the offices of the United Nations in Manama demanding action over the “excessive” use by police of tear gas against protesters.
- Some 50 students at the all-boys Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit were suspended Thursday after walking out of classes in protest of absent teachers, inconsistent classroom instruction and other issues.
Quebec students protest tuition hikes, Vermonters oppose nuclear power plant, Portuguese shut down Lisbon
- Tens of thousands of students protested on Thursday against a 75 percent tuition hike at universities in Canada’s mostly French-speaking Quebec province, bringing downtown Montreal to a standstill. Since mid-February, nearly 300,000 students have boycotted classes, blocked bridges and held smaller protests around the province.
- More than 1,000 indigenous protesters reached Ecuador’s capital Thursday after a two-week march from the Amazon to oppose plans for large-scale mining on their lands. The protesters were joined by thousands of anti-government protesters in Quito.
- Hundreds of farmers gathered in the Vietnamese capital on Thursday to demand the return of rice fields they say were confiscated by heavily armed police just days after receiving an eviction notice.
- More than 1,000 people gathered in a downtown Brattleboro park on Thursday to call for the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. It was the first day of the plant’s operation after the expiration of its 40-year license. Over 130 protesters were arrested for unlawful trespass as part of a civil disobedience action.
- More than a thousand people rallied in New York City’s Union Square on Wednesday evening with the parents of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager who was shot dead in Florida in late February.
- Portuguese workers halted trains, shut ports and paralyzed most public transport in the capital Lisbon on Thursday to protest austerity measures and labor reforms imposed as a condition of a 78-billion-euro ($103 billion) bailout.
- Three Tibetans who have been on hunger strike outside the UN headquarters for the past month ended their protest Thursday after the UN said investigators would look into events in Tibet.
- Several people were arrested on Tuesday after a rally in a Phoenix intersection to protest immigration policies of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Anti-Putin protesters arrested, Palestinians join hunger strike, Argentine truckers begin indefinite strike
- Russian police arrested nearly 100 people on Sunday for picketing Moscow’s TV tower over footage that accused the opposition of paying anti-government protesters.
- On Sunday, after more than 150 protesters carrying signs calling for nonviolence and the rule of law began to chant the slogan that has echoed throughout the Arab revolts — “The people want the fall of the regime” — uniformed officers and men in plain clothes beat them with sticks and began making arrests.
- Argentina’s truckers called an indefinite strike on Monday to demand higher pay rates, parking their rigs in protest just as exporters were counting on them to haul freshly harvested soybeans to port.
- Thirty Palestinian prisoners have joined the hunger strike of Hana Shalabi, who was hospitalized on Monday evening after consuming only water for 33 days.
- In Cuba, three dozen members of the Ladies in White opposition group were detained on Sunday before their weekly march to press the government to free prisoners jailed for politically motivated crimes.
- George Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience in Washington on Friday alongside his father Nick and other protesters after a demonstration outside the Sudanese Embassy aimed at drawing attention to the country’s president, Omar al-Bashir, and his government for provoking a humanitarian crisis and blocking food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains from South Sudan.
- Some 200 Moroccan women staged an angry protest Saturday outside parliament a week after the suicide of a 16-year-old girl who was forced to marry the man who raped her.
- The April 6 Youth Movement declared on Saturday the start to an open-ended sit-in in front of Parliament’s offices, in which the group will demand the release of detained member George Ramzy.
Tibetans protest Chinese rule, Chilean students demand education reform, and union workers oppose Illinois budget cuts
- Several hundred Tibetans have protested against Chinese rule in the western province of Qinghai since a monk there set himself on fire earlier this week. The advocacy group Free Tibet has posted what it calls “unprecedented footage” of this highly restricted and restive part of western China.
- Between 5,000 and 7,000 Chilean high school students marched down Santiago’s main avenue on Thursday to demand free quality education and protest the expulsion of about 100 students who joined last year’s protests. Police broke up the march with water canons after a few hundred students crossed a police barrier and tried to march to the education ministry.
- Thousands of union workers gathered across Illinois on Thursday to protest Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed budget cuts that include mass layoffs and the closure and consolidation of several state facilities, including prisons.
- Hundreds of people gathered in the Rotunda of the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday to urge Gov. Gary Herbert to veto a bill that would forbid school districts to teach use of contraceptives.
- Russian opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov started a hunger strike on Thursday after being sentenced to 10 days in jail for disobeying the police following a rally against Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
- Afghans took to the streets on Thursday to demand a U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 civilians be prosecuted in Afghanistan as word spread that the American military moved him out of the country.
- A group of about 75 demonstrators assembled at LOVE Park on Wednesday to support immigrant rights. Two college students were arrested after blocking traffic with banners and refusing to move
- Transit workers in Italy went on strike Wednesday, stopping train, bus and subway service for four hours to protest the government’s economic reforms.
- Hundreds of anti-smoking advocates on Thursday picketed a large international tobacco fair in the Philippines, a country that has drawn more attention from the industry as Western nations pile on restrictions and taxes.
Hundreds of thousands in Spain protest austerity, Japanese rally against nuclear power, Saudi women boycott classes
- Hundreds of thousands of people in 60 cities across Spain took part Sunday in demonstrations called by the country’s main trade unions to protest the government’s tough new labor reforms and cutbacks.
- Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday protested against the U.S. and the American soldier who killed 16 Afghan civilians in a shooting spree on Sunday.
- Tens of thousands of people joined an opposition rally in Bangladesh’s capital on Monday to demand that a nonpartisan caretaker government oversee the next general election.
- Tens of thousands of people rallied near Japan’s crippled Fukushima plant Sunday demanding an end to nuclear power as the nation marked the first anniversary of a disastrous quake and tsunami.
- Thousands of students at an all-female university in Saudi Arabia boycotted classes on Saturday, protesting against poor services in a rare display of dissent from women in the conservative Islamic kingdom.
- Tens of thousands of pro-union demonstrators descended on the Wisconsin Capitol on Saturday to voice their anger at Gov. Scott Walker and his conservative agenda, using the anniversary of the passage of his signature collective bargaining law to rally support for efforts to remove him and five other Republicans from office.
- Tens of thousands of Bahrainis demonstrated outside the capital Manama on Friday to demand political reforms, a year after the Gulf Arab state crushed an uprising.
- More than 50,000 workers in Italy participated in demonstrations and a nationwide strike on Friday, calling for democracy in the workplace and accusing the government of acting in the interests of the banks and industrial groups.
Global protests against violence and inequality mark International Women’s Day, South Africans protest poverty
- As part of a campaign to fight violence against women, pictures of victims were hung on walls in the Cerro Gordo neighborhood of Ecatepec, outside Mexico City on Wednesday.
- Tens of thousands of South Africans marched peacefully through their main cities Wednesday to demand the governing African National Congress do more for the poor.
- Hundreds of native Ecuadorans began a cross-country march Thursday to protest policies by President Rafael Correa they say will result in more mining in the Amazon region and threaten the environment and their way of life.
- Hundreds of Saudi women took part in a protest against discrimination and mismanagement at the King Khalid University, in Abha, on Wednesday. At least 50 women were reportedly injured when security forces and religious police moved in to break it up.
- South Korean female workers performed in penguin costumes in Seoul on Wednesday to protest growth in temporary employment.
- Thousands of Taiwanese farmers took to the streets Thursday, staging the nation’s biggest demonstration in years against the government’s plan to allow U.S. beef imports.
- With elaborate make-up depicting bodies bruised, bleeding and burned by acid, four FEMEN activists were arrested in Istanbul on Wednesday to protest domestic violence in Turkey.
