Experiments with truth, 3/18/11

Johnathan Fuentes March 18, 2011

Security forces and government loyalists struck protest camps across Yemen on Thursday, hurling rocks, beating protesters with sticks and firing rubber and live bullets, hoping to break the will of thousands camped in squares for over a month, demanding their longtime authoritarian leader leave power.

In Saudi Arabia, Shi’ite Muslims marched in the kingdom’s oil-producing east Wednesday, demanding the release of prisoners and voicing support for Shi’ites in nearby Bahrain.

Nearly 100 University of Michigan students rallied Wednesday afternoon to protest a plan to have Gov. Rick Snyder as commencement speaker at spring graduation ceremonies next month due to his support for cutting funds to public universities.

Taking the fight from the statehouse in Madison to the nation’s capital, protesters shut down major streets in downtown Washington, D.C. on Wednesday as they marched to the White House in protest against a fundraiser for Wisconsin GOP legislators.

Raffi Hovannisian, the leader of the opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party, continued his high-profile hunger strike in Yerevan’s Liberty Square on Wednesday amid expressions of support from fellow opposition figures and the Armenian government’s silence.

Hamas has agreed to meet with the Palestinian Authority after Palestinians held parallel national unity rallies in the West Bank and Gaza earlier this week.

In Tennessee, troopers forcibly carried out seven union supporters from the Capitol on Tuesday after a protest against anti-union legislation disrupted a Senate committee hearing.

In Tunisia, hundreds of people gathered in the capital city of Tunis on Friday to protest the visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Johnathan Fuentes

Johnathan Fuentes is a student at Rutgers University and an intern at Waging Nonviolence. He blogs regularly about nonviolence at: www.nonviolenceblog.org

Tags: Boycotts, Civil disobedience, Experiments with Truth, Labor, Protests, Strikes, United States

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