Experiments with truth: 6/24/11

The Editors June 24, 2011

Syrian security forces shot dead 15 protesters today when they used live ammunition in several cities to disperse protests demanding the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

A special military court in Bahrain convicted 21 mostly Shiite activists on Wednesday on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government during street demonstrations this year, sentencing eight to life in prison and the others to terms of up to 15 years. After the sentencing, the police fired tear gas to stop marchers in Manama from reaching a central section of the city, Pearl Square, in one of the first demonstrations in months.

Bringing to a crescendo a month-long trek, organizers and supporters of the “Moratorium for a Generation,” a campaign to stop the exploration and extraction of shale gas in Quebec, marched on Montreal on Saturday.

On Monday, more than 4,000 workers at the Simone handbag factory in Guangzhou — an area struck by migrant unrest in recent weeks — went on strike to protest against what they say is a “harsh working environment.”

A day after police lahicharge, landowners and activists of farmer organizations held a protest rally at Mansa, India on Wednesday opposing the forcible acquisition of their land for a proposed power plant.

By Thursday, more than 450 people who took part in flash-mob rallies in more than 30 towns around Belarus had been rounded up by the KGB security services, and accused of using Twitter, Facebook, and the Russian-language Vkontakte to facilitate illegal gatherings.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of Greek protestors again gathered in Syndagma Square to voice their non-confidence in embattled Prime Minister George Papandreou and his Panhellenic Socialist Party.

Hundreds of teachers rallied outside Board of Education headquarters in Chicago on Wednesday to protest a decision to rescind their 4 percent annual pay raise because of a $700 million budget deficit.

In Ottawa, locked-out employees held a sit-in at Conservative MP John Baird’s office on Thursday to protest the implementation of back-to-work legislation in the Canada Post work stoppage.

Amidst the new setbacks for public workers across the country, thousands of nurses staged a protest on Wall Street on Wednesday demanding a new tax on the financial sector.

In San Francisco, cabbies held a one-day, two-hour strike Tuesday, turning parts of the downtown civic center into a crawling mess to protest a 5-percent fee they are now required to pay on all credit-card transactions.

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