Category Archives: Protest

Political activist held in Thai jail dies after 65 days on hunger strike

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Netiporn Sanae-sangkhom, 28, faced seven court cases including two for criticising Thailand’s monarchy

A political activist charged with insulting the king of Thailand has died in pre-trial detention after spending 65 days on hunger strike calling for an end to the imprisonment of political dissidents.

Netiporn Sanae-sangkhom, 28, had been detained since 26 January and maintained a hunger strike until the end of April, refusing food and water, according to her lawyers. The corrections department said she had experienced cardiac arrest on Tuesday morning and was unresponsive to treatment.

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‘The whole country will strike’: protesters vow to keep fighting Georgia’s ‘foreign agents’ bill

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As draft law described by the US as ‘Kremlin-inspired’ nears its final vote, opposition and youth groups say they will keep defending civil liberties

As the “foreign influence” bill was being nodded through the Georgian parliament’s legal committee at 9am on Monday, a wet and tired Zviad Tsetskhladze, 18, and Luka Natsvlishvili, 17, were among thousands of protesters left with little option other than to shout chants at a grim wall of riot police.

An overnight vigil designed to block the governing party’s MPs from accessing the parliamentary estate had failed. Meanwhile, the opposition leader in the parliament, Tina Bokuchava, 40, had barely made it past the entrance of the imposing stone building. Her colleagues on the committee only got as far as the corridor outside.

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About 50,000 protest in Tbilisi against Georgia ‘foreign agents’ bill

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US says parliamentarians must choose between Kremlin-style laws or Euro-Atlantic democratic path

An estimated 50,000 people marched peacefully in heavy rain in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Saturday night after the US said parliamentarians had to choose between Kremlin-style laws or the Euro-Atlantic democratic path they had embarked upon.

The march was the latest in a series of public protests against a “foreign agents” bill that would require media and commercial organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from outside the country to register as “agents of foreign influence”.

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Eurovision struggles to keep politics out as Israel controversy hits Malmö

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Competing rallies are on the streets, Netherlands’ entrant is under investigation and others complain music is being overshadowed

The official motto of the 68th edition of Eurovision is “united by music”, but as the continent’s beglittered and sequined masses descended on the Swedish city of Malmö for Saturday’s grand final, music’s ability to heal and bridge divides was looking in serious doubt.

In the run-up to the song contest’s main event, the Netherlands’ performer Joost Klein missed his slot in two dress rehearsals after being put under investigation by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) due to an unexplained “incident”.

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Eight hundred protesters attempt to storm German Tesla factory

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Demonstrators opposed to expansion of factory near Berlin claim it would damage environment

Hundreds of protesters opposed to the expansion of a Tesla plant in Grünheide, near Berlin, clashed with police on Friday as some of them attempted to storm the electric vehicle manufacturing facility.

About 800 people took part in the protest, according to the organizing group Disrupt Tesla, which claims the expansion would damage the environment. Tesla has attracted intense backlash since the company opened the factory in March 2022, and later announced plans to expand into a nearby forest to increase its production capability.

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More than 800 faculty and staff at UCLA call for chancellor’s resignation

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Move comes after counter-protesters’ attack on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and violent police raid on encampment

More than 800 faculty and staff at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have called for the chancellor’s resignation following attacks by counter-protesters on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and a violent police raid of the Gaza solidarity encampment on campus last week.

More than a hundred professors and other teaching staff gathered on Thursday to deliver a letter in support of their students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism, demanding Gene Block immediately step down as chancellor and an academic senate vote of no confidence in him. The letter also called for authorities to drop all charges against students, staff and faculty who were involved in the encampment.

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Police disband pro-Palestinian student encampments across the US

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Authorities moved in overnight to clear campuses from Arizona to Massachusetts of students demanding schools cut ties to Israel

Police moved in to disband several pro-Palestinian student encampments on US campuses on Friday morning as the foment over protests against academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza continued to roil academia.

Tent encampments at the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Arizona, Tucson, were all dismantled in early morning raids that saw cordons of police sweep in and clear the makeshift protest settlements. In Tucson teargas was used, and demonstrators responded by throwing bottles at officers.

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Students across Europe hold Gaza war protests in run-up to UN vote on Palestinian statehood

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Police arrested dozens of people in Amsterdam, with university occupations continuing in Netherlands, Belgium and Spain

Thirty-two people were arrested as Dutch police broke up a Gaza war protest at the University of Amsterdam, in a second day of unrest over the conflict. Police said the offences included public violence, vandalism and assault.

Video captured by Reuters appeared to show officers in riot gear striking protesters and police knocking down makeshift barricades of desks, bricks and wooden pallets that seemingly had been used to set off fire extinguishers in hopes of pushing them back. The footage appeared to also show police dragging several students away as hundreds shouted: “Shame on you!”

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Dozens reportedly arrested as police clear George Washington University encampment

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The school’s student paper reported arrests as hundreds of Washington DC police dismantled the impromptu tent village

Hundreds of Washington DC police, some deploying pepper spray, cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University early on Wednesday, in the latest clash between law enforcement and protesting students to sweep the US.

The GW Hatchet student paper reported that at least a dozen people had been arrested as the impromptu tent village was dismantled in University Yard. The Metropolitan police department said the arrests had been made for “assault of a police officer” and “unlawful entry”.

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Clashes and arrests as pro-Palestinian protests spread across European campuses

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Students set up encampments at universities across continent as they call for ceasefire in Israel-Gaza war

Student protests demanding that universities sever ties with Israel over the Gaza war have spread across Europe, sparking clashes and arrests as new demonstrations broke out in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria.

Students at various European universities, inspired by ongoing demonstrations at US campuses, have been occupying halls and facilities, demanding an end to partnerships with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

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Students stage pro-Palestine occupations at five more UK universities

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The protesters in encampments at Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Soas are demanding institutions end ties to Israel

Students at five UK universities have become the latest protesters to stage occupations to pressure their institutions into divesting funds from and ending partnerships with Israel.

Students set up encampments at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) and at Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool and Edinburgh universities. They are the latest in a global student uprising that is expected to build over the coming week across European campuses after starting at universities in the US, where hundreds of students and staff have been arrested for their involvement.

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‘There are people in tents writing dissertations’: UK reaches for scale of US campus protests

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Pro-Palestine protesters hope encampments at universities will contribute to an ‘international student revolt’

Students across Britain have said they hope pro-Palestine protests will reach the same scale as those seen on US campuses as they call for universities to divest from companies supplying arms to Israel.

Protests have spread across university campuses in Sheffield, Bristol and Leeds, after a crackdown in the US on protests, which led to mass arrests of students and staff.

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‘I was happy they still stand beside us’: Palestinians in Rafah on US campus protests

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Word of the demonstrations that have spread across the west has cheered some in Gaza’s southernmost city

In the tented camps and crowded streets of Rafah, the pro-Palestinian campus protests in the US have been followed closely.

“We hear a lot of news about students’ demonstrations in American universities … When I saw that, I was very happy that there are still those who stand beside us and in support of us,” said Nevin Abu Shahma, 39, who fled to Rafah from northern Gaza early in the war.

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‘I’m in awe of our young people and their courage in the face of arrests and teargas’

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The Georgian government’s bid to pass Russia-style law has met spirited opposition, mostly from young people keen to lean towards Europe

The finale of Beethoven’s “revolutionary” fifth symphony was met with deafening applause at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Tbilisi last Thursday night. The cheers grew into a powerful expression of solidarity with the protests outside on Rustaveli Avenue.

People hung EU flags from the theatre’s balconies and shouted, “No to the Russian Law! Europe! Georgia [Sa-kar-tve-lo]!”

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Student protesters interrupt University of Michigan commencement

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With some demonstrating in solidarity with Gaza and others with Israel, students waved flags and chanted slogans

Students demonstrating in solidarity with Gaza waved Palestinian flags and keffiyehs and chanted anti-war slogans during the University of Michigan’s commencement ceremony on Saturday.

Videos on social media showed students donning their graduation gowns as they appeared to chant: “Israel bombs, UMich pays!” and “How many kids have you killed today?” One photo showed a plane appearing to carry a sky banner over the university with the message: “Divest from Israel now! Free Palestine!”

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University of Mississippi: ‘abhorrent’ counter-protesters condemned

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Largely white, male group taunts pro-Palestinian protesters on campus and one man makes racist gesture towards Black woman

Dozens of students at the University of Mississippi gathered this week to protest against Israel’s war in Gaza and to call for the state’s flagship university to be transparent in its potential dealings with Israel.

There were hundreds of counter-protesters, in contrast to the few dozen pro-Palestinian protesters. The scene evoked memories of the resistance to the civil rights struggle in the US south six decades earlier.

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Israelis voice sadness and defiance over Gaza protests on US campuses

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People in Jerusalem express little sympathy with anti-war demonstrators, with some accusing them of hatred for Israel

At the Jerusalem theatre on Thursday night, concertgoers and staff expressed a mixture of anger, sadness and defiance as weeks of pro-Palestinian protests across dozens of US college campuses reached a tumultuous climax 6,000 miles away.

The noisy demonstrations have been closely followed in Israel, reported by major media and discussed by prominent public figures.

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‘We’re infantilised or demonised’: French students criticise Gaza protests crackdown

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University students air frustration that sit-ins motivated by peace are being shut down instead of heeded

Jack, 22, a student in public administration, was dragged out of his university building by the arms and legs on Friday, as police forcibly removed several dozen students who had been occupying Paris’s Sciences Po university overnight in a protest against civilian deaths in Gaza.

“We’ll keep going,” said the French-American student in his final year at the prestigious political science school, whose alumni include the president, Emmanuel Macron. “This is about speaking out against a genocide, it’s an international movement. We occupied the building peacefully.”

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More than 2,000 pro-Palestinian protesters arrested across US campuses

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Police arrest more than 200 students at UCLA as law enforcement clears camp at Dartmouth, arresting more than 90 students

More than 2,000 people have now been arrested during pro-Palestinian protests across dozens of US college campuses in recent weeks.

Police arrested more than 300 pro-Palestinian demonstrators on college campuses on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, pushing the total past 2,000, according to an Associated Press tally.

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Sunak backs police action as Jewish students condemn ‘toxic’ protests

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PM backs action in case of disorder on campuses after claims that pro-Palestinian protests create hostile atmosphere

The prime minister has backed a police crackdown on any outbreak of disorder on university campuses after Jewish students said pro-Palestinian encampments were creating a “hostile and toxic atmosphere”.

In recent days, new encampments have been set up at the universities of Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol and Newcastle, among others, after violent scenes on US campuses resulted in mass arrests of students and staff.

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