After video of the brutal beating was released, people gathered to decry the violence and abuse of power
Protests took place in multiple US cities late Friday after police released footage of Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating at the hands of Memphis police.
The video released late Friday shows several Memphis officers kicking Nichols repeatedly in the head, punching him in the face, and hitting him with a baton.
Continue reading...Demonstrations in Memphis and other US cities follow release of video and request from Nichols’s mother to ‘protest in peace’
Demonstrations quickly began Friday evening as Memphis police released footage of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.
The video released Friday showed Memphis officers kicking Nichols repeatedly in the head, punching him in the face, and hitting him with a baton. It also showed officers and medical personnel failing to intervene as Nichols could not sit upright after the assault.
Continue reading...Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Mark Rylance add their voices to Richard Curtis’s Make My Money Matter campaign
Famous names including Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Mark Rylance have joined activists and businesses in calling on the UK’s big five banks to stop financing new oil, gas and coal expansion.
Make My Money Matter, a campaign set up by Richard Curtis, the screenwriter, director and Comic Relief co-founder, has written to the chief executives of HSBC, Barclays, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds to urge these banks to “stop financing fossil fuel expansion”.
Continue reading...Estimated 100,000 people took to streets in Tel Aviv in what protesters described as ‘fight for Israel’s destiny’
An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday night in what protesters described as a “fight for Israel’s destiny” over sweeping judicial changes proposed by the new far-right government.
Israel’s longtime prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returned to office last month at the helm of a coalition of conservative and religious parties that make up the most right-wing government in the country’s history.
Continue reading...Students say they were beaten and thrown out of dormitories as authorities crack down on protests against president
Scores of police raided a Lima university on Saturday, smashing down the gates with an armoured vehicle, firing teargas and detaining more than 200 people who had come to the Peruvian capital to take part in anti-government protests.
Images showed dozens of people lying face down on the ground at San Marcos University after the surprise police operation. Students said they were pushed, kicked and hit with truncheons as they were forced out of their dormitories.
Continue reading...Event in front of Turkish embassy will further inflame tensions between two countries
Turkey has condemned a demonstration involving the burning of Qur’ans in Sweden on Saturday, further inflaming tensions between the two countries amid Stockholm’s Nato bid.
The protest in Stockholm, which took place under heavy police protection in front of Turkey’s embassy, gathered about 100 people and a crowd of reporters, Agence France-Presse reported.
Continue reading...More than 3,000 people protest on estate of Alexander Darwall after his court victory ends right to wild camp in England
More than 3,000 people joined one of the UK’s largest ever countryside access protests on Saturday on the Dartmoor estate of a wealthy landowner who won a case ending the right to wild camp in England.
Groups of walkers, families, students and local people arrived by foot, shuttle bus and bike to the small Dartmoor village of Cornwood throughout the morning and then thronged for hours along moss- and ivy-draped lanes up on to the rugged, boulder-strewn moorland owned by the Conservative party donor and hedge fund manager Alexander Darwall.
Continue reading...Checkpoints have sprung up and armed police flood the streets in the restive city where dozens of civilians were killed last year
Protesters say they fear Iran’s security services may be planning an assault in the city of Zahedan – the site of a deadly attack on civilians last year – as reports emerge that there are thousands of armed police on the streets.
Fifteen checkpoints have been put up in the past week across the city, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, and several people have been detained by security forces.
Continue reading...Peruvians speak up about inequality as President Dina Boluarte declares state of emergency in Lima
Daniel, 32, an indigenous mine worker from the city of Abancay in the southern-central Apurimac province, did not participate in the mass protests that swept over Peru in 2020, after president Martín Vizcarra was ousted.
“But I did take part this time, in my town, to support my people, Indigenous people, who have been treated like garbage for centuries by the ‘elites’.”
Continue reading...Arrests at biggest march in Paris while train services halted and many primary schools close for the day
More than 1 million people have taken part in demonstrations across France as transport, schools and refineries were hit by strikes in protest at Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular plans to raise the retirement age by two years to 64.
The interior ministry said 1.12 million people protested nationwide on Thursday, with 80,000 taking part in the biggest rally in Paris. Trade unions said the figure was even higher.
Continue reading...Rights groups say Javad Rouhi, who was sentenced on charges including apostasy, was tortured so badly he can no longer speak
A 35-year-old man from a small village in northern Iran has been sentenced to death on charges including apostasy for allegedly burning a Qur’an and “insulting holy things” during the early phase of the protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Javad Rouhi has not been entitled to a lawyer of his choice in court and suffers from a severe mental illness. Human rights groups say he was tortured so terribly in a detention centre run by the feared Revolutionary Guards that he lost his ability to speak and walk, and became incontinent.
Continue reading...Six people accused of publishing book relating to 2019 protests in move critics say has spread terror
Police in Hong Kong have raided a lunar new year shopping fair and arrested six people for selling a “seditious” book related to the 2019 anti-government protests in a move critics say has spread “terror” just days before the celebrations.
National security officers accused three men and three women, aged between 18 and 62, of producing and publishing “a seditious book about a series of riots that occurred in Hong Kong from June 2019 to February 2020”, and selling it in a lunar new year stall in a shopping centre in Mong Kok, a bustling shopping district.
Continue reading...‘Cease and desist’ letter signed by over 650,000 people sent to oil and gas CEOs follows removal of Greta Thunberg from coal protest
Hundreds of thousands of young climate activists have said they will continue “protesting in the streets in huge numbers” against fossil fuels, a day after Greta Thunberg was removed by German police from a condemned village atop a massive coal deposit.
In a cease-and-desist letter to the CEOs of fossil fuel companies, youth campaigners accuse them of a “direct violation of our human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, your duties of care, as well as the rights of Indigenous people”.
Continue reading...Plans aimed at preventing tactics such as ‘slow marching’ are part of Rishi Sunak’s public order crackdown
Police are to be given powers to shut down protests before any disruption begins under Rishi Sunak’s plans for a public order crackdown, which aim to prevent tactics such as “slow marching”.
Sparking outrage from civil liberties campaigners, the government said it would be laying an amendment to the public order bill to toughen its crackdown on “guerilla” tactics used mainly by environmental protesters.
Continue reading...Controversial bill to stop industrial action criticised as an already struggling sector fears losing more staff in a damaging brain drain
Zimbabwe’s health workers have criticised the government for passing contested legislation that outlaws any industrial action, saying it will worsen the sector’s already damaging brain drain.
The new Health Services Bill, which came into force on Tuesday, forbids health workers who are classified as an “essential” service from striking for more than three days. Those who do not comply face a fine or imprisonment of up to six months.
Continue reading...Far-right activists loyal to ex-president have launched what the government called a botched coup attempt
Security has been stepped up in Brazil’s capital amid concerns that hardcore supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro were planning to mobilise again, three days after thousands of extremists launched what the government has called a botched coup attempt.
Reports in the Brazilian media said far-right activists had summoned “a mega nationwide protest to retake power” on Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday night, members of the national public security force in black SUVs could be seen taking up position along the esplanade leading to Brazil’s congress, supreme court and presidential palace – the three buildings stormed and ransacked during Sunday’s turmoil in Brasília.
Continue reading...Alarm raised after two men found guilty of running over police officer are moved to solitary confinement
Protesters have gathered outside a prison near the Iranian capital in an attempt to prevent the rumoured imminent execution of two young detainees found guilty of running over a police officer in a car during protests in November.
Footage posted on social media showed the mother of one of the men, 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou, pleading for her son outside Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, a satellite city west of Tehran. She said it had been established that her son had not been at the scene when the police officer died.
Continue reading...Sunday’s insurrection by supporters of far-right ex-president was organised first on private messaging networks, experts say
The role of social media platforms and messaging apps in Sunday’s political violence in Brasília is under the spotlight after experts highlighted their use by Jair Bolsonaro supporters to question the presidential election result and organise the protests.
Facebook and Instagram’s owner, Meta, has said it will take down content that praises the storming of government buildings in Brazil’s capital, amid claims that tech firms had not done enough to head off the attacks or quell disinformation.
Continue reading...Alidoosti was arrested for support of women’s movement in Iran, including posing on Instagram without hijab
The celebrated Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti has been released from prison by the authorities after her friends and family provided bail. Pictures of her outside jail with campaigners holding flowers and without a hijab were shown on Iranian social media.
She had been arrested for issuing statements of support for the women’s movement in Iran, including by posing on Instagram without a hijab, the compulsory hair covering in the country.
Continue reading...Commitment to ‘civil resistance’ comes after Extinction Rebellion said it would prioritise ‘relationships over roadblocks’
Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil have doubled down on their commitment to disruptive climate “civil resistance” after Extinction Rebellion announced new tactics prioritising “relationships over roadblocks”.
“It’s 2023 and XR has quit,” Just Stop Oil said in a statement. “But it’s 2023, and we are barrelling down the highway to the loss of ordered civil society, as extreme weather impacts tens of millions, as our country becomes unrecognisable … there is now a need to face reality.
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