People are wearing costumes as a protest to the government’s handling of an outbreak that has killed more than 545,000
When Klinger Duarte Rodrigues set off for his coronavirus shot last weekend he did so dressed as a South American snake.
“A sucuri,” he said, using the indigenous name for the Amazonian water boa whose skin he borrowed for his first dose of AstraZeneca.
Continue reading...Biden moves to pressure government over alleged human rights abuses amid biggest demonstrations in decades
The US has imposed sanctions on a Cuban security minister and an interior ministry special forces unit for alleged human rights abuses in a crackdown on anti-government protests this month.
The move marked the first concrete steps by Joe Biden’s administration to apply pressure on Cuba’s Communist government as it faces calls from US lawmakers and the Cuban American community to show greater support for the biggest protests to hit the island in decades.
Continue reading...Regulator’s move comes amid fears that limited press freedoms are being eroded by the government
Nigeria’s broadcasting regulator has told TV stations to limit their reporting of rising insecurity in the country and withhold details of incidents and victims, in a move widely criticised by the country’s media and civil society groups.
In a letter sent to the country’s broadcasters, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) said TV stations should refrain from “giving details of either the security issues or victims of these security challenges”, and they should “collaborate with the government in dealing with the security challenges” by toning down reporting and commentary.
Continue reading...Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, was one of nine people arrested during a voting rights protest at the US Capitol on Thursday. Beatty was participating in a protest calling for the Senate to pass a sweeping election reform bill. The bill passed the House in March but is being held up in the Senate because of a Republican filibuster. Beatty and others were arrested by Capitol police for 'demonstrating in a prohibited area on Capitol grounds', said police
Continue reading...Joyce Beatty, chair of Congressional Black Caucus, was calling on the Senate to pass a key election reform bill
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a Democrat of Ohio, was one of nine people arrested during a voting rights protest at the Capitol this afternoon.
Beatty, who serves as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, shared a photo on Twitter of US Capitol police (USCP) officers putting a zip-tie on her and escorting her out of the building.
Continue reading...Police have fired teargas to disperse demonstrators in Paris as thousands of people protested throughout France over new coronavirus restrictions. Protests began in the French capital on Wednesday morning as the annual military parade for Bastille Day was taking place along the Champs-Élysées, watched by Emmanuel Macron
Continue reading...Conviction of businessman who conspired in murder of indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres raises hopes of end to impunity
When Bertha Zuñiga heard that a former Honduran army intelligence officer and businessman had been found guilty of collaborating in the murder of her mother, Berta Cáceres, she breathed a big sigh of relief. Five years after the environmental campaigner was assassinated by hired hitmen, this was the verdict her family and friends had been waiting for.
“I know there is still a long road, maybe very long and very hard, but to have achieved a guilty verdict against the [former] president of a corporation, [who is] connected to the armed forces: it is unprecedented in our country,” says Zuñiga, 30.
Continue reading...Historically musicians steered clear of addressing political topics that risk reprisals at home but Sunday’s explosion changed that
High-profile Cuban musicians from salsa band Los Van Van and jazz pianist Chucho Valdés to pop star Leoni Torres have offered rare public support to protesters and criticized Communist authorities’ handling of the worst unrest in decades.
Thousands of Cubans joined rare protests nationwide on Sunday over shortages, Covid-19 and political rights. The government blamed US-financed “counter-revolutionaries” exploiting economic hardship caused by US sanctions.
Continue reading...Unrest in South Africa triggered by the jailing of the former president Jacob Zuma has intensified, despite the deployment of thousands of soldiers on to the streets to reinforce struggling police. There has been widespread looting and shopping centres have been set alight. In one tense scene in Durban, a mother dropped her toddler from a burning building to a group of people below, who caught the child. The wave of violence has also hit South Africa’s faltering Covid vaccination rollout, which has been halted amid safety concerns
Continue reading...Activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, reportedly in custody
Scores of Cuban activists, protesters and journalists, including a reporter for one of Spain’s leading newspapers, have reportedly been detained as Communist party security forces seek to smother Sunday’s historic flare-up of dissent.
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas director, said at least 140 Cubans were believed to have been detained or had disappeared in the aftermath of Cuba’s largest demonstrations in decades.
Continue reading...The biggest mass demonstrations for three decades have rippled through Cuba, as thousands took to the streets in cities throughout the island, demonstrating against food shortages, high prices and communist rule. President Miguel Díaz-Canel blamed the unrest on foreign influence and said that ‘destabilisation in our country’ would be met with a ‘revolutionary response’. Cubans are living through the gravest economic crisis the country has known for 30 years
Continue reading...South Africa’s highest court to rule on Monday on whether former president’s sentence is upheld
South Africa’s army has said it is deploying troops to two provinces, including its economic hub of Johannesburg, to help crush mob violence and looting as unrest sparked by the jailing of ex-president Jacob Zuma entered a fourth day.
“The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has commenced with pre-deployment processes and procedures in line with a request for assistance,” the military said in a statement.
Continue reading...Looting in former president’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal spreads to economic hub of Johannesburg
Shops were looted overnight and a section of the M2 highway was closed in Johannesburg on Sunday as violence following the jailing of the former South African president Jacob Zuma spread to the country’s main economic hub.
Violence had mainly been concentrated in Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), where on Wednesday night he began a 15-month sentence for contempt of court.
Continue reading...Organisation known for annual Tiananmen vigil lets go of all paid staff and halves its steering committee
One of Hong Kong’s most established pro-democracy civic organisations has said it is letting go its paid staff and halving the size of its steering committee after Beijing stepped up its crackdown on opposition activity.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China is best known for its annual rally and candlelight vigil remembering those killed in the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Continue reading...Statues of Confederate generals Robert E Lee and Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson were taken down in the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, nearly four years after white supremacist protests over plans to remove them led to clashes in which a woman was run down by a car and killed. A small crowd of onlookers cheered as the statue of Lee was hoisted away first, lifted by crane from its stone pedestal and taken away on a flat-bed truck.
Continue reading...Prosecutors granted more time to prepare cases against those arrested under sweeping national security law
Prosecutors have been granted another months-long delay to the trial of 47 pro-democracy politicians, activists, and campaigners in Hong Kong who held pre-election primaries declared illegal under its sweeping national security law.
A court on Thursday was originally expected to hear an application to transfer the case to a higher court with powers to order longer jail sentences, but prosecutors instead requested an 11-week adjournment, saying they needed more time to prepare, local media reported.
Continue reading...Protests across Spain after 24-year-old nursing assistant Samuel Luiz dies following attack outside nightclub
Spanish police have arrested three people in connection with the killing of a young gay man whose death in a possible homophobic attack over the weekend shocked the country and sparked nationwide protests.
Samuel Luiz, a 24-year-old nursing assistant, was out with friends in the Galician city of A Coruña in the early hours of Saturday when an argument started outside a nightclub.
Continue reading...It’s been dubbed ‘tangping’ – shunning tough careers to chill out instead. But how is the Communist party taking the birth of this new counterculture?
Name: Low-desire life.
Age: People – young ones especially – have been rebelling, dropping out, rejecting the rat race for pretty much ever, since the rat race began. But in China, it’s becoming more common. On trend, you might say.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
Continue reading...Despite chronic pain and deadly infections, Palestinians wounded in protests three years ago still hope to recover without surgery
Sitting on his hospital bed, with external fixators screwed into his right leg, Mohammed al-Mughari has been in pain and on medication since he was shot in the leg more than three years ago.
He lives with a chronic bone infection – from bacteria now resistant to most antibiotics. Doctors, including in Jordan and Egypt where he sought treatment previously, have all recommended that an amputation could end his long-term suffering, but he has steadfastly refused.
Continue reading...