Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Protesters, mainly women, tore balaclavas off police and security officers during demonstrations in Belarus in which dozens of people were arrested.
With riot police given carte blanche by president Alexander Lukashenko to harass and assault peaceful protesters, in recent days demonstrators have responded by grabbing their masks and balaclavas, forcing officers to hide their faces and retreat for fear of being identified.
Thousands gathered in the capital, Minsk, on Saturday 12 September as waves of protests continued following Alexander Lukashenko's claim of victory in an election on 9 August people say was rigged
Pulling off balaclavas and publishing names is new tactic to stem harassment and assaults
During the past month’s uprising against Alexander Lukashenko, riot police and assorted thugs loyal to his regime have been given carte blanche by the Belarusian president to harass, assault and arrest peaceful protesters.
In recent days, however, protesters have found out that for all Lukashenko’s men’s ruthlessness and impunity, they have a vulnerable point: their faces. Grab at the mask of a policeman and he will run for cover.
Rarely used charge means a person plotted a threat that posed imminent danger to government authority
William Barr told prosecutors to explore aggressive charges against people arrested at recent demonstrations across the US, even suggesting bringing a rarely used sedition charge, reserved for those who have plotted a threat that posed imminent danger to government authority, according to multiple reports on Wednesday.
The move signals a doubling down on Barr’s aggressive approach to the protests. Barr told US attorneys from across the country during a conference call last week that they should seek to pursue federal charges against people who were arrested at demonstrations, even if state charges could also apply, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Journal reports that more than 200 people have been charged with federal crimes in relation to the protests, including arson, assault of federal officers and gun crimes. Dozens of the people who face charges were protesting in Portland, Oregon, where protesters held nightly demonstrations and faced violent crackdown from federal agents.
An estimated 100,000 people took to the streets of Belarus's capital, Minsk, as protests against the president, Alexander Lukashenko, continued for the fifth weekend. The large demonstrations come as Lukashenko is set to meet with Vladimir Putin for the first time since the presidential election on 9 August. Lukashenko’s claim that he won a landslide victory triggered the growing uprising against his 26-year reign
Rally in Minsk against disputed re-election of Lukashenko was attended by thousands
Belarusian riot police detained several dozen women demonstrators and threw them into vans, as thousands took to the streets of the capital to protest against police violence and electoral fraud.
Before a massive protest expected on Sunday, columns of female protesters gathered in central Minsk for a peaceful women’s protest. Some beat saucepans with ladles and others chanted “Bring back our Masha”, referring to opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova by her diminutive name.
Letter signed by 150 public figures hits back at move to scapegoat protesters
Stephen Fry, Mark Rylance and a former Archbishop of Canterbury are among 150 public figures to hit back at government moves to classify the climate protesters of Extinction Rebellion as an “organised crime group”. In a letter to be published in the Observer on Sunday, XR is described as “a group of people who are holding the powerful to account” – who should not become targets of “vitriol and anti-democratic posturing”.
It comes in response to the prime minister and home secretary’s reported move to review how the group is classified in law after it disrupted the distribution of four national newspapers, including the Sun and the Daily Mail, last Saturday.
Thousands of Belarusians have defied beatings and arrests to demand the resignation of the country's authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, after he claimed victory in an election they say was rigged. Protesters have flooded Belarus's capital, Minsk, every week for a month to call for new, free and fair elections, as well as an end to police violence. But Lukashenko has held on with the support of the police and military. Can the protesters topple the man often called Europe's last dictator?
Child’s mother says her daughter was buying art supplies when she was tackled and pinned to the ground by police
Hong Kong police have been strongly criticised over the rough arrest of a 12-year-old girl whose family says was caught in a protest crowd while out buying art supplies.
Video widely shared across social media and in Hong Kong media showed the officers seeking to corral a group of people including the young girl, who ducked aside and tried to run away. An officer tackled her to the ground, while several others helped to pin her down.
Hongkongers have been left shocked by the rough police arrest of a 12-year-old girl whose family says was corraled into a protest crowd while out buying art supplies.
It came amid the largest street protest seen in Hong Kong since 1 July, the first full day under the national security laws imposed by Beijing on the city, outlawing acts of sedition, secession, foreign collusion and terrorism
Police fire pepper pellets in one of largest gatherings since national security law imposed
On what was supposed to have been Hong Kong’s election day, hundreds of pro-democracy protesters took to the streets on Sunday, where they encountered a heavy presence from police, who fired pepper pellets and arrested almost 300 people.
It was one of the largest gatherings of protesters since China’s implementation of a sweeping set of anti-sedition laws that a coalition of United Nations expert groups has said risks breaching multiple international laws and human rights.
Flag-waving extremists and white nationalists block roads in protest over migrant Channel crossings
Just after 1pm, below the white cliffs of Dover, Nigel Marcham offered his take on one of the summer’s most potent symbols. “Take a knee for the brethren of this fucking country,” Marcham screamed into his megaphone.
Around him a ragtag collection of far-right supporters, white nationalists and neo-nazis knelt on the A20 outside Dover’s Eastern Docks. “Thanks for taking a fucking knee in the proper way,” he said, clearly delighted with his perversion of the global peaceful protest symbol adopted by millions following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
In stark contrast to right-wing claims, 93% of demonstrations have involved no serious harm to people or property
The vast majority of the thousands of Black Lives Matter protests this summer have been peaceful, with more than 93% involving no serious harm to people or damage to property, according to a new report tracking political violence in the United States.
But the US government has taken a “heavy-handed approach” to the demonstrations, with authorities using force “more often than not” when they are present, the report found.
Liu Yifei, who stars as Chinese heroine, has voiced support for Hong Kong police during suppression of protests
Calls to boycott Disney’s live-action remake of Mulan have been reignited ahead of its release on Friday, with Thai pro-democracy activists joining those vowing to shun the film.
Bulgarian protesters were confronted by riot police outside parliament in Sofia on Wednesday night in the largest demonstration in two months of anti-government demonstrations.
More than 60 protesters were arrested in the capital as demonstrators threw bottles, eggs and firecrackers at police cordoning off the parliament building.
The prime minister, Boiko Borisov, faces accusations of corruption as demonstrators demand the disbandment of government
A Bay Area police officer has been charged with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting of a Black man in a Walmart store in April.
The district attorney in California’s Alameda county announced the charge against officer Jason Fletcher, 49, in the killing Steven Taylor, 33. Responding to a call about a possible shoplifter with a baseball bat at a Walmart, Fletcher fired first his taser and then his pistol at Taylor, killing him.
Lee Merritt, an attorney for Taylor’s family, said Taylor was going through a mental health crisis on Saturday afternoon, and that he has previously suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar depression. “He was shot after he had become completely helpless and no longer represented a threat,” Merritt told the Guardian on Monday.
Merritt said he wasn’t sure yet whether police shot Taylor with a Taser or bullet after he was already down, and that an autopsy was under way.
Donald Trump appeared to defend the teenage gunman charged with killing two people and injuring another with an AR-15-style rifle during protests against the police shooting of an African American man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
At a White House press briefing Trump said Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, 'probably would have been killed but it’s under investigation'.
Trump also defended his supporters in Portland who fired paintball guns and pepper spray on Saturday
Joe Biden has responded to Trump’s refusal to condemn Kyle Rittenhouse:
In a statement, he said:
Tonight, the President declined to rebuke violence. He wouldn’t even repudiate one of his supporters who is charged with murder because of his attacks on others. He is too weak, too scared of the hatred he has stirred to put an end to it.
So once again, I urge the President to join me in saying that while peaceful protest is a right — a necessity — violence is wrong, period. No matter who does it, no matter what political affiliation they have. Period.
If Donald Trump can’t say that, then he is unfit to be President, and his preference for more violence — not less — is clear.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is seeking a communications firm to “defeat despair and inspire hope,” bidding out a $250m contract, Politico reports.
Ahead of the elections, with 180,000 Americans dead from coronavirus, HHS wants a firm to help “deliver important public health and economic information the administration can defeat despair, inspire hope and achieve national recovery.”
Several weeks ago, the department sent out to a number of communications firms a “performance work statement,” which lays out what work will be expected of the winning firm. The document says that the vast majority of the money will be spent from now until January.
The document also lists the goals of the contract: “defeat despair and inspire hope, sharing best practices for businesses to operate in the new normal and instill confidence to return to work and restart the economy,” build a “coalition of spokespeople” around the country, provide important public health, therapeutic and vaccine information as the country reopens and give Americans information on the phases of reopening.
Berlin’s interior minister has expressed regret over a standoff outside the Reichstag building on Saturday during a rally against coronavirus restrictions.
Speaking to a committee of the city state’s interior ministry on Monday, Andreas Geisel said he was “deeply regretful” about the images from the protest, which were seen around the world.
Protests against Alexander Lukashenko's contested election win have continued in the country, with an estimated 100,000 demonstrators taking to the streets of the capital, defying a government crackdown. Protesters in Minsk were met with an increased security presence as anti-government rallies continued for a third week