Anti-coup protesters in Myanmar have paid tribute to the young woman who died a day earlier after being shot by police during a demonstration against the military takeover. Impromptu memorials were held in Yangon, Mandalay and the capital city, Naypyidaw, where Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing was shot on 9 February, two days before her 20th birthday
Grocery store worker Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, 20, is the first protest fatality since military took control in coup two weeks ago
A woman who was shot in the head by police during protests in Myanmar last week has died – the first protest fatality since the military took control in a coup more than two weeks ago.
Mya Thwate Thwate Khaing, 20, had been on life support since being taken to hospital on 9 February after she was hit by what doctors said was a live bullet at a protest in the capital, Naypyitaw.
Continue reading...Protesters try to block movement of security forces and civil servants, while hackers targets military
Some of the busiest streets in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, have been brought to a standstill for a second day running by slow-moving and “broken-down” cars, as part of an evolving civil disobedience movement against the military coup.
Cars were parked across roads to block the movement of security forces and prevent civil servants from travelling to work. Some protesters walked in circles around a pedestrian crossing at a busy intersection. “Don’t attend the office, leave it. Join the civil disobedience movement,” protesters chanted.
Continue reading...Protesters clashed with police in several Spanish cities on Tuesday night after Pablo Rivadulla, known as Pablo Hasél, was arrested to serve a prison sentence for glorifying terrorism and insulting royalty and the police in his lyrics and on social media. Hasél had barricaded himself in Lleida University to highlight 'a hugely serious attack' on freedom, and his arrest has fuelled debate about freedom of speech in Spain and the country’s so-called 'gag law'
Continue reading...Court case begins a day early, without the knowledge of her lawyer and with fresh charges
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Myanmar’s main city Yangon on Wednesday morning to voice their anger after the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi began ahead of schedule and without the knowledge or presence of her lawyer.
Across Yangon, protesters marched with red flags signalling their support for their ousted leader, and carrying signs denouncing the military. Roads were blocked by sit down protests, and by drivers who held a “broken down” protest, parking their cars with bonnets open.
Continue reading...Veteran activist Lee Cheuk-yan accuses police and government of depriving Hongkongers of constitutional rights
A veteran champion of democracy in Hong Kong has described its legal system as an instrument of political suppression, after he and eight other high-profile figures went on trial in one of the biggest court cases linked to the protest movement that paralysed the city for more than a year.
“It’s the department of justice, the police department and the Hong Kong government who should be on trial because they have deprived us of our constitutional rights,” said Lee Cheuk-yan after the day’s proceedings. “This year is the year of the ox so we should be stubborn as an ox.”
Continue reading...About 300 women gathered in Moscow holding a white ribbon in -13C temperatures
Several hundred women formed human chains in Moscow and St Petersburg on Sunday, using Valentine’s Day to express support for the wife of the jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and other political prisoners.
About 300 women gathered on Arbat Street in Moscow’s city centre holding a long white ribbon in temperatures of -13C (8F).
Continue reading...Paint thrown and bangs heard after Bangkok’s Democracy Monument draped in red cloth
Youth activists protesting against laws forbidding insult to Thailand’s powerful king briefly clashed with police on Saturday after draping Bangkok’s Democracy Monument in red cloth.
Protesters threw paint at police and several small bangs were heard during a standoff near a city shrine after the demonstration had moved from Democracy Monument and the main leaders had called for it to disperse.
Continue reading...In tomorrow’s election, public services are a huge concern for the people as politicians debate independence
Much has changed in Poblenou over the past four years – not least the arrival of a pandemic that has devastated tourism and employment – but the people of the traditional working-class barrio in the north of Barcelona are struggling with a nagging sense of deja vu over Sunday’s regional election.
“All the talk is about independence but what most of us want from politicians is to solve social problems,” says Nuria Vallejo, a doctor working in the public sector who has lived in the neighbourhood for 20 years. “Number one is the health crisis, and then there’s the education system and questions of sustainability.”
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of people have been protesting across Myanmar since the army overthrew the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and detained most senior leaders on 1 February.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to power prompted hope she could end years of ethnic strife in Myanmar, but she has been accused of standing by while genocide was committed against the Rohingya people. The Guardian's south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, explains why – despite her fall from grace internationally – Aung San Suu Kyi is seen by so many protesters as the only person who can still save them from military rule
Police in Myanmar have clashed with protesters and fired rubber bullets at crowds in the south-eastern city of Mawlamyine on the largest day of demonstrations so far against the military coup. The use of force left at least three people wounded and came hours before the UN human rights council was due to hold a special session to discuss the crisis
As rhetoric rises on both sides, Indian farmers at the Singhu camp say they are going nowhere
Puffing out his chest, his lime green turban luminescent in the morning sun, Surinder Singh made it clear he was a man who would not easily be moved. “We will stay here five years, 10 years if we have to,” the farmer said with a steely smile. “As long as it takes.”
A roar of approval greeted his words from fellow farmers who had gathered for breakfast at Singh’s chai stand at the Singhu camp, one of three main protest camps on the outskirts of Delhi. Singh, a small-scale farmer from India’s northern state of Punjab, is just one of hundreds of thousands to have made Singhu his home since November, living out of the back of his now fully furnished tractor trailer.
Continue reading...UK home secretary says she disagreed with last year’s protests as well as taking the knee
The home secretary, Priti Patel, has described the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the UK last year as “dreadful” and said she did not agree with the gesture of taking the knee.
The protests, in which demonstrations took place in more than 260 towns and cities in June and July, were the largest anti-racism protests in Britain for decades.
Continue reading...Two-thirds of those killed worked to protect environmental, land and indigenous peoples’ rights, while those providing Covid relief also faced reprisals
At least 331 human rights defenders promoting social, environmental, racial and gender justice in 25 countries were murdered in 2020, with scores more beaten, detained and criminalised because of their work, analysis has found.
Latin America, the most dangerous continent in the world in which to protect environmental, land and human rights, accounted for more than three-quarters of all the murders of human rights defenders in 2020. In Colombia, where activists are routinely targeted by armed groups despite a 2016 peace deal, 177 such deaths were recorded, more than half of the global total. The Philippines was the second deadliest country with 25 murders, followed by Honduras, Mexico, Afghanistan, Brazil and Guatemala.
Continue reading...The three men are said to be recovering from assaults after security forces are accused of targeting activists during unrest
Three lawyers are said to be recovering after being assaulted by police in the wake of protests in the Tunisian capital on Saturday.
According to the Tunisian Bar Association, Yassine Azaza and Rahhal Jallali were attacked by officers while they were making their way home after the demonstrations in Tunis. A third lawyer, Abdennaceur Aouini, was photographed surrounded by police officers in the city’s main street.
Continue reading...Swedish environmental groups warn test flight could be first step towards the adoption of a potentially “dangerous, unpredictable, and unmanageable” technology
A proposed scientific balloon flight in northern Sweden has attracted opposition from environmental groups over fears it could lead to the use of solar geoengineering to cool the Earth and combat the climate crisis by mimicking the effect of a large volcanic eruption.
In June, a team of Harvard scientists is planning to launch a high-altitude balloon from Kiruna in Lapland to test whether it can carry equipment for a future small-scale experiment on radiation-reflecting particles in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Continue reading...He’s been poisoned and jailed... but not silenced. Now Navalny poses the greatest threat to the president’s 21-year rule
Alexei Navalny was in defiant mood last Tuesday, as he waited for his inevitable sentence. He made a heart gesture for his wife, Yulia, who was sitting at the back of Moscow’s city courtroom. Navalny smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t be sad! Everything is going to be all right,” he yelled at her. She waved back. Meanwhile, a state prosecutor droned on.
Last week’s sham trial was the latest episode in an epic stand-off between two men for a nation’s future. One is the man in the dock, Russia’s foremost opposition leader, and now a global figure, likened by some to Nelson Mandela. The other is the country’s president of two decades, a former KGB colonel who appears determined to stay in power and to smash a popular revolt against him.
Continue reading...Protesters use tractors, lorries and boulders to create blockades and press for repeal of legislation
Thousands of farmers blockaded main roads across India for several hours on Saturday to press their demand for the repeal of new agricultural laws that have led to months of major protests.
The protesters used tractors, lorries and boulders to blockade the roads. They carried banners and flags denouncing the laws, which they say will leave them poorer and at the mercy of corporations.
Continue reading...Thousands of people took to the streets of Yangon on Saturday to denounce this week’s military coup and demand the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's ousted leader. Myanmar’s junta has tried to silence dissent by temporarily blocking Facebook and extended the social media crackdown to Twitter and Instagram on Saturday in the face of the growing protest movement
Continue reading...Protests have spread across country since military coup, as citizens resist return to dictatorship
On Friday evening, after darkness fell, the sound of car horns and the clanging of pots and pans and metal railings echoed around the compact grid of central Yangon. It was the fourth consecutive night that people had gathered on their balconies to loudly voice their fury at the military junta now running Myanmar.
It was Monday morning when the public had awoken to find that Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party had won a landslide election in November, had been detained, and that the army had seized all legislative, judicial and executive powers.
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