A group of Muslim women and other activists in France have protested against a local ban on the burkini by going into a public pool wearing the full-body swimwear. The women went to the pools twice at the initiative of the Alliance Citoyenne rights group
Continue reading...Category Archives: Protest
Beijing will not rest until it controls Hong Kong. We must keep fighting | Joshua Wong and Johnson Yeung
In Hong Kong, we have pushed back against the extradition bill. But China is finding other ways to attack our freedom
Let’s put it in plain words: the people of Hong Kong haven’t defeated the proposed extradition law to China yet – we have only earned a small window to catch our breath. And so have the hardliners in the administration and the Chinese government.
Related: Hong Kong protesters hold noisy rally outside police headquarters
Continue reading...Why aren’t Hong Kong’s protesters backing down? – podcast
Millions of people have taken to the streets over the past three weeks in opposition to an extradition law. The Guardian correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison discusses covering the demonstrations and what could happen next. Plus: Angie Zelter on why she doesn’t regret being arrested at an Extinction Rebellion protest
Hong Kong has been rocked by its biggest political crisis in decades, with millions of people taking to the streets in central business districts to protest against a proposed law that would allow the extradition of suspects to mainland China, where the court system has a conviction rate as high as 99%.
The chief executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam, eventually suspended the bill and apologised. Emma Graham-Harrison, who has been reporting from the special administrative region, tells India Rakusen about the murder case that prompted the extradition legislation and why those in Hong Kong fear Beijing is attempting to erode their democracy.
Continue reading...Hong Kong protesters hold noisy rally outside police headquarters
About a thousand people wearing masks and hats build barricades and obscure cameras with umbrellas
About a thousand people have held a noisy rally outside the police headquarters in downtown Hong Kong, calling for the release of protesters arrested during this month’s wave of political unrest, following a peaceful demonstration earlier on Wednesday.
The protesters, mostly dressed in black and many covering their faces with masks and wearing hard hats, occupied the streets around the police headquarters in Wan Chai after 10pm and chanted loudly “Shame on you” and “Release the righteous fighters” to the beating of drums.
Continue reading...What has changed since the Stonewall rebellion? – podcast
The Stonewall rebellion in 1969 started a revolution in LGBT rights in the US. Ed Pilkington revisits the story 50 years on with those who were there. Plus: Lucy Seigle on the rise of fast fashion
On the evening of 27 June 1969, gay men and their trans and lesbian peers gathered as usual at a bar called the Stonewall Inn. What followed would change the course of LGBT rights in the US and the wider world. A police raid on the bar in the early hours of the following day descended into violence as supporters came out on to the streets and stayed there defiantly.
The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington has tracked down some of those who took part in the rebellion and joins Anushka Asthana to discuss what happened and the growing recognition of LGBT rights in the decades that followed.
Continue reading...Charlottesville white supremacist who killed protester asks judge for mercy
- Attorneys for James Alex Fields Jr seek less than life sentence
- Prosecutors: life term will help deter ‘acts of domestic terrorism’
The self-avowed white supremacist who plowed his car into counter-protesters opposing a white nationalist rally in Virginia two years ago, killing one and injuring dozens, has asked a judge for mercy and a sentence shorter than life in prison.
Lawyers for James Alex Fields Jr, 22, said in a sentencing memo submitted in court documents on Friday the defendant should not spend his entire life in prison because of his age, a traumatic childhood and a history of mental illness.
Continue reading...Hong Kong’s elite fear extradition law could harm their reputation
Business leaders in the region take tentative steps in face of contentious bill
Days after Hong Kong’s first major protest against its stalled extradition law, a property firm decided to take a £2.5m hit and abandon an option to develop a slice of prime city land, blaming “social contradiction and economic instability”.
The decision by Goldin Financial Holdings was made after one of its directors, a pro-Beijing lawmaker called Abraham Shek Lai-him, called an urgent meeting to discuss whether to go ahead with the project on part of the old city airport.
Continue reading...Hong Kong, China and universal values | Letter
Michael Minden says we must grapple with the different realities of those who think and feel not as we do
I agree with Natalie Nougayrède’s point that “universalism is not a dirty word” (Hong Kong’s struggles are ours too, Journal, 19 June), but I don’t think it is “beautiful” either.
As I understand it, it entails a challenge to all of us to assume responsibility for our condition. This cannot be achieved by affirming values as universal because they belong to our particular vocabulary (“basic human aspirations”, “fundamental rights and freedom”, “essential, individual rights”, etc). It can only be achieved by grappling with the different realities of those who think and feel not as we do.
Continue reading...Greenpeace activist: ‘Mark Field needs anger management’
Janet Barker recounts assault by suspended MP and says it will not stop her activism
Bruised and still shaken, Janet Barker is incredulous at the violent reaction of the Foreign Office minister Mark Field to her peaceful protest with fellow Greenpeace activists at the chancellor’s Mansion House speech.
However, she has no plans to press criminal charges over the physical assault. “I think it is something best dealt with in the court of opinion,” she said, while welcoming his suspension as a minister.
Continue reading...Thousands gather outside police HQ in renewed Hong Kong protests – video
Demonstrators including the activist Joshua Wong have blocked a main road through the city centre in Hong Kong and massed outside the police headquarters to demand the total withdrawal of a new extradition law, the release of detained activists and apologies for police brutality. The protest on Friday is the fourth major demonstration in the city in less than two weeks
Continue reading...Fresh Hong Kong protests planned for Friday
Calls for new demonstrations come as government fails to respond to a list of protester demands
Hong Kong is braced for another round of demonstrations after the government failed to respond to a list of protester demands including an investigation into police brutality and the withdrawal of an extradition bill by a Thursday afternoon deadline.
After cut-off set by protest leaders passed without word from the government, messages began circulating on social media calling people to come to central Hong Kong from 7am on Friday.
Continue reading...Adult performers to picket Instagram HQ over company’s nude photo rules
Artists, activists and models join in condemning confusing guidelines leading to account suspensions
Dozens of adult performers are set to picket Instagram’s Silicon Valley headquarters over guidelines about photos containing nudity. The inconsistency of the rules, they say, has led to hundreds of thousands of account suspensions and is imperiling their livelihoods.
Adult performers are leading the protest on Wednesday, but other users including artists, sex workers, queer activists, sex education platforms, and models say they have been affected by the platform’s opaque removal system.
Continue reading...‘This is everyone’s problem’: protests fail to save Taipei veterans’ village
Fewer than 30 of 879 villages built to house nationalist KMT soldiers and their families remain in Taiwan. After a lengthy battle, Daguan is to be demolished this week
At 22, Cynthia Tang was one-third the average age of the other people crowded into the abandoned Taipei storefront that served as the office of the Daguan Anti-Eviction Movement.
Looking fervently through the frames of her large round glasses, Tang, a student at the prestigious National Taiwan University, addressed the small crowd. “Two of our student activists have been arrested,” she said. “Now the government is suing them. This is not only their problem – this is everyone’s problem.”
Continue reading...Carrie Lam ignored public opinion, says freed activist
Joshua Wong blames Hong Kong leader for city’s protests, despite her apology
Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, is the person responsible for mobilising the biggest protests in the city’s history, the freed student activist Joshua Wong has said.
The 22-year-old, who was the face of the last major demonstrations in Hong Kong in 2014, was released from jail on Monday following a two-month term for contempt of court.
Continue reading...Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam offers apology after protests – video
Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, has offered a 'sincere and solemn' apology to the people of her city following record protests on Sunday in response to the controversial China extradition law. In her first press conference since crowds poured on to the streets to denounce Lam, the bureaucrat-turned-politician described going through an emotional period of 'self-reflection', and said she hoped to heal rifts in society. However, Lam refused to fully meet any of the protesters’ requests for her to resign, withdraw her extradition law, and apologise both for police brutality and for describing one protest as a riot
Continue reading...Sound of Hong Kong’s defiance reverberates in Beijing
Beijing’s public support for Hong Kong leader likely hides private fury, but letting her go would be another humiliation
The most obvious casualty of Hong Kong’s extraordinary uprising against chief executive, Carrie Lam, and her campaign to tie the city more closely to China, will be the bureaucrat-turned-politician’s own career. If she stays on, it will only be as a lame duck leader.
But the city’s turmoil is also a major challenge to her boss and patron, Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
Continue reading...Hong Kong: pressure builds on Carrie Lam as public rejects apology
Calls for leader to stand down after estimated 2 million march over unpopular extradition bill
Protesters have kept up pressure on Hong Kong’s leader by blocking streets outside the shuttered legislature building and welcoming the city’s most prominent political activist, Joshua Wong, on his release from jail.
As the political crisis entered its second week, Hong Kong’s police chief admitted that his officers had sought to arrest wounded demonstrators in hospitals after a previous protest, but claimed criminal screening was routine for anyone arriving at A&E.
Continue reading...Man falls to his death to become Hong Kong protest’s first ‘martyr’
Crowds mourn the unknown activist, praising his passion and sense of justice
Many among the vast crowds that marched through Hong Kong on Sunday carried white flowers tributes to an anonymous man who had fallen to his death the previous evening after unfurling a large protest banner on scaffolding near government headquarters.
No one knew the man’s name, or why he was there, even though protesters and an opposition politician spent hours trying to persuade him to come down with hymns and exhortations.
Continue reading...‘Fighting for our freedom’: protesters flood into Hong Kong’s streets
Authorities urged to withdraw extradition bill as Carrie Lam apology fails to calm ire
A wave of protesters hundreds of thousands strong, most dressed in black and many carrying white flowers of mourning, have swept through central Hong Kong to denounce a controversial extradition law and demand the city’s leader, Carrie Lam, steps down.
They poured in from all over the city, in numbers so large that the march route had to be extended, and then widened, with crowds spilling from the main road to fill neighbouring streets, and halting all traffic outside government headquarters.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands take to streets in renewed Hong Kong protests – video report
Protesters dressed in black have marched through central Hong Kong demanding a full retraction of the China extradition law. The huge new rally comes after Hong Kong's chief executive, Carrie Lam, announced an indefinite halt to the proposed bill, which would allow residents and visitors to be sent for trial in China’s opaque Communist-controlled court system
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