Category Archives: Protest

Microsoft workers decry grueling ‘996’ working standard at Chinese tech firms

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A letter on Github demanded companies comply with labor laws, limiting workers to 40 hours a week versus a 12-hour day standard

Microsoft employees have published a letter on the software development platform Github in solidarity with tech workers in China.

Workers at tech companies in the country have used the Microsoft-owned platform to complain about grueling working conditions and the “996” standard in the industry, a philosophy endorsed by the tech billionaire Jack Ma. The name is based on the idea of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.

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Greta Thunberg backs climate general strike to force leaders to act

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Swedish activist says world faces ‘existential crisis’ and must achieve goals of Paris deal

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist, has given her support for a general strike for the climate, saying the student movement she inspired needs more support from older generations to ensure politicians keep their promises under the Paris agreement.

Speaking at a public event in London as Extinction Rebellion protests continued in the capital, the initiator of the school strike for climate movement was typically frank about the scale of the problem the world faces and the impact her campaign has made. “People are slowly becoming more aware, but emissions continue to rise. We can’t focus on small things. Basically, nothing has changed,” she said.

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Police clear Extinction Rebellion protesters from Waterloo Bridge

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Arrests made after police urge activists to move to Marble Arch, where Greta Thunberg spoke to protesters on Sunday

Police have cleared the remaining Extinction Rebellion activists from Waterloo Bridge in London, despite earlier calls on social media for people that were willing to be arrested to “go there and save it”.

The roads around Parliament Square were cleared of protesters earlier on Sunday, with the northbound carriageway of Waterloo Bridge re-opened to traffic by the evening. On Sunday night police continued their operations, moving to remove the last activists who had glued themselves to the bridge and to each other.

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Millions for Notre Dame – but nothing for us, say gilets jaunes

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Yellow vest protesters angry over high taxes and inequality march in Paris days after blaze

Riot police and protesters have fought running battles in the centre of Paris as gilets jaunes anti-government demonstrators in fluorescent yellow vests led street marches over what they called “a crisis” of high taxes and economic inequality.

Less than a week after the fire that destroyed the roof and spire of Notre Dame Cathedral, firefighters rushed to put out multiple small fires around the Place de la République, as motorbikes, bins, bicycles and cars were set alight on roads and pavements. Groups of masked men threw projectiles and police fired teargas. Some rioters in masks smashed the window of a sports shop and ran in to loot it, emerging with bags full of goods.

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Battle of Waterloo Bridge: a week of Extinction Rebellion protests

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Group’s ongoing peaceful disruption in London is gaining it global attention and new members

On Monday morning a strange sight appeared, edging its way through the buses, taxis and shoppers on Oxford Street in London.

A bright pink boat, named Berta Cáceres after the murdered Honduran environmental activist, was being pulled carefully through the traffic, eventually coming to a halt in the middle of one of London’s busiest thoroughfares.

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Gilets jaunes banned from protesting near Notre Dame in Paris

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France’s interior minister says demonstrators are planning action on Saturday

Anti-government gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protesters will be banned from demonstrating near Paris’s fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral on Saturday, as the police chief warned that any plans to march on the banks of the river Seine near the site were “pure provocation”.

The French interior minister, Christophe Castaner, warned that rioters would be on the streets in several major cities in France on Saturday but “particularly Paris”. He suggested that extremist groups and troublemakers were planning to repeat the scenes of arson, looting and vandalism by masked men that took place on Paris’s Champs-Elysées last month on the edge of anti-government marches by demonstrators. He urged against Paris becoming “the capital of rioters” for the day.

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Greta Thunberg hopes to join climate protests during London visit

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Swedish 16-year-old, who is taking campaign to parliament, keen to be part of Extinction Rebellion action

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old founder of the school strikes for action against climate change, has said she hopes to join the Extinction Rebellion protests when she visits London next week.

The Swedish activist will also take the campaign to the UK parliament, where she will speak to dozens of MPs including the Green party MP Caroline Lucas, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the environment secretary, Michael Gove.

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Sudan’s military rulers sack more top officials after pressure from protesters

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Prosecutor general fired in latest concession by transitional council

Military rulers in Sudan have sacked a further slew of senior officials after pressure from protesters.

The move is the latest concession by the army-led transitional council, which took power last week following the fall of Omar al-Bashir after 30 years in power, and has since faced fierce pressure to rapidly give way to a civilian government.

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Extinction Rebellion set to disrupt London rail and tube lines

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Climate protesters warn they will escalate action after blockading capital’s landmarks

Climate change protesters, who police say have caused “serious disruption” affecting half a million people in London over the past two days, have said they are planning to escalate their protests to disrupt rail and tube lines.

Thousands or people have taken part in the civil disobedience protests, blockading four landmarks in the capital in an attempt to force the government to take action on the escalating climate crisis.

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Thousands block roads in Extinction Rebellion protests across London

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Climate group occupies major landmarks in campaign that could last several days

Thousands of people have blocked well-known landmarks including Waterloo Bridge in central London, bringing widespread disruption to the capital in a “climate rebellion” that organisers say could last several days.

Parents and their children joined scientists, teachers, long-term environmentalists and other protesters both young and old to occupy major junctions and demand urgent action over the escalating ecological crisis.

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Sudan protesters say they blocked attempt to break up sit-in

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Demonstrators say they formed a ring around sit-in zone to stop troops clearing the area

Sudanese protesters have moved to block an apparent attempt to break up their sit-in outside the defence ministry in Khartoum, where demonstrators have been pushing for a quick transition to civilian rule after Omar al-Bashir was ousted as president, a witness has said.

Protesters said they had joined hands and formed a ring around the sit-in area after troops had gathered on three sides and tractors were preparing to remove stone and metal barricades.

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‘Shut the country down’: British climate group Extinction Rebellion heads to US

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With dozens of events next week, many hope arrival of climate punks who’ve swept the UK will be a watershed moment

Bea Ruiz, a veteran progressive coordinator, has been telling scores of first-time climate change protesters they face being harassed and beaten by police next week. Most seem happy with the deal.

“I told a 72-year-old volunteer that he will probably be targeted by police,” said Ruiz, who is based in Eureka, California and is helping organize the first US rollout of Extinction Rebellion, a group founded in the UK that has grabbed attention through disruptive protests leading to mass arrests.

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Protesters celebrate as Sudan’s spy chief quits

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Salih Ghosh, who led protests crackdown, resigns a day after interim leader stepped down

The protest movement in Sudan has won a series of fresh victories, with the country’s powerful military moving to replace the controversial transitional leader and spy chief following street rallies demanding officials linked to the former regime stand down.

Salih Ghosh, who led a sweeping crackdown against demonstrators over recent months, resigned on Saturday, a communique from the new military-led transitional council said.

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Sudan protesters demand military hands over power at once

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New military rulers say they plan to give power to civilian government in two years

A pledge by Sudan’s ruling military council to hand over power to a civilian government has been rejected by the country’s main protest group, which said the army was “not capable of creating change”.

In a press conference broadcast on state television, Omar Zein Abideen, a senior army officer and member of the military council, said Sudan’s new rulers had no ambition to hold on to power and had intervened to remove President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday in response to the wishes of the people.

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What’s happening in Sudan? – video explainer

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After a 30-year rule Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, has been ousted from power by the military. The move is the culmination of months of protests, which led to activists occupying a crossroads in the centre of Khartoum for five days. However, thousands of people continued to pack the streets on Thursday afternoon, as protest organisers rejected the army’s announcement that Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council

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Sudan: gunfire heard at peaceful protest in Khartoum – video

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Sudanese security forces have used teargas in an attempt to disperse protesters in central Khartoum. The demonstrators have been camped for more than two days as they call for the president, Omar al-Bashir, to resign. Protests began in December 2018 after the government raised bread prices, but they have since evolved into nationwide unrest against Bashir's rule. 

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Activism laid bare: a quick history of naked protests

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When scantily clad Extinction Rebellion protestors took to parliament on Monday, they joined a long line of semi-naked activists

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any messier in the House of Commons, protesters from Extinction Rebellion fetched up in the public gallery on Monday, took off their clothes and superglued themselves to the glass panels. Rumours abounded that they had done so by the buttocks, but in fact it was just their hands. Still, it sounds a bit like that description of resentment: it’s like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Whoever it was that ended up getting sprayed with WD40 and taken away by the police, it wasn’t Michael Gove. This manner of nude protest has a fine pedigree, on the following issues.

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MPs react as semi-naked climate protesters disrupt Brexit debate – video

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Semi-naked climate change protesters interrupted a House of Commons Brexit debate, spending almost 20 minutes with their buttocks facing the chamber.

MPs attempted to continue the debate during the peaceful protest by 11 activists from Extinction Rebellion, though several made coded references to the protest in their speeches

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‘Cause-play’: swamp monsters and unicorns take on Congress

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Humorously absurd characters have been appearing in the background of congressional hearings for Trump nominees

Some unlikely protesters have been gracing the confirmation hearings of nominees for top government posts during Donald Trump’s time in office.

This week, the Senate energy and natural resources committee held a confirmation hearing for David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist who has been serving as the acting interior secretary since the resignation of Ryan Zinke in January. And as the committee pressed him on his lobbying record Thursday, a protester in the gallery highlighted the contradiction inherent in his nomination by dawning a swamp creature mask.

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Gaza braces for anniversary of demonstrations at frontier wth Israel

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UN says 194 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire and close to 29,000 wounded in past 12 months

Gaza is on edge before a planned Saturday protest to mark the anniversary of mass rallies along its frontier, after a year in which Israeli soldiers have shot thousands of people.

Related: A year of bloodshed at Gaza border protests

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