Category Archives: Activism

Milan braces for more unrest as debate intensifies over Italy’s ‘lost generation’

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Protests and fringe violence expose sharp divide between marginalised and immigrant youth and those with greater prospects

Martina Miccichè was filming riot police kicking and beating a teenager with batons as they dragged him along Piazza del Duomo, the central Milan square hosting its cathedral, when she was struck by a flying object, causing a deep gash and bruising near her right eye.

The journalist had joined hundreds of mostly young people marching through the northern Italian city on Saturday afternoon to protest over soaring living costs and unaffordable housing, echoing the wider wave of economic discontent fuelling protests across Europe.

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Macron accuses Trump and other foreign leaders of ‘stupid comments’ about France unrest

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Leaders criticised for spreading misleading information as France prepares for further protests this weekend

Emmanuel Macron has accused Donald Trump and other foreign leaders of making “stupid comments” about France’s street unrest for political gain, as the country prepared for more protests this weekend.

Speaking during a visit to Qatar, the French president did not name names but said “manipulation of information” after Saturday’s riots had led to “comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders”.

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India’s Cockroach Janta party leader detained amid crackdown on protests

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Abhijeet Dipke was arrested before planned anti-government demonstrations in Delhi

The leader of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) youth movement, Abhijeet Dipke, was detained by police on Friday as authorities cracked down on fresh anti-government protests in the Indian capital.

Dipke was detained before a planned Friday evening demonstration he had called in central Delhi, urging supporters of the movement to come out and hold up the Indian flag.

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France’s students are angry about more than crumbling classrooms and missing teachers

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Beneath a wave of school protests in France lies a more existential worry: the future prospects of an entire generation

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Say what you will about France’s high schools, they still produce world-class slogan writers. Here’s a brief selection spotted during three weeks of blockades and marches over chronic teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and crumbling buildings:

“Pas d’avenir, pas de calme” (No future, no calm). “Diplômés aujourd’hui, précaires demain” (Graduates today, insecure tomorrow). “Vous détruisez notre futur, on bloque votre présent” (You destroy our future, we block your present).

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Indian opposition figures lead march to police barricades around supreme court

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Thousands join rally to deliver petition calling for resignation of election commissioner

Delhi police have again obstructed protests in India’s capital as thousands of people returned to the streets, led by opposition leaders, to demand the resignation of the election commissioner.

After mass unrest in the capital over the weekend, when thousands were detained and harassed by police as they attempted to take part in a protest led by the gen Z Cockroach movement, on Monday the main opposition leaders led another procession through Delhi, this time to the supreme court.

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‘Cockroach’ leader among thousands detained in Delhi protest crackdown

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Authorities impose strict lockdown in capital to try to stop rally against removal of 130m names from electoral roll

Indian authorities have placed Delhi under a severe lockdown and detained tens of thousands of people, including the leader of the youth-led “Cockroach” movement, in an attempt to stop an anti-government protest.

Thousands of people from across India were blocked from attending the demonstration, which had been called by the “Cockroach Janata party” (CJP) to protest against an exercise that has stripped 130m names from India’s electoral roll.

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Brazil’s Lula says only he can stop rise of fascism under Bolsonaro’s son

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President leads huge rally in Rio before election on Sunday seen as most important for decades

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has claimed he is the only thing standing in the way of far-right “fascists” reclaiming power, as he led a huge rally through the streets of Rio ahead of Sunday’s crunch election.

Speaking on the eve of the demonstration, the 80-year-old leftwinger said he had decided to seek a historic fourth term because he believed only he could prevent the family of his rightwing rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, returning to government.

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Vietnamese government accused of abducting human rights activists

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Detained anti-human trafficking campaigners include Tran Hiep, a Vietnamese Australian, not heard from since 18 September

Vietnamese authorities have detained three activists, including a Norwegian and an Australian, on what have been described as “fabricated” charges.

The Vietnamese government said the three confessed to being members of Viet Tan – a pro-democracy organisation – which it describes as a terrorist group.

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Philadelphia teacher admits to lying about being Palestinian and Black: ‘I hid the truth’

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Local advocacy groups say they have cut ties with Hannah Gann, who ‘fully lied about her identity and background’

A Philadelphia teacher is facing criticism from her fellow colleagues and activists after it was revealed that she fabricated being both Palestinian and Black.

The Racial Justice Organizing Committee (RJOC) and Philly Educators for Palestine (PEFP) announced over the weekend that it was cutting ties with “one of their long-time members”, Hannah Gann, who “completely lied about her identity and background, claiming at various times to be Palestinian, Tunisian and Black”.

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Robin Morgan, child star who became feminist, poet and editor, dies aged 85

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Leading second-wave feminist co-founded Women’s Media Center with Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem

Robin Morgan, a child star of the 1940s and 50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died. She was 85.

Morgan’s death was confirmed Saturday by the Women’s Media Center, an organization she co-founded with Jane Fonda and the celebrated author and activist Gloria Steinem, who died Wednesday.

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Opposition parties shut down Indian parliament in solidarity with ‘cockroach’ protests

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Proceedings suspended as politicians call for Modi government to address police violence and education scandals

India’s opposition parties have shut down parliament in a protest calling for the resignation of the education minister, in solidarity with the new youth-led “cockroach” movement.

Opposition politicians, led by the Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi, gathered outside the parliament building in Delhi on Wednesday, many dressed in black and waving placards calling on Dharmendra Pradhan to quit.

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‘Humanity is a privilege’: Umar Khalid on his six years in an Indian jail without trial

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Exclusive: Activist tells of his life as one of India’s most prominent political prisoners and his opposition to the government of Narendra Modi

Prison is hardest at sunset. As the thousands of prisoners incarcerated in Delhi’s most infamous jail are cast out of their cells and forced into the dank yard until darkness falls, prisoner number 626714 feels the punishing dread begin to rise.

Yet the inmate – better known as Umar Khalid – was recently moved to discover that another political prisoner, exiled at a camp thousands of miles from India, wrote of the very same feeling more than 150 years ago.

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Outrage as woman jailed for three years after criticising Somali government online

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Sentencing of 27-year-old Sadia Moalim Ali condemned by former president and prime ministers as well as rights groups

A rickshaw driver in Somalia has been sentenced to three years in prison for comments she made on social media, in a case that has caught the public’s attention and provoked outrage in the country.

Sadia Moalim Ali, a 27-year-old nursing graduate, was originally charged with insulting government institutions and incitement to commit a crime, but convicted only of the former. Her sentence, immediately condemned as “fundamentally unjust”, was handed down on 25 June.

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Revolt in small Georgia town appears to ward off ICE detention center

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Social Circle announces homeland security has canceled plans to convert warehouse to detain up to 10,000 people

The small town of Social Circle in rural Georgia has announced that the Department of Homeland Security has cancelled plans to turn a warehouse into what would have been one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country.

The cancellation appears to be one of seven around the country, according to reporting elsewhere, and part of a reversal under new homeland security director Markwayne Mullin in the Trump administration’s plans to buy up warehouses and boost detention capacity – after spending $1bn on the effort in recent months.

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Tenderness and Rage: how groups affected by HIV found power, comfort and joy in Aids activism

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London exhibition explores how care and protest improved rights and dignity of those living with disease

From photos of a mass “die-in” by Aids activists in Trafalgar Square, London, in the 1990s to plushie breasts, lips and vulvas hand-stitched by HIV-positive women, a new exhibition explores how care and protest have improved the rights and dignity of those living with the disease.

The show, Tenderness and Rage, at the Wellcome Collection, London, reflects how different groups affected by HIV, including gay men, women of colour, and refugees in the UK and around the world have found power, solidarity, comfort and joy in Aids activism and support services.

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Dissident detained in South Korea after fleeing China in rubber boat

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Dong Guangping has tried to escape on several previous occasions after being jailed for his activism in China

A Chinese dissident has washed up on the shores of South Korea after attempting to flee China in a rubber boat.

Dong Guangping, 68, is in custody in South Korea, having been detained by the coastguard on Monday evening. He is thought to have travelled more than 30 hours by sea to reach the shores of China’s democratic neighbour.

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Calls for release of Sierra Leonean singer jailed in ‘crackdown on free speech’

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Zainab Sheriff unjustly sentenced to four years in prison for incitement and threatening language, say activists

Lawyers, politicians and activists have called for the release of one of Sierra Leone’s best-known celebrities, who they said was unjustly imprisoned as part of a government crackdown on free speech and political dissent.

Zainab Sheriff, a singer and reality-TV show contestant who became a political opposition figure, was sentenced in April to four years and two months’ imprisonment for incitement and using threatening language.

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Pro-Palestine activists appear in court over attack on Israeli arms factory in Germany

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Families say ‘Ulm 5’ have been detained under extreme prison conditions since arrest last September

Five pro-Palestinian activists have appeared in court over an attack on an Israeli arms company in Germany, charged with causing approximately €1m of damage.

Prosecutors say the defendants, aged 25 to 40, trespassed and yelled pro-Palestinian statements as they destroyed office equipment, sensitive measuring devices and smashed windows at a site linked to Elbit Systems in the southern city of Ulm.

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Crowds gather for London march against the far right – live

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Together Alliance march begins in central London at midday; a separate event organised by the Palestine Coalition is also taking place

Co-organiser of Saturday’s event, Sabby Dhalu, who is joint secretary of the Together Alliance and co-convenor of Stand Up to Racism, said the UK is seeing an “unprecedented growth” in support for far-right organisations.

“We believe that the majority of British people stand against the hatred and division and racism that was being encouraged at that demonstration and by these types of organisations, and it’s time to act.”

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Death of Iranian activist who burned picture of supreme leader causes outcry

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Iran’s police say Omid Sarlak, 22, shot himself, but fellow activists suspect he may have been killed for his views

The death of a young Iranian man who had filmed himself burning a photograph of the country’s supreme leader has sparked a war of words between state media and activists over how he died.

Government-sanctioned news websites reported that Omid Sarlak, who was in his 20s, had been found in his car on Saturday in western Iran with a gunshot wound to his head and traces of gunpowder on his hands. Iranian police said Sarlak had “died by suicide”.

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