Category Archives: Activism

Detained Hong Kong activists to plead guilty under China-style law

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Former student leader among 29 pro-democracy activists entering same plea on subversion charges after more than a year in jail

Joshua Wong and a group of 28 Hong Kong pro-democracy activists charged under a controversial national security law have entered guilty pleas, in the largest joint prosecution in the territory in recent years.

A total of 47 defendants, aged 23 to 64, were charged with conspiracy to commit subversion under the sweeping national security law. They were detained in 2021 over their involvement in an unofficial primary election in 2020 that authorities said was a plot to paralyse Hong Kong’s government. At the time, the primary showed strong support for candidates willing to challenge the Beijing-backed local government.

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Saudi woman given 34-year prison sentence for using Twitter

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Salma al-Shehab, a Leeds University student, was charged with following and retweeting dissidents and activists

A Saudi student at Leeds University who had returned home to the kingdom for a holiday has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists.

The sentencing by Saudi’s special terrorist court was handed down weeks after the US president Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which human rights activists had warned could embolden the kingdom to escalate its crackdown on dissidents and other pro-democracy activists.

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Ghana ‘fix the country’ activist says he was assaulted and illegally detained

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Cambridge doctoral student Oliver Barker-Vormawor says ‘trauma is still there’ as he files lawsuit

A prominent Ghanaian activist has accused authorities of subjecting him to a violent assault and illegal detention after he criticised the government in a series of Facebook posts.

Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a doctoral student at the University of Cambridge who founded the prominent “fix the country” protest movement, was arrested after he landed at Kotoka airport in Accra in February on a flight from the UK.

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Prominent lawyer among dozens jailed for treason in Cambodia

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Theary Seng receives six-year sentence in ongoing mass trial of government critics in Phnom Penh

A prominent Cambodian-American lawyer has been sentenced to six years in jail for treason in an ongoing mass trial against critics of the ruling party.

Theary Seng and dozens of activists, many of whom are members of the dissolved opposition group the Cambodia National Rescue party (CNRP), were found guilty at Phnom Penh municipal court on Tuesday. The trial is one of four covering nearly 130 defendants, seen by many as prime minister Hun Sen’s attempt to stamp out growing dissent to his 37 years of rule.

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‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protests

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The March for Our Lives rallies come after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York

Rallies for gun reform were held in Washington, New York, other US cities and around the world on Saturday, seeking to increase pressure on Congress to act following a spate of mass shootings.

In Washington, the son of an 86-year-old victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting said: “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night.”

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Amazon shareholders reject 15 motions on worker rights and environment

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Resolutions included calls for company to report on health and safety and review use of plastic

Amazon shareholders have rejected 15 resolutions brought forward by investors in a push to influence the company’s environmental impact and treatment of workers.

Shareholders voted on Wednesday against all the resolutions, most of which focused on worker rights and other social issues. The resolutions included calls for the company to report on worker health and safety and the treatment of its warehouse workers, and a review of Amazon’s use of plastic and changes to the company’s process for board nominations.

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Four climate activists charged over protests at motorway service stations

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Protesters charged with causing criminal damage of more than £5,000, Surrey Police said

Four climate activists have been charged after protests at two motorway service stations in Surrey.

Nathan McGovern, 22, Amber Alexander, 18, Louis Hawkins, 22, and Rosa Sharkey, 22, have been charged with causing criminal damage of more than £5,000, Surrey police said.

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Extinction Rebellion stages mass protest in central London

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Activists call for end to fossil fuel investment at sit-down demonstration in Regent Street and Oxford Circus

Supporters of the environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion have taken part in a mass sit-down protest in the heart of London’s shopping district.

Several thousand demonstrators with multicoloured flags bearing the group’s “extinction” symbol gathered near Marble Arch on Saturday morning as samba bands warmed up.

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Environmental protesters block oil terminals across UK

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Activists climb on tankers and glue themselves to roads around London, Birmingham and Southampton

Hundreds of environmental protesters have blocked seven oil terminals across the country as part of a campaign to paralyse the UK’s fossil fuel infrastructure.

Early on Friday, supporters of Just Stop Oil began blockades at oil refineries around London, Birmingham and Southampton by climbing on top of tankers and gluing themselves to road surfaces.

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More rights defenders murdered in 2021, with 138 activists killed just in Colombia

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Most of 358 victims worked on land, environmental and indigenous rights, with more killed in Mexico, India and among Afghan women


A Colombian conservationist who saved a rare species of parrot from extinction, a young feminist activist in Afghanistan, and two poets in Myanmar who used words to protest against the military coup were among 358 human rights defenders murdered in 35 countries last year, analysis has found.

The environmentalist Gonzalo Cardona Molina, 55; Frozan Safi, a 29-year-old Afghan economics lecturer; and K Za Win and Khet Thi, two of several poets to be killed, were among those targeted because of their “peaceful and powerful” work, according to a global analysis of threats and attacks faced by human rights activists compiled by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the Human Rights Defenders Memorial.

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The student, the Penguin and the king: elite Thai university roiled by dissent

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Head of student union forced out as debate on monarchy intensifies

Just a few years ago, student activism and protests were a rarity at Chulalongkorn University – considered Thailand’s most elite and staunchly conservative campus. Yet Thailand’s oldest university, named after King Chulalongkorn, has since become yet another battleground for debate over the role of Thailand’s monarchy and political system.

On Saturday, the head of the student union, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, said he had been removed from his post by the university, which accused him of activities that damaged its reputation, undermined public order and were incompatible with Thai culture.

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The first TikTok war: how are influencers in Russia and Ukraine responding?

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Social media lit up with messages and videos decrying the war, ignoring the risk that comes with speaking against a Russian dictator

Social media influencers are often maligned for their vapidity, but as the Russian army moves across Ukraine some of Russia’s biggest digital influencers have become beacons of resistance. Many are speaking out about their unease at the speed and brutality with which the Russian president is leading his country to war. Ukrainian influencers, meanwhile, are also braving the risks of attack from the advancing army to make sure to document the horror of war in mainland Europe.

Some of Russia’s biggest names in the digital sphere have spoken out against war. The daughter of Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, posted a message reading “No to war” on her Instagram story, before quickly deleting it. Max Galkin, the husband of Alla Pugacheva, and one of Russia’s biggest stars, posted a black square on Instagram and the message “Нет войне!” (“no to war!”) to his 9.4m followers. Fashion designer Svetlana Taccori took time out of Milan fashion week to post a photo holding a Ukrainian flag and the same message. Influencer Lova Olala painted the Russian and Ukrainian flag on each cheek and the caption “I have nothing to say”. The independent Russian journalist Ilya Varlamov has posted regular photos and videos highlighting Russian brutality, calling for a cessation of violence in Ukraine.

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Kabul to California: how the ‘hip-hop family’ mobilised for young Afghans

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With breakdancers, artists and parkourists facing a bleak future under the Taliban, a global network stepped in to help, drawing on the activist spirit of rap culture

A veteran of the hip-hop scene and internationally celebrated breakdancer, Nancy Yu – AKA Asia One – has her fair share of people contacting her looking for advice. But the message she received in 2019 from a young Afghan was a little different.

Frustrated by his breakdancing crew’s inability to get visas to perform internationally, Moshtagh* was wondering if Asia could help. “He felt they were really good, but they felt, like, invisible to the world,” she says. “I liked him. He wasn’t trying to bug me or say ‘we need this right now’ … He seemed rather humble and honest.”

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‘Insightful and courageous’: Gabon activist Hervé Mombo Kinga dies of Covid

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Celebrated blogger had suffered ill health after spending 17 months in prison for speaking out against president Ali Bongo

Hervé Mombo Kinga, the pro-democracy activist and celebrated blogger who spent 17 months in jail for insulting the Gabonese president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was not impressed when he saw the pictures of the leader limping up the stairs of France’s presidential palace.

Kinga, who died last week at 47 after contracting Covid, was infuriated by the episode – widely shared in the west African country of Gabon, despite the embarrassment it caused the president, whose family has held power for more than five decades.

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Living in a woman’s body: I was mutilated – and I swore I would stop this happening to another girl

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I was told I was a coward if I resisted female genital mutilation. For decades since then, I have worked, and risked everything, to protect other girls

I was 14 when my mother and grandmother announced that I was going to have my clitoris, my labia majora and my labia minora cut out. They said that if I resisted I was a coward. In my culture, the worst thing you can be called is a coward.

I was never naive. I grew up as a Maasai girl in Kenya in the 60s and 70s. At some point in my childhood, I became aware that there was a rite of passage into womanhood. I was to have my vulva mutilated by an elderly woman using a blunt instrument. But I was also part of the first generation of Maasai girls to be sent to school, where I met girls from communities who didn’t practise female genital mutilation (FGM). I learned from them that you can grow to be an adult with your vulva intact. That was what I wanted.

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MLK’s family and activists honor civil rights leader with voting rights march

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Martin Luther King III said ‘stakes could not be higher to protect and expand’ his father’s legacy of activism and racial justice

The family of Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights activists in America are honoring the late civil rights leader on Monday by pushing for expanded federal voting rights legislation despite political opposition from Republicans.

Martin Luther King III, King’s eldest son, his wife, Arndrea Waters King, and their daughter, Yolanda Renee King, will lead a march on Monday morning across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington DC.

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Preaching truth to power: the São Paulo priest standing up to Bolsonaro

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Júlio Lancellotti is an outspoken champion of homeless people – a cause that makes him unpopular with Brazil’s authorities

In 2017, most Brazilians were still unfamiliar with the name Jair Bolsonaro. But for Júlio Lancellotti, there was already cause for concern in the reactionary rhetoric of the man who would be elected president two years later under the slogan: “Brazil above everything, God above everyone.”

“I am astonished that a homophobic person like Bolsonaro appears on the presidential ballot,” said the priest during mass on 7 March of that year at St Michael the Archangel parish in São Paulo’s East Zone. The sermon, in which he also preached against rape culture and sexism, was typical of the man who has devoted his life to fighting injustice, often finding himself targeted by conservative politicians as a result.

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Russian court orders closure of another human rights group

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Memorial Human Rights Centre liquidated a day after its sister group, Memorial, in assault on civil liberties

A Russian court has ordered the closure of the Memorial Human Rights Centre (MHRC), a day after the supreme court revoked the legal status of its sister organisation, Memorial International.

Moscow city court authorised the dissolution of the group – one of Russia’s most venerated human rights institutions – for the “justification of extremism and terrorism” by religious groups including Jehovah’s Witnesses officially considered “extremist” in Russia.

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‘They can’t silence us’: the female lawyers defending Colombia’s environment

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Legal team faces daily threats as it works to protect displaced families from landowners, ecosystems from mining and indigenous groups from oil companies

Julia Figueroa never leaves her house without security. She travels with two bodyguards and an armoured vehicle. Her home and office are watched around the clock. She carefully monitors any devices that might contain compromising information about her clients.

As the director of the Luis Carlos Pérez Lawyers Collective Corporation (CCALCP), threats to her life are a daily occurrence. The all-female group of lawyers provides legal representation to small-scale farmers and indigenous communities affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. Their work includes defending displaced peoples and victims of state crime, but also defending environmental rights, including fighting mining companies that seek to extract resources, often at the expense of the local water supply and the surrounding environment.

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Kyle Rittenhouse verdict declares open hunting season on progressive protesters | Cas Mudde

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Demonstrators in the US must fear not only police brutality but also rightwing vigilantes

Kyle Rittenhouse – the armed white teenager whose mother drove him from Illinois to Wisconsin to allegedly “protect” local businesses from anti-racism protesters in Kenosha, whereupon he shot and killed two people and injured another – has been acquitted of all charges. I don’t think anyone who has followed the trial even casually will be surprised by this verdict. After the various antics by the elected judge, which seemed to indicate where his sympathies lay, and the fact that the prosecution asked the jurors to consider charges lesser than murder, the writing was on the wall.

I do not want to discuss the legal particulars of the verdict. It is clear that the prosecution made many mistakes and got little to no leeway from the judge, unlike the defense team. Moreover, we know that “self-defense” – often better known as vigilantism – is legally protected and highly racialized in this country. Think of the acquittal of George Zimmerman of the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013.

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