Category Archives: Activism

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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Young people more optimistic about the world than older generations – Unicef

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Despite mental health and climate concerns, youth believe they can improve the world, survey for World Children’s Day finds

Young people are often seen as having a bleak worldview, plugged uncritically into social media and anxious about the climate crisis, among other pressing issues.

But a global study commissioned by the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, appears to turn that received wisdom on its head. It paints a picture of children believing that the world is improving with each generation, even while they report anxiety and impatience for change on global heating.

The majority of young people saw serious risks for children online, such as seeing violent or sexually explicit content (78%) or being bullied (79%).

While 64% of those in low- and middle-income countries believed children would be better off economically than their parents, young people in high-income countries had little faith in economic progress. There, fewer than a third of young respondents believed children today would grow up to be better off economically than their parents.

More than a third of young people reported often feeling nervous or anxious, and nearly one in five said they often felt depressed or had little interest in doing things.

On average, 59% of young people said children today faced more pressure to succeed than their parents did.

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The #FreeBritney movement finds its moment: ‘All the hard work was worth it’

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From being called conspiracy theorists to working on legislation to reform conservatorships in California, organizers are realizing their power

Friday’s liberation of Britney Spears from her nearly 14-year conservatorship was a landmark moment for the pop star. It was also a once-unimaginable triumph for the #FreeBritney movement, the fan-led campaign that was largely dismissed by the public and that Spears’s father had called a “joke” run by “conspiracy theorists”.

Fans had been pushing to “free Britney” from the conservatorship for years, but the movement took off in 2019. With full-time jobs and no professional organizing background, they took it upon themselves to investigate the arrangement that controlled Spears’s life, scouring the star’s social media posts for clues, examining court documents, organizing online and holding demonstrations outside court hearings and concerts to raise awareness of what was going on.

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Backed by Climate 200’s $2m war chest, independent challengers circle Coalition seats

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‘Lapsed Liberals’ and grassroots community groups are fielding high-profile candidates. Their target: the balance of power in Australia’s 2022 election

At the last federal election, the Coalition faced challenges from a string of hopeful independents in rural and city seats, largely running on climate issues. With two exceptions – Zali Steggall in Warringah and Helen Haines in Indi – they came up short.

Next year the independents will be back for another shot, focusing on heartland Coalition seats in New South Wales and Victoria. The difference this time is there is a road-tested model of how to mobilise the local community and run a campaign, and a $2m war chest on offer from Climate 200, a group established by the climate activist Simon Holmes à Court.

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Cuba braces for unrest as playwright turned activist rallies protesters

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The Communist party has banned the planned string of pro-democracy marches, saying they are an overthrow attempt

The Cuban playwright Yunior García has shot to fame over the past year, but not because of his art. The 39-year old has become the face of Archipelago, a largely online opposition group which is planning a string of pro-democracy marches across the island on Monday.

The Communist party has banned the protests – which coincide with the reopening of the country after 20 months of coronavirus lockdowns – arguing that they are a US-backed attempt to overthrow the government.

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Netflix employees join wave of tech activism with walkout over Chappelle controversy

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Slew of walkouts by tech workers, unthinkable mere years ago, shows workers ‘now understand their labor power’, expert says

Employees at Netflix halted work on Wednesday and staged a protest outside the company’s Los Gatos, California, headquarters to condemn the streaming platform’s handling of complaints against Dave Chappelle’s new special.

The actions – which hundreds participated in – are the latest in a string of highly visible organizing efforts in the tech sector, as workers increasingly take their grievances about company policies and decisions public.

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Gen Z on how to save the world: young climate activists speak out

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With courage and ambition, those born into the reality of global heating are leading the way in confronting it. Ahead of the crucial Cop26 conference, we talk to young activists around the world. Introduction by author Olivia Laing

When I was 20, I dropped out of university to live on a road protest. I was terrified by the oncoming apocalypse of climate change, and loathed the short-term, environmentally catastrophic logic that prioritised road-building over trees. The data, even in 1997, was clear: human activity was heating the globe, with increasingly devastating effects. Time was short, and a sea change in behaviour was required.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since then, and very little has been achieved, thanks in large part to corporate interests invested in maintaining our dependence on non-renewable resources. Far more people understand and accept the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and yet we seem paralysed by despair, caught in a spell of inertia, even as the most lurid of predictions – floods, fires, plagues – come to pass.

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Activists hold rally on Indigenous Peoples’ Day outside White House – video

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Hundreds of protesters led by Indigenous activists have demonstrated in front of the White House to demand that Joe Biden stop approving fossil fuel projects and declare the climate crisis a national emergency. The rally was held for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Police moved in to break up the protest near the White House and made several arrests

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Cop26 activists fear influx of English police will mar ‘friendly’ approach

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Climate groups concerned about presence in Glasgow of officers from forces known for heavy-handed tactics

Climate campaigners are worried an influx of officers from elsewhere in the UK will undermine Police Scotland’s commitment to rights-based policing of protests at Cop26.

Groups planning protests around the critical November conference have told the Guardian they are concerned about the presence of officers from forces known for their use of heavy-handed tactics and are unclear how they will be held to account for their behaviour.

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Philippines’ youth call for systemic change at climate protest

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Protesters parading an effigy of Rodrigo Duterte in Manila call for policies that prioritise people and planet

A monstrous effigy of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was paraded through the country’s capital Manila on Friday as protesters joined a worldwide youth climate action.

About a hundred young people wearing masks gathered in one of several socially distanced demonstrations around the country in support of the global climate strike by the international Fridays for Future movement.

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