By: Intel Daily, November 30, 2009
Venezuelan media activist Mijail Martinez, the son of a former state deputy for the chavista Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), was assassinated in a drive-by shooting Nov. 26 at his home in the city of Barquisimeto, Lara. Martínez, 24, was a cameraman and activist with the Victims’ Committee Against Impunity in Lara state (CVCI-Lara) and an audiovisual producer on the TV program of his father, Victor Martínez, a longtime Bolivarian militant. Victor had recently been making a series of official complaints in which he had implicated a host of high governmental and police figures in corruption and human rights violations.
Read full article…
Ecuador: Kichwa women oppose oil exploration on native lands
By: Belen Bogado, Global Voices Online, November 25, 2009
It is a popular saying in Latin America that women always get what they want. In Sarayaku, Ecuador, women from the Kichwa tribe proved the saying to be true. When an oil company came onto their forest lands for oil exploration for future drilling, the women decided to stop them with a simple but flawless plan. Esperanza Martinez says on the blog Ecoportal [es], that women told their husbands that if they allowed the companies to work on their lands, they would have to find other women …on different lands. The Kichwas organized a united front against the oil company until it finally had to leave.
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Colombia: Displaced women demand their rights
By: Refugees International, November 16, 2009
Displaced Colombian women and girls are the resilient survivors of the ongoing conflict inside the country. Frustrated by continued neglect from the authorities, displaced women’s organizations successfully petitioned the Constitutional Court, which ordered the Colombian government to bring to justice perpetrators of sexual violence and devise programs attending to the protection and socio-economic needs of displaced women.
Read full article…
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EUROPE
UK: Climate activists blockade biomass plant in Port Talbot
By: Climate Camp Cymru, November 30, 2009 Two protestors used bicycle locks to close off the plant’s entrance, stopping the hourly 20-tonne deliveries of woodchip needed to keep the power station operating. A large banner on the gates reads “Biomess”. Other activists climbed up the chimney to unfurl a giant banner in Welsh reading “Clean Energy: Dirty Joke”. The plant is the first of its kind in the UK, incinerating woodchips to generate electricity. It is a test plant for the large-scale plants that have been announced in Britain. The world’s largest biomass plant (350 MW) has already been approved in Port Talbot and construction is due to start early next year. Read full article… Denmark: The activists’ circus comes to Copenhagen Russia: Tatarstan blogger sentenced to almost two years in penal colony Denmark: Climate change summit becomes a target for protest |
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MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA
Why Iran is targeting nobel winner Ebadi
By: Azadeh Moaveni, Time, November 30, 2009 When Iranian Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work as a lawyer and human-rights activist, the regime in Tehran faced a dilemma. The award infuriated the country’s hard-liners, but the regime privately acknowledged that it had also earned Ebadi the admiration of most Iranians. Reluctant to arrest or openly target such a popular figure, the government tolerated Ebadi’s activities and limited itself to low-level harassment of her legal office. That tacit policy has now changed. Read full article… Another Iranian journalist receives heavy prison term Syrian activist held incommunicado at risk of torture Saudi Arabians use Facebook to vent fury over Jeddah flood deaths Western Sahara: Fears grow for hunger strike Nobel nominee Aminatou Haidar Diplomats: Iran censured at UN nuclear meeting Iran arrests students to curb expected protests Iran frees activist on bail in mass trial Iran expanding effort to stifle the opposition Kuwait: Free jailed activist Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti urges unity Iran: Art in protest |
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CENTRAL ASIA
Turkmenistan now has opera – but real change?
By: Miriam Elder, Global Post, November 28, 2009 When one of the world’s most eccentric dictators died two years ago, many hoped the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan would become a new country. Saparmurat Niyazov – better known as Turkmenbashi, or “Father of all Turkmen,” a name he gave himself – ruled the country with an iron fist. Critics, be they close advisors or random Turkmen speaking freely, were jailed. Two years into the rule of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, health minister under Turkmenbashi and the longest serving minister in his cabinet, things have changed – at least on the surface. Read full article… Kyrgyzstan: Human rights activist accused of espionage and extremism Uzbek democracy dissident released |
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SOUTH ASIA
India: People have the power in Bihar
By: India Today, November 30, 2009 The term, people’s power assumes special significance for Bihar because the state is the origin home of the famous Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) movement of the seventies when the firebrand freedom fighter turned Sarvodaya leader resurfaced in 1974 to lead an uprising and a people’s movement against corruption. His cry against corruption had a nationwide impact because almost entire Bihar rose with him. The movement was started with certain specific demands, the chief among them being removal of corruption, solution of the problem of unemployment and basic changes in the system of education. Read full article… Feminist writings by Pakistan’s activist poet |
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SOUTHEAST ASIA
Protest demands Philippines justice
By: Al Jazeera, November 30, 2009 A group of about 1,000 journalists and activists have held a protest march in the Philippines capital, calling on the government to ensure that all those behind last week’s massacre on the southern island of Mindanao are brought to justice. The protesters, clad mostly in black shirts and carrying a black mock coffin and placards, marched to the presidential palace, which had been ringed by barbed-wire and police, on Monday. Media watchdogs have said that the mass killing on November 23 – which left 57 civilians, including at least 30 journalists, dead – was the world’s deadliest single assault on journalists. Read full article… Protest stops cranes at Indonesia’s APP paper port |
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Gene Sharp: Theoretician of velvet revolution
By: Michael Hirshman, RFE, November 27, 2009 In February last year, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry produced a broadcast about Americans it said were plotting against the regime. The video mentioned well-known names like Senator John McCain and financier George Soros. The video also mentioned a little-known academic: Gene Sharp. Known as the “Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare,” Dr. Gene Sharp, an 81-year-old former Harvard researcher, is the author of a how-to manual for nonviolent struggle. Titled “From Dictatorship to Democracy” and first published in 1993, the book has influenced movements for peaceful political change, from Serbia to Azerbaijan to Burma. Read full article… End violence against women around the world Donald Steinberg – “Responsibility to protect: Coming of age?” “Civil society” versus social movements |
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Los disidentes hacen ruido
By: Saul Landau, Transnational Institute, November 19, 2009 La hipocresía del gobierno de EE.UU. ha sido tan dominante durante la última década que provoca bostezos y miradas vidriosas. Los senadores denuncian la interferencia gubernamental en los servicios de salud, mientras disfrutan de su insuperable seguro gubernamental de salud que ellos diseñaron –a expensas del contribuyente. La Secretaria de Estado Clinton exigió a los líderes paquistaníes que eliminaran a los terroristas de las calles, mientras que autoproclamados terroristas anti Castro pasean por las vías pública del centro de Miami -como luchadores por la libertad, por supuesto. Read full article…
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The unpredictable future: Stories from worker-run factories in Argentina
By: Benjamin Dangl, Upside Down World, November 24, 2009 Following the social upheaval in Argentina in 2001-2002 a book was published in Spanish that a lot of activists and independent journalists in the country began trying to get their hands on. It wasn’t in all of the bookstores, but news about it traveled like wildfire. Now the legendary book, Sin Patron: Stories From Argentina’s Worker-Run Factories, is translated and available to the English-speaking world. The book includes a number of illuminating interviews and chapters by Lavaca, a journalism collective based in Buenos Aires that continues to produce some of the best analysis and stories on social movements in the country. With Sin Patron, Lavaca brings together dynamic voices and stories from the hearts of Argentina’s inspiring movements. Read full article… “Little brother” vs. big brother By: Emily Jacobi, Kickstarter, November 2009 “Little Brother is a scarily realistic adventure … A teenage hacker-turned-hero pits himself against the government to fight for his basic freedoms. This book is action-packed with tales of courage, technology, and demonstrations of digital disobedience as the technophile’s civil protest.” My organization, Digital Democracy, has been working closely with Burmese community groups for the past few years. After seeing firsthand how communications technology is changing life inside the country, we want to bring Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother to Burmese readers… Watch the video… |
Call for instructors from non-US based academic institutions to teach seminars on civil resistance
By: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, December 2009
ICNC recently launched a new Curriculum Support Program
that aims at assisting faculty from non-US based academic institutions in designing and teaching seminars on civil resistance in their local universities and colleges.
For more information please view this online document.