Salon.com > Protest

Gun control petition breaks record

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:05:00 +0000

Only hours after news broke of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, thousands took to the White House website, calling on the Obama administration to lead on gun control by introducing a bill to Congress.

The goal of this petition is to force the Obama Administration to produce legislation that limits access to guns. While a national dialogue is critical, laws are the only means in which we can reduce the number of people murdered in gun related deaths.

Powerful lobbying groups allow the ownership of guns to reach beyond the Constitution's intended purpose of the right to bear arms. Therefore, Congress must act on what is stated law, and face the reality that access to firearms reaches beyond what the Second Amendment intends to achieve.

The signatures on this petition represent a collective demand for a bipartisan discussion resulting in a set of laws that regulates how a citizen obtains a gun.

Mass anti-austerity protests hit Europe

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 13:58:00 +0000

BRUSSELS (AP) -- Workers across the European Union sought to present a united front against rampant unemployment and government spending cuts Wednesday with a string of strikes and demonstrations across the region.

However, while austerity-hit countries such as Spain and Portugal saw a high turnout of striking workers, wealthier countries like Germany and Denmark experienced only piecemeal action.

To combat a three-year financial crisis over too much debt, governments across Europe have had to cut spending, pensions and benefits and raise taxes. As well as hitting income and living standards, these measures have also led to a decline in economic output and rapidly rising unemployment.

The 17 countries that use the euro are expected to fall into recession when official figures are released Thursday. Meanwhile, unemployment across the eurozone has reached a record 11.6 percent with countries like Spain and Greece hitting the 25 percent mark.

With no end in sight to the economic hardship, workers were trying to take a stand on Wednesday.

`'There is a social emergency in the south," said Bernadette Segol, Secretary General of the European Trade Union Confederation. `'All recognize that the policies carried out now are unfair and not working."

Chicago anarchist sent to boot camp for lie about bomb in Harry Potter book

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 21:30:00 +0000

Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, never made a bomb. He was never found with any explosive-making materials; authorities thoroughly searched his house. The Polish immigrant did, however, tell a boastful lie that has landed him a stint at boot camp.

Just days before the Chicago NATO summit last May, Senakiewicz drunkenly told undercover agents that he had two homemade explosives hidden in his Chicago residence in a hollowed-out Harry Potter book. A search of his home found the bombs to be as fictitious as the boy wizard -- there weren't even any Harry Potter books at the address. But the 24-year-old anarchist, who Tuesday pleaded guilty to one felony count of falsely making a terrorist threat, could face deportation.

The Chicago Tribune reported:

At a hearing in the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Judge Nicholas Ford imposed the 4-year prison term and recommended that Senakiewicz be admitted into a prison boot camp. If he successfully completes the program he could be released in as little as 6 months, but prosecutors said the Polish native would be subject to deportation on completing his sentence.

Ole Miss students start racist protest after election result

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:57:00 +0000

According to local reports, up to 400 students from the University of Mississippi staged a riotous protest last night at the news of Obama's reelection. The Jackson Clarion Ledger reported that "students were heard shouting racial epithets about Obama and African Americans in general. Police were called to the scene and the crowd broke up around 12:30 a.m."

Reports conflict over whether rocks were thrown, but Twitter images testify that an "Obama Biden" campaign sign was burned. No one was arrested or injured -- in the context of the Oxford campus's history of racist violence, it's a stretch to call last night's incident a "riot."

In the video below, an amateur videographer notes of the crowd, "it's majority white people. That's all I've got to say about that":

Bahrain bans all protest gatherings

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:54:00 +0000

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain imposed emergency-style rules Tuesday banning all protest gatherings and threating legal action against groups considered backing escalating demonstrations and clashes in the strategic Gulf kingdom.

The order, announced by the Interior Ministry, is the most sweeping attempt to quash the kingdom’s anti-government uprising since martial law rules were in effect during the early months of unrest last year. It sharply increases pressure on political groups from Bahrain’s Shiite Muslim majority, which has led the protests seeking a greater political voice in the Sunni Muslim-ruled nation.

Tougher steps against opposition groups could raise complications for Washington and other Western allies that have stood by Bahrain’s monarchy during more than 20 months of unrest. The U.S. has important military bonds with Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, but it also has called for increased efforts at dialogue to ease the tensions.

Shiites comprise about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 525,000 citizens, but claim they face systematic discrimination such as being denied top political and security posts. The Sunni monarchy has made a series of concessions — including giving more powers to the elected parliament — but opposition groups say the reforms do little to loosen the ruling family’s hold on power.

NYPD block off whole JPMorgan building to arrest three teens

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:24:00 +0000

The entire 60 floors of JPMorgan Chase's downtown New York office building were temporarily blocked off Wednesday so that three high-schoolers could be arrested, according to a news release from anti-corruption activists.

The students were staging a sit-in protest at the bank headquarters, "demanding full disclosure of the bank’s anonymous political expenditures," reported an announcement from 99Rise, the anti-corruption group of which the three young people are members. "The students, who delivered a petition to the bank over three weeks ago articulating their demand, refused to leave the bank’s premises until the requested information was handed over to the public. The bank instead chose to shut down the entire 60 floor building have them arrested," the release read. A live Twitter feed from the group reporting on the small sit-in noted that police set up barricades around the building, closing entrances to the public.

99 Rise describes itself as "a new anti-corruption movement to get Big Money out of American politics." The three students have reportedly been taken to a police station in the Bronx.

Pussy Riot members moved to far-flung prison colonies

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:59:00 +0000

MOSCOW — A lawyer for the two jailed Pussy Riot band members says they have been transferred to prison colonies hundreds of miles from Moscow to serve their sentence.

Mark Feygin said Monday that Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were transferred during the weekend from Moscow prison, where they were kept since March. Feygin said prison authorities informed him that Alekhina had been sent to the Perm region in the Urals and Tolokonnikova to the central province of Mordovia. He could not confirm the information with his clients.

Alekhina, Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred in August for performing a protest prayer against President Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral in February, and given two-year sentences. Samutsevich was released on appeal earlier this month.

New York Times staffers stage walkout

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:49:00 +0000

Unionized New York Times staffers plan a short walkout on Monday afternoon, reported Katherine Fung at the Huffington Post. The staffers, members of the Newspaper Guild of New York, will meet up and collectively walk outside of the new but iconic New York Times building in Manhattan to protest management's position on contract negotiations.

Fung reports that "the walkout won't be the first protest that Times' staffers have staged over proposed contract terms. Earlier this year, employees held a silent protest outside a meeting of top editors, and demonstrated outside the company's annual shareholders meeting. Angry staffers also made their demands heard in a series of videos."

Video: Madrid on the brink

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:10:00 +0000

Tens of thousands of protesters swarmed around Madrid's parliament building last week for anti-austerity demonstrations that continued for over four days and were met with a brutal police response.

Documentarians Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh of the Global Uprisings project have been making short films about unrest and dissent all around the globe in recent months, from Europe to Egypt to the U.S.. They put together this short film (below), chronicling the protests and the police response, and detailing the reasons why so many Spaniards took to the streets.

NYPD tactics at 2004 RNC ruled illegal

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:25:00 +0000

A federal judge ruled Monday that the arrest of hundreds of protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York were improper and unconstitutional. NYPD crowd control tactics were also ruled illegal.

In one incident ruled improper, over 200 antiwar and anti-capitalist demonstrators were kettled by police in lower Manhattan and mass arrested. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday's ruling relating to the police response:

City attorneys argued that officers had "group probable cause" to make the arrests, meaning the crowd was acting as one. On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan rejected the city's theory and ruled the arrests on Fulton Street illegal.

"Based on the undisputed facts, and particularly the video of the Fulton Street march and arrests, the court finds that there was not even arguable probable cause to make those arrests," the judge ruled.

Russian court will hear Pussy Riot appeal

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 14:24:00 +0000

The three jailed members of Russian punk collective, Pussy Riot, will appear in court Monday to appeal their two-year sentence. The women were found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for a guerrilla performance of their anti-Putin "punk prayer" at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior last February.

Their initial trial and sentencing were viewed worldwide as a symbol of repression and authoritarianism in Putin's Russia. Ahead of Monday's appeal, the Russian Orthodox Church has called on the women to repent, reported Reuters.

Journalist arrested for defacing anti-Islam ad

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Egyptian-American writer and activist Mona Eltahawy was arrested in New York Tuesday morning for defacing one of the anti-Islam subway ads that went up in 10 stations this week.

The controversial pro-Israel ads, sponsored by Islamophobic blogger Pamela Geller, equate Muslims with "savages." As Salon noted yesterday, anonymous New Yorkers have already made a point of defacing a number of the posters around the city.

A pink coat-clad Eltahawy, who had two arms broken by Egyptian police when covering a protest in Cairo last year, began spraying the offending poster with hot pink spray paint. As she did, another women carrying a camera accosted her and stood in front of the poster, decrying Eltahawy for undermining freedom of expression.

"This is freedom of expression," retorted Eltahawy, as she continued to spray the ad, even while the other woman -- later identified as Pamela Geller supporter Pamel Hall -- placed her body in front of the poster to protect it.

Thousands of protesters swarm Spain’s capital

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:55:00 +0000

UPDATED:

Thousands of protesters clashed with riot police in Spain's capital Tuesday in a showdown on the doorstep of the parliament building in Madrid.

Tuesday's march aimed to manifest rage against a new round of harsh austerity measures the government will announce in the 2013 budget on Thursday.

A manifesto for the day stated that "the current situation has exceeded all tolerable limits" and demanded a reconstitution of the entire Spanish government, including electoral and tax reform, and a moratorium on Spain paying national debts in the service of "private interests."

The Indignados, as the Spanish anti-austerity, anti-capitalist demonstrators are known, strongly influenced Occupy organizing models and tactics last year, including repurposing city squares for encampments and assemblies.

Pussy Riot’s victorious defeat

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:18:00 +0000

In a decision as predictable as it was stomach-churning, three members of the Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot were found guilty Friday of hooliganism for a protest in a cathedral last winter. The judge declared that they had engaged in "homosexual propaganda" and "imitated demonic attacks." The women, Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova -- who have already spent six months in jail -- received a sentence of two years imprisonment.

The case, which has gained the attention of the world as a litmus test for freedom of expression in Russia, began in February, when the band mounted an unauthorized action at one of Russia's most sacred spaces, Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Performing in their trademark tights and face-obscuring balaclavas, they belted out their "Punk Prayer" to "Mother Mary, please drive Putin away." They were swiftly accused of a "criminal act which violated public order" and "went against tradition and is a great insult to the church and people." All three women pleaded not guilty to the charge of hooliganism, but apologized for their "ethical mistake."