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Freedom of Speech and Assembly

The Criminalization of Journalism: Who is Barrett Brown?

February 25, 2014 ♦ Birgitta Jonsdottir www.sparrowmedia.net
Barrett was digging deep into uncomfortable information about how the US Government has outsourced most of it’s spying to private companies. Big Corporate Brother is watching our every thought, our every emotion and our every action. Every breath we take is being analyzed and scrutinized by algorithms of increased sophistication and there is an intent of an all encompassing surveillance in the name of false security. Knowing this, that probing into my private life is happening does not make me feel any security at all, it is quite the contrary.

Uprising Against Illegal Mining Pits Villagers Against Miners & Police

February 21, 2014 Loren Bell, news.mongabay.com , , ,
On Tuesday (02/18) Dozens of fishing boats surrounded the ship while more protesters attempted to block the beach. Armed police reportedly leveled their weapons at protesters in an attempted to quell uprising. At least one boat was destroyed when a water-taxi collided with it. All four occupants were rescued with minor injuries. The villagers are protesting plans to mine the island under a concession permit issued to the Chinese-owned MMP by the local government in violation of Indonesian law. The permit grants mining rights to 2,000 hectares that potentially contain iron ore. The total area of Bangka Island is 4,800 hectares. Villagers claim the mining activities will force them to relocate, and will destroy the forest and ocean upon which they depend.

UK Protests Against Austerity Result In Protest Restrictions

February 21, 2014 Steve Rushton, Occupy.com , , ,
On January 29, Birmingham hosted a national rally as part of the growing UK student movement. The clock tower, Big Joe, was reoccupied in the afternoon, repeating the long-held student protest tradition of sit-ins and occupations. This time, however, security guards sought to throw the students out of the building and their aggressive entry wascaptured on film. Once they were forced outside, the students were kettled by police – an act which the police denied, but whose denial is directly contradicted in this footage of students chanting, “Let us out!” An interview with the senior officer on duty revealed that protesters were forced to give their names in order to leave the kettle. The use of kettling for intelligence gathering purposes has been condemned by the UN and judged unlawful in the British High Court.

White House Arrests Faith Leaders Protesting Detention & Deportation of Immigrants

February 21, 2014 Staff, www.NotOneMoreDeportation.com , ,
The action includes Pilar Molina whose husband is on hunger strike at a detention center in Norristown, Pennsylvania and Hermina Gallegos from Phoenix, Arizona where families and detainees are refusing to eat until their loved ones are released from extended detention. Their individual cases highlight the urgent need for the President to take immediate action and stop record deportations.. While it is undisputed is that the President has the legal authority to expand the deferred action for childhood arrivals program and suspend deportations, he has chosen not to do so thus far. Recent polls show the majority of Americans believe that the government’s main focus should include the undocumented, not deport them. Earlier this year, Nearly 5,000 people of faith have signed a petition to the President urging him to take action that reads in part, “In all our faith traditions we are taught to love our neighbor...

Noted Activists To Lead Portland Community Radio Station

February 21, 2014 Staff, www.TheSkanner.com , , ,
Bristow also announced that the Federal Communications Commission has approved the station’s operating license for the next seven years. Beemer, who left Sisters of the Road’s chief position after helping the staff create a collective management structure last year, is also co-chair of the U.S. Assembly to End Poverty; a former member of the National Coordinating Council of the Poor Peoples’ Economic Human Rights Campaign; and a founding board members of the Western Regional Advocacy Project. She has been honored for her work by the Red Cross’ Red Dress Society. The spate of good news is a noteworthy development for the little station, where bad press and infighting on the board of directors led to an identity crisis last year and the resignation of an interim station manager. Crenshaw has for many years been active in anti-poverty and anti-racism community activism. He recently partnered with Dead Prez on a new recording, “Superheroes,” described as “a classic tribute to everyday people.”

The Hunger Strike To Stop Deportations

February 19, 2014 Asher Platts, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
In response to the 45,000 people being detained by United States Immigration Officials, the Arizona-based human rights group Puenteaz has organized a hunger strike led by family members and friends of those in detention. The hunger strike started on February 17th, and will continue until March 3rd. In Phoenix Arizona, protesters are camped out in front of the ICE office there. Solidarity actions are happening nationally as well, with 32 protesters being arrested as part of a non-violent civil disobedience action in front of the White House in Washington DC, to mark the first day of the hunger strike. This peaceful protest has already drawn the ire of intolerant community members. A frozen burrito with the message, “learn english wetback go back to mexico” scrawled on it in sharpie marker was thrown into the camp by an anonymous passerby on day two of the hunger strike.

12 Inspired Actions to Outsmart Repressive Situations and Laws

February 18, 2014 Amador Fernández-Savater & Leónidas Martín, Translated Stacco Troncoso, edited Jane Loes Liptonwww.guerrillatranslation.com , , ,
We can turn the tables and ridicule these sorts of reactionary, short sighted, desperate measures with our greatest assets: imagination, humor and the fact that we’re the good guys. The following article, written by Spanish art-ivists Amador Fernández-Savater and Leónidas Martín, offers 12 examples drawn from the last five decades poised to inspire and provoke. And check this out: so many people are eager to learn more about the how-to and history of this approach, that this has been the single most widely Facebook-shared article in eldiario.es’s history! We’ve also included some English hyperlinks to follow up on some of these leads and subtitled the one video in Spanish. Although written in reaction to the passage of the new law in Spain, we believe that their application and appeal is universal. Read on…

The Limits of Non-Cooperation as a Strategy for Social Change

February 18, 2014 Stephanie Van Hook, http://www.opendemocracy.net , ,
The application of basic human stubbornness - the capacity to refuse or withhold obedience when faced by a pressing moral choice - is the most widely-researched topic in the field of nonviolence, from explorations of proven methods of civil resistance to the stories of people who have said ‘no’ to taxes or conscription, torture or betrayal. But non-cooperation clearly has its limits in terms of creating social change. As Gene Sharp points out, people’s capacity for this form of action is embedded in human nature, but it is insufficient to achieve the long-term goals of peace and social justice. We have learned how to topple dictators, but not how to replace dysfunctional political systems so that tyranny does not return. We know how to launch new social movements like Occupy and those of the Arab Spring, but not how to sustain their gains by transforming society at large.

The Dynamics Of Moral Mondays: A Human Rights Movement

February 13, 2014 , , ,
One of the important lessons and strengths of the civil rights movement was that it did not allow the federal government to hide behind states rights as a way of refusing to deal with state laws throughout the South that collectively created Jim Crow, as racist system of national and colonial oppression. The civil rights movement challenged those considered by some as allies like President’s Kennedy and Johnson, even though they signed an Executive Order, Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. The spreading of Moral Mondays is a very important. However, they must be led by people’s movement coalitions, democratically involving the people’s organizations, and not by a single organization however sincere, dedicated and articulate the leader.

US Caught Red Handed In Ukraine

February 13, 2014 MIKE WHITNEY www.counterpunch.org , , ,
Washington is at it again, up to its old tricks. You’d think that after the Afghanistan and Iraq fiascos someone on the policymaking team would tell the fantasists to dial-it-down a bit. But, no. The Obama claque is just as eager to try their hand at regime change as their predecessors, the Bushies. This time the bullseye is on Ukraine, the home of the failed Orange Revolution, where US NGOs fomented a populist coup that brought down the government and paved the way for years of social instability, economic hardship and, eventually, a stronger alliance with Moscow. That sure worked out well, didn’t it? One can only wonder what Obama has in mind for an encore.

Russia Jails Environmentalists at Sochi

February 11, 2014 John Upton, Grist.org , , ,
Yevgeny Vitishko is missing today’s Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Olympics ceremonies are stunningly dull, so that part of the story doesn’t matter too much. What does matter is that Vitishko is an ecologist and activist who planned to publish a report detailing environmental damage caused by Olympic construction — but that won’t be possible any more, because he’s sitting in a Russian jail cell. His alleged crime? Swearing in public.

Utah TPP Activist Violently Arrested

February 1, 2014 Staff, www.revolution-news.com , ,
A protester was slammed to the ground violently and suffered repeated blows to the back after three security officer subdued him at a demonstration against the TPP Trans~Pacific Partnership. “We were there just to do a very peaceful protest against the TPP and this whole thing just took us completely by surprise and I was shocked,” said an fellow demonstrator who witnessed the attack. “It was such a brutal response from these officers; so violent. It seems way overkill and uncalled for.” Lionel Trepanier, of Salt Lake City, had left a backpack on a table on the grounds of the Bennett Federal Building. After leaving the plaza for a moment around 3:15 pm, Trepanier reentered the plaza to grab his bag. An officer stopped him.

International Law Requires Americans To Protest War Crimes

February 1, 2014 Judith Bello, www.PopularResistance.org , , ,
Armed Drones, which are currently a critical tactical method in support of our many wars of aggression, are engaged in the commission of crimes, Crimes Against Peace in so far as they facilitate illegal wars, and War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in so far as they facilitate indiscriminate killing of civilians and targeted assassinations which are illegal under US Law. . . Drones are asserted to be a device that is not constrained by Customary International Law as we have understood it in the past. The claim is that they are so advanced as to require new laws for new situations. Indeed they say: Drones can hover quietly at great heights, out of view of those o the ground and out of reach to retaliation by populations without air power and are claimed to be primarily used for surveillance . . . .

UK Government Passes Gagging Law To Stop Critics, Organizers

January 29, 2014 ,
The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, or Gagging Law, was hailed as the UK government’s answer to the issue of commercial lobbying. But, this bill does not take on the political power of wealthy corporate lobbyists. Instead, it kneecaps any attempts at organised local and national opposition by civil society, so as not to influence the outcome of general elections. It is a gagging law. The law puts in place a range of bureaucratic and financial barriers amounting to a gag on free speech and effective opposition. This means that groups across the political spectrum, find themselves in an unlikely alliance of opposition to a bill that will silence them all. Whether you want to bring back fox hunting or save your local hospital, the Bill will prevent you organising to do so. As 38Degrees put it: “It’s telling that so many groups who wouldn’t normally agree with each other have united to oppose the gagging law. Groups that speak out in favour of hunting, windfarms, HS2 or building more houses are joining together with groups who say exactly the opposite.”

Transform Now Plowshares Hearing Postponed, Packed With Supporters

January 29, 2014 Staff, www.transformnowplowshares.wordpress.com , ,
The courtroom was full of supporters, and a second courtroom was pressed into service; that room filled and there were reports of people sitting on the floor to view the proceedings on a big-screen TV. As the judge prepared to begin the hearing, Bill Quigley asked if the handcuffs could be removed from the prisoners for the proceedings. The judge conferred with the US Marshals and the cuffs were removed. The judge eventually ruled the TNP trio would not be given downward departures for acceptance of responsibility. In the ensuing discussion about various cases and how they were interpreted, Judge Thapar in every instance chose the view most favorable to the prosecution, denying the defendants any benefit of the doubt, and stepping in to help the prosecution when it stumbled. Kathy Boylan took the stand in support of Michael Walli. She said, "In our world, our gas chambers are nuclear weapons. They are ready for use. The whole world is the concentration camp, prepared for omnicidal weapons unless we transform this reality. Michael is trying to save our lives. Your life, Judge Thapar. Your life, Mr. Theodore. All our lives." The courtroom was still for a long minute.
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