Protest

Stop Fracked Gas Exports Action At FERC HQ

July 2, 2014 Stop Fracked Gas Exports, www.sites.google.com Resist! Direct Action, Fracking, Gas, Protest

The gas industry's rush to build 20 or more industrial facilities along our nation's coastline to export fracked gas to countries overseas would bring all of these impacts upon U.S. communities. It would move us in exactly the wrong direction when we urgently need to move forward in tackling the climate crisis. On July 13th in Washington, DC, we'll come together to send a decisive message to President Obama and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: Say “No!” to fracked gas exports at Cove Point and nationwide! It will be a critical time to act. This summer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will be nearing a decision on one of the worst examples of the gas export rush: Dominion Resources' proposed fracked gas export facility at Cove Point – just 50 miles from the White House on the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland. For far too long, President Obama has allowed FERC to rubber stamp project after project, putting the interests of the oil and gas industry above our health, safety, and climate.

Democracy Rally In Hong Kong Today

July 2, 2014 Hong Wrong, www.hongwrong.com Resist! China, Democracy, Hong Kong, Protest

Organisers say 510,000 people rallied for full democracy on the streets of Hong Kong Island today. Demonstrators assembled in Victoria Park at 3pm and headed peacefully down Yee Wo Street to Hennessy Road and on to Statue Square in Central. Hundreds of thousands queued patiently in the sun, though several had to be treated by medics for exhaustion. Hundreds were still departing from Causeway Bay as night fell. As protesters left the park, they chanted for police to release them and open up more lanes. Throughout the day, frustrated participants – stuck in bottlenecks around Causeway Bay and Wanchai – demanded the police let them proceed. However, the authorities have threatened to sue the organisers – the Civil Rights Front – claiming they disobeyed orders. Patchy rain throughout the day and smothering humidity did little to dampen turnout. Every conceivable progressive civil group and NGO was present along the protest route. Many collected donations, gave out leaflets or rallied the crowds with chants and slogans. Gay groups, the Hong Kong Journalists Association, environmental groups, the Professional Teachers’ Union, independent media groups and political parties were amongst the dozens of organisations present. Almost half of Hong Kongers now say they mistrust the central government.

Call For Moratorium On Water Shut-Offs

July 2, 2014 Reem Nasr, www.michiganradio.org Resist! Detroit, Emergency, Human Rights, Protest, Water

Protesters voiced their anger Monday morning over the controversial water shut-offs in Detroit. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department sent out more than 46,000 shut-off notices this spring and has turned off water to about 4,500 customers. Community activists and religious leaders met outside of Gov. Rick Snyder's midtown office. They asked him to impose an immediate moratorium on the shut-offs. They also want the city to work out an affordable payment plan based on a person's income. The Rev. Charles Williams II said the city is powerless because it is under emergency management, so he is taking his complaint to Lansing. "We have a water board that can’t make decisions because they have an emergency manager that they have to speak to," said Williams. "So in our opinion, this fight is with Gov. Snyder." Last week, the United Nations said the city's decision to cut off water to residents who haven't paid their bills may violate their human rights.

Report On Torture Survivor’s Week

July 2, 2014 Witness Against Torture, www.witnesstorture.org Resist! Congress, Guantanamo, Law, Protest, Torture

Dear Friends, Last week, members of Witness Against Torture gathered in Washington, D.C. for the International Day in Support of Survivors of Torture. Our group of about fifteen attended a panel organized by National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) on Thursday on U.S. sanctioned torture, engaged in nonviolent direct action at Senator Ayotte and McCain’s offices, and participated in an all-day vigil with Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition(TASSC). On Sunday, we retreated to the Peace Oasis to put in motion a framework for January 11, 2015. During our opening session on Thursday, we found our energy drawn to the Cotton amendment that passed in the House of Representatives and similar efforts to keep Guantanamo open by Kelly Ayotte in the Senate. These bills would make transfers from Guantanamo virtually impossible and continue to senselessly criminalize the men detained without charge at the prison. Furthermore, we decried McCain’s tweet about shipping the newest Benghazi Attack suspect to Guantanamo. Jeremy V. wrote a letter to each senator expressing our concerns.

American Revolutionaries | Acronym TV 009

July 2, 2014 Dennis Trainor Jr, www.PopularResistance.org Resistance Report Corporatism, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Occupy, Police abuse, Protest, Wars and Militarism

Adam Kokesh, who recently served four months in prison in connection with an Independence Day incident in which he videotaped himself loading a shotgun in Freedom Plaza, near the White House, sits down with Dennis to discuss Libertarianism, performance art in protest, and the book he wrote in prison, Freedom. In part 2 of the show, Eleanor Goldfield, the front woman of the band Rooftop Revolutionaries, joins Dennis to discuss the movement to get Money out of Politics, and her new venture Art Killing Apathy.

Police, Fire Employees Protest Benefit Cuts

July 2, 2014 ToSells, www.memphisflyer.com Resist! Budget Cuts, Labor, Protest

Dozens of Memphis police and fire employees and their families and friends gathered in a protest outside Memphis City Hall Tuesday against what they said were unfair cuts to their benefits. Tents, placards, and huge signs could be found in front of City Hall Tuesday. So could a swarm of public safety supporters milling around in the heat on foot or in camp chairs. The atmosphere was even festive despite the hard facts that brought the group together and despite the handful of police cruisers parked across Civic Plaza watching the crowd. Many in the crowd wore shirts that read: “MPD, MFD - Negatively Affected.” Placards read: “”Stop Fraud” and “We Risk Our Lives, You Take Away Our Livelihoods.” One sign stuck in the ground had photos of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, key members of his administration, and several city council members (who had voted for a budget that included cuts to employee health care benefits) that read: “Shame On You!” Those cuts mean more money will have to come from the pockets of city employees and many retired employees to pay their health insurance premiums and more.

Keystone XL Protesters Enter TD Bank

July 2, 2014 DC Indymedia, www.dcindymedia.org Resist! Banks, D.C., Protest, Tar Sands, Washington, Washington D.C.

On the 28th of June, protesters from Climate First! entered two branches of TD Bank demanding they sever their ties to TransCanada, builder of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. At the first branch, protesters were able to get to the counter and attempted without success to hold a discussion with the Saturday day manager. He probably had to write a detailed report on the protest. Afterwards activists rolled out yellow "caution" tape outside and gave out fliers to passers by Activists then went to a second branch of "Tar Dollar" Bank, the one at 15th and P sts where there was a concrete barrel lockdown in March 2013. They got into the ATM vestibule between the inner and outer doors (site of the 2013 lockdown) but a fast-moving bank employee managed to lock the inner doors. This was followed by a second round of yellow tape and fliers. This time around, a cop insisted on removing the yellow tape, claiming it could not be on either public or private property.

DC: Free Test For Monsanto Herbicide, March With Moms July 4th

July 1, 2014 Organic Consumers Association, www.salsalabs.com Resist! GMO, health, Monsanto, Protest, Washington DC

Zen Honeycutt and Moms Across America are back in D.C. to follow up on their historic meeting with the decision-makers at the Environmental Protection Agency who have the power to Recall Roundup. The group is offering free glyphosate (the key ingredient in Roundup) testing on Wednesday, July 2, and leading a contingent of anti-GMO activists on July 4, in a Fourth of July parade. July 2: Glyphosate Testing Monsanto’s Roundup has been linked to the explosion of illnesses plaguing this generation, including infertility and birth defects, allergies and gastrointestinal problems, obesity and diet-related diseases, Alzheimers and Parkinsons, asthma, auto-immune problems, autism-spectrum disorder, liver disease and cancer. Yet despite the fact that Roundup is the most widely used herbicide in the world, until recently, it’s been impossible to test you or your family for the presence of glyphosate—making it impossible to know if exposure to glyphosate might be behind illnesses you or your family are experiencing. But that changed in April, when Moms Across America released results of a preliminary round of tests that found glyphosate in breast milk, urine and water.

March Protests Threat Oil And Gas Industries Pose To Drinking Water

July 1, 2014 EcoWatch, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Louisiana, March, Oil and Gas, Protest, Water

A group of concerned citizens walked 155-miles in eight days from Grand Isle to Baton Rouge, along Louisiana Highway 1. They arrived at dusk Friday via the east bank levee of the Mississippi River and headed to Gov. Bobby Jindal’s mansion yesterday for “Flood into Baton Rouge,” an event focused on water quality issues and threats to clean drinking water by the oil and gas industry in communities throughout the state. The march was organized in response to Governor Jindal’s signing of SB 469 into law (Act 544) earlier this month. Although the purported intent of the law was to kill the lawsuit filed against 97 oil and gas companies by the South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East, the law was so hastily and broadly written that Attorney General Caldwell and more than 100 legal scholars from across the nation urged the governor’s veto because as written, the law might jeopardize the state’s claim to environmental penalties that will be levied against British Petroleum (BP) from the 2010 BP Macondo explosion, according to march organizer Mike Stagg. Exempting the oil and gas industry from liability for their share of damages to the coast and jeopardizing the state’s claim to BP penalty money, leaves the state with a Coastal Master Plan that has a Phase I price tag of $50 billion and no revenue stream for its implementation.

Hong Kong Prepares For Mass Protest Against Beijing Control

July 1, 2014 Jonathan Kaiman, www.theguardian.com Resist! China, Democracy, Elections, Hong Kong, Occupy, Protest

Hong Kong is braced for protests on Tuesday, which organisers expect will draw at least 500,000 people, potentially making it the region's largest demonstration in recent history. The scale of the protests reflects frustration at Beijing's plans to choose Hong Kong's next chief executive. Nearly 800,000 residents – more than a fifth of the city's electorate – had cast ballots in an unofficial "referendum" as the polls closed on Sunday, according to the vote's organisers. The pro-democratic protest group Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP) announced that 798,000 Hong Kong residents had voted in its "civil referendum", an unofficial vote on how their next chief executive – the region's top official – should be elected. Beijing has bristled at the poll. One government official called it illegal and invalid, while China's state-run media has called it a farce and a folly. The referendum website has been barraged by highly advanced cyber-attacks.The region's activists remain unmoved. "The turnout [at this year's protest] will be a sort of signal, just as the referendum was a signal of the number of people who are satisfied with Beijing's method of choosing the chief executive," said Benny Tai Yiu-ting, an assistant law professor at Hong Kong university and one of the movement's leaders. "It takes just two minutes to vote. But attending the rally – that takes a lot of time and effort. That's evidence of stronger determination."

Brooklyn College Says No To Koch Millions

July 1, 2014 Steven Rosenfeld, www.alternet.org Resist! Education, Koch, Money As Speech, Protest

Brooklyn College of the City University of New York has a new academic credential. Unlike an estimated 150 colleges and universities that have taken $56 million from the billionaire libertarian industrialist Koch brothers since the 1980s—and then integrated their extreme right-wing agenda into business classes while censoring other views—the New York City college keeps rejecting Koch cash, an aggrieved libertarian business school professor complained in a detailed report by InsideHigherEd.com. The libertarian professor, Mitchell Langbert, apparently approached the Charles C. Koch Foundation twice—in June 2013 and again this January—seeking multi-million dollar grants to expand Brooklyn College’s business faculty. Langbert’s effort, however, were apparently rejected by his supervisors, who did not want to pursue the grants. “The professor said that in the summer of 2013, he was in unofficial but promising talks with representatives from the Koch Foundation about a $4.3 million grant to advance market-based economics at Brooklyn College,” Inside Higher Ed reported. “The grant would have funded the hiring of multiple faculty members and graduate students, and established an honors program and an institute on markets at the college.”

Protests Seek To Occupy Westminster Abbey Over Cuts To Disabled

June 30, 2014 Huffington Post UK, www.huffingtonpost.co.uk Resist! Austerity, Disabilities, Occupy, Protest, United Kingdom (UK)

Campaigners have tried to occupy the grounds of Westminster Abbey in protest against the Government's decision to axe a fund for the disabled. The move, reminsicent of the long protest occupation at St Paul's Cathedral in 2011, saw at least ten police vans were part of a heavy police presence, with officers at times three rows deep to deal with around 100 protesters. The Guardian reported the protestors had planned to occupy the space until July 22 but the police presence caused the number of protestors to dwindle to around 50. The BBC reported that the protest ended at around 9pm on Saturday. The group had sent a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, urging the Church of England not to forcibly remove them, The Guardian reported. Tents were erected on the grass and draped with banners against the planned closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) for severely disabled people. Protesters claimed their attempts to negotiate their presence on the Abbey's grounds with the Dean of Westminster, Dr John Hall, had been rejected and they had been advised by police to leave the grounds or face arrest. Many moved on but a group of disabled protesters, many in wheelchairs, stayed on to continue the protest.

Bronx Protesters Demand Justice For Death Of Mentally Ill Inmate

June 29, 2014 Aviva Stahl, www.gothamist.com Resist! Mental Illness, New York City (NYC), Prison, Protest, Solitary Confinement

When 39-year-old Bradley Ballard was found naked on the floor of a mental health observation unit on Rikers Island last fall, his body was covered in feces and a rubber band was tied around his genitals. He had been held in isolation for seven days after making a lewd gesture at a female guard. On June 3, the Medical Examiner declared Ballard’s death a homicide, finding that he had been denied access to medication despite being diagnosed with both diabetes and schizophrenia. The AP previously reported that while guards looked into Ballard’s cell repeatedly in the days leading up to his death, they declined to enter, and when his door was finally opened on September 10, Ballard was too weak to move. He only received one visit from mental health staff, which lasted about 15 seconds. Ballard’s primary cause of death was listed as diabetic ketoacidosis, brought on by a lack of insulin. Thus far, however, no Correction officers have been fired or indicted in relation to Ballard’s death. Yesterday afternoon, about twenty-five people protested outside the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to demand criminal prosecution in Ballard’s death.

Indigenous In Guatamela Blockade Roads

June 28, 2014 First Peoples Worldwide, www.firstpeoples.org Resist! Colonialism, Guatemala, Indigenous Rights, Protest

On June 24, 2014, 7 Toj in the Mayan calendar, Indigenous groups from all over Guatemala took part in national protests and roadblocks to bring attention to the continued discrimination and injustice faced by the Indigenous Peoples of Guatemala. Among the main priorities on the list of grievances were the discriminatory telecommunications laws and the mining and hydroelectric companies exploiting Indigenous territories. Our team took part in the march in the city of Quetzaltenango (Xela), in the department of Quetzaltenango. The march in Xela began at 8 am from three different entry points into the city center. The three groups would all meet for a larger demonstration in the Central Park of the city later that morning. Our team met with friends from Radio La Doble Vía and Asociación Mujb’ ab’l yol close to the terminal at the north west side of the city. Arriving there, it was shocking to imagine that this crowd represented only a third of the number of people that would be in the Central Park for the demonstration later on. An enormous crowd of mostly Maya Mam and Maya Kiche Indigenous groups were standing in front of Minerva Temple, with signs in hand, cheering along to chants like “Un pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” or in English, “United, we will never be defeated!” The sun shone down on the hundreds of demonstrators as we began our march towards the park. Leading the march was a large pickup truck with speakers, filled with community leaders and community radio volunteers speaking out about the important reasons that we were protesting on this day.

Teachers Protest Gates Foundation

June 28, 2014 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org Resist! Charter Schools, Education, Gates Foundation, Protest, Teachers

A group of teachers is holding a rally Thursday evening in Seattle to denounce education reform measures they say have been an attack on public education and let corporate interests and high-stakes testing trump real student learning. The target of their protest: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, whom the teachers say has used its monetary power to push corporate reforms and is symbolic of measures—like Common Core Standards and over-testing—that don't let educators be the decision makers of education policies. The action, organized by the BadAss Teachers (BATs) of Washington, whose vision is to "educate teachers, parents, students and communities on the long term consequences of current education reforms," begins with a rally and will lead to a march to the Gates Foundation headquarters. Julianna Dauble, full-time teacher in Renton, Washington and organizer of the action, told Common Dreams that the Gates Foundation "bought us Common Core," in addition to promoting other things like charter schools, increased testing and Race to the Top, without a democratic process that involves consulting teachers.

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