Category Archives: Demonstrations & Protests

Are we witnessing revolution in Georgia? Pro-EU protests sweep the nation

The Georgian Dream government tried shifting to Russia – but now faces a popular uprising and constitutional crisis

By Stephen Jones. Published 12-3-2024 by openDemocracy

Protests on October 28, 2024 against the official results of the Georgian parliamentary elections of October 26, 2024.. Photo: Jelger Groeneveld/flickr/CC

Constitutional upheavals are rare but in Georgia, they come repeatedly (1992, 2003, and as of this week, now 2024). We might even call them revolutions, not ideologically, but in the broad sense of mass mobilisation, a forced transfer of power, and the passing of sovereignty to a new group of rulers.

Over the past three decades, these types of revolutions have become endemic in the Georgian political system. Persistently, democratic breakthroughs in the country lead not to institutionalised democracy, but to corrupt and unaccountable governance.

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‘Monumental Victory’: Wisconsin Judge Axes Walker-Era Attack on Union Rights

“All Wisconsinites deserve the opportunity to live in a state that treats all workers with respect and dignity,” one state representative said.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 12-3-2024 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: WISN

More than a decade after it sparked massive protests in the state capital, a Wisconsin judge on Monday struck down a controversial law that effectively ended public sector collective bargaining in the state.

In his final judgement, Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost crossed out 85 sections of the 2011 law known as Act 10, which was championed by then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Frost’s ruling restored the union rights of teachers, sanitation workers, nurses, and other public sector employees.

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Black Friday Actions in 30+ Countries Aim to ‘Make Amazon Pay’

“When we announced our intention to protest today, our management attempted to stop us in multiple ways. We want to say to Amazon—you could not stop us today, you cannot stop us in the future,” said one union leader.

By Eloise Goldsmith. Published 11-29-2024 by Common Dreams

Amazon workers in Bad Hersfeld, Germany participate in a demonstration as part of the “Make Amazon Pay” campaign. Photo: UNI Global Union/X

Amazon workers and their allies are participating in a series of global actions aimed at holding the online retailer “accountable for labor abuses, environmental degradation, and threats to democracy,” according to the labor group UNI Global Union.

Dubbed “Make Amazon Pay,” the campaign is set to last from November 29 to December 2 and will include strikes and protests across six continents, according to the group—and is timed to disrupt Black Friday (or “Make Amazon Pay Day”) and Cyber Monday, two of the busiest online shopping days of the year.

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Native Americans Hold National Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving

“‘Thanksgiving’ is a white-washed holiday designed to conceal its true origins of violence, genocide, land theft, and forced assimilation,” said the Indigenous Environmental Network.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-28-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: United American Indians of New England/Facebook

In contrast with Thanksgiving celebrations across the United States on Thursday, Native Americans held a National Day of Mourning, promoted accurate history, and championed Indigenous voices and struggles.

Despite rainy conditions, the United American Indians of New England held its 55th annual National Day of Mourning at Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Kisha James, who is an enrolled member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and also Oglala Lakota, shared how her grandfather founded the event in 1970 and pledged to continue to “tear down the Thanksgiving mythology.”

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Pakistani Authorities Accused of Trying to Cover Up Killings of Protesters

“All records of dead and injured have been confiscated by authorities,” said one doctor. “We are not allowed to talk. Senior government officials are visiting the hospital to hide the records.”

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-27-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: Ateed ullah Khan/X

The Guardian reported Wednesday that at least 17 civilians in Pakistan were killed and hundreds more were wounded by army and paramilitary gunfire at protesters and one doctor in Islamabad claimed that authorities were attempting to cover up deaths.

“At least seven have died and four are in critical condition in the hospital,” according to the unnamed doctor, who said that on Tuesday night he treated over 40 patients, many injured by gunfire. “Eight more have been admitted to the hospital with bullet wounds.”

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Ahead of Plastics Treaty Talks, Millions Demand Production Cuts

“This plastic crisis is rooted in the overproduction of single-use plastics, building for us and future generations a very toxic legacy,” said one Indonesian youth activist.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-24-2024 by Common Dreams

Ahead of the fifth and final round of negotiations for a global plastics treaty in Busan, South Korea, people took to the streets to demand meaningful action from world leaders. Photo: #BreakFreeFromPlastic/X

With the fifth and final round of global plastics treaty negotiations set to begin Monday in Busan, South Korea, an estimated 1,500 people took to the city’s streets and nearly 3 million more signed a petition calling for a legally binding pact “to drastically reduce production and use, and protect human health and the environment.”

The Saturday march at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center was led by the global Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) movement and local allies from the Uproot Plastics Coalition. They want the treaty to include targets to slash production.

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The Fight Against Fascism Starts on Campus

Colleges are ahead of the curve when it comes to surveillance creep, and the ivory panopticon will only get worse as surveillance technologies get more advanced.

By Glencora Borradaile Published 11-17-2024 by Common Dreams

Multiple people were arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University. Screenshot:
FREEDOMNEWS TV/YouTube

With the significant red shift this election, led by a man who is described by many as a fascist, resisting and reversing fascist creep is more important now than ever. Even at our supposedly most liberal institutions, we have seen increasingly unreasonable overreactions to dissent dictated not through democratic means, but through authoritarian decree.

Take, for example, the University of Pennsylvania. Early in the morning on October 18, a dozen armed university police stormed an off-campus student house to issue a warrant related to the throwing of red paint on a campus statue on September 12 as part of pro-Palestinian protests—red paint that was pressure-washed off within hours. Would UPenn faculty agree that an armed raid is an appropriate response to their own students who are angry and feeling helpless against the injustice of tens of thousands killed in Gaza? Where is shared and democratic governance when it comes to protest response on campus?

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Thousands March in London to Demand End of Fossil Fuels and Gaza Genocide

“We won’t stop until political leaders divest from war and destruction—and invest in a just, ecological, and equitable transition,” said one campaigner.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 11-16-2024 by Common Dreams

Activists march in London to demand an end to fossil fuels and militarism on November 16, 2024. Photo: Denise Baker

Thousands of climate justice advocates took to the streets of London on Saturday to demand the U.K. government “end its reliance on fossil fuels, commit to paying climate reparations, and end its complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”

Organizers said more than 60 groups—including Extinction RebellionFriends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Amnesty International U.K., Palestine Solidarity Campaign, War on Want, and Just Stop Oil—took part in the March for Global Climate Justice. The demonstration took place amid yet another shambolic United Nations Climate Change Conference and as Israeli forces continue a war on Gaza that U.N. experts this week called “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”

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For one survivor, the 1920 Election Day massacre in Florida was ‘the night the devil got loose’

By Jerald Podair, Lawrence University. Published 11-1-2024 by The Conversation

A historical marker memorializing July Perry’s lynching Screenshot: YouTube

Mose Norman, a Black registered voter, was ready to cast his ballot for presidential candidate Warren G. Harding.

But when he arrived at his polling place on Election Day, Nov. 2, 1920, in the orange grove town of Ocoee, Florida, near Orlando, Norman was turned away by white election officials because of supposed unpaid poll taxes. His name and the names of hundreds of other registered Black voters had been removed from the rolls by white poll workers.

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Threatening ‘the enemy within’ with force: Military ethicists explain the danger to important American traditions

National Guard at the George Floyd protests in Washington, DC Photo: Ted Eytan/flickr/CC

By Marcus Hedahl and Bradley Jay Strawser Published 10-25-2024 by The Conversation

On the campaign trail, former President Donald Trump has declared there are serious threats to the United States. First, he said, there is “the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous,” as he told Fox News in an Oct. 13, 2024, interview.

He went on to say that “the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”

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