Category Archives: Peaceful resistance

‘North Sea Fossil Free’: Activists in 6 Countries Protest ‘Unhinged’ Oil and Gas Development

“Going full steam ahead with new North Sea oil and gas is a sure fire route to the worst climate scenarios,” one campaigner said.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 3-16-2024 by Common Dreams

The “oil slicks” performance artist group demonstrates the impacts of a potential oil spill on Scotland’s Moray Firth as part of a North Sea-wide day of action on March 16, 2024. Photo: Extinction Rebellion Scotland/X

Climate activists in six North Sea countries came together on Saturday to carry out acts of civil disobedience in protest of their governments’ continued fossil fuel development.

Demonstrators in the United KingdomNorway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands blockaded roads, ports, and refineries; dropped banners; and held solidarity concerts as part of the North Sea Fossil Free campaign to demand that their governments align their plans for the shared body of water with the Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

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‘Disturbing’: Intel Chair Used Schumer Protests to Push Warrantless Spying

“If any lawmakers were still on the fence and waiting for a smoking gun, THIS IS IT,” said one advocate of reforming Section 702.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 3-12-2024 by Common Dreams

Jewish opponents of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip protested outside the Brooklyn residence of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on October 13, 2023. (Photo: Jewish Voice for Peace NYC/X)

Privacy advocates issued fresh calls for changes to a historically abused U.S. spying program on Tuesday after Wired reported that a top Republican congressman privately tried using peaceful protests as proof of the need to block long-demanded reforms.

“If you care about the First Amendment, please stop everything and read this Wired article,” Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program, said on social media, sharing the piece.

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Instead of Holocaust Museum, Detour Signs Direct Israel’s Herzog to The Hague

“How is it possible that such a sacred space is being used to normalize genocide today?” asked one Dutch Jewish organizer behind the protest.

By Common Dreams. Published 3-10-24

Human rights activists of Amnesty International hold traffic boards showing the way to the International Criminal Court for the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog on March 10, 2024 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The President of Israel is in Amsterdam to open the Holocaust Museum. Photo: Trita Parsi/X

Human rights activists in The Netherlands greeted Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday with large protests and directed him towards the International Criminal Court at The Hague over his nation’s alleged war crimes against the Palestinian people in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Herzog was in Amsterdam to attend the opening of the new National Holocaust Museum, but demonstrators said Herzog’s presence needed to be challenged given the large scale death and destruction that Israel’s military has unleashed in Gaza over the last five months.

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At Rallies Nationwide, Low-Wage Workers Tell Political Leaders: ‘Our Votes Are Demands’

“Our government’s refusal to fully address poverty and low wages even after the worst days of Covid is not only killing our brothers and sisters,” said Rev. Dr. William Barber. “It’s killing our public conscience.”

By Jake Johnson. Published 3-2-2024 by Common Dreams

Rev. Dr. William Barber speaks during a demonstration in Raleigh, North Carolina on March 2, 2024. (Photo: NC Poor People’s Campaign/Facebook)

Low-wage workers, faith leaders, and allies rallied in state capitals across the United States on Saturday as part of a mass mobilization of poor voters ahead of the pivotal 2024 election.

The nationwide demonstrations were organized by the Poor People’s Campaign, a multiracial movement calling on state legislators and members of the U.S. Congress to act immediately to end the “crisis of death by poverty” in the richest country in the world. Research published last year found that poverty is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States.

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Under Pressure From Angry Students, GOP Gov Reverses on Federal Summer Meals Funding

“It only took literally everyone in the entire state telling him that he was being a monster,” said one political scientist, “for him to do the absolute easiest thing and feed hungry kids.”

By Julia Conley. Published 2-13-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: USDA/Public domain

As the deadline rapidly approached for state governments to accept federal funds for summer food assistance for children, Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen announced Monday that conversations with students from around the state had convinced him to take the funding—leaving just 14 Republican-led states still refusing the aid.

At a news conference, the GOP governor—who previously said he didn’t “believe in welfare” and would be forgoing $18 million for the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (Summer EBT) program—said he had changed his mind after “an evolution of information” about how young people across Nebraska would be affected by his decision.

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Youth Fight Back as Biden DOJ Seeks to Derail Historic Climate Case

“These youth have been politically targeted and persecuted, for over eight years, as the enormous power and machine of the Department of Justice singles them out among tens of thousands of other plaintiffs.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 2-2-2024 by Common Dreams

The 21 youth plaintiffs in the constitutional climate case Juliana v. United States pose for a photo in New York City. (Photo: Our Children’s Trust)

As the Biden administration seeks to derail a historic youth-led climate lawsuit against the U.S. government, plaintiffs in the suit—some of them now in their mid-to-late 20s—on Thursday moved to block the Department of Justice from further delaying the case.

Plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States filed a challenge to the Biden administration’s bid for a stay in the case, calling the Justice Department’s latest petition for a writ of mandamus “nothing short of shocking.”

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‘Dangerous’: Pelosi Calls for FBI to Investigate Cease-Fire Supporters

“She is calling for effectively more surveillance and potential criminalization of protestors by suggesting (falsely) that they have foreign links,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley Published 128-2024 by Common Dreams

Photo: Gage Skidmore/flickr/CC

As The New York Times reported Sunday that more than 1,000 Black American pastors have joined the widespread call for a cease-fire in Gaza, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi suggested the demand was “Putin’s message” and said the FBI should investigate groups that are speaking out about Biden’s pro-Israel policies.

On CNN, the former House speaker, a California Democrat, told Dana Bash that the “call for a cease-fire is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s message” and said she thinks some of the protests that have erupted across the U.S. since October to demand the U.S. push for an end to Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza “are connected to Russia.”

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Millions Set to March for Gaza Cease-Fire as Threat of Regional War Surges

“It will send a powerful message not just to the Israelis but to the Western powers who are backing them that the public say, ‘Not in our name.'”

By Jake Johnson. Published 1-12-2024 by Common Dreams

Rally For Palestine, Dunedin, NZ, Sat. 11-4-2023. Photo: Mark McGuire/CC

Millions of people are expected to take to the streets worldwide on Saturday to demand a permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and denounce the U.S.-led bombing of Yemen, which pushed the Middle East even closer to a full-scale regional war.

Organizers said people in over 120 cities across 45 countries are planning to join the Gaza Global Day of Action, a mass demonstration that will begin days after South Africa presented evidence before the International Court of Justice that Israel is committing genocide in the Palestinian enclave.

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Democracy is at risk in Guatemala, but there is still hope

The political elites are trying to prevent the inauguration of the president-elect in January 2024 at all costs

By Sanne Weber and Marlies Stappers. Published 12-20-2023 by openDemocracy

Bernardo Arévalo de León, President Elect of Guatemala, and Luis Almagro, OAS Secretary General. Photo: OEA – OAS/flickr/CC

Guatemala’s political future is uncertain since the elections in August, when opposition candidate Bernardo Arévalo won in a surprising landslide. Tensions are rising as 14 January, the date that Arévalo is meant to take office, is fast approaching.

Corrupt political elites are trying hard to prevent his presidency. Yet there has also been unprecedented support for Arévalo from the international community, Guatemala’s economic elite and the majority of the Guatemalan people.

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‘Hard-Won Movement Victory’: MVP Extension in NC Halved

“Mountain Valley Pipeline and its Southgate extension have been poorly conceived from the beginning, but today some of the communities in harm’s way can breathe easier,” said one campaigner.

By Jessica Corbett Published 12-30-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Anne_Way_Bernard/Oil Change International

Frontline critics of the Mountain Valley Pipeline celebrated after Equitrans Midstream revealed Friday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the distance of the proposed Southgate extension project has been cut in half.

The partially completed MVP project—long delayed by legal battles until congressional Republicans and President Joe Biden included language to fast-track it in a debt limit deal earlier this year—is set to cross 303 miles of Virginia and West Virginia.

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