Tag Archives: Hunger Strike

‘Shooting the Messenger’: German Police Target Climate Group Last Generation in Nationwide Raid

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“When will they raid the lobby structures and seize the government’s fossil fuel money?” the group wrote in response to the raids.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 5-24-2023 by Common Dreams

Last Generation road blocks at Berlin Central station (2022) Photo: Stefan Müller/flickr/CC

German police on Wednesday raided the climate activist group Letzte Generation, or Last Generation, seized accounts, and shut down its website.

Last Generation is an Extinction Rebellion-style group that uses direct-action tactics such as blocking traffic, shutting off oil pipelines, or dousing a Monet in mashed potatoes to call for more ambitious climate policies. The raids were part of an investigation into seven members of the group for “forming or supporting a criminal organization,” the Prosecutor General’s Office in Munich said in a statement reported by CNN.

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Denied Bail, Scientist Emma Smart Goes on Hunger Strike After Arrest at Climate Protest

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“What kind of world do we live in when scientists are forced to put themselves into positions of arrest and hunger strike to be heard?” asked Smart’s husband.

By Jake Johnson  Published 4-15-2022 by Common Dreams

Scientist Emma Smart is arrested during a protest against climate inaction at the U.K. government’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy in London on April 13, 2022. (Photo: Andrea Domeniconi/Extinction Rebellion)

Scientist Emma Smart went on a hunger strike Thursday after she was denied bail by London authorities while awaiting a court hearing on charges of “criminal damage,” which were filed after Smart and others glued scientific papers and themselves to a U.K. government building to protest destructive climate policies.

Smart, an ecologist, was arrested alongside fellow scientists earlier this week as they took part in a global nonviolent mobilization aimed at pressuring world leaders to stop expanding fossil fuel production in the face of intensifying climate chaos. Continue reading →

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200 Inmates Hunger Strike Over ‘Inhumane’ Rikers Island

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“It just keeps getting worse and worse,” said one inmate at the notorious New York City jail. “I don’t wish this upon nobody.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 1-13-2022 by Common Dreams

A large group gathered to support the prisoners inside Rikers Island. Photo: Dean Moses/Twitter

A hunger strike by around 200 prisoners at New York City’s Rikers Island jail entered its sixth day Thursday, as demonstrators continued to protest “deplorable” and dangerous conditions including lack of medical care during a surging Covid-19 outbreak at the notorious lockup, where 15 inmates died last year.

“It just gets worse and worse,” 55-year-old Rikers inmate Nelson Pinero told The New York Times, adding that mice and insects regularly keep him up at night. Continue reading →

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As Activists’ Hunger Strike Reaches Day 13, Calls Mount for Biden to End US Complicity in Starvation of Yemen

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“My pain cannot amount to that of Yemenis under siege,” said one hunger striker. “I am starving, but I am not being starved. I am suffering, but I can choose to end that suffering.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-10-2021

Photo: Joe Catron/Twitter

A hunger strike launched by Detroit-based anti-war activists in protest of the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen entered its 13th day on Saturday as calls grow for President Joe Biden to end all U.S. support for the kingdom’s deadly restrictions, which are preventing food, medicine, fuel, and other aid from reaching starving Yemenis.

Iman Saleh, a 26-year-old Yemeni American taking part in the hunger strike, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Friday that “the siege against Yemen not only has had a crippling effect on everyday life, but it is also compounding the ongoing conflict in the country, causing damage that exceeds even the violence itself in both scale and intensity.” Continue reading →

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ICE Detainee Says Migrants Are Going on a Hunger Strike For Soap

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In audio obtained by ProPublica, an ICE detainee described harrowing conditions as fears over coronavirus spread. The ICE detention center in New Jersey gives detainees one bar of soap per week. If they want more, they have to buy it.

By Dara Lind Published 3-23-2020 by ProPublica

 

In an audio recording obtained by ProPublica, an immigrant held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention in New Jersey complains that he and other detainees are on a hunger strike to try to obtain soap and toilet paper in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic — and that guards reportedly have told detainees, “Well, you’re going to have to die of something.”

The audio was recorded when Ronal Umaña, a 30-year-old immigrant from El Salvador currently being held at the Hudson County Correctional Facility in New Jersey, placed a personal call to an advocate on Sunday. The advocate provided the audio to ProPublica. Continue reading →

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No Excuse, Says Human Rights Lawyer, Obama Can Still Close Guantánamo

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President undermined his own plan to shutter the notorious facility by agreeing to the “defense” bill

By Sarah Lazare, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-11-2015

512px-Camp_Delta,_Guantanamo_Bay,_Cuba

After President Barack Obama agreed on Tuesday to sign a $607 billion “defense” bill that undermines his own plan to shutter the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, media outlets sounded the death knell for hopes that the facility will close before his term ends in 2017.

But Omar Shakir, a Bertha fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Common Dreams that the president, in fact, still retains the ability to close the prison—and must act now to fulfill his repeated pledges. Continue reading →

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What’s In A Name?

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On November 1, we posted a story that included mention of a man from Kobani on a hunger strike in Washington, DC.

When Moustafa Muhamed left Colorado to travel to Washington, DC, he did not realize the same man would never return. A native son of Kobani, he has also served as a Parliamentarian in Syria’s government in the past before moving to the United States. Starting with a mission to draw attention to the plight of his native city and the turmoil embroiling it, he began a hunger strike on October 20 in DuPont Circle and started a petition asking President Obama for 3 specific things.

During the 23 days of his hunger strike, he was joined by supporters, both Kurds and Americans, that believed in his cause and offered their solidarity in a variety of ways. Continue reading →

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