On December 22, 2014, Daw Khin Win, a 56 year old woman, was shot and killed in Moegyo Pyin, Myanmar (also known as Burma) by police while protesting the expansion of a Chinese copper mine. This has led to protests in Myanmar’s two largest cities; Yangon (Rangoon) and Mandalay, as well as a standoff in the area of the mine itself. But, how did this all start? Continue reading
The Case for Withdrawing the Police and Winning Community Control of our Communities
By Manuel Barrera
U.S. “America” has seen the rise of a new civil rights movement. . . One is tempted immediately to conjure the connections between the movement that has emerged in response to the murder by police in Ferguson, Missouri of Michael Brown and the movement led by M.L. King, Malcolm X and associated civil rights and black nationalist organizations of the 1950’s to the end of the 1960’s. It seems fair to say that given the emergence of Black youth and Black communities everywhere beginning to organize against what has come to be known as a police occupation within communities and spaces inhabited by Blacks in particular, but among people of color in general. Indeed, many sectors among young White youth, women, and other social forces have begun to be involved, some with more engagement than even the actual communities being victimized. Continue reading
Over 3000 protesters gathered in the Mall of America Saturday in support of the BlackLivesMatter movement. Image via Facebook.
Protestors filled the main floor rotunda of America’s largest shopping mall on Saturday as supporters within the mall raised their voices and joined them. The first chant started…
“No Justice, No Peace!”
We then heard a jubilant chorus fill the mall, clapping together and singing. We also heard “While you’re on your shopping spree, black people can not breathe…” Continue reading
South Korea General Strike, Dec 28, 2013. Image via Twitter.
If you have not realized it, there is something happening that makes the protests regarding police brutality stemming from cases like Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown look quite tame and mild. It is something that has began sweeping across the globe in such a way that we recognize it as the most under-reported story of the year. Continue reading
![Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. Photo by Kathleen T. Rhem [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://occupyworldwrites.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/512px-Camp_Delta_Guantanamo_Bay_Cuba.jpg)
Camp Delta, Guantanamo Bay. Photo by Kathleen T. Rhem [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
On September 26, 43 students disappeared in the city of Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico after being loaded into police vans. This marked the beginning of massive protests that have spread across the country. We wrote about the students’ disappearance and the protests a month ago; since then, the situation’s become even more edgy.
On Tuesday, November 4, Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda were arrested in Mexico City. Described as the “probable mastermind” in the disappearance of the students, Abarca was charged with six counts of aggravated homicide and one count of attempted homicide a week later. Continue reading
By MATT MULBERRY
Does the term ‘occupation’ delegitimize movements by casting participants as short-term guests, instead of representatives communicating grievances held by a wider society within a public forum that is theirs?
Some rights reserved.The most recent protests in Hong Kong are indicative of a trend among people’s movements that use civil resistance – the increased emphasis placed on the taking and holding of physical space, which is to say, the tactic of occupation. Usually focused on a central square, as in the case of Egypt and Ukraine, or concentrated on a particular site emblematic of injustice, as in Occupy Wall Street, occupations as a tactic have been a media coverage-igniting feature of many of the most important protest campaigns occurring over the past few years. This stands out as a relatively new phenomenon when considered within the longer history of civil resistance movements, when the tactic or place of occupation seldom came to define the entire movement.
A little over three months ago was the first time we wrote about what would become the biggest story in America over the following days; Ferguson, Missouri and the shooting of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson, a Ferguson police officer. With the grand jury verdict due any day, this last week had more than its share of troubling news about what might happen in the aftermath.
First, the grand jury. In the Wilson case, it’s been more like an in camera trial, and not a grand jury. The person who’s the focus of the charges rarely if ever gets to testify in front of the grand jury; the grand jury’s job is to see if there’s enough evidence to bring the case to trial, and not to decide innocence or guilt. Continue reading
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of Turkey. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
In yesterday’s post, we talked about what’s been happening recently in Kobane and the utter failure of the U.S. media in covering it. We discussed the protests in Europe over the lack of support for the Kurds, and we talked about the Turkish government’s criminal behavior in regards to Kobane and the Kurdish refugees fleeing the area.
Yesterday, police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse Kurdish protesters as unrest spread to at least six Turkish cities. At least eighteen people died in the unrest. This violent reaction to protests is nothing new for the Erdoğan government, as Human Rights Watch pointed out in a recent report.
Why the protests? It’s because of Turkey’s actions (or to be more precise, the lack of action) in the coalition against Daesh. The Turkish government last week won parliamentary approval for military action against Daesh inside Syria, but Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says this will only happen if “others do their own part:” in other words, if the international coalition moves against the Assad regime, and not just Daesh.
However, given Turkey’s history of animosity towards the Kurdish population, we have to wonder if the Turks are just letting the Daesh exterminate the Kurds before they make any move towards countering the threat they pose. Right now, the Turkish army sits on the Syrian border watching utter destruction take place in Kobane. They aren’t making any move towards Kobane; in fact, they aren’t allowing the Kurdish refugees from that area cross the border, but instead are forcing them back towards the Daesh. A curfew has been instituted in the Kurdish regions and cities of Turkey in response to this crisis.
The Human Rights watch report states, ironically enough, that one of the positive things happening in Turkey in regards to human rights is the government’s negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkey’s publicly stated vs actual stance on dealing with the PKK is disingenuous, to put it mildly.
But the MOST DISINGENUOUS insistence by the Turkish government to attempt using this crisis to further their elimination of the “Kurdish problem” within Turkey, a plan which has been enacted and practiced on for well over 30 years. Turkey wants to establish a no-fly zone and a “security” zone in the Rojava region of Syria, the only part of Assad’s country that, until the emergence of Daesch, remained stable because it is controlled by the Kurdish population within Syria.
If you are confused, you are not alone. The following plea is urgent and explains things better than we can. The importance of its message can not be over stated. Considor what you can do to help save Kobane. Contact information is included at the end. ACT TODAY, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
Urgent Call: Stand Against Demands for a Buffer/Security Zone Between Turkey and Syria
Kobanê, one of the three autonomous Kurdish enclaves in Northern Syria, on the border with Turkey, is once again under attack by the IS. The Islamic State (IS – formerly known as ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has besieged Kobanê on three separate fronts and is at the moment shelling the city relentlessly.
The border between Syria and Turkey is a straight line that runs mainly through flat plains. A tank or armoured car can sail through these plains with no difficulty. The plain is inhabited by peoples of diverse ethnic or religious background: Arab tribes, Yezidis, Syriac Christians, Armenians and Kurds. Many of the Kurds are relatives of Kurds on the Turkish side of the border and have been in constant interaction in the past. Kurds had been living in Syria without any formal citizenship status. After the start of the uprising in Syria, they declared their autonomy in July, 2012. These autonomous zones are small enclaves where the majority population is Kurdish and which are separated from one another by zones inhabited by Arab tribesmen. Since 2012, the Kurds of Syria have tried to establish a democratic form of self-rule where everyone would be equal, regardless of ethnic or religious identity and of gender. They have called these enclaves of self-rule Rojava, or The West. Kobanê is one of these enclaves and, since September 15, the target of fierce attack by IS, armed by superior weapons.
Local observers ranging from international reporters to Kurdish inhabitants of the region and the Kurdish forces of Kobanê have regularly claimed that the Turkish-Syrian border is systematically transgressed by the IS. They obtain, it is said, personnel and ammunition from supply routes through Turkey. This has led them to conclude that Turkey is using the IS to clean the region of its Kurdish inhabitants.
The Turkish government has, since the inception of the Syrian civil war, made no effort to hide its opposition to the Assad government and has provided support to various Islamic groups fighting in the Free Syrian Army. It is now claiming that the best way to fight Assad and the IS, is to establish a buffer/security zone between Turkey and Syria. This zone can be in no other place than in Rojava.
We, the women from the Women’s Initiative for Peace see this proposal as a disingenuous move to kill many birds with one stone. The Turkish state has initiated a peace process with the Kurdish guerrilla forces (the PKK – Kurdistan Workers’ Party) with which it has been waging what it called a ‘low intensity war’ for over thirty years. In spite of talks between the Turkish state and the imprisoned leader of the guerrillas, the government of Turkey has been refusing to honour the agreements they have reached and does not take the steps necessary for the peace process to go forward, steps which the Kurdish side has been waiting for, for more than a year. It is in this atmosphere that we now see the state of Turkey at best allowing the IS to raze Kobanê to the ground and proposing a buffer zone which will allow the declaration of Rojava as an empty land. According to the Kurds, this is another way of fighting a dirty war against the Kurds, another way of not recognizing the will of the Kurdish people. They say talking to the Kurds in the north (Turkey) while fighting those in the West (Kobanê) means ending the peace process and the ceasefire that has lasted almost two years.
We, women, want the Turkish state to honour its pledges. We do not want the peace process to end. As women, we know that war targets women and that women pay a very high price during war. Turning overnight into refugees, women have crossed the Rojava border and flocked into Turkey, a country that does not grant legal refugee status to persons arrivingfrom its southern borders. Refugee camps, forced resettlement, the declaration of their homes as empty land is the bleak future that Rojava women now face.
This future need not come to be. Lobby your government, lobby the Turkish government, and lobby the UN. We are sending attached template emails/fax that you can send to the UN and the Turkish government. Do not let them establish a buffer zone in Rojava. Tell them:
Rojava is not empty.
Kurds have a government there.
Not having a state should not mean not having a home.
Stop the forced eviction of Kurds from yet another of their homelands.
Please send the attached letters to the Turkish government and to the United Nations.
Addresses for the United Nations:
Ban Ki Moon, fax: 1 (212) 963 4879; email: bkm@un.org
UNHCR, fax: (41) 22 739 7377; email: hunbu@unhcr.org, swest@unhcr.org, furley@unhcr.org
UNICEF, fax: 1 (212) 887 7465/7454
WHO, fax: (41) 22 791 0746
Adresses for the Turkish govt:
E-mail:assembly@tbmm.gov.tr
United Nations Human Rights Council logo.
We as a country have portrayed ourselves as moral compasses on the international stage for years. We’re among the first to decry what we consider tyranny, and we take an almost gleeful interest in being horrified over what the world perceives as human rights violations. We claim to occupy the moral high ground – but events say otherwise.
For the second time in two months, the United Nations has issued a report calling out the U.S. for human rights violations here at home. The first time was in June, when the U.N. Human Rights Council said that the city of Detroit was in violation of international human rights law by shutting off water and sewer services to thousands of households.
On Friday, the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) released a report condemning the U.S. for failure to fully comply with its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Noureddine Amir, an Algerian expert and CERD committee vice chairman, told a news briefing:
“The excessive use of force by law enforcement officials against racial and ethnic minorities is an ongoing issue of concern and particularly in light of the shooting of Michael Brown. This is not an isolated event and illustrates a bigger problem in the United States, such as racial bias among law enforcement officials, the lack of proper implementation of rules and regulations governing the use of force, and the inadequacy of training of law enforcement officials.”
He also said: “Racial and ethnic discrimination remains a serious and persistent problem in all areas of life from de facto school segregation, access to health care and housing.”
The committee’s report stated that “Stand Your Ground” laws should be reviewed to “remove far-reaching immunity and ensure strict adherence to principles of necessity and proportionality when deadly force is used for self-defense.” It went on to say:
“The Committee remains concerned at the practice of racial profiling of racial or ethnic minorities by law enforcement officials, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Transportation Security Administration, border enforcement officials and local police.”
Jamil Dakwar of the American Civil Liberties Union said that the report highlighted “shortcomings on racial equality that we are seeing play out today on our streets, at our borders and in the voting booth… When it comes to human rights, the United States must practice at home what it preaches abroad.”
I thought we were better than this…