Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 9:40 pm Post subject: Protests
There are always protests going on around the world, and I've been meaning to start a thread for ages that kept a list of the ones that are reported. Many of course are not reported as they go against the particular slant of the broadcaster, but here's a start anyway.
Danish clash sparks mass arrests
Police in Denmark say they expect to bring charges against many of the 437 people detained overnight following clashes in the capital, Copenhagen. Police used tear gas against thousands of young demonstrators who were protesting against the closure of a youth centre earlier in the year. The protesters had tried unsuccessfully to occupy a different building.
A police spokesman said a record number of people were detained. They have all been released but charges could follow.Some of the demonstrators threw smoke bombs, set fires and tried to break through police barriers and climb over police cars, the spokesman said.
"It started out as a peaceful demonstration but then there was more and more violence and the riots against the police started," spokesman Flemming Munch told AFP news agency. No injuries were reported. Organisers of the demonstration said as many as 4,000 people took part.
Left-wing activists had occupied the youth centre, in Copenhagen's Noerrebro district, since 1982. But the building was sold by the city in 2000 to a Christian group. Squatters were evicted in March 2007, which led to violent street clashes and hundreds of arrests. The youth centre was later demolished.
Britain's Stop the War coalition has marked the return of the British parliament after its summer holiday and the debate on the conflict in Iraq by staging a march from London's Trafalgar Square to outside Westminister. It was in defiance of the authorities, as no police clearance has been given, and the government had invoked a 170-year-old law to keep the marchers away from parliament, although this was later revoked.
Organisers of the march complained they never had to protest under such legislation before, and they were joined by a number of celebrities who marched with them to raise the protest's profile. The little-known law has existed since the time of the Chartists' protest movement, the embryonic trade union organistation.
Here's a site I just found - it's by someone who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time going to protests, seemingly with the sole aim of taking pictures and making negative comments about what he/she sees. I'd not have known about these protests at all otherwise, so thanks to them whoever they are - the daft bastard!
http://zombietime.com/
I like the unflattering pictures of Hillary Clinton. She can do a really good bug eyed look. I think that's the only thing Hillary Clinton and I have in common...LOL!! I can bug my eyes out real good too...LOL!!
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:54 am Post subject: UK students take note.
Quebec's students provide a lesson in protest politics Sustained action over tuition fees helped defeat Quebec's Liberal government by appealing to a wide movement for change
Richard Seymour
guardian.co.uk,
7 September 2012
So this is how it's done. Students in Quebec, in rebellion against their government over tuition fees, have scored an amazing victory in the province's general elections.
The Liberal government led by Jean Charest, which ran on a law-and-order platform against the students, has been defeated. Its plans to implement an 82% tuition fee increase are shredded for now, and the harsh emergency legislation it passed to quell the upsurge is history. Charest is resigning from politics. Two members of the leftist group, Québec Solidaire, have been elected, and the party gained more than 6% of the popular vote.
For those used to student movements that erupt suddenly only to deflate within a few weeks or months, this defies belief. How, then, was such an effective action actually sustained, in defiance of police crackdowns and emergency legislation?
Students in Quebec inhabit militant traditions inherited from the "quiet revolution" of the 1960s, when the province's francophone majority pushed for full access to higher education as part of a series of sweeping reforms. This inaugurated a student movement, whose signature was the mass student strike. Each time a government attempted to drive up tuition fees, the students walked out – and most of the time, they won. As a result, there is a thriving democratic culture among Quebec's students. While the NUS is converting itself into a tame lobbying organisation, Quebec students have a tradition of grassroots organising, and four relatively democratic federal organisations that rank-and-file student bodies can affiliate with.
The radical spearhead of the movement is the Coalition Large de l'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante, or Classe. Emerging from a decade of leftwing student unionism, Classe was explicitly formed in December 2011 to build a students' strike to stop the fees rise. Going further than most student bodies, it demanded the cancellation of all tuition fees, to be paid for by a tax on banks. This stance was very popular, and the group eventually incorporated 65 local affiliates and 100,000 members comprising the most politicised and activist core of the province's 400,000 strong student body.
General assemblies of students were held across Quebec, to discuss and implement a strike. This meant boycotting and picketing classes, and at their height the strikes achieved the support of 300,000 students. The structures of direct democracy built on campuses sustained the momentum behind the strikes, enabling students to meet, discuss and make decisions on a regular basis. Each month, the movement called a mass mobilisation, with tens of thousands of students gathering in the Place du Canada in Montreal. But there was also a heated debate over the strategy and goals of the movement. It wasn't enough to keep the momentum going. In addition to the strikes, radical students sought to disrupt the smooth functioning of the economy and the government, carrying out blockades and occupations of banks and government buildings.
But students also reached out to the labour movement. Theirs was a class issue, they insisted, and Classe called for a "social strike" of both students and workers. They consciously sought alliances with Rio Tinto workers locked out of their jobs, public sector workers facing cuts, campaigns against increased fees for healthcare, and local resistance to the government's attempts to turn over northern resources to the mining industry. Neighbourhood protests became a regular occurrence. A number of union federations passed motions for strike action, though as yet the resistance from union leaders is too strong, and the labour militants too weak, to make it happen.
Importantly, the student leadership refused to be divided. When the government excluded Classe from negotiations, in the hope of engaging the more moderate student federations in a compromise, the latter walked out.
The government's biggest mistake was passing Bill 78, imposing severe restrictions on the right of students to protest. Though supported by the Quebec Council of Employers, the bill was otherwise reviled. Rather than breaking the students, the repression produced a much wider movement. Up to half a million people marched in clear defiance of the law. Those returning home from law-breaking protests were greeted by families banging pots and pans in their support, from their windows and in the streets. Some of the country's largest trade unions joined in the protest. To get a sense of how improbable this is, compare it with our student protests beginning in November 2010, where the NUS and UCU leaderships organised timid demonstrations separate from the main protests.
The Liberals' defeat can be traced to that defiance. But the Parti Québécois, which has just won, is not an ally of the movement. The new government will probably seek to negotiate a smaller fees increase with the agreement of the less militant student bodies. At any rate, the movement has long been about more than fees. Classe intends to keep the pressure on, with new assemblies and protests, aiming to build the widest possible movement to challenge neoliberalism. British students should take the hint.
Muslims protest outside Google's London office
14th October 2012
telegraph.co.uk
A protest by thousands of British Muslims outside the offices of Google in London today is just the first in an orchestrated attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from website YouTube. Thousands travelled from as far as Glasgow to take part in the demonstration, ahead of a planned million-strong march in Hyde Park in coming weeks.
Anger over the 'Innocence of Muslims', which the organisers say insults the Prophet Mohammad and demeans Muslims, remains available to watch on the video website YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. Organiser Masoud Alam said: "Our next protest will be at the offices of Google and YouTube across the world. We are looking to ban this film. This is not freedom of expression, there is a limit for that. This insult of the Prophet will not be allowed.
Today's demonstration was the third organised in a month, and took place on the central London street where the website search giant has its UK headquarters.
If it hadn't been for this demo, I'd not have flicked through the "film".
It's total crap, not worth the energy and time these people are putting into it. They shouldn't advertise it, forget about the piece of shit, and wise up to the fact that there are folk about who's idea of fun is to wind good people up.
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