Tag Archives: activists

Age, Ideology + Affiliation

Portugal & Angola News | Activists & Dissidents

Protests over jailing of youth activists in Angola spread to Portugal
  • Advocates in Lisbon have expressed dismay that the Portuguese government has so far refused to condemn the jailing of 17 youth activists in its former colony.
  • Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos warned Portugal against stepping into what he considers to be an Angolan domestic matter.
  • Demonstrations in Lisbon castigated the conviction of the book-club activists as well as Angolan businessmen’s investment in Portugal’s news and telecommunications industries.

Read more:
“Anger as Lisbon fails to condemn jailing of Angola book club dissidents” (The Guardian)
“Tensions high after Angolan activists sentenced in ‘show trial’” (The Observers)

(Image Credit: Joao Relvas/EPA, via The Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation, Race + Color + Ethnicity

China News | Tibetan Activist

Tibetan education activist charged with inciting separatism
  • Tashi Wangchuk has been detained in Yushu, Qinghai Province, for months in secret and faces up to 15 years in prison.
  • While Tashi’s writings promote widely accepted Tibetan autonomy, the Tibetan entrepreneur has publicly opposed Tibetan independence.
  • Tashi has been a vocal advocate for Tibetan-language education in line with constitutional guarantees to ethnic autonomy.

Read more:
“China Charges Tibetan Education Advocate With Inciting Separatism” (The New York Times)
“Inciting Separatism Charge for Tibetan Education Advocate” (China Digital Times)
“Tibetans Fight to Salvage Fading Culture in China” (The New York Times, November 2015)

(Image Credit: Gilles Sabrie/The New York Times)

Gender, Ideology + Affiliation

Sudan Feature | Women Activists

Video

The Embattled Women Activists of Sudan

A new Human Rights Watch report details the threatening conditions faced by women activists in Sudan. Women have reported being subjected to abuse, sexual violence, and arbitrary detention by Sudan’s security forces, while local media have slurred them as “lesbians and prostitutes.” As international agencies have called for more women in conflict resolution and men have continued violating women activists without impunity, women seeking to invest in their country’s future have struggled to find ways to include their voices while protecting their well-being.

Read more:
Good Girls Don’t Protest (Human Rights Watch)
Sudan: Silencing Women Rights Defenders (Human Rights Watch, YouTube)
“‘Good girls don’t protest’: report exposes attacks on Sudan’s female activists” (The Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation

Azerbaijan News | Activists & Dissidents

Human rights lawyer freed as Azerbaijan continues amnesties
  • Intigam Aliyev, an Azeri human rights advocate, had his 7.5-year prison sentence commuted to five years of probation after serving a year in jail.
  • Aliyev had been convicted of tax evasion, illegal entrepreneurship, and abuse of office.
  • President Ilham Aliyev, unrelated, pardoned nearly 150 prisoners this month, including political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, while Amnesty International says seven remain imprisoned.

Read more:
“Azerbaijan frees human rights advocate from jail” (Reuters)
“Prominent Azerbaijani Lawyer To Be Released From Prison” (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
“Azerbaijan frees prominent right activist” (AFP via GlobalPost)

(Image Credit: via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Age, Ideology + Affiliation

Angola News | Youth Activists

1 Comment
Youth activists sentenced in Angola for anti-government demonstrations
  • Seventeen activists were arrested in Luanda last June after an organized reading of Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Democracy, a text promoting non-violent resistance.
  • The group has been sentenced to between two and eight-and-a-half years in jail after conviction on charges of rebellion, planning mass civil disobedience, and producing fake passports.
  • President José Eduardo dos Santos has been in power for 37 years, and despite his pledge to step down in 2018, rampant inflation, public spending cuts, a public health crisis, and human rights infringements have increased anti-government sentiment in the lead-up to elections.

Read more:
“Angola Sends a Rapper and 16 Activists to Prison for Plotting Rebellion” (VICE News)
“Seventeen activists sentenced for rebelling against Angolan government” (Reuters)
“Angola: 17 youth activists jailed for anti-dos Santos rebellion” (Africanews with AFP)

(Image Credit: via Africanews)

Ideology + Affiliation, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Honduras News | Indigenous Activists

Indigenous activist murdered days after famous campaigner in Honduras
  • Nelson García, member of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), was gunned down on his way to his family home.
  • His murder follows that of fellow activist Berta Cáceres, the co-founder of COPINH killed in her home after having received threats from police and anonymous individuals.
  • The deaths come as government officials have subjected COPINH affiliates to illegal surveillance and coercive detention, part of an anti-environmentalist environment in Honduras that saw more than 100 killed between 2010 and 2014.

Read more:
“Fellow Honduran activist Nelson García murdered days after Berta Cáceres” (The Guardian)
“Another Member of Berta Caceres’ Group Assassinated in Honduras” (teleSUR English)
“Berta Cáceres, Honduran human rights and environment activist, murdered” (The Guardian)

(Image Credit: Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images, via The Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation

DRC News | Activists

DR Congo activists go on hunger strike as detention without trial continues
  • Fred Bauma and Yves Makwambala, members of the group Struggle for Change (Lucha), began their strike after the Supreme Court refused to release them from jail, despite their having been held for more than a year without trial following their arrest at a pro-democracy workshop.
  • An additional 30 members of Lucha have been arrested as the group has held demonstrations to move elections in the country up and secure basic resources for their neighborhoods.
  • Founded in 2012 on the principle of non-violent demonstration, Lucha has no centralized organization except that necessary to maintain communications, strategy, ideology, and funding, and the group, part of a growing constellation of youth movements across Africa, have so far refused external funding.

Read more:
“Congolese activists on hunger strike after court refuses release” (The Guardian)
“Law and disorder in the DRC: Who is Fred Bauma, Congo’s jailed Mahatma Gandhi?” (International Business Times)
“Congo police arrest 18 pro-democracy activists: U.N.” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: via The Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation

Myanmar News | Dissident Activists

Leader of spring student protests arrested in Myanmar after months in hiding
  • Kyaw Ko Ko was reportedly arrested and held in Yangon after evading authorities since last spring’s student protests.
  • The head of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) had organized protests in Yangon against a bill students viewed as anti-student union and anti-academic freedom.
  • The number of political prisoners in Myanmar has increased dramatically from 29 in 2014 to 466 in September 2015, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Read more:
“Myanmar student leader arrested amid signs of crackdown” (Reuters)
“Myanmar Student Leader Arrested After Seven Months in Hiding” (Radio Free Asia)
“Kyaw Ko Ko, fugitive student leader, arrested in Yangon” (Frontier Myanmar)

(Image Credit: Radio Free Asia)

Age, Gender, Ideology + Affiliation

Uzbekistan News | Women Activists & Citizens

Activists claim abuse by Uzbek government while documenting forced labor in cotton harvesting
  • Human rights activists affiliated with the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan claimed they were detained and beaten by police after attempting to document forced labor conditions during the country’s cotton harvest.
  • Two women arrested in late September reported being strip-searched and having a gynecological examination conducted in front of male officers.
  • Uzbekistan, the fifth-largest cotton producer in the world, has long been under fire for the mass mobilization of its citizens into unpaid labor in the fields to ensure the millions of tons of the country’s major cash crop can be harvested and exported.

Read more:
“Uzbekistan accused of brutal crackdown on activists investigating forced labour” (The Guardian)
“Arrested, threatened, beaten: The Uzbekistan activist who won’t give up” (BBC)
“Uzbekistan: Cotton Harvest Monitors Face Intimidation” (EurasiaNet)

(Image Credit: Mikhail Metzel/AP, via The Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation

Lebanon News | Activists & Critics

Protesters clash violently with police during Beirut demonstration
  • Police turned water cannons and tear gas on protesters after a security barrier was removed in downtown Beirut, and were in turn met with stones and other hurled objects from protesters.
  • At least seven protesters were wounded and 35 treated for tear gas inhalation, while 27 were arrested, according to protest organizers.
  • Protests have been ongoing in the country over the last three months after Lebanon’s main landfill was closed, causing a trash crisis in the country noted in the name of the protest organizers, You Stink.

Read more:
“Police attack on protesters triggers fresh clashes in Downtown Beirut” (The Daily Star)
“Tear gas and water cannons fired at Lebanese protesters” (Al Jazeera)
“Beirut protest turns violent, politicians postpone talks” (Reuters)

(Image Credit: Mohammad Akazir/The Daily Star)

Ideology + Affiliation

China News | Activists

1 Comment
Hong Kong Occupy leaders charged a year after pro-democracy protests
  • Alex Chow, who led the Hong Kong Federation of Students, reported he and Joshua Wong, leader of student group Scholarism, have been charged with illegal assembly following 2014’s demonstrations.
  • Wong faces the additional charge of inciting others to illegal assembly during the student-led protests that shut down major areas of Hong Kong.
  • More than 100,000 participated for more than two months in demonstrations against China’s decision to vet candidates for Hong Kong’s 2017 elections.

Read the full story at Reuters.

(Image Credit: Bobby Yip/Reuters)