Tag: demonstrations

Iran: Fill The Sky With Green Balloons

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The protest for Friday, as reported by The New York Times:

7:52 p.m. Now that it is early Friday morning in Iran, an Iranian blogger writes on Twitter of a new way of registering protest opposition supporters say they plan for this afternoon:

   

at one PM people all over Iran will be airing green balloons and make the sky GREEN!

Let’s not waste energy on trying to launch balloons simultaneously with those in Iran (Iran is 3.5 hours ahead of GMT, 8.5 hours ahead of ET).  Let’s just blow up those balloons in solidarity.  Let’s see some green balloons on your car, at your home, at your work, on the street.  It’s easy.  It’s solidarity.

This “defiance” is particularly appropriate today.  Reuters is reporting that Ahmad Khatami has called for the execution of “rioters”:

A hardline Iranian cleric on Friday called for the execution of “rioters” in the latest sign of the authorities’ determination to stamp out opposition to the June 12 presidential election. …snip

“I want the judiciary to … punish leading rioters firmly and without showing any mercy to teach everyone a lesson,” Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Tehran University….snip

Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said the judiciary should charge the leading “rioters” as being “mohareb” or one who wages war against God.

“They should be punished ruthlessly and savagely,” he said. Under Iran’s Islamic law, punishment for people convicted as mohareb is execution.

Last time I checked flying a green balloon was not being a “leading rioter.”  But definitions in Iran are extremely flexible.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

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Iran: This Is What Lack Of Accountability Looks And Feels Like

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Today is Torture Accountability Day.

Events in Iran yesterday show exactly what lack of accountability looks and feels like. It’s not a pretty picture.  And it hurts. CNN provides this small vignette:

On Wednesday afternoon, security forces used overwhelming force to crack down on protesters who had flocked to Baharestan Square near the parliament building in Tehran, according to more than a half-dozen witnesses.

Police charged at the gathering — clubbing demonstrators with batons, beating women and old men, and firing weapons into the air to disperse them, witnesses said.

“They were waiting for us,” one witness said. “They all have guns and riot uniforms. It was like a mouse trap.” …

“They emptied buses that were taking people there and let the private cars go on … and then, all of a sudden, some 500 people with clubs of wood, they came out of the Hedayat Mosque, and they poured into the streets and they started beating everyone,” she said.

Government-run Press TV gave a starkly different account, saying about 200 protesters had gathered in front of the parliament and 50 others in a nearby square. All were dispersed by a heavy police presence, it said.

This is what happens when there is no accountability.  The Government gives a “starkly different account.”  Deadly force dictates the events.  Demonstrators are clubbed.  Women and old men are beaten.  Government approved goons launch surprise attacks.  Government approved media say nothing happened.  Repeat as necessary.

There is no official reckoning of events, there is no real investigation, there is no trial, there is nothing but official minimization and silence.  Crickets.  Silence until the next demonstration appears, then they do it again.  Intense and brutal violence, followed by official silence.  Repeat as necessary.

My heart goes out to the demonstrators in Iran.  Because their Government shuns accountability, they are, each of them, in mortal danger.  Their Government believes that it is appropriate to use deadly force to shore up a stolen election.  It believes that violence will end civil unrest.  And if the present level of violence proves to be insufficient to bring compliance, even greater violence is threatened.  No other course is contemplated.

Of course, lack of accountability is nourished by lack of reporting, by officially imposed silence.  It’s important to the Iranian government to make sure that the whole world isn’t watching (except on Twitter).  It’s important to Governments that are not accountable to thwart all inquiries about their activities, to impose secrecy, to resist disclosure, to disrupt investigations, to shield past misdeeds, to hide the truth.

The New York Times reports the difficulties in knowing what is happening in Iran and a different version of the same Wednesday afternoon brutality:

The government also stepped up its efforts to block independent news coverage of events all across the country. The government has banned foreign news media members from leaving their offices, suspended all press credentials for foreign correspondents, arrested a freelance writer for The Washington Times, continued to hold a reporter for Newsweek and forced other foreign journalists to leave the country.

That made it difficult to ascertain exactly what happened when several hundred protesters tried to gather outside the Parliament building Wednesday afternoon. Witnesses said they were met by a huge force of riot police officers and Basij vigilantes, some on motorcycles and some in pickup trucks, armed with sticks and chains. Witnesses said people were trapped and beaten as they tried to flee down side streets.

“It was not possible to wait and see what happened,” said one witness who asked for anonymity out of fear of arrest. “At one point we saw several riot police in black clothes walk towards a group of people who looked like passers-by. Suddenly they pulled out their batons and began hitting them without warning.”

The authorities said they were moving to impose order and secure the rule of law. “I was insisting and will insist on implementation of the law,” Ayatollah Khamenei said on national television. “That means we will not go one step beyond the law. Neither the system nor the people will yield to pressure at any price.”

That is what lack of accountability looks like.  This is what it feels like.  First it’s the crime, the brutality, the torture, the violence.  Then it’s the lie, “We will not go one step beyond the law.”  That echoes previous official posturing in Washington, “The United States does not torture.”  That’s what lack of accountability looks like.   The Government can and does say anything it wants to about its activities.  It lies when it wants to.  And nobody dares to lift the curtain to see whether it’s true.  That’s what lack of accountability is.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

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Iran: This Is What Violent Repression Looks Like

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Iran’s Government has decreed that the demonstrations must end.  And if the Government kills many of its citizens, and assaults and imprisons and threatens numerous others, that’s apparently just fine with the Government.

The New York Times story is chilling in its understatement and lack of descriptions:

Hundreds of protesters clashed with waves of riot police and paramilitary militia in Tehran on Wednesday, witnesses said, as Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted the authorities would not yield to pressure from opponents demanding a new election following allegations of electoral fraud.

It was impossible to confirm first-hand the extent of the new violence in the capital because of draconian new press restrictions on coverage of the post-election mayhem. But the witnesses reached by telephone said the confrontation, outside the national Parliament building, was bloody, with police using live ammunition.

Defying government warnings, the witnesses said that hundreds, if not thousands of protesters, had attempted to gather in front of the parliament on Baharestan Square. They were met with riot police and paramilitary militia, who struck at them with truncheons, tear gas, and guns. One witness said he saw a 19-year-old woman shot in the neck.

Truncheons, tear gas, and bullets. Riot police and paramilitary militia.  And, of course, suppression of the press.  Not only will the Iranian government not yield, it’s evident that it intends to end all demonstrations with deadly force, which it naively hopes will not be widely reported. And, of course, it plan on massive incarceration:

A New York-based human rights group, International Campaign for Human Rights, listed the names Wednesday of 240 of the 645 people the Iranian state media has reported detained in the crackdown. The total number of detained, the organization said, citing human rights activists in Iran, may be as high as 2,000.

Among them are people arrested in a Monday night raid of a campaign office for Mr. Moussavi in Tehran, Press TV, state television’s English-language satellite broadcaster, reported Wednesday… snip

The detained, most of whom are being held incommunicado, also include students picked up at their dormitories, dozens of street demonstrators, and “targeted, politically motivated arrests of intellectuals, civil society leaders, political campaigners, journalists, and human rights campaigners,” said Aaron Rhodes, a consultant with the organization in Vienna.

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Iran: The Pain Has Begun

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There are no surprises in Tehran today.  Today is Sunday.  The New York Times informs us of what we already know to be the case:

A day after police and militia forces used guns, truncheons, tear gas and water cannons to beat back thousands of demonstrators, a tense quiet set over this city Sunday as the standoff between the government and thousands of protestors hardened into a test of wills that has spilled blood and claimed lives.

It was unclear how the confrontation would play out now that the government has abandoned its restraint and large numbers of protestors have demonstrated their willingness to risk injury and even death as they continue to dispute the results of Iran’s presidential election nine days ago.

Iranian state television reported that 13 people were killed in the clashes Saturday.

State television also reported that the government had arrested five members of the family of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who heads two influential councils in Iran, a move that escalates the government’s crackdown against the reform movement.

There are no surprises. Guns. Truncheons. Tear gas.  Water Cannons.  Burning motorcycles.  Injured bystanders.  Arrests. Home invasions. Brutality. Murder.  That “the government has abandoned its restraint” is a record breaking understatement.  The violence, of course, was to be expected.  After all, didn’t Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threaten violence during Friday prayers:

“Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “This is challenging democracy after the elections.” He said opposition leaders would be “held responsible for chaos” if they did not end the protests.

There are no surprises.  The Times, and just about everyone else, fears the very worst:

There was no sign on the streets early Sunday of the heavy security forces from the night before, but there were reports that protestors planned to demonstrate again later in the day, beginning at about 5 p.m., giving both sides time to regroup, or reconsider.

Since the crisis broke open with massive streets protests – posing the greatest challenge to the Islamic theocracy since the 1979 revolution – the government has declared its refusal to compromise, instead turning loose its security forces and militia to crush opposition voices. The government has pressed its policy of repression and intimidation the last several days, arresting reformers, intellectuals and others who promoted reform ideas or challenged the leadership’s version of events.

But now as the numbers of dead and injured begin to mount, it is unclear how, even if the protests can be stopped, the leadership can patch over the deep divisions in the Iranian society and rebuild legitimacy with Iranians who believe the election was rigged.

There are no surprises. Things, I suppose, will now grow even worse.  The repression will become fiercer, even less restrained, even more purposeful and frightening.  More people will be killed and injured and arrested.

President Obama’s statement on Saturday was strong, and he fortunately kept the matter at arm’s length:

Saying that “each and every innocent life” lost would be mourned, he added: “Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

“Martin Luther King once said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian people’s belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.”

Sadly, he’s right.  All we can do outside of Iran is bear witness as the struggle unfolds. And while we bear witness, we can continue to lift our voices as individuals (and not as a government) in solidarity with the demonstrators.  And offer our thoughts and prayers* for a peaceful resolution.  And find other, creative ways to support the struggle in Iran for democracy and freedom.

The Iranian Democracy movement is absolutely worthy of our personal (as opposed to governmental) support.  Support and solidarity at this point require, indeed permit only the simplest of things.  There are only simple things we can and should do:

Things like changing our location and time zone on Twitter to Tehran and GMT +3.5 hours.  Things like making our avatar green.  Things like reading the posts of those who are there.  Things like posting and distributing their videos on youtube.  Things like writing blogs and asking others to link arms with them in solidarity.  Things like talking about what ideas we might have that could be of help to them.

These are things that might be completely ineffective to help Iranians achieve democracy, to get a new, fair election, to overturn the sham outcome of their last election, to prevent governmental violence and repression.  I realize that.  But that’s not what’s important.  That’s not what’s important now.

What’s important, I think, is our continuing solidarity with this struggle, our saying, however we can say it, “Brothers and Sisters, we’re with you.  We want you to succeed.  We want you to be safe, and free.  We want you to obtain the change you seek.”

I am full of admiration for the courage of the Iranian movement.  I applaud and support these people.  Please join me in solidarity with them.  Sign the available petitions.  Take the numerous, available, small steps.  It’ll make you feel great.  And it’s the right thing to do.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

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Activism: How Do We Support The Iranian People’s Protests?

I’ve been riveted all day to the news coming via Twitter about Iran.

I seem to recall an election in the US in which there was a similar dispute about who had won.  I don’t recall millions going into the streets.  I don’t recall the “defeated” candidate calling on people to bring on non-violent, silent protests and mass gatherings.  I wish that had happened in the US. But, sadly, it didn’t.  And look what the next 8 years brought.  The Iranian people unlike the US seem to understand the significance and the consequences of a stolen election.  And they appear to want to do something about it.

So it appears that Iran has at this moment a time of both intense risk and enormous opportunity.

As I type this, hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets across Iran because they know that their election was stolen, that their votes were not counted, that the election was a sham, that their democracy has failed them.  They are angry, and they want a restoration of their democracy.  And they are going to demand a fair election and a fair counting of the votes.

How do we in the US support the Iranian People’s Protests?

I turn to you for the answers, for the tactics, for the approach.  The Iranian People’s Protests deserve our support.  Let’s put our heads together.

Here are two small examples of what we’re looking for. Twitter users are being urged to change their location to Tehran and their time zone to GMT +3 to give protection, however slight, to those in Iran who are reporting the news who are being followed by the authorities.  A second example:  Twitter was scheduled for maintenance this evening.  That would have shut off the Iranian news tweets.  Twitter re-scheduled its maintenance.

And now I ask again: what can we do to help?

Update: 6/16/09, 8:40 ET: Green icons for twitter are a click away.

Demonstration against School of the Americas, Sat. 22 Nov

Demonstration Against the School of Americas (recently renamed Western Hemisphere Institute For Security Cooperation).

Also known as “School of Assassins” its graduates have been involved in many human rights abuses of Latin American civilians up to the killing of people.  This institution is run by the U.S. Army and teaches Latin American soldiers who have been involved in human rights violations against the people of their own countries.  Some of the people who have become victims of graduates of the SOA are human rights workers, labor organizers, religious people and even children.

The South Country Peace Group and the St. Joseph The Worker Pax Christi Group have organized a local demonstration to Long Island to show solidarity with demonstrators at Fort Benning and elsewhere around the country.

Saturday, November 22 1:00-2:30 PM.

In front of the office of Rep. King – 1003 Park Blvd, Massapequa Park

(turn north onto Park Blvd from Sunrise H.  There is an IHOP on south side of Sunrise at that corner, Peter King’s office is next to the Post Office)

It is also possible to walk to the office from the local LIRR station.

Organized by the South Country Peace Group & the St Joseph the Worker Pax Christi Group.

For more information please contact Dennis at [email protected]



 

Do We Feel Safer Now?

A chilling report from Glen Greenwald today (Sunday 8/31/08) documents his visit to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.  He reports that as a part of the security apparatus, the local police with the help of the FBI have raided various headquarters, private homes, and meeting places of activist groups with plans to protest at the Convention.  The raids were carried out using warrants to search for “fire and code violations.”  Never mind that the Fire Marshall was never notified, the fact that ONLY the protest groups that were legally planning to demonstrations were raided highlights the real intent.  A description of one of the raids with more commentary and details below the fold:

On Mothers’ Day Protests In Kathmandu

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

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Mothers’ Day isn’t celebrated in Nepal.  Modern Mothers’ Day began as Women’s Day of Peace.  In  fact, NPK today has posted the stirring 1870 Proclamation.  So it’s a synchronicity that hundreds of Tibetan women in Kathmandu including Buddhist nuns chose today as an all-woman protest against Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Reuters reports:

Nepali police detained 562 Tibetan women at an anti-China rally in Kathmandu on Sunday, the first all-women protest against Chinese rule in their homeland, officials said.

Some shouted “We want free Tibet” while others wept as they were dragged along the road to police vans and trucks and driven to detention centers. Many were wearing black armbands and had their mouths gagged with cloths.

Nepal considers Tibet part of China, a key donor and trade partner, and has been cracking down on protests by the exiled Tibetans against Beijing.

Police said the protesters would be freed later.

Nepal borders Tibet.  More than 20,000 Tibetans have been living in Nepal since fleeing their homeland after the recent failed uprising and China’s crack-down.

“We are not against Nepal. Our protests are against China. So why are they arresting us?” asked a 70-year-old protester who gave her name as Chinjhoke, tears rolling down her face.

According to BBC Nepal

cannot allow Tibetans to demonstrate because it recognises Tibet as an integral part of China.

But the UN says the mass arrests are against the spirit of a society governed by the rule of law.

Today’s protest in Kathmandu followed yesterday’s in which

A group of Tibetan protesters chained themselves together in front of the Chinese Embassy’s visa office in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, on Saturday.

Sixteen protesters secured themselves to each other with chains and padlocks at the Chinese embassy in the heart of Kathmandu, and were joined by dozens of other Tibetans who chanted ‘Free Tibet’ and ‘We want freedom.’

Police official Ramesh Thapa says 120 people were detained for defying a ban on demonstrations against China, Nepal’s neighbour to the north.

I don’t think it can be argued that arrests for that reason comply with an acknowledgement of human rights.    Evidently, it’s important to Nepal to mimic Chinese responses to peaceful protest.

I watch all of this with increasing frustration.  I am astonished by the courage of the Tibetan protesters, that they risk so much to bring to the world’s attention their grievances about the occupation of Tibet.  But I don’t believe that what they do will result in action that will change things.  That belief brings me despair.

All I have to offer on this Mothers’ Day is this Metta prayer:

   May all beings be well and safe, may they be at ease.

  Whatever living beings there may be, whether moving or standing still, without exception, whether large, great, middling, or small, whether tiny or substantial,

  Whether seen or unseen, whether living near or far,

  Born or unborn; may all beings be happy.

  Let none deceive or despise another anywhere. Let none wish harm to another, in anger or in hate.”

Just as a mother would guard her child, her only child, with her own life, even so let me cultivate a boundless mind for all beings in the world.

Let me cultivate a boundless love for all beings in the world, above, below, and across, unhindered, without ill will or enmity.

Standing, walking, seated, or lying down, free from torpor, let me as far as possible fix my attention on this recollection. This, they say, is the divine life right here.

May it be so.

Love in the Time of Torture – the March 19 Demonstrations

We’ve become embarrassed to speak of it, but love is what it’s all about: love of country, justice, peace, humanity…and love of one’s fellow Americans – one’s fellow protesters.  In contemplating my most recent experience demonstrating against the war in Washington DC, that’s what comes to me, the overwhelming love I feel for those who care enough to stand up and be counted.  

My son Daniel and I flew out of Atlanta late on Tuesday, the 18th so I could get in a full day of work.  As we approached our hotel in DC my phone rang.  It was Victory Coffee.  She explained that she had brought a friend and that they’d be in McPherson Square at 7:30 in the morning.  Daniel and I settled in to try and get a good night’s rest but could hardly sleep for the anticipation.

The alarm went off at 6:00 AM.  I got up, showered, and jumped into my best protest Levis with my gen-u-ine Ben Masel ‘Impeach Cheney First’ button and my ‘No Blood for Oil’ button and then fiddled with cameras and batteries and whatnot while Daniel got himself ready.  I carefully laid out the IGTNT flyers and bags that snackdoodle had mailed me the previous week.  I had promised to find people to hand these out at the protest as a way of honoring America’s dead in the Iraq war.  I got the flyers divided into roughly equal stacks, placed them in the bags, stacked them neatly on top of the TeeVee and promptly went off without them.  We were in McPherson Square by the time I realized my mistake.  

Daniel-w-crowd-early

Time To Get Into The Streets

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This is stark, and it is maddening. This NY Times  article says it succinctly:

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.

Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year.

President Bush has never given a date for a military withdrawal from Iraq but has repeatedly said that American forces would stand down as Iraqi forces stand up. Given Mr. Qadir’s assessment of Iraq’s military capabilities on Monday, such a withdrawal appeared to be quite distant, and further away than any American officials have previously stated in public.

This means: US troops in Iraq until at least 2018.  That means: ten more years of Iraq occupation and ten more years of US troops in harm’s way and ten more years of death and maiming in Iraq.    

Friday is another Iraq Moratorium Day.  I hope you know what to do.

No Time Left To Compromise With Evil

Some people believe we shouldn’t complain too loudly, protest too vigorously or argue too passionately – the theory being that if we appear too leftist, too radical or too seriously committed to our beliefs that people who don’t share those beliefs will be offended and therefore unlikely to become seriously committed radical leftists themselves one day.  Well I have big news; those dim bulbs are not likely to ever shine – certainly not in response to our stifling ourselves.  For once, let’s let the smart people have their say. 

If one guy believes in global warming denial, torture, war profiteering, and ripping off the poor and another guy objects to all of these things, then one of these guys is right and one is wrong.  This is not merely a difference this is a distinction.  I’m not saying the latter individual is more human than the former, I’m saying he is a better human…period.

Time-to-lose-patience

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