How the power of one multiplies into people power.
Nonviolence News: Aug 3rd, 2019
Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun:
In this week’s Nonviolence News, you’ll find stories of people taking action at every scope and size. When the courage of one becomes the actions of hundreds, thousands, and millions of us, our efforts add up into significant change. Only one year ago this month, an unknown Swedish schoolgirl skipped class to protest climate change in front of the parliament building. Now, Greta Thunberg is a household name and millions of students are striking for a future.
Nonviolence News stories this week cover a full range of individual to collective action, including 17 year old Olga Misik (pictured above) who sat down in front of a line of riot police, and read her constitutional right to protest amidst Russia’s largest mass arrest (1,400 protesters) in the past decade. This week’s news also includes stories about the lone, courageous activist whose lockdown stopped a pipeline for a day, and a Black man in Vermont who stood up in court to protest the racial bias of a judge’s ruling to let an avowed violent White supremacist walk free. In Kentucky, USA, 400 coal miners blocked the tracks of a coal train in protest of bailouts for corporations while the workers lost jobs, benefits, and unemployment pay. Taiwanese airport workers grounded 2,250 flights in 17 days in order to win labor justice. Tens of thousands of Colombians demonstrated against attacks on activists. 30,000 Adivasis and Forest Dwellers organized in nationwide protests against eviction and changes to the Indian Forest Act. And, speaking of trees, Ethiopians planted 350 million trees in 12 hours, breaking India’s recent world record.
The numbers are staggering … and the creativity is heartening! Don’t miss these Nonviolence News stories of clever and creative actions: the artist who put cages around Boston’s “Make Way for Ducklings” statue to protest child detention centers; the pink seesaws installed through the US-Mexico border fence; 40 children who held a playdate protest for migrant children; the French activists who removed President Macron’s portrait from town halls to protest government climate inaction; and the Victoria and Albert Museum show featuring Extinction Rebellion “artefacts”; and the fascinating way the Hong Kong protesters are using lasers to disrupt the police’s facial recognition software.
And there’s so much more. The world is changing … and nonviolent action is the mechanism of that transformation.
May we all find ways to take action, individually and collectively,
Rivera Sun, Editor
Photo credit for opening image: Olga Misit sits in front of Russian riot police reading her constitutional right to protest. Image from a video by Alexei Abanin.
Here’s what you’ll find in
this week’s Nonviolence News:
Victory! Success Stories
Recent Actions & On-Going Campaigns
Climate Action
Migrant Justice
Racial Justice
Creative Action
Knowledge & Reflection
Calls-to-Action
Nonviolence News shares recent success stories so we see and remember
that nonviolent action is powerful and effective.
Taiwanese flight attendants win partial victory after grounding 2,250 flights. The 17-day strike was the largest and longest in Taiwanese airline labor history. Read more > >
Illinois will expunge 700,000 marijuana convictions from people’s records this week as the state legalizes the use of cannabis. Read more > >
Finland shows how to rein in “fake news”. Hint: isn’t about limiting free speech … it’s about teaching critical thinking skills. Read more > >
UK anti-racism activists win policy changes at Goldsmiths University of London after a five month-long occupation for racial justice. The university has promised to introduce mandatory “race awareness” training for staff and review its anti-discrimination and harassment procedures, among other measures. Read more > >
Around the world, people are launching nonviolent campaigns and/or using principled nonviolence to transform their communities and fight injustice. Here are a few recent stories.
Puerto Rico’s governor is gone, but the struggle for justice against police repression continues. Demonstrators faced daily violent repression as they protested. Read more > >
Inside the Mauna Kea TMT protests, one activist writes, “it took a crisis to bring Hawaiians back together”. Read more > >
Police in Moscow used violent force to stop an opposition protest on Saturday, arresting nearly 1,400 people in what’s been described as the largest mass arrest in Russia in a decade. Meanwhile, Alexei Navalny—one of Russia’s most prominent opposition figures—has been hospitalized after possibly being poisoned in jail. Read more > >
17-year-old Olga Misik becomes an iconic figure in the Russian anti-authoritarian protest movement, sitting in front of a row of notoriously brutal riot police reading the Russia constitution’s right to peaceful assembly. Read more > >
Tens of thousands of Colombian demonstrators took to the streets on Friday in more than 50 cities and towns across Colombia to protest a surge of lethal attacks on indigenous, Afro-Colombian and environmental leaders in recent years. Solidarity marches were held in dozens of cities around the world, from Mexico City to Athens. Read more > >
Repressed in Pakistan, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement marches on Geneva for rights, bringing together members of the Pashtun diaspora for the “Long March to Geneva”. Read more > >
Hong Kong protesters use lasers to disrupt police’s facial recognition technology. Read more > >
Gilets Jaunes gather for third Assembly of Assemblies in the French popular movement’s search for economic and political justice. Read more > >
What’s the beef? Beef Plan Movement rallies Irish farmers and consumers for 6+ days of protest over paying higher beef prices while farmers are getting short-changed. Read more > >
US airline catering workers came together for a picket line on July 23 at Washington National Airport targeting American Airlines, one of the many airlines profiting off their labor by contracting out their food and beverage needs to companies that pay workers poor wages. The protest is one of the dozens of actions workers have held in recent weeks as they move closer to a strike. Read more > >
US coal miners blocked the tracks of a coal train in Kentucky for a second straight day as part of a standoff between a coal company that filed for bankruptcy and left nearly 400 workers without work and pay for a month. Read more > >
Across many sports, more and more women athletes are turning to direct action to win gender equity. Read more > >
Living sustainably and protecting our planet are forms of “nonviolence toward the Earth”, which is inseparable from embodying nonviolence toward ourselves and all others. Here are recent stories of nonviolent climate action.
How Jamaican women are tackling the climate crisis. Read more > >
Over 30,000 Adivasis and Forest Dwellers take to the streets in nation-wide protests against eviction and amendments to the Indian Forest Act. Read more > >
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opens North Dakota’s first solar farm. Read more > >
French man is swimming through trash in the Pacific Gyre to raise awareness about plastic pollution. Read more > >
Following Berkeley’s fracked gas ban, more California cities prepare for a fossil free future. Read more > >
Ethiopia breaks India’s world tree planting record, planting more than 350 million trees in 12 hours. Read more > >
Greta Thunberg will sail across the Atlantic to get to climate conference. Read more > >
Boston rally calls for gas company to clean up gas leaks. Read more > >
Lone protester stops Mountain Valley Pipeline for a day. Read more > >
Climate activists set sights on ending fossil fuel exports in the Pacific Northwest United States, once and for all. Read more > >
As millions of humans become migrants and refugees from war and climate disasters, the struggle for migrant justice continues to grow.
Photo of Campoli grandmothers holding migrant children goes viral with the message: This Is The Italy I Want. Note: this article is in Italian, but can be translated in your browser. Read more > >
Indigenous Peoples of North America demand an end to migrant detention on stolen land. Read more > >
Environmental activism group Reclaim the Power is protesting outside the entrance of a bus company accused of assisting the government with deportations. Three protesters have suspended themselves on tripods, blocking access to facilities. Read more > >
Rolling picket line stops ICE deportations in Seattle, WA. Read more > >
40 children hold playdate protest at ICE headquarters to protest migrant child detention. Read more > >
27 people detained in North Carolina after surrounding and blocking an ICE van. Read more > >
National faith leaders begin Moral Mondays actions against federal immigration policies. Read more > >
What to do if ICE knocks on your door. Read more > >
Bostonians unfurl giant banner at baseball park in support of migrant rights and closing the detention centers. Read more > >
People of color are organizing to protest, stop, and intervene in systemic and structural racism, race-based hate crimes, and racial bias in all levels of society. Here are some of those stories.
Two weeks after 23-year-old Isak Aden was shot and killed by five police officers in Eagan, Minnesota, over 100 people took over Eagan’s City Council meeting seeking justice for Isak. Two of the officers involved in the shooting had murdered people before and were let off the hook. Read more > >
Protest for Isak Aden shuts down mall and highway. Read more > >
Vermont Black man interrupts court proceedings to protest the release of an armed, avowed white supremacist who was released by the courts. Objecting to racial disparities he had witnessed firsthand, the protester was removed from the court. Read more > >
#FirePantaleo demands justice for Eric Garner, strangled to death in 2014 with a chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo. The officer, found guilty of one of two counts, was put on suspension rather than fired. Read more > >
Nonviolence unleashes humanity’s amazing creativity. Here are a few stories that show how people used a creative approach to work for change.
2020 Tokyo Olympics medals are being made from recycled cell phones and electronics. Read more > >
A municipal garbage service in Kyrgyzstan found an interesting way to reduce litter: employ a social media savvy press secretary who blogged about what the department of public works does for the people and city. Read more > >
A stitch in time: how craftivists found their radical voice and protested Trump’s policies. Read more > >
In a joyful act of resistance, pink seesaws were installed through the slats in the US-Mexico border fence. Read more > >
Netflix-series “Orange is the New Black” turns its prison justice lens on ICE this season. Read more > >
Artist cages iconic Boston “Make Way For Ducklings” statue to protest child detention centers. The statue is based on a classic and massively popular children’s book about a family of ducks “migrating” across Boston. Read more > >
French climate activists marched into town halls and removed the president’s portraits to symbolically protest the “void in government on government policy on the climate emergency.” Read more > >
London’s Victoria and Albert Museum will host a show of Extinction Rebellion “artefacts” – signs, banners, and artful activism creations. Read more > >
In the field of nonviolence, people around the world are deepening their understanding of how nonviolence works to make change and wage peace.
The River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding and partners are launching a webinar series on “Neighborhood Justice” – a program that grows and adapts their peacebuilding and community justice work. Read more > >
Harvard College launches free online course on children’s human rights. Read more > >
The border between Armenia and Azerbaijan is experiencing a lull in violence . . . and some point to Armenia’s recent nonviolent revolution as part of the reason. Read more > >
“Communes” – aka Intentional Communities – are making a comeback for older citizens, lessening isolation and loneliness. Read more > >
Brightly Worker Co-op Franchise shows how worker-owned cooperatives can scale up. Read more > >
Here are a few actions and events requesting your participation.
#FreeJulianAssange August actions are being held globally on Aug 4, 18, 23, 24th. Read more > >
Why Buddhists should rise for Mauna Kea – and 8 ways to take action. (Hint, you can read this even if you’re not Buddhist.) Read more > >
US Department of Arts and Culture calls together artists, community leaders, and cultural creatives to work on the Green New Deal. Read more >>
Rising Tide calls for climate action. Read more >>
Campaign Nonviolence Week of Actions September 14-22, 2019, Everywhere. Host or join a march, rally, protest, or other event or action for a culture of peace and active nonviolence. Learn more >>
Sept 20-27th, join the Global Climate Strike. (It’s not just for the kids, any more. Get ready to go on strike.) Read more >>
Oct 5th is a Day of Action Against Domestic Violence. Hold or join a 2-min die-in protest. Learn more >>
