Lego figurines, Kinder surprises and other toys played the role of 'demonstrators'. Police in Siberian city ask prosecutors to investigate legality of protest involving display of toy figures holding miniature placards. "Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events – using toys with placards at mini-protests," Andrei Mulintsev, the city's deputy police chief, said at a press conference this week, according to local media. "In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event."
[more inside]
posted by KokuRyu
on Jan 26, 2012 -
24 comments
Yesterday, 1500 protesters denounced the Netanyahu government, carrying signs reading "Zionism is racism" and wearing yellow stars to emphasize comparison between the Israel and the Nazi state. “What’s happening is exactly like what happened in Germany,” said one man wearing a yellow star.
“It started with incitement and continued to different types of oppression. Is it insulting that we wear these stars? Absolutely, and it hurts people to see this, but this is how we feel at the moment, we feel we are being prevented from observing the Torah in the manner in which we wish.”
Wait,
what?
Yep -- the protesters aren't Arabs or latte-sipping Berkeley radicals, but ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, angry about recent TV news coverage of
incidents in which haredim threw rocks at handicapped Modern Orthodox children in Beit Shemesh who were using their wheelchairs on Shabbat. The angry crowd was also protesting the jailing of Shmuel Weisfish, a member of the "Modesty Squad" who recently started a 2-year prison sentence for
beating and threatening employees of a computer store for selling MP4 players which might expose customers to inappropriate content. As always,
Failed Messiah is your (admittedly one-sided) source for bad behavior among the frum.
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posted by escabeche
on Jan 1, 2012 -
75 comments
As the protests begun by
Occupy Wall Street begin to spread and gain a foothold in the public consciousness, many question the movement's apparent unwillingness to focus its outrage into a coherent platform of demands. Meanwhile, others question whether the demographics of the protesters themselves are truly representative of the so-called
99 percent (previously). Why the lack of focus, and what is to be done to keep the movement growing and moving forward?
[more inside]
posted by Scientist
on Oct 9, 2011 -
545 comments
God Hates Signs: Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church band-of-bigots showed up in San Francisco the other day to protest at the headquarters of Twitter. (Why? "Twitter should be used to tell the punks of doomed America that God hates you!"). They were
met by counter-protesters, well versed in the dark arts of snark. Hilarity ensues.
posted by fourcheesemac
on Jan 31, 2010 -
123 comments
June has been a good month for political upheaval and mass protest.
Peru (
update),
China, and
Iran were discussed here previously. But how many of the following were you aware of:
Canada,
Thailand,
Honduras,
Venezuela,
Bangladesh,
Kashmir,
Pakistan, and
India? The latter four reflect a quite serious electricity shortage throughout the Indian subcontinent, during a record-breaking heat wave that has
caused over 100 deaths. But don't worry, not everyone is dealing with life-threatening problems. In
Israel 30,000 turned out to protest a parking lot. Meanwhile,
Indymedia continues to cover all the bourgeois first-world protests you've never really wanted to know about.
posted by shii
on Jun 30, 2009 -
8 comments
Protests have rocked Reykjavík since Tuesday:
Envious of Obama, Icelanders hurl yogurt and stage riots for new leaders,
Global financial crisis overwhelms tiny Iceland,
Flickr set of pictures of Tuesday's protest in front of parliament (complete with
pepper spray on camera lens),
AFP photos from Tuesday's protest, video from protests
1,
2,
3 &
4,
Icelandic protesters pelt PM's car (includes short video).
New age of rebellion and riot stalks Europe,
The Icelandic "Facebook Revolution", Iceland is Burning
part 1 &
part 2 and
Reuters factbox on Iceland and its economic crisis.
posted by Kattullus
on Jan 22, 2009 -
45 comments
Since at least February, the St, Paul police and the FBI have been trying to
infiltrate protest groups planning to demonstrate and the RNC. Apparently they were successful because they have begun
arresting protestors before the convention actually starts. They even went after the press. I have to wonder if any
MeFites were busted?
posted by Xurando
on Aug 30, 2008 -
57 comments
The fight to
free Burma has been making noise lately.
Protests are picking up in
Burma, international activists are putting
pressure on the UN to step in, and
Jim Carrey has joined as
yet another celebrity to try to bring public attention to the effort. Burma is an amazing place and the Burmese people are some of the warmest, most hospitable, beautiful, and silliest people I have ever encountered. The people of Burma deserve a better world. Is the tide shifting? Will this be a turning point for Burma? I hope so.
posted by crawfishpopsicle
on Aug 29, 2007 -
29 comments
Youtube user davebones goes to London demos, protests and gatherings.
His videos demonstrate the complexity of issues, calling into question the credibility of television news which tends to portray the same events in black and white terms. While his
blog sets a clear agenda, his commentary-free videos are accessible to people regardless of their viewpoint.
posted by nthdegx
on Mar 31, 2007 -
2 comments
Peekskill Riots The Peekskill Riots were anti-communist riots (with anti-black undertones) in the city of Peekskill, New York in 1949.
The catalyst for the rioting was an announced concert by black singer Paul Robeson, who was well known for his strong stand on civil rights and his communist sympathies. The concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27. Before Robeson arrived, a mob of locals attacked concertgoers...many names you might recall were involved in this blot on American history, and
Howard
Fast, the novelist, recalled his involvement in his book Being Red (1990), Howard Fast's memoir of his life on the left. Additionally,
some later writers recalled the involvement of relatives and/or friends..
Pete Seeger, present during the riot, wrote a song about it Later, gathering some of the rocks tossed at the lefty participants of the concert, he used the "ammo" to build a chimney on the cabin where he lived. The Lefty -sympathizing wonderful actress
Judy Holliday was summoned before the congressional committe in charge of rooting out communists during the anti-communist days, and gave a lengthy testimony about herself and many others.
And though the riots were sparked in part by local newspapers, editoriallizing against the "visitors" to their serene area, they and the good citizens of Peekskill quickly tried to ignore, forget, or bury lthe disgraceful riots. But
the memory lives on for some, and this sad event remains memorialized, a reminder perhaps of what hate, aggression, and just plain nastiness can bring about.
posted by Postroad
on Oct 4, 2006 -
30 comments
And you reckon the USA PATRIOT Act is bad? An American peace activist, Scott Parkin (who I’ve never heard of before but wrote
this article) has been
arrested detained in Australia and will soon be repatriated to the USA, with little or no explanation. He's spent three months in Aus giving workshops and hugs and undertaking protest actions (with street theatre!) Apparently he may be a “security risk” or may be an embarrassment to the US government - and we couldn’t have that in a proud and independent country like Australia, could we? Of course, while in detention, he gets charged $130 a day. Still, I guess it's better than
'rendition'.
posted by wilful
on Sep 11, 2005 -
15 comments
A Maoist take on Cindy Sheehan. To quote the Revolutionary Worker quoting Ms. Sheehan: "I want him (Bush) to tell me 'just what was the noble cause Casey died for'?", she declared. "Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East.
"We're not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT ACT. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism! There, I used the 'I' word--imperialism, and now I'm going to use another 'I' word -- impeachment--because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."
(Meanwhile,
on the spot, Bush's neighbor is
becoming irate; more on that via
Yahoo News.)
posted by davy
on Aug 15, 2005 -
69 comments
Inaugural protest pics (series begins at that photo):
Kevin Smith attended the inaugural protests and took some (IMHO) really good photographs that you weren't likely to see on any of the mainstream media outlets. Outside of the subject matter itself, I enjoy his photos and wanted to share these given this sets timeliness. In particular, I like
this one and love
this one. Non protest pics can be find by using the first link and then navigating back through his archives.
posted by jperkins
on Jan 20, 2005 -
82 comments
