Londoners awoke on a lazy, snowy Sunday morning to images of protest flooding their television screens, including one moment when a protester was almost successful in dousing the Olympic flame as it was carried by British celebrity Konnie Huq:
Tag: protest
Mar 30 2008
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.
Mar 27 2008
An Inconvenient Protest, and More Details of Riots in Lhasa, Tibet
In the midst of China’s carefully stage-managed PR tour with select western journalists, a small group of Tibetan monks seizes the moment:
The outburst by a group of 30 monks in red robes came as the journalists, including an Associated Press reporter, were being shown around the Jokhang Temple – one of Tibet’s holiest shrines – by government handlers in Lhasa.
“Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!” yelled one young Buddhist monk, who started to cry.
snip
“They want us to crush the Dalai Lama and that is not right,” one monk said during the 15-minute outburst.
“This had nothing to do with the Dalai Lama,” said another.
Mar 25 2008
Dalai Lama Renews Calls For Nonviolence While Protests Continue
From The Hindu:
“I have always made it clear that the expression of deep emotion should be in control. If it is out of control, we have no option. If the violent demonstration will continue, I would resign,” he told reporters here.
Disturbed by violent protests by Tibetans in various places, he asked the demonstrators to refrain from doing any harm to the Chinese people.
“I have always respected the Chinese people… Chinese communism. Even most of the Tibetan protesters are ideologically Communists. I think inside or outside China, if the demonstrators utilise violent methods, I am totally against it,” the Dalai Lama further said.
Mar 24 2008
Updated – On Tibet, and the LA Riots
I have lived through one city-wide riot in my life: Los Angeles, 1992. In Hollywood it wasn’t “ground zero”, but you could see the rioters coming, block by block, up the long, straight road known as Normandie Ave.
Just as unpredictable as a wild fire caused by flinging a lit cigarette out of a car window, riots like this are nimble, incendiary events, fueled by the anger and frustration of a community that has simply had enough. Masses of people don’t take to the streets, destroying everything in their line of site, and senselessly looting stores like Fredericks of Hollywood just to get that last, remaining fuscia-colored sized 42DDD bra and matching leopard print thong, without some reason other than a hankering for cheesy women’s lingerie (and yes, plenty of these items ended up in tag sales countless weekends after the riots ended).
Something bigger is always at work…
Mar 23 2008
Iraq Moratorium #7: Berkeley, CA
Photos from IM Day in Berkeley. It was a warm sunny day – much in contrast with xofferson’s blizzard experience.
That’s dedication!
Mar 21 2008
Pelosi Speaks Out On Tibet; Class Conflict A Cause of Protest
Speaking in Dharamsala, seat of Tibet’s government-in-exile, Ms Pelosi said: “We call upon the international community to have an independent outside investigation on accusations made by the Chinese government that His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] was the instigator of violence in Tibet.”
She added: “The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world.
“If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China and the Chinese in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak out on human rights.”
Mar 20 2008
Couldn’t protest? Join me here anti war video
Cross posted at KOS
This was meant to be posted yesterday but unfortunataly Youtube was down for maintenance, so here it is a day late.
I couldn’t be in D.C. today, I imagine that was true for most of you. My solution was to put together a quickie anti-war video. Follow me below the fold for part what this war has meant. Feel free to add you own comments, this is a protest after all.
Mar 20 2008
Updated – Tibet: China Admits Protests Spreading After Footage Aired
…And Gordon Brown steps in to fill the Western void.
First, the footage. After this was aired on CTV in Canada and then picked up by other Western news outlets, China has formally admitted that the protests have spread outside Lhasa:
Mar 17 2008
UPDATED (3x): Police Conduct House-by-House Searches In Tibet As Protest Spreads
From today’s Wapo – I’ve highlighted a chilling part of their report:
Vowing a harsh crackdown, Chinese police conducted house-to-house searches in central Lhasa Monday and rounded up hundreds of Tibetans suspected of participating in a deadly outburst of anti-Chinese violence, exile groups and residents reported.
The large-scale arrests and official promises of tough reprisals suggested the Chinese government has decided to move decisively to crush the protests despite calls for restraint from abroad and warnings that heavy-handed repression could taint next summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
The Tibetan regional governor, Champa Phuntsok, said detainees who show remorse and inform on others who were part of the week-long unrest would be rewarded with better treatment. But Buddhist monks and other Tibetans who participated in Friday’s torching of Chinese-owned shops and widespread attacks on Han Chinese businessmen would be “dealt with harshly,” he told a news conference in Beijing.
Mar 17 2008
Updated – Protesters Dead in Tibet, Dalai Lama Calls for International Investigation
The city is in complete shutdown. There is no atmosphere whatsoever on the streets because there is a curfew and the streets are totally deserted.
This evening we have heard a few sporadic blasts once every few hours.
Right now, I’m looking at buildings that are burnt out. The city is absolutely burnt to cinders. It’s trashed.
snip
Our current hostel is in a safe area, in a kind of ‘green zone’ as people are calling it. The worst of the violence was in the centre and east of the city.
Some tourists who were in the east were forcibly removed from their hotels and hostels. Police turned up today and tried to forcibly remove all of us to a hotel further out west.
snip
The electricity in our hostel is out even though all the buildings nearby have electricity. You sense that it might be because they know tourists with cameras and email accounts are here and could contact the outside world.
From an eyewitness account in Lhasa: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi…