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Indigenous leaders saved Guatemala’s fragile democracy

Waging Nonviolence -

This article Indigenous leaders saved Guatemala’s fragile democracy was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Guatemala City’s Central Plaza was a sea of cautious optimism on Jan. 14. But just up the street, a march organized by Indigenous leaders set out to walk towards the plaza as part of the commemoration of the inauguration of Bernardo Arévalo as the country’s next president. 

The march marked the culmination of the Indigenous-led movement to defend Guatemala’s fragile democracy against attempts launched by corrupt politicians to block the ascension of Arévalo to the presidency of the Central American country. He was an academic and diplomat who became a congressional representative and then an anti-corruption presidential candidate in 2023. 

Arévalo was inaugurated as the next president of Guatemala just after midnight on Jan. 15, after nearly 10 hours of delays by conservatives in Guatemala’s Congress. His inauguration followed 106 days of protests led by Mayan, Xinka and Garifuna authorities in defense of Guatemala’s democracy. 

“It’s an expression of triumph, of reaching our goal,” said Alida Vicenete, who participated in the protest and is a lawyer and member of the Mayan Poqomam Ancestral Authorities of Palin, Escuintla. “I think that many of us even celebrated it more than the officials themselves. Our dedication was total — day and night, rain and hunger — and after reaching the goal, it is a feeling of success.” 

She added, “Honestly, if there had not been an uprising of the people, Arévalo would not have taken office.” 

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Others involved in the mobilization to protect democracy expressed the same. 

“We feel very satisfied with the work we did,” said Jorge González, a member of the Mayan Achi Ancestral Authorities of Rabinal, Baja Verapáz. “Because really the work had the greatest fruit, that Arévalo was able to take office.” 

In his first act as president, Arévalo visited an encampment, set up outside of the attorney general’s office in early October, to address the Indigenous leaders. He recognized their critical role in the defense of democracy, and thanked them for their efforts.

“There were 106 days of resistance, of dignity, of gallantry,” Arévalo told the Indigenous leaders around 2 a.m. on Jan. 15. “And today they are ending with a democratic government that you have managed to rescue.”

In his statement he also called on the Indigenous leaders and other Guatemalan citizens to continue to be vigilant.

Previous Coverage
  • How Guatemalans are mobilizing to defend their fragile democracy
  • Leaders from Indigenous communities across the country mobilized to defend the fragile democratic order as attempts to undermine the results of the 2023 elections increased, in what Arévalo referred to as an attempted electoral coup. In October the protests exploded, with tens of thousands of people from across the social stratum — including students, market workers and poor neighborhoods — joining the Indigenous leaders in the defense of democracy. They demanded the resignation of Attorney General María Consuelo Porras for her part in the attacks on President-elect Arévalo and voiced their direct support for the democratic process to a national audience. 

    “This is something that exploded,” González said. “It is an example of the great work of organizing at the national level that all these towns went out to protest the same day, and then from there the other towns joined in. Then it reached a point where everyone went out to the capital city where they never go out to demonstrate.” 

    Attempts to derail Arévalo

    The lead up to the June 25 general elections was marked by concern, as popular candidates were arbitrarily barred from running for office by the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal, including presidential candidate Thelma Cabrera, who is Mam Mayan, of the Movement for the Liberation of the Peoples party. 

    The prohibition of candidates who were considered to be threats to the status quo led many to believe that the elections were being cleared for far-right candidates, such as Zury Rios, the daughter of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, or center-right ex-diplomat Edmund Mulet. 

    But to the surprise of everyone the results of the general elections would launch Arévalo into a run-off against the rightward shifting Sandra Torres, an increasingly conservative businesswoman and former first lady who ran for the presidency in the previous two elections. While Arévalo was polling in eighth place before the June 25 vote, widespread exhaustion with corruption and the status quo catapulted the progressive candidate into the run-off. 

    However, the challenges began just as the surprise in the elections set in.

    Between July 12 and Jan. 14 the public prosecutor’s office launched at least five different attempts to intervene in the electoral process. These attempts include judges issuing orders to suspend Arévalo’s Movimiento Semilla party in July; raids of Movimiento Semilla’s offices and the offices of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, seizing documents and official vote tallies; requesting that the Supreme Court strip Arévalo, Vice President Karin Herrara, and other party members of their immunity over allegations of stoking student movement protests; and the far-right casting doubts of electoral fraud. 

    Indigenous communities mobilize to defend democracy

    Indigenous Ancestral Authorities were at the forefront of the defense of democracy from the beginning of the attacks against the historic victory, issuing legal challenges and supporting the democratic order. Indigenous leaders contributed to marches through July, but there were increasingly arbitrary attacks in August and September by prosecutors seeking to derail the transition of power, leading to threats of massive nationwide protests. 

    “A legal strategy [was pursued] to stop the coup,” Vicente said. “However, none of that worked for us. There was no reason why these people would abide by the popular and sovereign will of the people.”

    Mayan spiritual guides hold a ceremony outside the offices of the public prosecutor’s office demanding the resignation of the attorney general on Oct. 11. (WNV/Jeff Abbott)

    In response to this, on Sept. 5, a group of Ancestral Authorities and spiritual guides that represent smaller communities, including Vicente, began a series of actions known as Xik’a’y in the Mayan K’iche languages, in order to publicly punish those corrupt officials who had attacked the democratic process. Vicente and the other authorities and spiritual guides traveled between the buildings of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the presidential palace and congress carrying a vinyl sign with the images of the officials involved in the coup, hitting them with tree branches. 

    They continued to carry out these ceremonies every 13 days. 

    Other calls for mobilizations to defend democracy moved through social media and networks of Ancestral Authorities across the country, from the leaderships of the larger communal government of the 48 Cantones of Totonicapán and Indigenous Municipality of Sololá. These calls culminated in the arrival of Indigenous authorities in Guatemala City and the blocking of the Inter-American highway passing through Totonicapán on Oct. 2.

    Propagated by social media, roadblocks quickly spread across the country, and lasted for nearly two weeks. Some roadblocks faced violence by criminal groups, and one person was killed by a group associated with a local mayor. The Minister of the Interior resigned because he refused to use force against protesters. Within a week there were over 150 roadblocks across the country and in neighborhoods across Guatemala City before subsiding to focus on the mobilizations outside the public prosecutor’s office.

    The encampment outside the public prosecutor’s office brought in support from across the city. For 106 days it grew as more people arrived to support the efforts of the Ancestral Authorities, who held Mayan ceremonies just outside the gate of the building.

    Delegations from Indigenous communities arrived daily, so did donations of food and water. Each day there were people walking around donating fruit or fresh cooked meals. Medics set up medical centers to provide care and musicians held concerts to entertain those who were demanding the resignation of the attorney general and demanding respect for the results of the 2023 elections.

    Ancestral Authorities raised their staffs — symbols of their authority in their communities — while singing Guatemala’s National Anthem during protests outside the main offices of the country’s embattled attorney general on Oct. 11. (WNV/Jeff Abbott)

    González says that these protests benefited from social media such as TikTok, Facebook and X, as well as reports from independent media that circulated on these social media.

    “The digital platforms that exist today had a lot of influence,” he said. “They showed people what was being done and [allowed] for each person to join the struggle.” 

    These efforts were further supported by actions by the international community, with the U.S. and the European Union approving visa restrictions and sanctions against those involved in undermining the democratic order. 

    On Jan. 17, just days after the transition, the U.S. Department of State announced that they had stripped outgoing Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei of his visa over acts of corruption. Giammattei had refused to be in attendance to hand over power to Arévalo on Jan. 15. 

    What lies ahead

    The defense of Guatemala’s democracy does not end with Arévalo taking office. 

    The attacks on democracy continue, with Attorney Gen. Porras and the other members of the corrupt status quo remaining in positions of power. But those who defended democracy over the last six months will be poised to defend what space has been won. 

    Rather, this marks the beginning of a larger movement. For Indigenous leaders, there is hope that Arévalo will be more inclusive and combat the systemic racism against Indigenous peoples and their Indigenous forms of local governance. 

    “Right now the first phase ends, but the second phase begins,” said González ahead of the march on Jan. 14, explaining that they must accompany the new government while at the same time analyzing the new administration’s policies. He emphasized “We hope it will lead to combating discrimination and racism.”

    It will be a challenge to combat those structures, as Guatemala has seen these systems embedded in the state. 

    “We are going to have to work to ensure that the state of Guatemala responds to the priorities and needs of the people,” Vicente said. “But that is not easy. This state has been designed with a racist colonial view and modifying all this is something that involves rooting out and transforming the structure at the service of the mafias.” 

    But there is a sense of hope that Arévalo can begin the change, as he has sought to uphold and respect Indigenous communities. He first did so by recognizing their key leadership in the defense of democracy, and then he became the first Guatemalan president to participate in a public Mayan ceremony following his inauguration.  

    In the end, the defense of Guatemala’s fragile democracy is the result of “people’s desire for change,” Vicente said. 

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    As the new government begins, Indigenous leaders like González and Vicente are still going to remain active in the defense of democracy and continuing to demand the resignation of Attorney General Porras. For González, recuperating the state institutions is the first step in fighting the systemic corruption that has left so many Indigenous communities in a state of abandonment. 

    “First we need to recover the institution of justice because from there it covers the entire fight against corruption,” González said. “If there is no independent justice system there is no fight against corruption and impunity, nor are there improvements regarding the rights of Indigenous peoples.” 

    He added, “We are going to achieve this together.”

    This article Indigenous leaders saved Guatemala’s fragile democracy was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Protest in Britain has long been repressed | Letter

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Natasha Walter disputes a claim that that it has been ‘almost unheard of’ for peaceful protesters to be imprisoned since the 1930s

    In your editorial on the right to protest (23 January), you rightly note that the freedom to dissent is currently under threat in Britain. However, you are wrong to say that it has been “almost unheard of” for peaceful protesters to be imprisoned since the 1930s.

    For instance, 22 people spent Christmas in prison in 1958 after staging a peaceful anti-war protest at the North Pickenham missile base. In September 1961, 32 people – including Bertrand Russell – were sentenced, most to a month in prison, for organising peaceful protests against nuclear weapons in London and Scotland.

    Continue reading...

    Invasion Day 2024: a guide to protest marches and events across Australia on 26 January

    The Guardian | Protest -

    People will be gathering at smoking ceremonies, concerts and protests in solidarity with First Nations people. Find a rally or event near you

    Rallies, smoking ceremonies and concerts are among dozens of events planned across the country for 26 January calling for Australia Day to be abolished or celebrated on a different date, celebrating First Nations survival and reflecting on reconciliation.

    After a failed referendum to give Indigenous Australians a voice to parliament that left many feeling bruised and rejected, and months of protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and expressing solidarity with dispossessed people everywhere, the themes of this year’s events take in both Indigenous and Palestinian dispossession.

    Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

    Continue reading...

    French farming protests: mother and daughter die after car hits road blockade

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Three people questioned on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter after collision in Pamiers, south of Toulouse

    A woman and her teenage daughter have died in southern France after a car hit a roadblock where they were standing. The blockade had been set up by farmers taking part in growing anti-government protests.

    The 35-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter were killed at 5.45am when a car went through a warning barrage and collided at speed with bales of straw piled up to stop traffic in Pamiers, Ariège, to the south of Toulouse.

    Continue reading...

    The Guardian view on environmental protest: dissent is vital to protect democracy | Editorial

    The Guardian | Protest -

    The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders is right to warn that a pillar of democracy is under threat in Britain

    In the last few years, environmental protesters in Britain have pulled off some striking – and strikingly irritating – acts of civil disobedience. These have caused indignation and aggravation, especially by disrupting people’s lives. But their actions grabbed our attention. The purpose is to denounce an injustice by intentionally breaking the law in a non-violent way. The justification is a climate emergency that threatens humanity’s future.

    There is nothing new in this: the suffragettes smashed windows and set buildings alight. Today we honour their cause and courage. Yet the government appears intent on criminalising protest, a move rightly criticised by Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders. He warns that a pillar of democracy – the right to protest – is under threat in Britain. The demonisation of environmental activists and the erosion of civil rights without adequate scrutiny from lawmakers, or protection by the courts, are undermining the UK’s guarantees of freedom and the rule of law. It had been almost unheard of since the 1930s for demonstrators to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK. Last month, he said, a climate protester got six months behind bars for slow-walking on a road.

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    NYPD investigating alleged chemical attack on pro-Palestine Columbia University students

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Students protesting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza reported being sprayed with a chemical that caused nausea and headaches

    The New York police department announced on Tuesday it was investigating an alleged chemical attack on students protesting in support of Palestine on Columbia University’s campus last week.

    Students protesting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – which has killed more than 25,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials – reported being sprayed with a chemical that left many with symptoms such as nausea, abdominal pain, headaches and irritated eyes.

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    Five examples of the UK’s crackdown on climate protesters

    The Guardian | Protest -

    As UN expert says UK’s actions are chilling and regressive, we look at some of the cases

    The UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders Michel Forst has said the UK’s crackdown on climate protesters is chilling, regressive and a restriction on fundamental freedoms.

    We look at some of the cases:

    Defendants on trial for peaceful protest were forbidden from mentioning the words climate change, fuel poverty or the civil rights movement when they were on trial for public nuisance. Several people, including a social worker, David Nixon, and the Dorset councillor Giovanna Lewis, were jailed for contempt of court when they defied the restrictions to explain their motivations for taking action to the jury.

    A retired social worker, Trudi Warner, is being prosecuted for contempt of court for holding up a sign outside a court defending the right of juries to decide a case on their conscience. The decision to prosecute was made by the then solicitor general Michael Tomlinson KC, a minister and the Conservative MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole.

    Stephen Gingell, 57, was jailed for six months after pleading guilty to taking part in a peaceful slow march protest on a London road. The sentence is thought to be the first jailing under the Public Order Act 2023, which includes an offence of “interference with key national infrastructure”. Gingell is appealing.

    Civil injunctions have been issued to hundreds of individuals. National Highways has injunctions covering 4,300 miles of motorways and major A roads. Anyone who breaches this injunction faces imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. Any corporation can apply for a civil injunction, and individuals can be punished without a trial.

    Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland made history as the peaceful protesters who have received the longest jail sentences in modern history in the UK when they were sentenced to two years and seven months, and three years respectively for public nuisance. They climbed the Queen Elizabeth II bridge over the Dartford Crossing and unveiled a banner for Just Stop Oil in 2022. The longest jail term issued to the suffragettes was three months.

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    UN expert condemns UK crackdown on environmental protest

    The Guardian | Protest -

    UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders says he is seriously concerned about ‘regressive new laws’

    A severe crackdown on environmental protest in Britain with “draconian” new laws, excessive restrictions on courtroom evidence and the use of civil injunctions is having a chilling impact on fundamental freedoms, the United Nations special rapporteur has said.

    As the world faces a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, environmental protesters were acting for the “benefit of us all” and must be protected, Michel Forst, the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, said on Tuesday.

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    How best to avert nuclear Armageddon | Letters

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Sir Julian Lewis writes that a multilateral disarmament deal is the only answer, while Tom Unterrainer says politicians must be held accountable on public safety and security

    Reviewing Jane Corbin’s BBC2 documentary (Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We? review – TV that leaves you asking ‘Is that it?’, 18 January), Lucy Mangan praises its historical sweep, but detects insufficient rigour in some of its analysis.

    She is right: while certainly highlighting the role of Russia, in particular, in stoking nuclear confrontation, the programme closes with the bizarre claim that “after a long battle [the Greenham women] succeeded” in forcing the government to rescind the decision to station Nato intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) here. This is at least the second time that the BBC has promoted such disinformation.

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    ‘War hurts our hearts’: silent multi-faith peace walk held in London

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Hundreds follow route to Parliament Square in solidarity with people affected by Israel-Gaza conflict

    Without flags, placards or chants, hundreds of people joined a silent multi-faith peace walk in London on Sunday in response to the Israel-Gaza war.

    Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists walked side-by-side from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square and back in solidarity with people affected by the conflict in the Middle East.

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    Thousands brave Sydney heatwave conditions to demand ceasefire in Gaza in week 15 of protests

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Activists take aim at Penny Wong and Anthony Albanese and say they will ‘continue to chant for a liberated Palestine’

    Widad Waqqad, 20, has been attending demonstrations for Palestine since she was a young girl. This Sunday was no different as she joined hundreds of others in Sydney’s Hyde Park despite the 34C heat.

    Sunday marked the 15th pro-Palestine rally in Sydney since 7 October, with thousands gathering in demonstrations across the country demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. When Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, it killed about 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. Since then, more than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of children, in Israeli bombardments.

    Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

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    Amsterdam: Mokum Kraakt squats former windows in the Red Light District

    House Occupation News -

    Mokum Kraakt squats on the Dollebegijnensteeg in the Red Light District in solidarity with the sex workers and against the arrival of the erotic center. During a protest against the planned erotic centre, squatting collective Mokum Kraakt announced it has squatted a number of former sex work windows in De Wallen, Amsterdam’s red light district.

    The squatters say the windows were squatted in solidarity with sex workers who fight against plans for an erotic centre on the outskirts of the city. Sex work has been a part of De Wallen for over 400 years and sex workers have clearly and repeatedly said they want to stay in the city centre. The people living close to the location of the prospective location of the erotic centre are also against it. And still, mayor Halsema is pushing through her plans.

    According Mokum Kraakt, the planned erotic centre is in fact an erotic prison, in which the state has total control over who can and can’t sell, or buy, sex. In this, we see only the latest state attempt to control sex workers and restrict people’s right to sex and sexuality. Also, closing windows in De Wallen would force a part of the sex workers active there now into illegality, where exploitation and coercion are much more prevalent.

    Although the municipality presents closing windows as a way to reduce mass tourism in the area, research shows that limiting sex work would barely have an impact on the number of tourists that flock to De Wallen. We previously occupied an empty hotel close to Leidse square to protest Amsterdam’s tourism policy and we say the municipality itself is to blame for out-of-control tourism. The municipality was never against mass tourism, and isn’t now. The real aim is for a different kind of tourist to come to the city, a richer kind. In the meantime, the city becomes more and more unaffordable for its citizens, sex workers are stigmatised and pushed away, and the large numbers of tourists stay as they are.

    The former sex work windows have been vacant for nearly two years, and are owned by Stadsgoed NV, the real estate company responsible for introducing the maligned waffle shops to Amsterdam’s city centre. In the squat, we will create a meeting place for sex workers to organise. We demand more sex and less Halsema. We are against pushing out sex workers and against a prudish city. What’s fundamental for us is that inhabitants and workers decide what the neighbourhood looks like, instead of the municipality changing things unrecognisably from the top down. If it’s up to the mayor, De Wallen will become a sanitised shopping mall for the moneyed class. We don’t accept that and that’s why we will sabotage every step that’s taken towards the erotic centre.

    Mokum Kraakt
    Amsterdam, Netherlands
    mokumkraakt [at] riseup [dot] net
    https://squ.at/r/8g9h
    https://mokumkraakt.nl/

    Some squats in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL/squated/squat
    Groups (social center, collective, squat) in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/groups/country/NL
    Events in the Netherlands: https://radar.squat.net/en/events/country/NL

    How women in Pakistan are fighting enforced disappearances and killings

    Waging Nonviolence -

    This article How women in Pakistan are fighting enforced disappearances and killings was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    As hundreds took to the streets of Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, on Jan. 12, a sea of mostly female protesters continued screaming “Balochistan wants justice,” even as they were met with a heavy police presence

    Meanwhile, back in the restive but beautiful southwestern province of Balochistan, thousands more swarmed the streets. Their protest against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in their province was just the latest mobilization for a movement that has grown exponentially over the past month.

    Following the November killing of 22-year-old Balaach Mola Baksh, hundreds of women — along with some of their children — began a roughly thousand-mile march from his hometown of Turbat to Islamabad on Dec. 6. After arriving in Pakistan’s capital city, they set up camp in front of the National Press Club.

    For nearly a month, these protesters — comprised of some nearly 300 families whose loved ones are victims of enforced disappearances and killings — have been living in tents made of cloth and tarpaulin, even as temperatures approach freezing. With more protests cropping up around the country and human rights activists around the world starting to take notice, this women-led movement is showing its power in the face of staunch government repression.

    ‘They killed him’

    “When I went to see his body the agency people told me to bury him, but I said ‘No, I want justice,’” explained Najma Baloch by phone from the sit-in protest in Islamabad. “This is not just my brother, this is the brother of all Baloch people.”

    Balaach was taken by men in civilian clothes from his home in Turbat at 1 a.m. on Oct. 30. The family believes these men — who arrived in a convoy of eight cars — were from Pakistan’s Counter Terrorism Department, or CTD. 

    “When he returned home from work that evening we never could have imagined we would lose him a few hours later,” Najma said about her brother, who worked as an embroiderer in a handicraft shop. 

    “My mother said the tyrants took him,” Najma continued. But when they approached the police, they were told Balaach was not in their custody. “I said ‘Then where is he? Did the earth eat him up, or did the sky swallow him?’”

    It wasn’t until nearly a month later, on Nov. 21, that Balaach appeared in court, where he was remanded to CTD custody for 10 days. 

    “When we saw him in court my mother and I hugged him,” Najma said. “We were so so happy for my mother it was like he was born again. Two days later they killed him.” 

    On Nov. 24, CTD issued a statement saying that Balaach had admitted to being involved in a “terrorist operation,” providing them with information that led CTD to his associates’ hideout. When they arrived, according to the statement, an “exchange of fire” took place and four dead bodies were recovered, one of which was Balaach. 

    “They said he died in an ambush, but we saw him in court — so how could he die in an encounter? It was a fake encounter … they killed him,” Najma said. “I am devastated beyond measure.” 

    Najma described Balaach as loving brother and son. “He always took care of our mother. He was still so young, and he was not involved in whatever they are saying. He was never involved with anyone bad, he was completely innocent.”

    While the CTD denies allegations of kidnapping and murder, it also insists Balaach was only arrested on Nov. 20 — the day before he was presented in court — not on Oct. 29, when he was taken from his home. For activists, this is only further evidence that Balaach became one of thousands in Balochistan to suffer an enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killing. 

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    When Najma’s family received Balaach’s dead body they refused to bury him for seven days, sitting in protest outside their home with his body. People all across Turbat joined the protest, and thus began the wave of protest Pakistan is now witnessing. 

    Hundreds of women like Najma are turning out to demand the return of their loved ones who have been forcibly disappeared for years — some for over a decade — and taken from their homes in the same way as Balaach. These women have continued to protest despite stringent opposition by police forces. 

    At the Jan. 12 gathering in Karachi, the police issued an incident report that accused protesters of rioting, causing public nuisance, unlawful assembly and inciting disharmony. If the protesters are charged with these offenses, they face a prison term of up to two years, or fines, or both. 

    Despite the intimidation, protesters remained until after dark, turning on their phone flashlights while chanting “We stand with Mahrang Baloch” — referring to one of the leaders of the movement against enforced disappearances. She was just 10 years old when her father was first taken by security forces in 2006. He was released three years later, only to be abducted again in seven months. Two years later his mutilated body was found. 

    While her face has become synonymous with the movement, Mahrang’s story is not unique. The Voice for Missing Baloch Persons says it has registered 8,000 cases of enforced disappearances since 2013 in accordance with the U.N.-advised method for recording such incidents. 

    “Enforced disappearances are used as a terror tool to intimidate common people,” Mahrang said, “to squash their political movements, to exploit the resources in Balochistan and to take Balochistan under Pakistani control in the manner of colonial rule.”

    Protesters in Gwadar show support for the #MarchAgainstBalochGenocide. (Twitter/@BalochYakjehtiC) How Balochistan got here

    Balochistan was annexed by Pakistan in 1948, giving the country one of its largest reserves of natural gas. In recent years, its Gwadar Port, situated on the Arabian Sea, has become a crucial link in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor — allowing Pakistan to expand its trade corridors and China to bypass the U.S.-patrolled Malacca Strait and access the Middle East.

    Despite Balochistan’s importance to Pakistan, many there say the territory should never have been annexed. Some separatist groups — the Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, and Baloch Liberation Front, of BLF — continue to fight for this cause. 

    According to veteran Baloch journalist and political analyst Malik Siraj Akbar, the government in Pakistan has always been afraid that Balochistan would become another Bangladesh, which was formerly East Pakistan and became its own country in 1971, following a bloody war of liberation. Akbar believes that it is this fear — the need to suppress any dissent and maintain control of Balochistan’s natural resources — that explains the state’s repressive policies. 

    “The military in Pakistan is the de facto powerhouse,” he said. “It controls everything,” especially since 9/11, when Pakistan received a lot of anti-terror funding, which allowed for the modernization of the military and keeping Balochistan “in check.” 

    In 2006 Pakistan’s security forces killed Akbar Bugti — a former chief minister and popular separatist leader of Balochistan. This is an event that Akbar describes as Balochistan’s 9/11. “It changed everything,” Akbar said. “When Bugti died people in Balochistan began wondering what would happen to them if someone like Bugti, a former chief minister, could be killed.” Following his death, separatist groups in Balochistan retaliated by attacking Pakistan’s infrastructure, and the Pakistani military responded by carrying out more enforced disappearances. 

    “This began the policy known as the ‘kill and dump policy’” Akbar explained, referring to the kind of disappearances and killings that Balaach and hundreds of others have suffered. Pakistan’s official position, however, is that this is simply a part of its crackdown on anti-state actors. Even current caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar — who is from Balochistan — has spoken out against the recent protests, calling the women and their families “fake heroes of human rights” and telling them to “go and join the BLF or BLA so the state knows where you stand.”

    In just the last week, Balochistan has found itself in the crosshairs of air attacks between Iran and Pakistan. Amid the exchange, Iran launched what it called “preventative action” against the Sunni Muslim militant group Jaish al-Adl, while Pakistan struck alleged hideouts used by the BLF and BLA. All three targeted groups are ethnically Baloch, but — according to protesters — it was civilians, not terrorists, who were killed in the attacks.

    As protest leader Sammi Deen Baloch noted, “The Baloch people are always the ones caught in the middle, it is their lives which are lost.”

    #IStandWithBalochMarch supporters (Twitter/@BalochYakjehtiC) A fight for generations

    Like Mahrang, Sammi Deen — the general secretary of Voice for Missing Baloch Persons — also got involved in the movement as a result of her father being abducted. She has been marching to bring him home since 2009, when she was 10 years old. 

    “This is the same movement that has been going on for decades,” Sammi Deen explained. “It hasn’t just erupted suddenly.”

    In 2010, she visited the capital city of Islamabad for the first time, participating in a march accompanied by seven other families whose loved ones were forcibly disappeared. They returned in 2011 with a few more families. Then, in 2013, they did a “long march” from the city of Quetta in Balochistan to Islamabad, traveling on foot for three months and 18 days. 

    As a result of consistent protests over the years, 300 families — according to Sammi Deen — now feel empowered to speak up for their loved ones. “In 2013 not many people were aware of the forcibly disappeared persons in Balochistan,” she explained. “But today we have a big tool in social media, which we can use to disseminate our voices to people all over the country and around the world.”

    Both Mahrang and Sammi Deen agree that social media has been a big part of their activism. From the organized use of hashtags like #MarchAgainstBalochGenocide and #IStandWithBalochMarch to daily updates from the protest site, sharing their voices online has become a crucial way for the protesters to amass support across Pakistan. 

    “Traditional media channels don’t cover this,” Mahrang said, “so there is no way for people to know … but now common people in Pakistan are being forced to look at the role they play in the genocide of the Baloch people.” 

    For Mahrang and all the families protesting, this very much is a genocide — a targeted destruction of the Baloch people and their identity that has been taking place over decades. However, at a Jan. 1 press conference, Interim Prime Minister Kakar described “his fight” as not against any particular race or caste but against the various anti-state organizations in Balochistan. 

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    Donate Women take charge

    Apart from social media, another unique characteristic of this movement against enforced disappearances is that it is being led by women like Mahrang and Sammi Deen. 

    “This movement is a culmination of two decades of women’s suffering, and they are the ones now leading it,” Mahrang said. “There are mothers, sisters, grandmothers, half-widows … and this shows people that we aren’t agents of any organization but simply common people of Balochistan bringing forward our pain and oppression.”

    Another reason women have taken the lead, according to Sammi Deen, is to protect their male supporters and family members. “In Balochistan men are not safe in any way, whether it is activism or if they are just going to the market,” she said. “We never know if they will return home alive and safe.”

    That being said, the women themselves have been far from safe when it comes to police crackdowns. On the evening of Dec. 20, when the march reached the outskirts of Islamabad, they found their entry blocked by police forces. 

    A petition filed on Jan. 3 by Sammi Deen to the high court in Islamabad described the interaction, saying “Police baton-charged the protesters and used water cannons against these marchers and their supporters.” Meanwhile, in his press conference, Kakar described the use of water canons as “standard practice of law enforcement across the world.” 

    Mahrang and 52 other women and children protesters were detained for over 24 hours and only released after the high court ordered it. Another 290 students, women and children were later detained for five days before being released. According to the petition, “the Baloch women and children were brutalized by the Islamabad police,” and an attempt was made to force them onto buses and send them back to Quetta in Balochistan. The Islamabad police rejected these claims on the social media platform X, saying there was “no ill-treatment of women or children.”

    Once the protesters were at the sit-in at the National Press Club in Islamabad on Dec. 23, families of missing persons were threatened with arrests if they did not vacate the protest site, and the police repeatedly blocked the entry of food and blankets, which are essential in the Pakistani winter. They were also targeted by masked men in plain clothes, who stole their speaker while pointing loaded guns — all in the presence of the police and multiple surveillance cameras.

    With surveillance cameras present nearly everywhere around the sit-in, the police — according to Mahrang — are clearly trying to intimidate the mostly female group of protesters. For their parts, Mahrang has been accused of sedition and Sammi Deen has been the target of a “vile and dirty propaganda campaign” using false photos depicting her with militant groups with whom she has no connection. This incident forced Sammi Deen to take off her niqab (the face covering worn by some Muslim women) which she had previously always worn in press conferences. Nevertheless, Sammi Deen, vows to not be silenced. 

    Changing tides and demands that pave a way forward

    This March Against Baloch Genocide — as the protesters often refer to their movement — has received an unprecedented show of support in the form of solidarity protests in various parts of Balochistan, as well as other Pakistani provinces, and even in front of 10 Downing Street in London, where protesters held a five-day sit in.  

    According to Mahrang, this response is due to the protest making people feel heard for the first time in decades. “There has always been a negativity spread around that common people do not hold any power in front of the Pakistani establishment and we just have to follow them blindly,” she said. 

    According to Akbar, the political analyst, this is also because, for the first time, people’s faith in the military has faltered. “There’s a segment of the population that has begun to realize that the military is not so clean,” he said. “In the past people may not have believed all these allegations against the military. But now that they see that former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been so badly silenced that he can’t even contest in the next elections — despite being the country’s most popular leader — people are starting to question things.” Akbar also pointed to the role that social media has played in giving people outside Balochistan a window into their suffering. 

    According to Sammi Deen, one of the movement’s main objectives has been to collect data. In less than a month, while marching from Balochistan to Islamabad, they have gathered evidence of roughly 600 missing persons. “God forbid, if someone dies tomorrow in a fake encounter, we will at least know if he was [already] missing from before.”

    In addition to collecting data, the movement is also working to bring the killers of men like Balaach to justice. On Dec. 9, after initial resistance, the police registered a complaint against four CTD personnel on the direction of a lower court. Then, two days later, the high court ordered the immediate suspension of the four CTD personnel. A committee was also formed to investigate the death. However, no arrests have yet been made. 

    “We want all the missing persons of Balochistan to be released and … we want to see progress in their cases,” said Sammi Deen before adding that the CTD and state-sponsored “death squads” (or private militia) responsible for these enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings should be disbanded. 

    Sammi Deen Baloch and Mahrang Baloch at the UN office in Islamabad on Jan. 15. (Twitter/@SammiBaluch)

    On Jan.10,  Mahrang and Sammi Deen were able to speak with U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawler about the need for a U.N. fact-finding mission in Pakistan to investigate the human rights violations and genocide in Balochistan. Writing on X, Lawler said, “The reports of police harassment are v. concerning. Spurious criminal complaints against peaceful protesters should be dropped.”

    According to Akbar, as long as there is “genuine will from the military,” it is feasible for the disappeared persons to be returned home, so long as they haven’t already been killed. “The military is a very organized institution, so they definitely have accounts of these missing persons.” Akbar also noted that a large number of missing persons were released in the past when the government wanted to appease the Baloch people. However, Akbar does not believe Pakistan will allow an independent U.N.-fact-finding mission into Balochistan, as Pakistan considers it a sovereign matter. 

    “This is a collective punishment because when one family member is disappeared all his loved ones suffer,” Sammi Deen said. “It is the uncertainty, the continuous wait, the torturous pain that is unbearable.”

    Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, Sammi Deen and Mahrang believe that this movement will not burn out, but continue and grow its important work.

    “We are expanding this movement all over the country and all over the world,” Mahrang said. “Anyone who sympathizes with us, we appeal to them to protest in solidarity, to send petitions to the U.N., to write to your parliaments to initiate discussions. This is just the beginning, and we will take this forward peacefully.”

    This article How women in Pakistan are fighting enforced disappearances and killings was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Queensland lawyer raises concerns of police surveillance of pro-Palestine demonstrators

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Exclusive: Legal observer for volunteer group, Action Ready, says police were recording number plates of cars displaying Palestinian flags

    Prominent Queensland civil rights advocates have raised concerns about the photographing and surveillance of pro-Palestine protesters by the state’s police force.

    Guardian Australia has seen photos and videos of Queensland police officers photographing protesters at a pro-Palestine demonstration in Logan in December.

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    Inside the fight to save Philly’s Chinatown from a new NBA arena

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    This article Inside the fight to save Philly’s Chinatown from a new NBA arena was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Since the summer of 2022, the city of Philadelphia has seen a fierce battle over the home of their professional basketball team, the 76ers. Currently located at Wells Fargo Center on Philly’s south side, economic power players have been shopping around a proposal for a new 18,000 seat arena called 76 Place, which would move NBA games to the city’s bustling downtown core (known as Center City). With a billion-dollar price tag, 76 Place represents a partnership between team owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer and real estate mogul David Adelman, who have argued that the arena would create new jobs, raise tax revenue and revitalize a part of downtown that many see as full of untapped potential.

    A massive PR campaign has accompanied the plan to shore up support among elected officials, community groups and everyday Philadelphians. Alongside a steady stream of community engagement meetings and media appearances, developers have committed to negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement, or CBA — a common feature of gentrification fights. The arena’s website pledges that this CBA would be “the largest in the history of Philadelphia,” with $50 million worth of potential investments in neighborhood amenities, affordable housing and support for small businesses. That being said, other parts of the plan’s rollout have been far more opaque: Some key community stakeholders were not notified before it was announced, while city government has rejected over 100 public records requests about the planning process.

    But from its outset, 76 Place has faced a torrent of public pushback due to its proposed location: directly next to Philly’s Chinatown, a center of Asian American culture and politics in the city since the 19th century. Chinatown residents have repeatedly organized against development projects in and around the neighborhood since the 1970s, including an expressway, federal prison, baseball stadium and casino. When this current proposal was announced, the neighborhood immediately jumped into action again, forming the “No Arena in Chinatown” campaign to reject both 76 Place and the offer of a CBA. 

    For the past 18 months, the campaign has argued that the arena would displace longtime residents, increase traffic congestion and disrupt the neighborhood’s homegrown economy. Residents and their allies have used a wide array of tactics to oppose the project, including a petition, mass protests, cultural production and untold hours of door-knocking, phone banking and public comments.

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    In anti-gentrification work around the country, labor unions often serve as organizing models for community groups or as partners in CBAs — but the 76 Place fight has had a tense relationship with organized labor in Philly. Almost a year ago, the 50 member unions of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed the arena. UNITE HERE — which represents food-service workers — has been in ongoing negotiations with Sixers ownership, pushing for more permanent, full-time positions with union contracts. Although leadership from UNITE HERE and UFCW (which represents custodial workers) have offered criticisms, neither union has formally opposed the arena — suggesting that developers could potentially win them over with the right concessions.

    But for those challenging the arena, compromise is not an option: “This project will kill this community,” said campaign leader and Chinatown resident Debbie Wei at a rally last summer. Much of the campaign’s ongoing work has come under the Save Chinatown Coalition, a multiracial grassroots assembly that includes neighborhood and student groups, civil rights and housing justice organizations and Philly’s DSA chapter. One of the central organizations in that coalition is the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, or APIPA, a 501(c)4 nonprofit and PAC that conducts a wide range of political work and leadership development “to build long-term power for APIs in Pennsylvania.” Throughout the campaign, APIPA has been vital to the citywide mobilization that has made “No Arena in Chinatown” such a forceful demand. 

    As the campaign prepares for a new year of struggle — in which developers will likely seek approval from city government — I spoke with APIPA executive director Mohan Seshadri. We talked about how the campaign’s demands took shape, the unique conditions of Pan-Asian organizing and how Philly’s Chinatown is drawing from generations of resistance to face an “existential threat.”

    Talk me through some of the history of anti-gentrification work in Philly’s Chinatown and how APIPA got involved in that work.

    Philadelphia’s Chinatown was formed 150 years ago, most likely by Chinese and Chinese-American workers and immigrants fleeing a wave of anti-Asian violence and lynch mobs [that] went rampant up and down the West Coast. When it was formed, it was the “red light” district, it was skid row: Our community was de facto (if not de jure) redlined into that area. But every time a successive wave of Asian or Asian American migration happened, their first port of call has been Chinatown. It’s certainly a center of Chinese activity, but you have all of these other communities that also see Chinatown as the place that kept them safe when they really needed it. 

    The Chinese Lunar New Year celebration in Philadelphia on Jan. 21, 2023. (WNV/Rodney Atienza)

    As a result of this, you have multiple generations of organizations and movement-builders who are committed to defending Chinatown from gentrification and displacement and unjust development — but also have this really deep commitment to leadership development and training the next generation. Some of the leaders that we have in this fight right now were the same leaders who won the fights against the casino 15 years ago [and] the baseball stadium 25 years ago. But it’s not just them: Their kids who grew up on the picket lines are now running the youth organizing aspects of our fight. [We have] kids being told by their parents, “In 15 years, in 20 years, in 25 years, you’re gonna have to teach your kids to defend Chinatown, because that’s the only reason it still exists.”  

    APIPA [is] a statewide Asian American civil rights organization and political home, but we were built by leaders in Chinatown and in the Vietnamese community in South Philly. We were trained to build statewide Pan-Asian political power, but in a way that feeds back into the fights that have defined Asian American presence in Philly — which in so many cases is land justice, sovereignty [and] self-determination for our communities.

    Anti-gentrification work often focuses on Community Benefits Agreements that reconcile public demands with developers’ interests. Why has this campaign focused on blocking the arena rather than winning a CBA?

    Chinatown is not something that can be protected by a monetary investment. It’s protected by being a place of welcome and safety and sanctuary for every Asian American community in the greater Philadelphia area. And if you can’t get to Chinatown because there’s six years of construction, if you don’t want to get to Chinatown because businesses shut down, then Chinatown dies. The thing that has made our community a thriving, vibrant place for 150 years is [under] existential threat. 

    The other reason why we’re committed to opposing the signing of a CBA is who these billionaire developers are: They have made their billions off of predatory development. However much money they’re willing to shell out, it’s pennies on the dollar for what they stand to make in terms of their long-term profits off of this arena and all the real estate around it that they will gobble up as they displace the surrounding community. It’s also, frankly, insulting in its size. They’re claiming it’s the largest CBA ever offered to a community like ours. That’s $50 million over the course of 30 years, which sounds like a lot when you just say the first half of that sentence. But actually, we’re talking about over 150 businesses, monasteries, educational institutions, nationally-ranked food institutions, the place where our elders go to walk the streets and feel safe at night. 

    At the end of the day, we see that it’s a land grab and ultimately, what they’re offering is not enough to save our community. We’re not going to sign off on the destruction of our community — we’re going to fight this thing.

    With the long history of seeing these sorts of fights, I would imagine that Chinatown residents have developed a thorough playbook of tactics. In the past year or so, what tactics have been the most effective so far at slowing down the progress of this arena?

    We could separate all of this into the tried-and-true methods and the new stuff that didn’t exist 20 years ago (or our people didn’t know how to do). 

    For example, we’ve never run “Save Chinatown” election work before this past year. We built a city council slate where we specifically endorsed candidates that were willing to commit to listen and be accountable to Chinatown. We knocked on over 50,000 doors and made hundreds of thousands of calls to get them in office. And we were successful in electing two members of the Working Families Party to city council as independent third-party candidates; we kicked the Republicans off city council; we elected the first South Asian city council member and the first openly-LGBTQ city council member. In so many cases, our messaging was, “These are the people who will have Chinatown’s back.” And across the city, people responded by saying, “I’ll vote for them.” It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.

    Activists shot a music video to say “No Wrecking Balls In Chinatown!” (Facebook/No Arena in Chinatown)

    Back in June, we had a march from Chinatown to City Hall where we got over 3,500 people into the streets in favor of Chinatown. We’ve done so many press conferences and media actions highlighting the underhanded tricks and runarounds that developers are trying to do. I can’t emphasize enough the role that arts and culture has in Chinatown defense fights: drumlines, lion dances, traditional arts and crafts, but then also new spins on that. The brother-in-law of one of our leaders is a songwriter and rewrote the Miley Cyrus song “Wrecking Ball” to be “No More Wrecking Balls.” Then they made a music video with different leaders and kids wearing papier-mâché sledgehammers and boba and bowls of phở and things like that — and now it’s like a mini-anthem for our movement.

    It’s this beautiful mixture of old and new: You have thousand-year-old traditions — including ones that were built out of resistance back in Asia — getting remixed in various ways and then you have bread-and-butter advocacy tactics. It’s good organizing and it’s a good fight to be in.

    Having to be able to translate these demands and analysis across various language barriers and culture barriers — is that capacity more on the staff side, or more about mobilizing citizens to talk to their neighbors?

    It’s both. When we’re out, we do our work in 15 different languages, we knock hundreds of thousands of doors, we make millions of phone calls every year. It’s financially impossible to serve the people at scale by having hundreds of workers: There’s too much work to do. So when we’re talking about so many ethnicities and communities and languages, you can’t staff that out: You have to organize.

    So many of our people are used to providing translation and interpretation services for their families. When we have a canvassing script or a piece of mail, we [might] pay a translation firm to do the heavy lifting, but then we’ll send that translation to community leaders to have them sign off on it in terms of, what are the words that our people actually use to talk politics: What’s the slang, the grammar, the syntax, the dialect. Because there’s no point in doing all of this work if you’re not actually being effective in messaging to the people you’re trying to talk to.

    We have an entire side of [APIPA] that has member organizations all across the state. In so many cases they’re not big, fancy nonprofits [or] even movement organizations, but they hold a Filipino dance recital or an Indian Independence Day celebration and every single member of their community comes out. And now we have all our people in a room together with the leaders of that community and we’re able to talk to them about politics, civic engagement, long-term power-building, our policy platform and things like that. 

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    [Because of] the mechanics of how and where Asians live in Pennsylvania, they’re not all in these ethnic enclaves that are super defined: In so many cases, they’re just living where everyone else is. So we’ve had to get really good at being able to communicate overly complicated political things to an Asian refugee elder who doesn’t speak English — but then go knock on his neighbor’s door in the Irish or Italian or Black or Latinx community and have that same conversation, because we need their voice as well.

    Throughout the campaign, you’ve been able to create strategic alliances with people who have the same self-interest in stopping the arena. Do you feel like there’s an opportunity to move some of these short-term alliances into long-term solidarity?

    Absolutely. One of the things we’ve run into is that our communities don’t talk to each other. The developers have weaponized many of these ancestral tensions and they’re playing this really vicious “divide and conquer” strategy. So when we’re going into a neighborhood, we’re going to try to talk to every single person about Asian American political power, about justice and safety for our communities and how to build a city that works not just for our community, but for theirs as well. 

    There are folks who are involved in this because their home is under attack and they want to defend their home. And then there are folks who want to defend their home and build a movement that makes Philly a more livable place for all of us. What does it look like to bring all of our members in closer connection with leaders who are fighting environmental pollution and gentrification in South Philly, and fighting to preserve the last remnants of the Black Bottom in West Philly — and so many of the same issues? In too many cases, their fights are going uncovered. How do we take advantage of these eyes on us to lift everyone up and bring us together into something long term that can hold elected officials and developers accountable?

    I come out of this tradition where we don’t fix this by sitting down to eat together and learning about each other’s cultures. That’s important. We have to share stories. But actually, we fix this by being in struggle together. We fix this by being in the streets together, by committing to start to show up for each other and keep showing up.

    This article Inside the fight to save Philly’s Chinatown from a new NBA arena was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

    Hundreds of protesters clash with police in Russian republic of Bashkortostan

    The Guardian | Protest -

    Trial of local activist provokes one of largest reported demonstrations in country since Ukraine invasion

    Hundreds of protesters have clashed with police in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan in a rare display of public outrage after a court convicted a local activist and sentenced him to prison, according to media reports and rights groups.

    The unrest on Wednesday – one of the largest reported demonstrations since the war in Ukraine began in 2022 – erupted amid the trial this week of Fail Alsynov in the town of Baymak, about 870 miles (1,400km) south-east of Moscow, in the southern Ural mountains.

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