Peacemakers Trust posts news, reports or announcements of interest to people studying or working in the field of dispute resolution, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Inclusion of an item on the media watch blog does not imply endorsement or agreement of Peacemakers Trust with views expressed by authors of posted items.
BEIJING — Like the United States, China is having its own tea party movement, but this one has a very different agenda.
Police have long tried to shush and isolate potential activists, usually starting with a low-key warning, perhaps over a meal or a cup of tea. Now, the country’s troublemakers are openly blogging and tweeting their stories about “drinking tea” with the cops, allowing the targeted citizens to bond and diluting the intimidation they feel.
A former U.S. army colonel who has been barred from Canada for her peace activism will make another attempt to enter the country on Monday.
Ann Wright will attempt to cross the border at Windsor and if successful will attend a speaking engagement at the University of Toronto’s International Student Centre on Tuesday, organizers of the event said.
An outspoken critic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wright was blocked from entering the country on three prior attempts in 2007.
Hundreds gathered outside the Vancouver Art Gallery today to call upon all levels of government to implement and support a national housing strategy.
Signs that said “The People Say: Build Homes Now!,” “Homes Not Games,” and “End Poverty. It’s Not a Game” lined the steps of the Gallery as advocates spoke of the need for greater federal involvement in ensuring increased access to safe and affordable housing nationwide.
The “Right to the City: Rally for a national housing program” action was organized by the Impact on Communities Coalition (IOCC) and supported by politicians, faith-based organizations, Downtown Eastside (DTES) groups, and other activists and advocates.
The rally came hours after Pivot Legal Society held a “Homes for All solidarity sleepover” outside of Science World.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – At the corner of West Hastings and Abbott, in a downtrodden pocket of Vancouver that was supposed to be used as a hockey parking lot, lies the heartbeat of the anti-Olympic movement.
It is here, amid a tent city on a barren patch of real estate in the shadow of a swanky high rise, that you’ll find a sentiment Winter Olympic chiefs don’t want you to know about.
Roughly 200 protestors, some homeless and others braving the cold night after night to campaign against societal injustice, swept onto this block of land on Vancouver’s busiest street Monday, and they won’t be moving until the Games are gone.
“What we are doing is illegal,” said Dave Diewart, a spokesman for Streams of Justice, one of more than 90 groups supporting the protest.
Vancouver, BC — An anti-homelessness campaign which has seen a number of red tents erected in an empty parking lot in the Downtown Eastside, will be allowed to continue for now, according to Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson. Asked about the protest Tuesday, the mayor confirmed the City “will not be taking action at this time”.
The land the Red Tent protest is being held on is owned by Concord Pacific and has been leased to VANOC for the duration of the Games. More than 100 homeless Vancouver residents are determined to stay on site at 58 West Hastings Street. They are hoping to force government to implement a national affordable housing strategy through peaceful protest.
Pivot Legal Society is supplying the brilliant red tents, which bear the message “Housing is a Right.” Although they ordered 500 tents from a manufacturer in the United States, the shipment was detained by customs and is expected to arrive by Wednesday. Organizer Harsha Walia said many residents were using their own gear for the time being.
Filed under: Nonviolence — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 21:28 UTC
News source:
15 February 2010
CP
By Steve Mertl
VANCOUVER, B.C. — They go by the name Black Bloc, but even the masked, black-clad protesters who trashed store windows during an anti-Olympic march on the weekend wouldn’t call themselves an organization.
The self-appointed “ninjas” of the anarchist movement have been a factor in European radical politics for decades but appeared spectacularly on the radar in North America during the 1999 World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Seattle…
The Black Bloc strategy is simple: Show up at demonstrations and attack the prominent symbols of capitalism. Then hope the police react, or over-react, while they shed their black clothes and melt into the crowd…
In Vancouver, Black Bloc members smashed windows at Olympic sponsor HBC’s downtown store displaying Games merchandise and spray-painted the anarchist circle-A symbol on at least one bus and city vehicle.
A Black Bloc contingent that was part of a march by about 2,000 people Friday evening that coincided with the Games’ opening ceremonies tossed things at a police line blocking access to B.C. Place stadium.
Police pushed back but the scuffle failed to spark a Seattle-style melee.
Filed under: Nonviolence — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 20:34 UTC
News source:
14 February 2010
Undrtheweather.org
Yesterday, the joint RCMP-VPD Integrated Security Unit (“ISU”) agreed to allow the Red Tent campaign to drop a 45’ banner off the Cambie Street Bridge. The banner reads “HOMES FOR ALL” and is intended to draw attention to the homelessness crisis in Canada and the need for the federal government to implement a funded national housing strategy.
According to Pivot Legal Executive Director, John Richardson, “The fact that the police are allowing this message to get out is a message in itself. Every officer who walked a beat knows firsthand the challenge of homelessness. This is a problem everyone wants to have solved.”
By David Chen with Vijay Anand, president, 5th Pillar; Anupama Jha, executive director, Transparency International India
For many Indians, bribing corrupt officials is a way of life. Last year, international corruption watchdog Transparency International said almost four million Indian families had to bribe officials for access to basic services. India also dropped in Transparency’s corruption index from 72nd to 85th in a list of 180 countries. now Indians are fighting corruption using a novel idea – the zero rupee.
Filed under: Nonviolence — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 10:45 UTC
News source:
12 February 2010
Vancouver Sun
VPD Statement
By Vancouver Police Department
A crowd estimated at 1500 protesters left the Vancouver Art Gallery tonight and marched through the downtown core to Robson and Beatty Streets where they engaged police prior to, and during the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Games.
Protesters intent on provoking police moved to the front of the line and began throwing traffic barricades around. Their tactics then escalated as they sprayed vinegar in officers’ eyes, threw sticks, and spit on members…
Throughout the Olympic journey the Vancouver Police has always respected the rights of critics and protestors to conduct lawful and peaceful events.
The Winter Olympiad in Vancouver kicks off this evening, amid great expectations and some criticism too. The world’s greatest athletes, the hopes of nations, the ideal of athletic competition are set to be showcased in one of Canada’s (the world’s) greatest cities. But, as in all such human endeavors, there is another side to the human drama of it all. The story of human beings so far beneath the glory and pageantry of Olympic celebration as to be invisible, the downtrodden and homeless of Vancouver and the world…
One news station released a video today that tells the story of the other side of Vancouver, the dark underbelly of that great city and so many others – poverty and neglect. Vancouver, while the most celebrated Canadian city as far as progress economically is concerned, is also the worst city in that country if you are “out of luck”, or need a good job…
The video below is something we should all watch, before we get wrapped up in the games and events themselves…
Filed under: Nonviolence — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 16:51 UTC
News source:
11 February 2010
France24 | YouTube
Vancouver, the host of the 2010 Olympic Games is often voted among the best places to leave in the world. But it has also its share of poverty, drug, and unemployment…
The voice of Father Jamal Khader coming over the waves of Radio Mawwal in Bethlehem was soothing and confident. A caller asked him to explain the words of Jesus, “to love your enemy”, in light of the occupation and walls built by Israel and the injustice against Palestinians.
The High Court of Justice yesterday ordered two pro-Palestinian foreign activists to be freed on bail, and said immigration officers had overstepped their authority by arresting them in the West Bank…
Both women belong to the International Solidarity Movement, which is at the forefront of demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier.
Approximately 50 foreign nationals are currently residing in the West Bank and working together with Palestinian groups to disrupt and interfere with IDF operations, military sources said on Monday.
The High Court of Justice on Monday released two women from Spain and Australia who had been arrested in Ramallah for involvement in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). Troops raided their apartment on Sunday on the grounds that the women had overstayed their tourist visa and were involved in violent anti-Israel protests.
Overnight Monday, IDF troops raided the Ramallah offices of an organization called ‘Stop the Wall,’ which protests the construction of the West Bank security barrier. According to the organization, some 40 of its activists are currently being held by authorities. In January, another ISM activist from the Czech Republic was arrested in the West Bank and deported from Israel.
Filed under: Nonviolence — story spotted by Catherine Morris @ 19:46 UTC
News source:
4 February 2010
The Province
Today is the midway mark of the six-day 2010 Poverty Olympics Torch Relay through Metro Vancouver.
After travelling through Langley, Surrey and New Westminster during the past two days, the three-metre poverty torch with its three torchbearers travels through Burnaby today before reaching Vancouver on Sunday.
The purpose of the relay is to emphasize “the devastating reality of poverty and homelessness within communities in B.C.”
The organizer’s slogan is “End Poverty– it’s not a game” and to point out that the 2010 Olympics are being held in a city with more than 2,000 people living on the street and in shelters in Metro Vancouver and in a province with the highest child poverty rate in Canada six years in a row.
By Edith Garwood, Amnesty International USA Israel and Occupied Territories Specialist
Remarks made by Bono , New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof and President Barack Obama stating they hoped Palestinians would find their Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) or Gandhi completely ignore Palestinian nonviolent resistance to brutal oppression.
The presumption that the Palestinian struggle is mainly violent is disturbing. And the dismissal of the people who have sacrificed time, money and even their lives to fight injustice with nonviolence is callous.
Although Palestinian nonviolent resistance dates back to the early 1900’s, the image of armed and violent Palestinians still prevails. In the 1970’s and 80’s, Palestinian refugees from camps in foreign countries, seeing no resolution after decades of displacement, chose armed struggle and more recent suicide bombings in Israel reinforced the perception.
Several factors have hindered a single, iconic figure from emerging or a cohesive civil disobedience movement from blooming despite its continued use by different sectors of Palestinian society.
In your recent column in the New York Times, “Ten for the Next Ten,” you wrote: “I’ll place my hopes on the possibility — however remote at the moment — that…people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi.”
Your hope has already been fulfilled in the Palestinian territories.
Unfortunately, these Palestinian Gandhis and Kings are being killed and imprisoned.
