Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

• News source:
• originally published 19 August 2010
• New York Review of Books
• By Daniel Wilkinson

For decades, the Castro government has been very effective in repressing dissent in Cuba by, among other things, preventing its critics from publishing or broadcasting their views on the island. Yet in recent years the blogosphere has created an outlet for a new kind of political criticism that is harder to control. Can it make a difference?

There are more than one hundred unauthorized bloggers in Cuba, including at least two dozen who are openly critical of the government…

Like other government critics, these bloggers face reprisals…

• News source:
• 29 August 2010
• CNN
• By Charles Euchner

Washington – On the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington on Saturday, the first sight on the National Mall for thousands of marchers was a four-story art installation that displayed four images and quotations of Martin Luther King Jr.

The participants in Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally paused as they walked toward the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. Some stopped to have pictures taken with King as the backdrop.

As recordings of King’s booming baritone filled the air, some of the Beck followers laughed and others booed…

• News source:
• 28 August 2010
• (Notes on) Politics, Theory & Photography
• By Jim Johnson

I never thought I’d say it, but here goes. Glenn Beck is right! Reviving the message of Martin Luther King , Jr. would indeed go considerable distance toward restoring honor to America.

Unfortunately, Beck fails to grasp the implications of his call; MLK Jr.’s message entails radical politics of just the sort that he and his reactionary followers would find appalling.

• News source:
• 26 August 2010
• CNN
• By Paula Hancocks

An Israeli military court has found the leader of a West Bank protest movement guilty of incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations.

In a move strongly criticized by the European Union, the court convicted Abdallah abu Rahmah of organizing weekly protests against the route of what Israel calls its security barrier and what Palestinians call the apartheid separation wall.

“The individual was convicted of incitement and participation in an illegal riot,” the Israeli military said.

But the organizers of the protest say it is a grass-roots nonviolent movement.

Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative, said the union considers abu Rahmah to be a “human rights defender” and she was “deeply concerned that the possible imprisonment of Mr Abu Rahma(h) is intended to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the existence of the separation barriers in a nonviolent manner.”

• News source:
• 26 August 2010
• The Independent
• By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Baroness Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, yesterday issued an unusually sharp rebuke to Israel over a military court’s conviction of a Palestinian activist prominent in unarmed protests against the West Bank separation barrier.

• News source:
• 25 August 2010
• By Martin Luther King III

This weekend Glenn Beck is to host a “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial. While it is commendable that this rally will honor the brave men and women of our armed forces, who serve our country with phenomenal dedication, it is clear from the timing and location that the rally’s organizers present this event as also honoring the ideals and contributions of Martin Luther King Jr.

I would like to be clear about what those ideals are.

• News source:
• 24 August 2010
• By Bryan Farrell

The eight-foot-long Norwegian electric car Buddy may not be most people’s idea of a perfectly sized car, but it is the perfect size for blocking train tracks, as the activist group Neptune Network recently proved, when it managed to block shipments from a mine that was polluting a nearby salmon-fjord.

• News source:
• 20 August 2010
• CP
• By Alexa Olesen

BEIJING, China — A Tibetan author detained for his recent book that calls for nonviolent resistance to Chinese rule in Tibet is stuck in legal limbo, his lawyer said Friday, with police reinvestigating his case and the court having rejected his chosen legal team.

Four months after being taken into custody, the writer Tragyal remains in jail in the far western city of Xining, charged with inciting separatism. He was expected to face trial this month, but police recently told his family they were reviewing the evidence against him before sending the case to prosecutors, his lawyer said.

• News source:
• 19 August 2010
• The Electronic Intifada

Grassroots Palestinian boycott campaigns across the occupied West Bank to take Israeli settlement products off the shelves of local stores have made an impact on the Israeli settlement economy, to the unease of the Israeli government, noted the Israeli daily Haaretz this week (“Palestinians ‘adamant about continuing boycott on settlement goods‘,” 8 August 2010).

From the tightly-packed communities in refugee camps, to the sprawling urban areas in major cities, to the rural countryside, Palestinians have galvanized around campaigns to promote locally-made products and locally-harvested food instead of a myriad of items made in illegal settlement colonies on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank.

• News source:
• 14 August 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Josh Wingrove

Fort McMurray community worker Joanne Roberts began her part of a rotating hunger strike Sun., Aug. 15. The protesters say they won’t stop until they get provincial money for a badly needed women’s shelter in the oil-sands boomtown.

• News source:
• originally published 6 August 2010
• Newsweek
• A 20-something named Austin Heap has found the perfect disguise for dissidents in their cyberwar against the world’s dictators.
• By Jeremy and Claire Weiss

For Austin Heap, there was nothing particularly remarkable about June 14, 2009. The 25-year-old computer programmer was home in his San Francisco apartment, spending his evening the same way he spent much of his free time: playing videogames. “I was sitting at my computer, as I usually do, playing Warcraft,” recalls Heap. “My boyfriend asked if I was following what was going on in Iran, and I said no. I was busy killing dragons.”

Later that night, Heap logged on to his Twitter account. He read about the growing number of Iranians claiming that their votes had been stolen in the presidential election, and he saw people complaining that the government was censoring their cries of fraud and election rigging. For Heap—who says, “I am for human rights, the Internet, and I check out from there”—something clicked. At that moment, he decided to become involved in a battle more than 7,000 miles away in a country he admits he knew next to nothing about. “I remember literally saying, ‘OK, game on.’?”

• News source:
• 12 August 2010
• Telegram
• By Michael True

Elise Boulding, sociologist, author and co-founder of the International Peace Research Association, who died in Needham on June 24, was well known to peace researchers and activists around the world, including faculty and students at Assumption College, College of the Holy Cross, and Clark University in Worcester.

“As mother, scholar, and activist, Elise Boulding understood the wisdom of peacemaking,” according to Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, chairwoman of the Center for Nonviolent Solutions, in Worcester. “Her great gift was her ability to get others to take this wisdom seriously.”

A memorial at the Wellesley College chapel, marking Ms. Boulding’s 90th birthday, involving compatriots and admirers in New England, as well as her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, paid tribute to her many accomplishments.

• News source:
• 11 August 2010
• Media-Newswire.com

Washington – Mural art, popularized in Mexico by artists such as Diego Rivera, is public property, accessible to everyone, that can highlight community issues. In Arroyo del Indio, a neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez, for example, murals testify to the resilience of a community devastated by a flood in July 2006.

In 2009, the U.S. Consulate in Juarez partnered with the Chihuahua Business Foundation ( FECHAC ) to bring Michelle Ortiz and Julia Lopez, artists from a Philadelphia-based arts group called Las Gallas, to use murals to address another issue: violence in the community. Ortiz and Lopez worked closely with nearly 80 artists, community members and even gangs, encouraging them to add their own ideas to the murals promoting nonviolence that they painted on the wall of a public park and canal.

• News source:
• July 2010
• MCC

• News source:
• 9 August 2010
• Huffington Post
• USA" "Ninety years ago, on Aug. 26, 1920, women finally won the vote after an excruciating yet nonviolent campaign to gain it."
• By Ellen Snortland

“A man of quality is not threatened by a woman for equality.”

That’s a familiar bumper sticker slogan for some of us. Men are crucial to any social movement, especially the gender equality revolution. That’s kind of a no-brainer, right? I especially want men to stand with us for the 90th anniversary of women’s right to vote on August 26.

As some of my readers know, I’ve been a goodwill ambassador for the National Women’s History Project for a few years now. I beat the drum at the beginning of every August to encourage all people — not only women — to mark August 26 in some way. Ninety years ago, on Aug. 26, 1920, women finally won the vote after an excruciating yet nonviolent campaign to gain it.

• News source:
• report published July 2010
• B'Tselem
• By Researched and writtern by Naama Baumgarten-Sharon. Edited by Yael Stein. Translated by Shaul Vardi. English editing by Michelle Bubis.

The army uses different legal means in order to prevent demonstrations. Although most of the efforts are directed at the Palestinian organizers, some are directed at Israeli and International activists. Some foreign activists participating in the demonstration have been deported. In addition, On February 2, 2010, OC Central Command signed two orders proclaiming a closed military zone imposed on the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin. These orders are issued for six months at a time, and apply to all the land lying between the built-up areas of the villages and the Barrier. Every Friday, between 8 AM and 8 PM, in other villages that hold demonstrations, specific orders are issued declaring the area a closed military zone.

Against the Palestinians, since the beginning of 2010, the army has used another means: renewed use of Military Order 101, which prohibits demonstrations in the occupied Territories…

Following renewal of the Order, B’Tselem is now publishing a position paper [pdf: http://www.btselem.org/Download/20100715_right_to_demonstrate_Eng.pdf] in which it provides a theoretical analysis of the Order and the restrictions it imposes on the freedom of Palestinians in Areas B and C to demonstrate, in light of Israel ’s obligation to ensure freedom of speech under international law. The position paper also compares the statutory provisions applying to Israeli citizens who demonstrate anywhere, whether inside the state or in the West Bank.

• News source:
• 6 August 2010
• Comunidade Segura
• By Carola Mittrany

When he was 14 years old, Sergio Limatu… witnessed the murder of a class mate… Limatu tells us that seeing his class mates die and walk around with fire arms was part of his daily routine at high school in Guatemala. “Whenever we went out in groups, we would encounter pandilleros who were waiting to rob us. Sometimes going out and coming back. So we were prepared to fight, until a colleague brought a fire arm. He said they had guns, so we should have guns too.”

Today, at the age of 20, Limatu says that after his friend’s murder everybody wanted vengeance, but when he saw his friend holding the gun he realized that you can’t fight violence with more violence. “If I want to have a future, I have to do something different.” That’s when he decided to become a volunteer at the Safe Schools Program of the Educational Institute for Sustainable Development (Iepades).

• News source:
• 3 August 2010
• UN New Centre

The Security Council today welcomed the establishment of a United Nations panel of inquiry into the incident earlier this year when Israel raided a six-ship humanitarian convoy that was heading for the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of nine civilians.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the formation of the panel yesterday after two months of intensive consultations. It is tasked with making findings about the facts, circumstances and context of the 31 May incident and recommending how to avoid similar incidents in the future.

• News source:
• 3 August 2010
• Palestine Note
• Palestinians have always used nonviolence as vehicle for freedom from a military occupation that plagues their daily lives and encroaches on their humanity, but thus far such tactic has been usually accompanied with violent one.
• By Abdaljawad OA Hamayel

There are many lessons that could be derived from the tragic assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, while, most analysis focused on diplomatic tensions and whether the Israeli behavior was erroneous or not. Analysis has yet to focus on the growing stride of Nonviolence and its effectiveness in achieving the long-awaited peace.

• News source:
• America Magazine: National Catholic Weekly
• By CNS and Other Sources

… This series of demonstrations, and the ongoing demonstrations against expansion of the Israeli separation wall in Beit Jalla and nearby al-Walajeh are part of a growing number of nonviolent demonstrations orchestrated by popular committees and Palestinian nongovernmental committees as acts of civil disobedience against the Israeli occupation.