Eviction of Slum Dwellers and Repression of Anti-Eviction Demonstrators in West Bengal

Friday 13 April 2012

Aditya Nigam

It is the same story once again. Cleaning up and beautification of cities in the clamour for urban space for consumption and the luxury of the rich. And as we have seen, it makes little difference whether the government/s are Leftist or Rightist, whether they claim to represent the oppressed poor or not. Thus, on 30th March, 2012 the TMC government forcefully evicted around 300 poor families from the Nonadanga slum area in South 24-Parganas, in the name of ‘development’ and ‘beautification’ of Kolkata. Their shanties were razed to ground by the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. The homeless slum-dwellers have been staying in an open field and are facing constant police harassment. Despite these harsh conditions, they have refused to depart and are presently on hunger strike. Their demand has to date failed to draw any favourable attention from the government. This neglect comes on the heels of the Planning Commission agreeing to annual Bengal plan around 16 per cent more than last year’s.

But the neglect is not only economic : the state government has intensified its repressive tactics. On 4th April, 2012, the Kolkata police and a gang of ruffians who viciously lathi-charged the dispossessed as they organized a protest march to draw attention to their wretched condition. A large police force attacked the protesters including women and infants; there was not a single female constable in the posse. Rita Patra, a pregnant woman, was seriously injured in the lathi-charge. Ten persons, including a baby boy and two girls in their early twenties, were severely injured. To protest this police brutality, slum demolition and forcible eviction, a day long sit-in demonstration was scheduled at Ruby Crossing, E M Bypass of Kolkata, on 8th April, 2012.

But this peaceful demonstration was broken by the Kolkata police, who alleged the assembly as ‘illegal’ despite having granted prior permission for the same. 69 protesters of ‘Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee’ (Anti-eviction Committee of Nonadanga) were arrested and transported to Lalbazar police station. A nine-year-old girl child, Manika Kumari, daughter of Dilip Shaw, was in the lock-up for nine hours; Manika Kumari’s detention violated the Juvenile Justice (Care & Protection of Children) Act, which starkly reminds us of Payel Bagh’s case during the Singur unrest. The police deliberately did not, moreover, issue any Memos of Arrest—another violation of legal procedures.

Continuing with the high-handedness, cases under section 151 of the IPC were slapped on the detainees. During the evening of April 8, all the arrested persons were released on PR bond in the presence of members of the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and other activists through the rear gate of Lalbazar police station. However, seven democratic rights activists were not released and remained in confinement, i.e., Debolina Chakraborty, Shamik Chakraborty, Manas Chatterjee , Debjani Ghosh, Siddhartha Gupta, Partho Sarathi Ray and Abhijnan Sarkar. They have been falsely charged with a number of non-bailable criminal cases. When the released activists and others assembled at Lalbazar became agitated at this unexpected development, all were forced to flee by a huge contingent of aggressive police. APDR members proceeded to the central gate of Lalbazar to speak to the officer in charge and lodged a protest. According to the officers on duty, the seven activists had been charged under various sections including 353, 332, 141, 143, 148 and 149 of the IPC and were to be produced at the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) court, Alipore, on 9 April, 2012.

Spain burns as strikes bring nation to its knees

Nine injured and scores are arrested as austerity protest descends into violence

by Alasdair Fotheringham, The Independent (UK)

Friday, 30 March 2012 — A nationwide general strike fuelled by a groundswell of anger against crippling unemployment levels and severe ongoing austerity cuts culminated in dozens of large-scale evening demonstrations across Spain yesterday.

Approximately a quarter of a million protesters took to the streets in Barcelona, with some fringe groups attacking police vans and smashing shop windows until late into the evening. In contrast Madrid’s almost equally large demonstration, where the crowds of chanting, whistling protestors filled the emblematic Puerto del Sol square and surrounding streets to bursting point, was reported as being totally peaceful.

“There’s lots of people here, but we need even more, this country is going through an awful situation and its going to get worse,” young protester Luis Ferrer, on the dole for three months, told The Independent in Madrid’s demonstration.

“If we don’t make ourselves heard now, we never will. I don’t think we’re going to end up like Greece, but they’re using this recession to take away our rights as workers.It’s just an excuse.”

“The labour reforms they want to bring in are terrible and our wages are awful,” Jose, a protestor in his twenties, added. “They want us to work more and more, put up taxes too and that’s just not on.”

Sudan police raid campus, arrest hundreds of activists

Fri Feb 17, 2012

KHARTOUM Feb 17 (Reuters) – Sudanese police arrested hundreds of students in a pre-dawn raid on a major university’s dormitories on Friday, activists said, in a crackdown on a campus that has been at the centre of recent anti-government protests.

The University of Khartoum in the Sudanese capital has been closed for about two months after students staged demonstrations over rising prices, unemployment and other issues.

Police wielding batons entered the student housing early on Friday morning, beating and arresting hundreds of those who had remained in the dormitories waiting for classes to resume, a witness said.

“We were woken in our rooms by the voices and strikes of the police,” said the witness, who asked not to be identified. He said more than 300 students had been arrested.

Sudan’s police spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the reports.

A lawyer who has been monitoring the events, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said police had arrested between 300 to 400 students under a law against inciting unrest.

An activist from the group “Change Now” also confirmed the raid had taken place.

Sudan has not seen mass protests like the ones that ousted leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, but small demonstrations inspired by revolts in other Arab countries have flared up over the past year over inflation and other issues. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Writing by Alessandra Rizzo)

Egypt: The people’s media at Tahrir Square–Exposing the army abuses

December 24th, 2011, http://www.arabawy.org/

Activists in Tahrir Square on Friday night set up projector to screen videos of the army’s attacks on protesters during last week.

Police arrest 13 protesting immigration law in Alabama

Demonstrators Caesar Marroquiz, left, of Philadelphia, Penn., and Ernesto Zumaya, 24, of Los Angeles link their arms together and wait to be arrested during a demonstration in the lobby of the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., Tuesday Nov. 15, 2011. Several hundred demonstrators gathered to protest Alabama's strong new immigration law. (AP)

ASSOCIATED PRESS, 2011-11-16

MONTGOMERY: Police arrested 13 protesters in Alabama’s capital Tuesday as they demonstrated against the state’s strict new law clamping down on illegal immigrants.

About 100 people, most of them Hispanic and college-aged, chanted slogans as they marched in light rain around the state Capitol and to the adjacent Statehouse where the legislature works.

“Undocumented, unafraid,” ”No papers, no fear, immigrants are marching here,” and “Ain’t no power like the power of the people,” were among the slogans the protesters chanted as they marched. Later, some were hauled off to jail in a yellow bus normally used by the city parks and recreation department.

Some sat down on Union Street between the Statehouse and the Capitol when police approached and warned them in English and Spanish that they would be arrested if they didn’t move.

None did and police arrested 11 demonstrators, tying their hand with yellow straps and loading them into the bus.

Federal courts have blocked parts of the Republican-backed law from taking effect, but both supporters and critics still call it the nation’s toughest state law against illegal immigration. The Obama administration opposes the law, which is calls an overreach by the state.

One of those arrested was 19-year-old Catalina Rios, a student at Henry Ford Community College in Detroit. She identified herself an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

Looking like a typical American teenager with her long dark hair in a ponytail, Rios said she knew there was a possibility she might be deported as she sat in the street waiting to be arrested.

“I know that I live in fear every single day of that, so this is no different,” Rios said. “I’m doing this for all the immigrant students who struggle every day.”

A Montgomery attorney who volunteered to represent those arrested, Mike Winter, said he understood they were mostly being charged with disturbing the peace, but also could be held for immigration officials.

After walking all the way around the Capitol one time, about 20 protesters entered the Statehouse and went up to the seventh-floor office of state Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, a key proponent of the law.

Once downstairs, two of the demonstrators — college students Ernesto Zumaya, 24, of Los Angeles and Caesar Marroquin, 21, of Philadelphia — linked arms and sat down on the floor of the main lobby. They vowed not to leave until Beason responded to their concerns. Beason did not respond to the protest and Zumaya and Marroquin were arrested peacefully when the building closed for the day.

Both said they are immigrants from Mexico without papers who have lived in the U.S. most of their lives. Marroquin said he always wanted to be a U.S. Marine.

Beason said later that he was not in his office Tuesday afternoon and did not immediately get the message except being told there were people at the Statehouse to see him.

Beason defended the law when asked about the protest.

“My intention is to enforce what’s already in place in federal law,” Beason said. “I make no apologies. I’m trying to do what I feel is best for the people of Alabama.”

A leader of the protest, Mohammad Abdollahi, who said he was an immigrant without papers from Iran who lives in Bessemer, explained that the purpose of the demonstration was for their voice “to be heard.”

Army and police massacre protesters at Maspero, Egypt

October 9th, 2011

The army and police committed a horrible massacre against peaceful protesters today in Maspero, Cairo. Army vehicles ran over protesters. Live ammunition was used. Extensive rounds of tear gas were fired, and showers of beatings from the military police, the central security forces and plainclothes thugs.

At least 19 people have been killed, and more than 150 injured. The toll keeps rising.

The Army also stormed Al-Hurra and 25 January TV stations, and took them off air. The Egyptian state run TV is inciting the public against the “Coptic protesters” and even called on the citizens to take to the streets to “protect the army”!! SCAF is trying to instigate a sectarian civil war.
The protesters are not only Copts. There are Muslims present in the protests too and are talking active part in resisting the police and the army. There are ongoing battles as I’m writing now. The unifying chants in downtown Cairo is against the army and field marshal Tantawi. Protesters are chanting: “Muslims and Christians… One hand!” and “Death to the Field Marshal.”
For continuous updates, please follow the Revolutionary Socialists on Facebook.
see more at: http://www.arabawy.org/2011/10/09/army-and-police-massacre-protesters-at-maspero/

Portugal: Workers tell government to put people before profit

morningstaronline.co.uk

Sunday 02 October 2011

Hundreds of thousands of working people rallied in Lisbon and Porto on Saturday to demand that the government put social justice before bankers’ profits.

The General Confederation of Portuguese Workers organised the protests “against impoverishment and injustice, against the aggression by the International Monetary Fund.”

Trade unionists and their allies took to the streets in force on the same day that a tax on electricity and gas bills rose from 6 to 23 per cent.

Speaking in Lisbon, CGTP secretary-general Manuel Carvalho da Silva said: “When they attack our rights, when poverty and injustice are growing, then our struggle has to be generalised, it has to be everyone’s struggle.”

The government insists it has no choice but to hack back workers’ rights and sell off state property to fulfil the conditions of a €78 billion (£67bn) loan it negotiated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May.

Egypt: Before the ‘Arab Spring’, a determined underground media exposed and discredited Mubarak

Egypt: How We Did It When the Media Would Not

May 19, 2011

On February 11, 2011 Egyptians toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak. Blogger and viral video producer Aalam Wassef was one of the many people who worked for years to make it happen. This is first in a series on the daily life of
Egypt’s revolution. It’s a manual on how a civil resistance was built to win.

Greece: ‘We don’t owe! We don’t sell! We don’t pay!’

More video of Greek riots, 18 detained, 4 police injured

Peru: more killed in Puno, Huancavelica protests; demand investigation of García for repression

Submitted by WW4 Report on Mon, 06/27/2011

Naitonal Police troops and soliders fired on a crowd of protesters staging an occupation of the airport at Juliaca, in Peru’s conflicted southern region of Puno, leaving six dead and at least 37 injured. Protesters had succeeded in setting one of the terminals on fire when security forces started shooting. The protesters were Quechua campesinos from the neighboring province of Azángaro, who are demanding remediation of the local Río Ramis following its pollution by small-scale mining operations in the area of Ananea district, San Antonio de Putina province. The National Confederation of Communities Affected by Mining (CONACAMI) condemned the killings as “ethnocide and genocide…against the protests of the original Quechua people, defenders of life.” (La Republica, June 25; CONACAMI, Mariátegui blog, June 24)

In the south-central region of Huancavelica, protests are continuing in the fifth day of an indefinite civil strike called by the Defense Front for the Interests of Huancavelica. The strike was called to demand justice for three student protesters—including one minor—killed by the National Police June 21 during protests over budget cuts at the University of Huancavelica. Up to 100 were injured in the incident. (Mariátegui, June 24; AFP, June 22)

Committee to Protect Journalists: “China must allow free reporting in Inner Mongolia”

[China has had repeated conflicts with ethnic minorities and people in non-Han areas, which have grown more intense since the restoration of capitalism led by Deng Xiao-ping after the death of  revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. -- Frontlines ed.]

Paramilitary police block the street during a protest in Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia.

(Reuters/Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center/Handout)

New York, June 1, 2011–Authorities in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region must allow journalists to report on protests that have been ongoing for more than a week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Information authorities restricted domestic reporting on the student-led protests, which were sparked after Chinese coal mine employees killed two ethnic Mongolians who voiced complaints about the environmental impact of mining in mid-May, according to international news reports. Demonstrators angered by the two attacks gathered in several cities in the northern region, expressing frustration on a range of issues, including the destruction of the Mongolian grassland and tensions between the local population and Han Chinese leaders, the reports said.

Clashes in Greece as EU and IMF meet

By Renee Maltezou and Ingrid Melander | Reuters – Thu, May 12, 2011

ATHENS (Reuters) – A group of 150 hooded demonstrators attacked three policemen in an Athens hospital after a protester was seriously injured in an anti-austerity march on the first day of a visit by EU and IMF inspectors.

Police had fired several rounds of teargas earlier on Wednesday to disperse stone-throwing protesters as senior EU and IMF envoys began talks with the government on stepping up fiscal reforms needed to get the next slice of a bailout package.

“The hooded youths broke into the hospital manager’s office and beat up three policemen who were there investigating the protester’s injuries,” said a policeman who declined to be named. “Two policemen were slightly injured and one suffered more serious injuries to the head.”

Huge turnout in London for protest against austerity measures

About half a million people marched through the streets of central London to protest against government spending cuts.

Michael Goldfarb

March 26, 2011

Police officers and protesters clash on Piccadilly during marches in protest at government cuts on March 26, 2011, in London, England. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

LONDON, U.K. — About half a million people marched through the streets of central London today to protest against austerity measures.Protesters wove past all the major tourist attractions — Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus before reaching Hyde Park. Many marchers held signs paying tribute to the protests in Egypt — one read, “Rise up, Protest Like an Egyptian.” Other signs displayed British wit: “You are tightening your belts around our necks.”

It was the country’s largest demonstration since 2003, just before the invasion of Iraq, when a million people turned out in protest.

Bahraini opposition to Saudi Arabian and Gulf armies’ invasion

Mar 14 2011 by Jadaliyya Reports

Troops from the GCC Peninsula Shield Forces, originating mostly from Saudi Arabia but also the United Arab Emirates, arrived in Bahrain today. When the Bahraini Crown Prince visited Saudi Arabia last week, he was given an ultimatum and a deadline: either the Bahraini government takes control of the situation and ends the month old anti-government protests, or Saudi Arabia would send its troops to do the job. While Bahrain’s ruler did issue an appeal for help to the GCC, critics have said that this was in response to pressure by Saudi Arabia, whose deadline given to the Bahraini ruler expired last night. According to the BBC, yesterday Saudi King Abdullah informed the US administration of the decision to send GCC troops into Bahrain to quell the pro-democracy protests. Today the White House announced that it does not consider the entry of over 1000 foreign troops–mostly Saudi Arabian–into Bahrain an “invasion” and called on the Bahraini government to “exercise restraint.”

Omanis and Kuwaitis have threatened their respective governments with major strikes if their national troops are sent with the GCC Shield Forces into Bahrain. Foreign journalists have reported being harassed by the Bahraini government in the lead up to the troops’ arrival, with many journalists “asked” to leave the country by the end of the day. Others have simply been refused entry into Bahrain at the airport. The UK has issued a travel advisory warning its citizens against travel to Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia has evacuated its students who attend universities in the neighboring island.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered at the now famous Pearl Roundabout today in response to the news of foreign troops reaching Bahrain.

Protests across Africa: Different attention for different countries?

Sokari Ekine, Pambazuka

March 3, 2011

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/71379

Focusing on Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon and Zimbabwe, Sokari Ekine provides a round-up of international and social media coverage of the multiple sites of sustained protests across Africa and considers the differences in media attention between each of them.

LIBYA

What began as a people’s uprising in Libya has since moved closer towards a civil war as soldiers of the Libyan army defect and some protestors take up arms against Colonel Gaddafi’s forces, as shown in this graphic video (tweeted widely), with the Libyan army protecting protestors against pro-Gaddafi forces. @EnoughGaddafi tweets ‘Massive arrests being made in Tripoli, eyewitness from Jdeida prison says a lot of activists and injured are being held there’. One tweeter reminds us of the chaos and possible endangering of peoples lives by international media reports:

‘@bintlibya: @AlJazeera pls stop airing calls of ppl giving locations details of things that have yet 2 happen u are causing more harm than good #Libya’

Tens of thousands of mostly foreign nationals are fleeing the country and already there is a humanitarian crisis on the Tunisian border. The tweets from UNHCR stress the panic taking place:

‘@refugees: #UNHCR & #IOM ask govs 2 suply masive financial + logistcal asets incl planes + boats: overcrwding at #Libya #Tunisia border worsens by hour’

‘@refugees: Shelter! Shelter! Shelter! Tens of thousands need shelter at the Tunisian border, as Tunisia opens its borders for all. #Libya’

As Gaddafi finds new ways to attack Libyans, Libyans unleash their fury against his deployment of mercenaries from West and East Africa as migrant workers from south of the Sahara face increasing attacks and are prevented from leaving the country. Given the racism in Libya and low status of foreign black workers, it was only a matter of time before innocent people were attacked.