Belgian Worker’s Benefits Shredded by Capitalist Rulers

100k Protest Austerity in Brussels, Police Repression Sparks Riot

11/06/2014 —  Brussels, Belgium

Belgian riot police fired tear gas and water cannon’s repressing the demonstrators on Thursday, at the first of what’s to be a series of anti-austerity demonstrations and strikes planned for the coming weeks. More than 100,000 people were on the streets of Brussels where they marched peacefully for almost two hours before violence broke out.

Car windows were smashed, other vehicles were overturned or set alight, and protsetors threw paving stones and fireworks. There were also reports of serious injuries among police as well as demonstrators. 14 demonstrators were reportedly taken to area hospitals, Brussels newspaper De Morgen reports.

For two hours, the demonstrators peacefully marched down the main thoroughfares of central Brussels to protest government policies that will raise the pension age, contain wages and cut into public services.

“They are hitting the workers, the unemployed. They are not looking for money where it is, I mean, people with a lot of money,” said Philippe Dubois, who came from the industrial rust belt of Liege.

Belgium has a long postwar tradition of collective bargaining between employers and workers, and successive coalition governments representing a full scale of public opinion often have been able to contain social disagreements. But the current coalition, made up of three pro-business parties and the centrist Christian Democrats, is the first in decades that has been able to set such a clear free-market agenda.

Hong Kong: Mass Rebellion on Highest Level Ever

[Before the capitalist coup and restoration in China in the late 70’s, when the working class was in command and struggling to transform every aspect of society, one important goal of Chinese people was the re-unification of Hong Kong with China, and to end British colonial rule.  And in that time, there were massive protests in Hong Kong against British rule.  But when the British were forced out in 1997, it was not in the direction of a working-class, unified-with-China Hong Kong.  No, it was captured by the rising capitalist-imperialist rulers of China, and the suffering of the workers and people of Hong Kong continued under the new set of bosses.  Rebellion has continued and grown in recent years, against what people in Hong Kong have come to see as Chinese neo-colonialism.  The rebellion is now reaching new levels, hampered by the lack of serious working class revolutionary organization, but growing nonetheless.  —  Frontlines ed.]

Alan Wong, zerohedge.com, 27 September 2014

No, this is not Ferguson: it is, according to many, the world’s most capitalist city, Hong Kong, where over the past few hours, around 50,000 students are said to have massed on late Saturday, demanding more democracy, as tensions grew over Beijing’s decision to rule out free elections in the former British colony.
According to Reuters, the crowds swelled less than 24 hours after riot police used pepper spray to disperse protesters around government headquarters, arresting more than 60 people opposed to the Chinese government’s tightening grip on the city. The unrest underscores the obstacles China faces in Hong Kong as a restive younger generation challenges its influence over the densely-populated financial hub.

Tempers flared and there were scenes of chaos before dawn on Saturday when protesters used umbrellas to shield themselves from the pepper spray. Those who got hit used water to rinse their eyes. “I paid my highest respect to every soldier who defends till the last moment… Civil disobedience – it continues to happen,” said student leader Lester Shum on his Facebook page.

India: When the State is indifferent to rape, the people take the streets

[Increasingly, acts of protest and resistance are denounced or dismissed as “Maoist” by the the state.  —  Frontlines ed.]

When the ‘Maoists’ Took Over the Streets of Kolkata

Why did the Kamduni incident – the rape and murder of a young college student and the utterly insensitive handling of the issue by the West Bengal government and the ruling Trinamool Congress – spark off such a huge reaction to bring together a wide spectrum of civil society under one umbrella in Kolkata on 21 June?

Vol – XLVIII No. 29, July 20, 2013 | Rajashri Dasgupta, EPW

Rajashri Dasgupta (rajashridasgupta@gmail.com) is an independent Kolkata-based journalist specialising on issues related to gender, health, democratic rights and social movements.

It was a hot and muggy afternoon on 21 June, when in an incredible display of public solidarity and defiance, thousands of people marched through the streets of Kolkata in silent protest. There were no political parties to manage the swelling numbers, no brandishing of political flags to claim victory for any organisation. Led by respected intellectuals, people poured in from all corners of the city as well as its outskirts to show their support and solidarity – elderly people, some with sticks and crutches; homemakers, for many of whom it was their first rally; working people who spontaneously got off buses or skipped work. There were students in large numbers with banners and placards, teachers, villagers holding hands for safety in an unfamiliar place, rights activists distributing leaflets, feminists with colourful posters, non-governmental organisation workers, actors, academics and journalists – all came together to protest the spurt in crimes against women in the state.

The protest was triggered by the gang-rape and murder of a young college girl Sheila (not her real name) in Kamduni village, Barasat district on 7 June and the insensitive handling of the incident by the state government. It was for the first time that the city, famous for its processions, witnessed an outpouring from such a wide cross-section of society, about an issue generally left to women’s groups and feminists to battle: the safety and security of women.

The rally of more than 10,000 strong was also a political expression of indignation against the constant bogey of “the other” raised by the ruling party to gag dissent. Suddenly, from one section of the rally, young men and women raised slogans demanding azaadi (freedom), startling this reporter since the word is usually associated with the Kashmir issue. For the people of Bengal that afternoon, however, the rallying cry of azaadi snowballed to take on a larger significance. It not only meant freedom of women from violence, but also implied the freedom of citizens to live without fear, the freedom to speak up, to question, and the freedom to protest. Since 2011, with the promise of paribartan (change) that had swept Mamata Banerjee to power in West Bengal, defeating an almost invincible Left Front (LF) rule of 34 years, the chief minister has silenced every question, protest or any whiff of dissent, real or imaginary, by dismissing it as a conspiracy against her from her opponents, whom she dubbed the “Maoists”.

Brazil Needs a Great Revolution!

[The statement by the Revolutionary Front for the Defense of the People – Brazil (Frente Revolucionária de Defesa dos Direitos do Povo – Brasil), has now been translated into English.  It provides important background on the current rebellion, as well as clarifying the revolutionary program and strategy to move forward. — Frontlines ed.]

———————————————————–

Proletarians and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!

“The law of the people is to fight, fail, fight again, fail again, fight again until victory!” — Chairman Mao Tsetung

Massive protests explode across the country and a spontaneous mass movement  of hundreds of thousands takes the center of large cities and spreads everywhere, shaking and panicking all the old order. A new phase of the developments of the revolutionary situation is seen in protest and rebellion!Major storms are approaching.

The final straw was the brutal repression of the just and peaceful demonstration against the increase of the bus fares in the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The outrage spread across the country and released popular anger no longer stifled by decades of political demagoguery and constant barrage of misleading government propaganda of a Brazil of great progress and improvement. When even television networks, radio and newspapers trumpeted the popularity of President Dilma as the one bringing full employment, creation of a new middle class, the development of the country with a sound economy against the global crisis that sinks the world’s largest economies – this suddenly exploded with the upheavals that arose as a tsunami.

Amid the deep and prolonged general crisis of the imperialist system that causes suffering worldwide, hitting hard working masses with mass unemployment, making brutal cuts in hard-won rights, pushing them to the streets by the millions, in a desperate fight for survival and resistance,  repression launched by the capitalist governments in client countries has been unrelenting.

As a direct result of the contradictions and weaknesses of the economy of our country, dominated and plundered by imperialism, the popular revolt is the release of decades of screams stifled by the ‘eternal’ deception of fraudulent elections and false left demagoguery (PT/Workers Party; PSB/Brazilian Socialist Party; PCdoB/Communist Party of Brazil, etc). What happened? A snap broke the charm of a truth found to be a lie repeated a thousand times, and backfired, no longer the social anesthetic of bread and circuses.

Biggest protests in 20 years sweep Brazil

Hundreds of thousands march in Brazil

By Todd Benson and Asher Levine, Reuters | SAO PAULO | Tuesday June 18, 2013

(Reuters) – As many as 200,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities on Monday in a swelling wave of protest tapping into widespread anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption.

The marches, organized mostly through snowballing social media campaigns, blocked streets and halted traffic in more than a half-dozen cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia, where demonstrators climbed onto the roof of Brazil’s Congress building and then stormed it.

Monday’s demonstrations were the latest in a flurry of protests in the past two weeks that have added to growing unease over Brazil’s sluggish economy, high inflation and a spurt in violent crime.

While most of the protests unfolded as a festive display of dissent, some demonstrators in Rio threw rocks at police, set fire to a parked car and vandalized the state assembly building. Vandals also destroyed property in the southern city of Porto Alegre.

Turkish protesters have long list of complaints

02 Jun 2013

ANKARA (AFP)  What started as a small group opposed to an development project in Istanbul has become an outpouring of national anger over how the Islamist-rooted government treats its citizens, testing Ankara’s quest to be a model country in its neighbourhood.Turks are increasingly frustrated about what they see as restrictions on their freedom after a series of last-minute reforms were rushed through parliament by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which enjoys an overwhelming majority.”This is a movement which is a result of growing frustration and disappointment among secular segments of society who could not influence politics over the last decade,” said Sinan Ulgen, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.

“This is an unprecedented, abrupt and unplanned public movement that has not been manipulated by any political party. It is a big surprise,” he told AFP.

A small park and its 600 trees at Istanbul’s iconic Taksim square was the spark for the protests that snowballed into one of the biggest nationwide campaigns against the ruling party’s ten-year rule.

Critics say that Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan’s rule has left Turkish society more polarised than ever, with opponents of the AKP government openly voicing concerns that Turkey is moving toward conservative Islam.

The ruling party has passed a series of reforms which have outraged many citizens who complain of a “fait accompli” and say it shows a slide toward an authoritarian and conservative agenda.

In 2004, the party attempted to submit a controversial amendment on banning adultery but had to back down amid criticism from opposition parties and women’s groups.

Last year, Erdogan provoked outrage when he likened abortion to murder, and his contentious education reform allowing clerical schools for the raising of what he described a “pious generation” was approved by the parliament in 2012, spreading fears among secularists.

More recently, Turkey’s parliament passed legislation curbing alcohol sales and advertising, which would be the toughest in the republic’s history if the president, a former AKP member, signs it into law.

In April, an Istanbul court ordered a retrial for world-renowned pianist Fazil Say, who was convicted earlier to 10 months in prison for blasphemy over a series of social media posts. The 43-year-old virtuoso has accused the AKP of being behind the case against him.

Critics accuse Erdogan’s government of using courts to silence dissenting voices.

Turkey is the leading jailer of journalists worldwide, imprisoning even more than China or Iran, according to rights groups.

Hundreds of military officers, academics and lawyers are also in detention — most of them accused of plotting against the government.

India: New Delhi police fire water cannon at rape protest

[In the capital of India, which the government has claimed is “the world’s largest democracy,” a brutal rape of a young woman has brought thousands of outraged protestors into the streets.  Rape is a common terror that women face in Delhi and throughout India.  What brought these massive protests to the streets, this time?  As the following articles point out, “Police figures show that, in Delhi, a rape is reported on average every 18 hours and some form of sexual attack every 14 hours….Indian novelist Arundhati Roy said rape is seen as a ‘matter of feudal entitlement’ in many parts of the country, and the reason this case had come to light is because the woman victim belongs to the affluent middle class“…..She said attitudes towards women need to change in India, because a change in the law only will protect middle class women, but ‘the violence against other women who are not entitled will continue’.” — Frontlines ed.]

[Tear gas and water cannon were used against protesters marching on the presidential palace]

Indian police have used tear gas and water cannons to keep back thousands of protesters marching in Delhi over the gang rape of a young woman.

Violence broke out as the protesters, mainly college students, tried to break through police barricades to march on the presidential palace.

There has been outrage in India over the attack on a bus last Sunday that has left the 23-year-old woman in a critical condition in hospital.

Six people have been arrested.

The government has tried to halt the rising anger over the attack by announcing a series of measures intended to make Delhi safer for women.

They include more police night patrols, checks on bus drivers and their assistants and the banning of buses with tinted windows or curtains.

But the protesters say the government’s pledge to seek life sentences for the attackers is not enough – many are calling for the death penalty.

Some carried placards reading “Hang the Rapists” and “Save women. Save India” as they marched on Saturday.

As government, creditors near deal on further austerity, Greek unions hold new general strike

A man eats a meal from a soup kitchen organized by the Church of Greece in Athens, on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012, which has been designated International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Greece is in the throes of an economic depression that has seen the economy shrink by a fifth over the past five years, while unemployment is at 25 percent, the highest in decades. The crisis has caused a major rise in homelessness, while the number of people depending on soup kitchens for sustenance has rocketed. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

NICHOLAS PAPHITIS,  Associated Press, October 18, 2012

ATHENS, Greece — Labor unions in recession-hobbled Greece are holding another general strike against a new harsh austerity program, as European leaders beset by a deep debt crisis and economic stagnation gather for a summit meeting in Brussels.

Thursday’s strike is set to close down public services and severely hamper most forms of transport — with even taxi drivers joining in for nine hours — while shopkeepers in Athens and other cities are planning to shut down for the day. It is the second general strike in less than a month.

Unions are organizing two separate marches in central Athens. Demonstrators’ ire will focus on the new belt-tightening for 2013-14, demanded by bailout creditors to release a desperately needed new rescue loan payment.

The city has seen hundreds of anti-austerity protests — many violent — over the past three years, since Greece revealed it had been misreporting key deficit figures and sank into an economic gloom so deep it has been likened to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The country is clinging to solvency with the help of two massive international bailouts worth a total €240 billion ($315 billion). To secure them, it committed to drastic spending cuts, tax hikes and reforms, aimed to cure years of profligate government spending.

But while significantly reducing budget deficits, the measures accelerated a recession that after five years is closer to a depression. By the end of next year, the economy is expected to have shrunk by about a quarter from 2008 levels. And with one in four workers out of a job, Greece has the worst unemployment rate in the 27-nation European Union.

“In general, we’re going from bad to worse,” said 85-year-old pensioner Giorgos Ierodimos. “Salaries are being reduced, pensions are being reduced, everything is getting more expensive, from food to health care to hospitals, medicines, everything. So how will people live? How will we live?”

Clashes erupt at mass rally in Cairo

Thousands protest against recent killing of demonstrators and demand that Egypt’s military leaders step down.  Al Jazeera’s Rawya Rageh reports on the latest clashes outside the Egyptian defense Ministry–May 4, 2012   Egyptian armed forces and protesters have clashed in Cairo, with troops using water cannon and rocks to disperse demonstrators trying to reach the defence ministry.

Hundreds of troops guarding the ministry surged forward on Friday when protesters began cutting through barbed wire used to seal off the ministry building in the capital’s central Abbasiya neighbourhood.”We understand that just a few minutes ago, the protesters tried to remove the barrier with barbed wire between themselves and the defence ministry,” Al Jazeera’s Steve Chao reported from Cairo. “Security forces responded with water canons. Protesters responded with rocks.” He said the military forces were describing their actions as “self-defence”. The protests come amid heightened tension after 11 people were killed in clashes that broke out on Wednesday when unidentified assailants fired at protesters staging a sit-in outside the ministry of defence in Cairo. Protesters have plastered Cairo’s Tahrir Square with banners reading, “Down with military rule”.

Greece: as politicians trash wages, pensions, jobs, people chant “get out, thieves!”

Greece approves spending cuts as protesters riot

The legislation features about $4 billion in severe budget trims, including 15,000 job reductions this year alone. Furious crowds chant outside Parliament, and several Athens buildings are set on fire

by Anthee Carassava, Los Angeles Times–Reporting from Athens, February 13, 2012

As thousands of protesters took to the streets and violence ripped through central Athens, Greece’s Parliament approved yet another round of punishing spending cuts to secure international rescue funds and ease fears of a calamitous financial collapse, potentially perilous for global markets and Europe‘s single currency.

The legislation, featuring about $4 billion in severe budget trims including steep wage and pension cuts as well as 15,000 job reductions this year alone, was backed by 199 lawmakers of the 300-member Parliament. Five abstained, 22 were absent and 74 lawmakers — including socialist and conservative supporters of the coalition government — voted against the bill that capped a ferocious 11-hour debate ending early Monday.

Throughout the marathon discussion, thousands of Greeks opposed to the austerity package descended on the sprawling grounds of Parliament shouting, “Get out!” and “Thieves!” The crowd swelled into the tens of thousands and their chants echoed across the capital — even renowned music composer Mikis Theodorakis showed up — as mobs of youths clashed with police and set fires to at least 34 buildings.

Crisis hitting Eastern Europe, massive protests continue to grow

A woman passes by a fire set up in the middle of the road by protesters at the University Square in Bucharest, January 15, 2012.

Romanian PM warns protesters on fifth day

Monday, January 16, 2012

By Radu Marinas and Luiza Ilie

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s prime minister warned anti-austerity protesters gathering for a fifth day on Monday that violence would not be tolerated after 59 people were injured in clashes between demonstrators and riot police at the weekend.

The country’s worst unrest for more than a decade has seen riot police using tear gas against protesters throwing bricks, smashing windows and setting fire to newspaper stands and rubbish bins in central Bucharest since it began on Thursday.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered peacefully in central Bucharest and other cities on Monday afternoon, demanding Prime Minister Emil Boc and his close political ally President Traian Basescu resign.

The numbers were expected to rise in the evening and analysts predicted more protests but did not see them affecting the austerity measures passed by the ruling coalition’s small but stable parliamentary majority.

The country had hitherto avoided the kind of violence that has shaken Greece and other indebted European states despite a 25 percent cut in public sector pay and five percentage point increase in VAT imposed in 2010 to maintain an IMF-led bailout.

Swaziland: teachers protest shuttered schools

Teachers demonstrate in the streets of the Swazi capital, Mbabane (AFP, Jinty Jackson)

(AFP) – September 15, 2011

MBABANE — Around 500 Swazi teachers marched through the capital Mbabane on Thursday to protest the closure of schools due to the kingdom’s severe budget crisis.

Teachers handed a petition to government demanding it pay over $11 million (eight million euros) into the school system by the end of Friday.

“Failure to do that will cause chaos which no one will be able to stop. We will be left with no option but to mobilise parents and children to join rolling mass action,” the Swaziland National Association of Teachers said in the petition.

Most schools failed to open this week for the start of a new term.

Principals say they no longer have the money to run them because government has not paid fees for orphans since January. Swaziland has the world’s highest HIV infection rate, and orphans make up a significant part of the student population.

Arrests and beatings at Nepal protests against disarming revolutionary fighters

The Next Front

Joint Press Statement by Comrade Kiran and Comrade Badal

Let us oppose the decision of handing over the keys!

Let us implement the decision of dignified army integration!

The abrupt step taken at 5 pm on September 1 to hand over the keys of containers of the weapons in the cantonments to the special committee under the Council of Ministers is against the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, Interim Constitution and the decisions of the party’s central committee and standing committee. We, therefore, strongly demand that the concerned sectors immediately abrogate this decision.

So far as the responsibility of concluding the peace process is concerned, we are committed to accomplishing the part of our party’s responsibility. Army integration is an important aspect of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).  In connection with accomplishing this responsibility, party central committee and standing committee have adopted the policy of integration of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with weapons and in group even if a mixed structure is to be created and developing this structure as an armed force. The issue concerning its chain of command is also under discussion. The party’s decision is clear that task of integration and regrouping for rehabilitation should be done only after the issue concerning the modality of integration was settled. The handing over the keys of containers of weapons is a step under the concept of disarming the PLA. The ‘Army Integration’ has been clearly incorporated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Interim Constitution.  Both the CPA and the Interim Constitution have not stated anywhere the concept of individual recruitment of the PLA members as civilian citizens by disarming them. The handing over the keys of weapon containers is a process of disarming the PLA members. We can never agree on this issue on ideological ground.

5 NOPD officers guilty in post-Katrina Danziger Bridge shootings, cover-up

[It took six years of mass struggle, keeping the spotlight of the world on New Orleans and Katrina, and the determined and unstoppable push of the victims families, to force this verdict out of a system that was blocking justice at every turn.  — Frontlines ed.]

Friday, August 05, 2011

By Times-Picayune Staff  — A jury this morning convicted all five New Orleans police officers accused in the Danziger Bridge shootings, which took place amid the chaos after Hurricane Katrina and claimed the lives of two civilians, and a cover-up of startling scope that lasted almost five years.

Lance Madison, left, whose brother, Ronald, was shot and killed on the Danziger bridge by New Orleans Police September 5, 2005, and who was jailed for allegedly shooting at police, gets a hug from prosecutor Cindy Chung next to lead prosecutor Barbara "Bobbi" Bernstein, right, Madison thanked the jury and the federal authorities who brought the case, while noting he will never get his brother back in front of Hale Boggs Federal Court Friday, August 5, 2011 in New Orleans, La. MATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

The verdicts were a huge victory for federal prosecutors, who won on virtually every point, save for their contention that the shootings amounted to murder. The jury rejected that notion, finding that the officers violated the victims’ civil rights, but that their actions did not constitute murder.

Sentencing for the five officers, all of them likely facing lengthy prison terms, has been set for Dec. 14 before U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt.

Four of the five officers — Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso — have been in custody since their arraignment.

The fifth, retired Sgt. Arthur “Archie” Kaufman, who was not involved in the shootings but headed the police investigation into them, remains free on bail.

Story by Laura Maggi and Brendan McCarthy, Staff writers

In remarks on the courthouse steps shortly after the verdicts were rendered, lead prosecutor Barbara “Bobbi” Bernstein said she was “in awe” of the relatives of the bridge shooting victims. Without their persistence, she said, the truth about the incident would never come to light.

Syria: Shootings as a million take to the streets

Clashes with security forces left at least 11 dead

The biggest numbers were seen in Hom, 100 miles north of Damascus, where at least five civilians were killed when tanks were called in to quell the protests

22 Jul 2011

Pro-democracy protests intensified amid reports that a million people demonstrated against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The biggest numbers were seen in Hom, 100 miles north of Damascus, where at least five civilians were killed when tanks were called in to quell the protests.

Six people were reported to have been shot dead in protests in the Damascus suburb of Mleeha and in the Idlib area in the northwest. There was a heavy security presence in the capital and its suburbs in what is now the fifth month of an uprising challenging the authority of Mr Assad.

The Kurdish population was involved in violent clashes for the first time since the uprising began. Dozens of people were wounded when police and militia used batons and tear gas against protesters in the mainly Kurdish northeastern city of Qamishli, witnesses said.

Rights groups say Mr Assad’s forces have killed more than 1,400 civilians but that the regime is showing signs of losing control.

The civilian death toll is said to be causing a reaction against Mr Assad among the mostly Sunni rank-and-file in the army.