Category: Protest and Unrest

Last weekend, Russian authorities moved one step closer towards potentially locking up Oleg Orlov, one of Russia’s most prominent and outspoken human rights defenders. On April 29, the prosecutor’s office formally indicted him on charges of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian military, for which he faces a maximum three-year prison sentence. Authorities should immediately drop the charges.

Orlov is co-chair of Memorial, a leading Russian rights group. The government shut down Memorial in 2022 as part of the Kremlin’s effort to stifle critics and human rights work. Yet Memorial’s core activists continued their human rights work, some from abroad, and some, like Orlov, from inside the country.

On March 21, criminal investigators in Moscow interrogated Orlov, informing him they had opened a criminal investigation against him for repeated acts of “discrediting” Russian armed forces, based on his single-person anti-war pickets and his social media post containing his trenchant criticism of the war and of the government’ slide toward totalitarianism and fascism.  They released him later that day on his own recognizance.

All Britons will be called on to swear allegiance to King Charles III at his coronation, an oath hitherto reserved for British nobility.

It is a move that has upset anti-royalists.

Gov’t orders Gordon Kricke to leave country within 48 hours for ‘non-respect of diplomatic customs’, ministry says. Chad’s government has ordered the German ambassador to leave the country within 48 hours, it said in a statement. “This decision of the government is motivated by the discourteous attitude and the non-respect of diplomatic customs,” the country’s communication ministry said on Twitter…

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas judge who sparked a legal firestorm with an unprecedented ruling halting approval of the nation’s most common method of abortion is a former attorney for a religious liberty legal group with a long history pushing conservative causes.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. His ruling, which doesn’t take immediate effect, came practically at the same time that U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, essentially ordered the opposite in a different case in Washington. The split likely puts the issue on an accelerated path to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Russia has opened a criminal case against Pussy Riot founding member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova for allegedly “insulting religious sensibilities,” human rights lawyer Pavel Chikov said on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.

The Investigative Committee opened the case due to various of Tolokonnikova’s posts on social media, Chikov said, adding that a series of police searches had been carried out as part of the investigation, though he gave no further details.

Which of Tolokonnikova’s social media posts prompted the charges is also yet to be established.

“Dear Investigative Committee of Russia. Stop f***ing around threatening political activists with more criminal cases. Go after actual criminals, such as the war criminal Vladimir Putin. Best of luck,” Tolokonnikova said in a statement on Pussy Riot’s Instagram.

French President Emmanuel Macron sought to rally citizens around a plan to save water on Thursday and stressed that protests will not stop reforms, in a nod to both climate change and an unpopular pension bill.

The water-saving plan includes 50 measures, such as fixing leaking pipes, adapting the way farmers and the nuclear industry use water and making water more expensive for those who use it in excess of basic needs.

“In the face of change, there are necessarily constraints, we must explain them, share them and make each and every one aware of their responsibilities,” Macron said.

This was the president’s first major policy announcement and public outing after weeks focused on the pension bill, which has triggered fierce protests across the country. With the water plan, Macron and his government are looking to move to other topics.

“There are protests, but it does not mean everything must stop,” Macron said.

Contrary to the findings of the Ohio EPA (Ohio Environmental Protection Agency), an “independent environmental group” has found carcinogens in the water. According to the group and common scientific knowledge, “there is no level of carcinogen that is safe.” While independent experts have found such contamination, official agencies and contractors hired by Norfolk Southern found nothing, telling residents it was safe to return to their homes and even to drink the water.

Paris police clashed with demonstrators for a third night on Saturday as thousands of people marched throughout the country amid anger at the government pushing through a rise…

Donald Trump claimed on Saturday that his arrest is imminent and issued an extraordinary call for his supporters to protest as a New York grand jury investigates hush…

  NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Top Republicans, including some of Donald Trump’s potential rivals for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, rushed to his defense Saturday after Trump said he is bracing for possible arrest. The reaction underscores the political risks faced by would-be opponents who are eager to convince voters that it is time to move on from the…

Angry protesters took to the streets in Paris and other cities for a second day on Friday, trying to pressure lawmakers to bring down French President Emmanuel Macron’s government and doom the unpopular retirement age increase he’s trying to impose without a vote in the National Assembly.

A day after Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne invoked a special constitutional power to skirt a vote in the chaotic lower chamber, lawmakers on the right and left filed no-confidence motions to be voted on Monday.

At the Place de Concorde, a protest by several thousand degenerated into a scene echoing the night before. Riot police charged and threw tear gas to empty the huge square across from the National Assembly after troublemakers climbed scaffolding on a renovation site, arming themselves with wood. They lobbed fireworks and paving stones at police in a standoff.

Portuguese tourist Fabio Figueirado wanted to admire beautiful buildings on a romantic getaway in Paris, but instead he and his girlfriend have found themselves navigating pavements piled high…

Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, where he is scheduled to meet top ally Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia is a main backer of Assad and has a broad presence in Syria, where a 12-year uprising-turned-civil war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population. Moscow has played a pivotal role in fighting back armed opposition groups trying to topple Assad’s government through its military support, and has also aggressively backed Damascus against opponents at the United Nations.

The Kremlin confirmed Tuesday that Putin will meet with Assad on Wednesday — the anniversary of the conflict — in a statement carried by Russia’s state news agency Tass.

Ohio filed a lawsuit against railroad Norfolk Southern to make sure it pays for the cleanup and environmental damage caused by a fiery train derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border last month, the state’s attorney general said Tuesday.

The federal lawsuit also seeks to force the company to pay for groundwater and soil monitoring in the years to come and economic losses in the village of East Palestine and surrounding areas, said Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.

“The fallout from this highly preventable accident is going to reverberate throughout Ohio for many years to come,” Yost said.

“The day 72 million Japanese go hungry.” That’s the prospect Josei Seven (March 16) unfolds. For shock value? Yes and no. Certainly it’s shocking. But it’s not cheap…

Russia on Monday began the closed-door trial of jailed opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who faces up to two decades in prison on treason charges for comments critical of the Kremlin. His trial is the latest in a string of cases against opposition voices in Russia in a crackdown that has intensified since President Vladimir Putin deployed troops in Ukraine last…