Tag: activist

Climate demonstrators invade Louis Vuitton catwalk show

PARIS, France (AFP) – Extinction Rebellion climate activists burst onto the catwalk at Louis Vuitton’s Tuesday Paris Fashion Week show to blast the industry’s impact on the environment. “Overconsumption = extinction”, a banner brandished by one demonstrator from the international civil disobedience movement against climate change read. She climbed onto the catwalk set up in the Louvre art gallery even as models were showing off the latest styles, before being hustled away by security guards, […]

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‘No time to waste’ warns Japan climate activist

by Natsuko FUKUE Agence France-Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – Kimiko Hirata has spent nearly half her life fighting to wean Japan off its dependence on coal, and now isn’t the time to slow down, the award-winning activist warns. “I’m hopeful, but we have no time to waste,” said Hirata, the international director of Japan’s Kiko Network NGO. “Our future will be gone if we don’t act now,” she told AFP. It’s a message that Hirata, […]

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Leading Hong Kong democracy activist banned from vote

HONG KONG, China (AFP) — One of Hong Kong’s best-known democracy activists was banned Saturday from standing as lawmaker in upcoming elections, the latest blow to freedoms in the city as Beijing tightens its grip. Agnes Chow, 21, a former leader of the mass Umbrella Movement protests of 2014 that called for political reform, had her nomination rejected because she supports self-determination for the semi-autonomous city, the government said. It comes as fears grow that […]

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US, Germany urge China to release jailed activist

BEIJING, China (AFP) — The United States and Germany urged China to free an outspoken government critic known as “Super Vulgar Butcher” on Wednesday after he was sentenced to eight years in prison. Wu Gan, who refused to plead guilty to charges of “subverting state power,” was on Tuesday handed one of the harshest punishments meted out to a group of lawyers and activists swept up in a major crackdown two years ago. “The embassies […]

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Chinese activist jailed for 8 years

TIANJIN, China (AFP) — A Chinese court sentenced an activist known by the online pseudonym “Super Vulgar Butcher” to eight years in prison Tuesday after he refused to plead guilty to charges of “subverting state power.” Wu Gan, who was taken into police custody in May 2015, attracted authorities’ attention with performance art and caustic commentary on Chinese society and politics that he published online. He was “dissatisfied with the current system of governance, and […]

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QC court acquits military officer in Jonas Burgos abduction

(Eagle News) — A Quezon City court on Thursday acquitted Major Harry Baliaga Jr. of arbitrary detention charges that stem from the abduction of activist Jonas Burgos over 10 years ago. Branch 216 Presiding Judge Alfonso Ruiz II made the acquittal after ruling that the prosecution “failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the identity of (the) accused as the person who abducted and arbitrarily detained (Burgos).” “No eyewitness testified to identify the accused Baliaga as […]

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Top human rights activist rearrested in Bahrain: family

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — Leading Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was rearrested on Monday by security forces in the Gulf island state, his family said on Twitter. Rajab, who was detained in 2014 for tweets deemed insulting to the authorities before his release on health grounds, was apprehended in a dawn raid on his home in the mainly Shiite village of Bani Jamra near Manama, according to his family. “Rajab was arrested […]

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At New York anti-Trump rally, protesters express anger, fear

Hundreds of activists rallied on Thursday (December 10) in front of Donald Trump’s hotel in midtown New York City to condemn the Republican 2016 presidential candidate’s call to bar Muslims temporarily from entering the United States. Chanting “Dump Trump” and “refugees welcome,” the protesters castigated Trump’s comments. “There shouldn’t be a number on how many Syrians should be allowed into this country and Islamophobia and Arabphobia and Xenophobia and all of it, it’s becoming a real […]

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