CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh – On Monday, July 26th, students at the public Chittagong University protested (simultaneously with students in Dhaka) against tuition fee hikes. The students called for an indefinite strike to begin the next day and thousands of students have continued to participate since then.
The banner reads: "Withdraw all types of fee increases! Students against hike of tuition fees!"
The university authorities filed criminal cases against 11 activists by name and 21 others as unknown so far. This only gave the movement another boost. It is now spreading from the university campus across the whole city. Students of other institutions in Chittagong are joining the movement. Thousands of people have been occupying the four major streets of the city, chanting slogans and performing revolutionary songs.
Friday and Saturday are weekly holidays at universities in Bangladesh. The students involved in the movement are mainly non-residential students. Like at other universities the dormitories are constantly controlled by armed cadres of the state government. Therefore residential students are intimidated to get directly involve in the movement. Nontheless many residential students left their dormitories this weekend and joined the rallies in Chittagong city. They plan to spend the whole night in the city streets with protest activities. And tomorrow they will again march towards the campus from city.
Thanks to Tarek (an activist in Bangladesh) for sharing this information.
All of this continues as, on Friday, garment workers in Dhaka rebelled against ridiculously meager state sanctioned wage increases. More photos from the streets of Chittagong:
DHAKA, Bangladesh – A few hundred students of private universities yesterday barricaded the Airport Road at Mohakhali in Dhaka for about four hours demanding withdrawal of VAT [a government tax] levied on their tuition and other fees.
They vandalised at least 10 vehicles and clashed sporadically with police at Mohakhali intersection during their demonstration. Police charged truncheons and lobbed teargas canisters to disperse them, which left at least 15 students, policemen and pedestrians with minor injuries.
The demonstration disrupted traffic movement for hours on the thoroughfare triggering long tailbacks.
Students of North South University, East West University, American International University of Bangladesh (AIUB), Brac University, Dhaka International University and other private universities took to the streets around 1:00pm demanding withdrawal of 4.5 percent VAT slapped on their tuition and other fees.
They said they formed a human chain around noon on both sides of the Airport Road between Mohakhali and Kakoli as per their earlier announced programme.
Witnesses said the students first blocked the streets between Mohakhali and Gulshan Link Road and then the Mohakhali intersection and continued their obstruction despite repeated requests from the police not to disrupt traffic.
Police charged truncheons on them around 4:45pm, they said, adding that this made some students angry and they vandalised a few vehicles at the intersection and pelted police with brickbats. Vehicular movement on the Airport Road resumed after this.
During the chases and counter chases with police that followed, students gathered near the Wireless Gate next to Brac University around 5:00pm and damaged a few more vehicles and barricaded the Mohakhali-Gulshan-1 street until 7:00pm.
Officer-in-Charge of Gulshan Police station Kamal Hossain claimed none was arrested in connection with the violence and the students left the streets around 7:00pm.
The students termed the VAT on their fees “illogical and discriminatory”. They said it would be a huge burden on them and their parents.
Mohammad Rafiqul Alam, a student of AIUB, said they blocked the road after forming the human chain in the hope that they would get assurance from the government about their demand.
“Education is not a commodity and the government cannot impose any VAT on it,” he said, adding, “How could the government impose VAT on private universities when it is giving subsidy to public universities?” (continue here)
Here we go again! On Thursday July 8th, 2010 close to one hundred people were arrested after an inadequate verdict was released for the Mehserle trial. Just like the Oakland Rebellions of January 2009, most of those who were arrested will not face criminal charges.
However, THIS IS A CRUCIAL MOMENT for us to show the D.A. and the courts that they cannot decide the fate of those demonstrators that are still facing charges without being accountable to the larger movement for justice for Oscar Grant. Right now, 13 are still in jail with 55K or higher bail or being held with no bail.
This is a call out to all who are able to come support the people still facing charges. Show up to hearings 30 minutes prior to the times below to meet outside the court and walk in together.
Below are the dates and info for the upcoming hearings. Hearings will be held at Wiley W Manuel Courthouse, 661 Washington St @ 7th St., Oakland.
Thursday July 22nd 9AM rm 115 4 people
Friday July 23rd 9AM rm 104 1 person
Monday July 26th 2PM rm 112 1 person
Also, try and make special arrangements to come out for the mass arraignment, to stand in solidarity on the day that most of those arrested will have to show up to court.
SAN FRANCISCO, California – On Monday, July 20, San Francisco community members, outraged by the lack of housing in the city took over the empty Sierra Hotel in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Late [Monday] afternoon housing activists took over the long vacant 43-unit Sierra Hotel in San Francisco’s Mission District. The hotel has been empty for years and is in a state of disrepair though structurally sound. The takeover is “a collective act of homefulness” to protest government cuts of social services that will result in more people being out on the streets.
San Francisco, July 19-It was open house at the Hotel Sierra at 20th and Mission Streets today. Late this afternoon housing activists from Stop the Cuts Bay Area opened up the long vacant residential hotel.
Occupiers found their way into the hotel prior to a rally at 16th and Mission Streets followed by a march up Mission to the site, whose ground floor hosts a T Mobil store.
On the sidewalk below the Sierra, protesters chanted, danced, waved signs, spoke out and enjoyed free food from Food Not Bombs. Upstairs the new residents hung out banners, opened windows and made themselves known for all the world to see.
A single SFPD cruiser with 2 officers sitting in it stood guard over the proceedings across 20th Street.
After a while the downstairs entrance to the hotel on 20th opened up, and occupiers allowed people to come on in and take a look around. After mounting some long neglected steps, we were welcomed to tour the 43-unit hotel. Similar states of disrepair were evident throughout the place, but it appeared structurally sound and has running water and functional toilets.
Activists called the occupation “ a collective act of homefulness” to protest government cuts on all levels that will result in more homelessness, while places like the Sierra are allowed to sit and rot.
A statement about the action asserted, “In a city with so much conspicuous wealth, an estimated 6,000 to 15,000 individuals sleep without a roof over their head. 23,000 or more others are on the waiting list for public housing (a list that is often closed to new applicants), while some 30,000 housing units sit empty.
“The mayor’s vision of San Francisco? Million-dollar condos and ‘affordable housing’ that most residents can’t afford; schools and other publicly owned buildings laid to waste; jail bunks and early graves for those who have no place to rest but the sidewalks.”
The Sierra Hotel also has a storied history of its own. According to several people at today’s action, in 1910 it was The New World Hotel, hideout to radicals of the time and known at “The Last Stop Before Hell.”
Tonight it’s the home of today’s radicals, who’ve made it open to everyone who needs to get off the streets. They’re taking the first steps to put an end to the hell of living without a place to call home these days.
Update:
10am: Squatters are expecting a police siege soon.
The Oscar Grant movement and the 2009/2010 rebellions in Oakland have triggered a lot of discussion about violence versus non-violence. What are the correct tactics to fight against state violence? How do we get justice for innocent Black and Brown men and womyn who are brutalized and murdered by the police? These are the questions that continually ran through my mind at the 2010 protest/rebellion on July 8th in downtown Oakland. During the earlier part of the protest a lot of non-profiteers, liberals, and regular people were talking about this debate between violent and non-violent resistance, and largely condemning acts of ‘violence’. Youth Uprising (an Oakland non-profit) was passing out flyers for their community gathering, which said “violence isn’t justice.” All around there was encouragement to be non-violent and peaceful. There was also a serious racialization of violence by the media, the churches, and the local government and non-profits. Violence is characterized as something coming from outside of ‘the community’; beware of the ‘outside agitators’ that come in the form of white anarchists. Before the verdict was released I listened to my co-workers talk about these ‘agitators’ who were coming into Oakland from everywhere to wreak havoc in our city. It was alarming to see this panic and fear of anarchists being conjured up by the bourgeois media and the State. There is some truth to this statement that violence does come from outside of the community, but not in the form of anarchists, but in the form of racist killer cops. What’s really violent is living in a world where people die everyday from curable diseases and hunger; where working-class youth are deprived of an education by closing schools and building more prisons; where the police can kill innocent men and have it recorded on video and still not be guilty of 2nd degree murder! (more…)
Monday, July 19th, 2010, 5:30pm prompt
Meet at 16th & Mission Bart Station (NE corner), San Francisco, CA 94103
A brief march to liberate & occupy vacant residential bldgs.
In a city with so much conspicuous wealth, an estimated 6,000 to 15,000 individuals sleep without a roof over their head. 23,000 or more others are on the waiting list for public housing (a list that is often closed to new applicants), while some 30,000 housing units sit empty.
Each budget season, the mayor threatens to cut funding for vital housing, health, legal, and other services that help the working poor and indigent. Without these services, many who remain housed would quickly end up on the streets – or dead.
The mayor’s vision for San Francisco? Million-dollar condos and “affordable housing” that most residents can’t afford; schools and other publicly owned buildings laid to waste; jail bunks and early graves for those who have no place to rest but the sidewalks.
On Monday July 19th, community members will respond by undertaking a collective act of homefulness. Please join us promptly at 5:30pm as the march to the occupation site is time sensitive. This is community resourcefulness in action, don’t miss it! Housing is a human right!
OAKLAND, California – On January 1st, 2009, BART police officer Johannes Mehserle shot and killed Oscar Grant while he lay on the ground at the Fruitvale station in Oakland. Within a month, numerous protests and riots broke out throughout Oakland demanding justice for Oscar Grant. After a year and 6-months, the historic trial of Mehserle for the murder of Grant commenced. However, the trial was ridden with bias and favor for the former BART officer. On July 8th, 2010, a verdict from the trial was announced; Mehserle was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
On the day of the verdict, some 2000 activists, community members, youth to elderly, gathered at 14th and broadway in downtown Oakland, some as early as 5pm, while the main rally began at 6pm. As several helicopters buzzed overhead, the crowd swelled at three intersections all along broadway at 12th, 13th, and 14th st. At 12th and broadway, hundreds of police surrounded protesters, at the next intersection a street orchestra played music with chants demanding justice as even more police looked on, and at 14th and broadway activists from non-profits and some community members took the stage. Dozens of speakers went up to the mic, all proclaiming the unsettled feeling the so-called justice system invoked that day by what seemed to be just a half empty gesture at any sort of real justice. Many spoke to the crowd about peace, disturbingly merging property destruction with violence, assault with self-defense in the rhetoric they used to control the crowd. While some of the crowd surrounded the audio system, much of the people talked amongst themselves as the blasting voices of rightfully outraged speakers were lost in the dense mass of bodies. Some were able to hang a large banner reading “OAKLAND SAYS GUILTY”, and others migrated from 12th to 14th and back again, looking for the crowd they belonged in. No one knew what to do, no one knew how to express their distress. Those speakers attempting to manipulate the crowd, and the activists attempting to quell and police the “unruly youth” were unable to provide a reason, or an alternative, or an analysis that was capable of satisfying a mass of people swept away by the injustice they sought to amend.
As the rally ended and the sound system removed, only a handful of people left the area. For nearly an hour, the crowd remained confused and unsure what the next step was. People milled about, discussing what had happened, reacquainting themselves with friends, and figuring out what to do. Much of the sentiment in the crowd seemed to wish a march or a collective escape from the intersections. Instead we stood around, as police forces continued to encircle the crowd. Eventually the crowd felt a sense of rush, away from 12th st and back to 14th and broadway. There we stood again, dense as sardines in a can without a collective escape from the looming police. As the anticipation rose, waves of excitement and fear hit us. Those of us in the middle and back of the crowd near 14th st felt bodies rush past us and then forward again north on broadway. Finally something snapped, people began spraying graffiti on walls and smashing windows. The footlocker on broadway was smashed, but the metal security fence behind the glass held no one back; the crowd pushed through and the merchandise in the store was looted. The bounty was shared by all as looters liberated shoes and clothing and jettisoned much of it into the crowd. For the next several minutes, what seemed to be hours, the crowd milled around, caged by police with nowhere to go. Shoeboxes were lit, small fights broke out between activists trying to stop “violence” and the rioters. Slowly the crowd realized the encroaching police. Wall to wall police had surrounded the intersection; the 12th and 13th st intersections had fallen to the riot police and eventually a 300 strong squad of cops pushed through the crowd from 14th st. Much of the crowd dissipated, others sat in the grassy area in front of city hall adjacent to the intersection (Frank Ogawa Plaza).
An image posted on indybay in response to claims that outside agitators are responsible for rioting.
Another half hour rolled by and the dimming crowd began leaving at a faster rate. A smaller contingent of about 200 people eventually broke off from the intersection of 14th and broadway, ran around the block, and ended up behind police on the north side of broadway (around 16th st). For the next hour, they smashed windows and lit trash cans and dumpsters, rolling some into the street. Eventually the police regrouped, the majority marched down broadway flushing out the remaining rioters, but not before a standoff began at the intersection of broadway and 19th st. Police had locked down streets parallel to broadway as well, including Telegraph and Franklin, but had not yet encircled the 19th st intersections. Those 100 or so that remained at 19th and broadway stood resolutely until street lamps were shut off. All that remained were burning dumpsters and the roar of a crowd. Some fled in fear of a raid; gunshots were fired into the air as warning to other protesters, and loud explosions could be heard a few blocks down. Only a few streets down other windows continued to be smashed, but the intersection of 19th and broadway became the focal point for police. The police boxed in rioters from either side of 19th st, leaving rioters only the ability to run north on broadway into a thin fray of police. Some appeared to be arrested, others seemed to make it past them. Within the next half hour, the crowd appeared to completely diffuse throughout the area.
Some activists are expecting the next action to take place after Mehserle’s sentencing on [November 5th]. More information on the day of the Verdict in Oakland is available at oscargrantprotests. More videos:
