Elephant in the room – conversation with anarchists from Russia on „Freedom to Navalny“ protests #22

We got in touch with several anarchist comrades to talk about the recent protests on the streets of different cities in Russia: looked into political events of 2020 and how they brought people to the situation with protests. With comrades we managed to clarify if Navalny is a nazi and the whole protest should be ignored by the anarchists or leftists. And of course we talked about anarchists and their participation in protest movement.

Music:

Группа Аркадий Коц – Тот, кто стреляет в рабочих
ЭлектропартиZаны – Наш выбор, свобода

Elephant in the room – Liberate Hong Kong an interview about the protest #21

Today the trial against some of the most famous protestors in Hong Kong began. Joshua Wong (24), Agnes Chow (23) and the 26 years old Ivan Lam. The prosecution accuses the three activists of having been present at an unauthorized demonstration outside a Hong Kong police station in June last year. They are also alleged to have asked others to join the illegal protest action. The three are facing up to five years in prison. The activists said this morning: „Neither prison bars, nor exclusion from elections, nor other arbitrary actions by authorities can stop us from our democracy activism.“ Demonstrations and protests like the one that put the three activists on trial would be impossible in Hong Kong today. Since July, a state security law has been in force in the Chinese special administrative region to prevent such actions. Continue reading „Elephant in the room – Liberate Hong Kong an interview about the protest #21“

Elephant in the Room – Interview on recent Protest in Poland #20

direct download link to archive.org

Abortion in Poland was legal during Communism and became illegal (with a few exceptions) after the political shift to democracy. Since then, feminists have been active in resisting the abortion law but with little success in gaining public support or influencing legislation. This changed in 2016, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in what became known as the Czarny Protest, or Black Protest.  It was a victory for the feminist movement and came as a surprise, especially after a similar proposal in 2011 received almost no public attention and failed to mobilise even within the feminist movement. We talked to activists from the antirepression structure and the Anarchist Black Cross Warsaw about the recent protest, how it changed the last four years, which difficulties big protest face and how the state try to repress the protest.

More information: Straijk Kobiet – womens strike

Elephant in the room – review and update on protest in belarus an interview #19

For two month people have been protesting in the street in Belarus.

The 9th of August was the election day and Lukashenko hoped to be reelected like in the past 5 election periods. But this didn´t happen. First time in his ruling period real results were published. And to no ones surprise Lukashenko didn´t achieve 80 % as he usually orders everybody to announce.

Continue reading „Elephant in the room – review and update on protest in belarus an interview #19“

Elephant in the Room – Feminist Union Organizers in Sri Lanka and Indonesia #18

Direkt download link on archive.org

This show was inspired of the recent strikes in Bangladesh concerning the garment industry. Due to difficult labor conditions and a lack of enforced work safety regulation the textile industry and especially the workers in those factories are facing many problems. One year ago we conducted an interview with two women from Sri Lanka and Indonesia working in unions with a feminist and queerfeminist mindset. Dian and Chamilla paint us a picture of the fight they are fighting and tell us about the demands they are making in their unions. These two extrodinary women told us first hand about their experience with union work in the garment business, battling not only for minimum wages and fair working hours, but also about the obstacles they are facing trying to organize feminist unionwork in a deeply patriarchal society. Additionally, we talked about the relation between feminism and fair labor conditions.

Continue reading „Elephant in the Room – Feminist Union Organizers in Sri Lanka and Indonesia #18“