GREECE’S FARMERS ARE ESCALATING PROTESTS FROM ROAD BLOCKADES TO OPEN CONFRONTATION AS GOVERNMENT RESPONDS WITH REPRESSION ~ Blade Runner ~ After more than ten days of nationwide mobilisation, farmers’ protests last week escalated into open confrontation and clashes with riot police. Protesters have faced arrests and upgraded charges, while in Crete authorities are threatening to prosecute farmers under accusations of forming a “criminal organisation.” From the mountains of Macedonia and Epirus to the plains of Thessaly and Aitoloakarnania, and from olive-growing Messinia to tourist-heavy Crete, thousands of low- and lower-middle-income farmers have taken to the roads. National highways have been shut down, cutting key transport routes and effectively splitting the country into parts. Tractor convoys are marching through major towns and cities, border crossings, ports and airports have been occupied for hours, and state institutions have been targeted with militant interventions. The farmers’ movement has moved decisively beyond symbolic protest. Mainstream media coverage has been sensationalist, with repeated references to “lawlessness” and occasional headlines warning of “insurrection”. This framing supports a broader state narrative that seeks to manipulate the meaning of the protests and brand farmers who confront police repression as “criminals”. Government officials, echoed by media commentators, recycle the familiar distinction between the “good” and the “bad” or “violent” protester. This escalation is unfolding under a centre-right government that includes figures with far-right political backgrounds and rhetoric, and is already facing corruption scandals. Having treated farmers’ representatives with open contempt and unable to address the substance of their demands, ministers have instead threatened prosecutions and expanded policing, signalling a strategy of repression rather than negotiation. Trade unions, youth and local communities have expressed solidarity with the farmers, while anarchist and left-wing groups have actively intervened in support of the mobilisations. The farmers are beginning to break out of isolation and a broader social bloc could be taking shape, capable of undermining the current social peace. RESTRUCTURING THE COUNTRYSIDE The farmers’ revolt cannot be understood outside the long-term restructuring of the Greek countryside under EU and domestic policy. Agriculture in Greece has declined sharply as a share of total employment over recent decades. Around the time Greece joined the European Community in 1981, roughly 30% of the labour force worked in agriculture. Today, that figure stands at around 11–12%, reflecting long-term structural shifts in the economy and population. Successive governments, implementing EU policy, have oriented the Greek economy towards tourism, services and real estate. The country has been reshaped into a low-cost destination for northern and western European capital, while primary production has been hollowed out. Large parts of the rural periphery have been abandoned, with more than a third of the 10 million population living in the Athens metropolitan and wider Attica region. Under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), remaining farming communities have been steered away from diverse and resilient cultivation towards monoculture systems reliant on subsidy regimes and fixed pricing. This shift has heightened ecological vulnerability and locked farmers into dependence on incentives and fluctuating markets. The so-called green transition has further distorted the sector. Farmers are now required to adopt “environmentally friendly” fertilisers and other inputs at significantly higher cost, while fuel and electricity prices continue to rise. At the same time, Greek agricultural products are forced to compete with cheaper imports from outside the EU, frequently produced under far weaker environmental and labour standards but still granted access to European markets. Against the backdrop of escalating imperialist wars, the EU’s decision to divert resources into rearmament programmes such as ReArm Europe signals a further contraction of support for agricultural production. The combined effect has been the steady destruction of small-scale farming. Production costs have soared, while climate breakdown has intensified extreme weather events, creating a vicious cycle that is now erupting openly. Floods in recent years have wiped out entire villages along with whole harvests and, in some cases, rendered land unproductive for multiple seasons. Compensation has been slow, partial or entirely absent, pushing many farmers deeper into debt. At the centre of the current crisis lies the domestic distribution of agricultural subsidies. Networks of intermediaries extract profit from both producers and consumers, while state mechanisms channel public money towards large landowners and agribusiness. In practice, EU subsidies function as a mechanism of class redistribution: a small minority of large landowners and producers absorbs the vast majority of funds, while small and medium farmers remain trapped in a regime of dependency. Fictitious entitlements, weak oversight and clientelist networks ensure that public resources flow upwards. In Crete, these dynamics are particularly stark. Long-standing patronage networks link political power, land ownership and access to EU incentives. In recent months, violent confrontations between rival family networks—reportedly involving heavy gunfire—have exposed how competition over land and subsidies is mediated through intimidation and force. Far from isolated incidents, these clashes reveal the underlying logic of a system that concentrates power and resources in the hands of a few while abandoning the majority. A STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL AND DIGNITY The farmers’ revolt is unfolding within a wider cycle of social conflict. In France, farmers blocked part of the A64 highway in December 2025 in protest against livestock culling policies, while earlier in 2024 Spanish and French unions organised tractor blockades at border crossings around the Pyrenees. In Portugal, farmers used tractors to block roads linking to Spain during Europe-wide protests. At the same time, recent months have seen waves of strikes and confrontations over wages, living costs and public services in Italy, Bulgaria, Spain and Portugal. Across these different contexts, struggles are increasingly turning towards disruptive tactics that target circulation—from port blockades by farmers to actions in solidarity with Gaza aimed at halting weapons shipments and challenging Israeli military tourism—developments that have been met, across cases, with intensified repression. In Greece, the memory of past uprisings looms large. The debt crisis of the previous decade never truly ended; it reshaped Greek society through austerity, privatisation and mass emigration. The Tempi rail disaster of 2023, which killed 57 people after years of neglect and privatisation of the railway network, remains a stark reminder of the human cost of neoliberal restructuring. Against this backdrop, the ruling class is acutely aware that renewed social explosions are possible. The farmers’ demands are concrete and rooted in material survival. Alongside full compensation for climate-related disasters, they are calling for reductions in production costs, debt relief, tax reductions, a genuinely public and effective national insurance system, equal rights for land workers, dignified pensions and stable income. These demands cut directly against the core of EU agricultural policy and the interests of agribusiness capital, as they appear incompatible with the dominant neoliberal model of global commerce. The state’s response—repression, criminalisation and propaganda—aims to isolate the farmers and prevent the emergence of a wider social challenge. Yet the scale and persistence of the mobilisations suggest that something deeper is unfolding. The farmers’ revolt is not a single sector’s dispute, but a struggle over who bears the cost of climate breakdown and capitalist restructuring. As farmers take to the streets with their tractors, the question confronting Greek society is not only whether agriculture can survive under the existing model, but whether converging struggles can reopen the possibility of a collective rupture with it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Photos: World Riots on Facebook The post Farmers’ revolt in Greece appeared first on Freedom News.

MASS PROTESTS IN SOFIA AND OTHER BULGARIAN CITIES AGAINST THE RULING COALITION’S BUDGET PLANS FORCED THE GOVERNMENT TO BACKTRACK ON A BILL THAT WOULD HAVE INCREASED INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO PENSIONS AND SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAMS ~ Camilo Márquez, Política Obrera ~ The demonstrations were organised by opposition parties that lack broad public support: “The budget bill included tax and pension increases and greater borrowing to finance public spending” (La Nación, December 2). It projected a 3% deficit and a minimum wage of €620 per month. President Rumen Radev has held office since 2017 with limited powers in foreign policy and defence. Real power rests with the head of government, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov, a member of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, who assumed office on January 16, 2025. The government is a fragile and highly divergent alliance comprising the pro-European Union centre-right, the pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party, and another nationalist-leaning party. This Frankenstein coalition is the latest experiment aimed at putting the country back on track after a prolonged period of political instability. Bulgarians have gone to the polls seven times since 2021 to elect a parliament that has been paralysed by a succession of coalitions led by various centre-right and right-wing parties. “The scale of the December 1 demonstrations surprised everyone. Unusually, they were not confined to Sofia. Crowds gathered in numerous towns and cities across Bulgaria.” (Reporteri 2/12). Several factors appear to have contributed to Bulgaria’s decision to adopt the euro on January 1st, though this remains to be seen: “The coming months are extremely important for Bulgaria’s political direction,” stated the prime minister, who warned that “the adoption of the euro is not guaranteed,” reports the Bulgarian newspaper, The Telegraph. The potential entry into the common zone has sparked fears among the population of the Balkan country of a sharp rise in prices. Bulgaria is the poorest country in the European Union and ranks second in corruption, only behind Hungary. This year, Bulgaria joined the Schengen Area, a European zone of free movement of people without internal border controls between member countries. With European rearmament, this area has a military counterpart: a “military Schengen,” whose objective is to facilitate the free movement of troops and equipment throughout the bloc, particularly eastward, as a contingency plan against Russia. Beneath the surface of this integration, a fierce battle is being waged for the spoils of Ukraine between France, Germany, and Poland. The latter is driving the so-called “Three Seas Initiative,” which connects the territories between the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas, where Bulgaria plays a key role. Warsaw’s aim is to use this lever to facilitate the extraction of Ukrainian wealth across this vast territory and, at the same time, to lead the costly plan to “contain” Russia, bypassing and opposing France and Germany. Moscow has already labelled this ostensibly economic “initiative” as a series of military logistics projects hostile to its interests. The country’s president, the pro-Russian Rumen Radev, called for the government’s resignation and new elections during the protests. The government was forced to abandon the draft budget the morning after the protests. All of Eastern Europe is on the front lines of this conflict. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation The post Protests in Bulgaria force the government to back down appeared first on Freedom News.

ORGANISERS IN BRAZIL REFLECT ON THE UN CLIMATE SUMMIT FARCE ~ CCLA Belém ~ Even before it began, as anarchists and libertarians we couldn’t expect much from a meeting that, over the years, has failed to curb capitalist greed in the slightest. It has only brought as its sole concrete “solution” to climate deregulation the commodification of a supposed right to pollute: the so-called carbon market. Therefore, we had carefully prepared our cultural centre to welcome the most varied forms of protest coming from the Brazilian Amazon (starting with Belém and its metropolis), from South America, and from the rest of the world. Every day, during that circus of comings and goings of official delegations corrupted by oil lobbyists, we proposed cultural activities, debates and discussion groups, solidarity meals, preparation for popular protest marches, etc. Despite this preparation and planning, we were fortunate to encounter unexpected moments and meet unfamiliar people, and to connect with others we had previously only known through the internet: we were able to participate in the occupation of the COP’s Blue Zone by indigenous peoples, receive visitors from far and wide and engage in dialogue with them, such as Macko Dràgàn (France), Mário Rui Pinto (Portugal), and Peter Gelderloos (USA)… and that’s not all: these were beautiful moments, full of learning in terms of resistance practices, exchanges of perspectives on crises generated by those at the top, and sharing solutions for us to overcome these challenges from our peripheral position. To conclude these anarchist anti-COP30 journeys, we wanted to leave you with our assessment of this farce that was this COP, the thirtieth lost opportunity to save our Mother Earth (as Emma Goldman called her) and the populations that survive on her, trapped in avoidable ills and torments. We already knew it: the courage to break free from this path of destruction will only be ours, and when we manage to reverse this desperate situation through our struggles, we will leave only the elites with the shameful clothes of those who could have done so but didn’t try, to dress and walk amidst the jeers of humanity and all creatures on the planet, finally freed from capitalist exploitation, inequalities, and oppressions. * * * From the beginning, we considered the COP a farce in terms of resolving or mitigating the environmental crisis in which capitalism has placed us. As expected, this edition of the COP showed us this in several ways. There was a record accreditation of lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry – almost two thousand representatives, with the main objective of debating means for the “energy transition” with more oil extraction and production. Meanwhile, more than 40 accredited representatives of Indigenous peoples were prevented from entering the Blue Zone because they did not have passports – yes, entering the most restricted area of the COP was the same as entering another country. Throughout the event, the Lula government announced the implementation of the TFFF (Tropical Forests Forever Fund), yet another rent-seeking mechanism of financial capitalism that is far from solving environmental problems. This aligns with the logic of perpetuating the same mechanisms that produced this environmental crisis. For us, it is more of the same, without significant changes in the social conditions of those who suffer most from the extreme events of climate change. Meanwhile, the forest peoples continue without self-determination over their own territories. Not surprisingly, the two demonstrations that broke through the security cordon of the colored areas of the COP were led by Indigenous peoples of the middle and lower Tapajós. It was a demonstration of dissatisfaction with the progress of the debates, which did not address crucial issues for these peoples, such as the guarantee of saying no to carbon credit market companies, mining and prospecting in their territories, and saying no to the privatization of the Amazon rivers for the construction of waterways that will only benefit the large landholdings of agribusiness grain monoculture and mining. The COP reproduces the capitalist economic rationale of seeing everything that exists, including the air we breathe, as a bargaining chip. With this vision, solutions could only be conceived within the logic of the commodity. Ironically, on November 20, the day of Dandara and Zumbi, a fire broke out in one of the Blue Zone tents, symbolising an extreme event of climate change, burning down the COP. On the other hand, the activities of the Anti-COP Anarchist Days demonstrated that other worlds are possible, through the destruction of capitalism, the State, patriarchy, racism, and xenophobia. These were two weeks of activities, from street demonstrations, such as the Periphery March on Black Awareness Day, to debates with comrades from various parts of Brazil and several countries who contributed with their analyses, experiences, and struggles on various fronts of resistance against this system of domination/control/exploitation, where, in a broader assessment, while respecting the necessary dimensions in the These struggles are traversed by the imperialism of the powers of the Global North along with their colonialism and racism, by environmental devastation resulting from mining in the countries of the Global South, by the situation of political and climate refugees, by the invasion of the territories of indigenous and traditional peoples, by real estate speculation in large population centres, by human trafficking, especially of women; by speciesism that sustains the logic of animal abuse for human consumption, by poverty/social inequality/concentration of wealth; therefore, some of the problems that were debated, in several languages and with diverse accents. It is worth remembering that confronting this system of domination requires organisation, activism, conviction and resistance, but also music, dance and the construction of happiness. In the words of Emma Goldman, if this revolution doesn’t allow me to dance, then this isn’t my revolution; thus, we held a Libertarian Art Festival, another way to energise experiences of struggle and resistance through culture. We had performances by various musical groups and artistic groups where, nevertheless, we suffered police repression, typical of the modus operandi of this sector of the State, subservient to the petty elite who cannot stand to see the underprivileged in their cultural manifestations. We understand that this crisis cannot be overcome through the neo-extractivism of oil and mining, the neo-developmentalist technology that requires the waste of millions of cubic meters of potable water to cool the data centres of Big Tech companies, the monopoly of renewable energy companies such as wind and solar (the latter even requiring and encouraging the mineralogical race for rare earths), agribusiness, the deprivation of peoples from exercising their rights to live in peace in their territories, the privatization of water and air, the maintenance of the privileges of the rich and colonial elites sustained by the terrible housing conditions, illiteracy, hunger, genocide, sexual exploitation, and poverty of the majority of populations, especially black or racialised people. We do not support and fight against initiatives to mitigate the effects of climate change that do not place the real problem at the centre of the debate, that is, capitalism and its counterparts. We see in the practices of indigenous and traditional peoples those who truly safeguard biodiversity and the world’s forests, who remove tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to regulate the climate and throwing the rent-seeking logic of carbon credits into disarray. This, combined with the struggles and resistance waged by poor populations in the countryside and cities, scattered from north to south and from east to west of the global map, even with much humiliation and difficulty in securing bread, tortillas, chapati, or beiju, reinvent themselves through mutual support and solidarity when they see their lives being impacted by extreme weather events, produced by the greed and profit of the rich. The COP has no solution for our problems; on the contrary, it is an organisation created for the management of the environmental crisis, established by the same sectors that manage world hunger and poverty. Thus, our urgent needs do not fit within the COP. The solutions to the climate-environmental-s From the humid tropics of the Amazonian lowlands, on the Belém peninsula in November 2025. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation. Photo: Peter Gelderloos The post Letter from the anti-COP30 anarchist days appeared first on Freedom News.

WHILE IN MOROCCO EVENTS SEEM TO HAVE CALMED DOWN FOR NOW, THE SITUATION IN MADAGASCAR APPEARS CLEARLY REVOLUTIONARY ~ from Lundi Matin ~ During a trip to northern Morocco last week, I had the chance to meet two supporters of the GenZ212 movement that has been shaking the country for several weeks. I also met a participant in the Malagasy movement of the same name, except for the telephone code. I report their words here, adding a few comments (admittedly too hastily; the errors and inaccuracies are solely my own) in an attempt to take stock of the situation. Let’s quickly set the scene: I am writing here as a member of lundimatin, from the African diaspora, convinced that the struggles here need to connect with the global wave of uprisings that we are witnessing from afar. In saying this, I am well aware, on the one hand, that I am not inventing new ground and, on the other hand, that the question of the positioning and possibilities of the struggles within the Western powers is different and remains unresolved. A more in-depth study would have required also to situate the people who informed me—I thank them warmly (it is their words that will be read here when quotes are introduced)—but this is only an incomplete progress report and perhaps useless for those already informed of recent and current events. This is the question that every uprising raises: what is the basis for the transition from routine order to the fire of insurrection? Currently, the problem seems to me to be posed as follows: how does this fire spread from one country to another, even though the technologies of surveillance and repression have never been so effective? And what forms does it take? Regarding Morocco, it seems that we must first get rid of the idea that the uprisings came out of nowhere: they are part of what I has been described to me as a powder keg, a long history of anger and struggle that will continue and resurface, even if the current movement runs out of steam (which seems to be the case since last Wednesday). When we talk about the “Arab Spring,” we rarely refer to Morocco, even though the February 20 movement was powerful. We can also mention the Rif Hirak of 2016, which spread to other cities in the country. Since then, “the tree has continued to grow.” People are directly opposed to the logic of the “makhzen,” a term linked to a complex and ancient history and which refers to the police system. The movement we are talking about began at the end of September following the death in August of eight women in a hospital in the south of the country (Agadir), while they had come to give birth by caesarean section. It was there, therefore, that the first demonstrations took place, which subsequently spread to the rest of the country. – I ask how? – one element to take into account, among many others, is a reel that went viral, in which we see a high-ranking member of the government addressing the demonstrators disdainfully and telling them roughly: “let them go continue their shit in Rabat”. This gentleman was taken at his word. Sociologically speaking, the category of “Gen Z” seemed imprecise to me. I ask for clarification: it was first students who took to the streets—hence this designation borrowed from the Nepalese movement, hence the organisational means from the world of gamers: Discord forums for example, which allow in particular to confuse the police by creating multiple discussion channels so that they no longer know where to turn. The students were quickly joined by a large-scale popular wave. In particular, in the south, where the situation has become truly insurrectional (city of Lqliâa), there are many agricultural workers (people grow tomatoes and avocados there, on empty stomachs, for Europeans) and also a lot of unemployment. “They hit straight away”: the level of violence of the repression seems to have surprised, it was of a brutality above normal. Two people were murdered by the police, another was seriously injured. They were targeted while dancing on police cars, having worn uniforms recovered in the crush; the riot was attacking the gendarmerie. Subsequently, helicopters were dispatched as soon as someone was injured, so as not to add fuel to the fire; these are highly sophisticated drones that allow the repressive forces to circulate information. “The engineering of maintaining order,” my friend tells me, is overdeveloped. I think directly of Mathieu Rigouste’s latest book, The Global War Against the People, whose critical relevance to current events seems to me more necessary every day. It is indeed here that we must come to talk about Israel, which we will find again with Madagascar, and which – it is a well-known fact – trained the Moroccan state in maintaining order and provided it with new repressive technologies. It has been repeated often enough: Gaza serves as a laboratory for repression on a global scale. It is not a question of intentionality, but of effects, the interests of the military-industrial economic complex come to perpetuate themselves. In response to the protests, the government handed out heavy prison sentences: three years, four years, or even fifteen years for a protester… the repression is atrocious. One of the challenges is to restore order by the start of the African Cup of Nations, which is scheduled to take place in December, and which represents a major structural investment. Last Wednesday, the word spread about taking a break, no doubt first to heal the wounds of the repression, but also, it seems, in anticipation of a promised speech by King Mohammed VI. It is difficult to know what the rioters think of the royal institution, but it is certain that this refers to issues very different from those of the old European states. The king seemed to me to represent for some, among many other things, a sort of counter-power to oppose the government (he is reputed to be more progressive). This is very far, however, from having been able to stifle popular assertion, which does not appear to have fully awakened since last Wednesday. Is this the effect of the violence of the repression, or a temporary lull? “Everything will be decided now.” My third interviewee is talking about Madagascar, and the situation there really seems even more decisive than in Morocco: President Rajoelina, overwhelmed by the scale of the insurrection, has been extracted by France to Réunion Island. This is unheard of. Part of the army has turned, refusing to suppress the movement, sometimes joining it. The gendarmerie, which is a very strong institution in the state, is not doing the same, however. We also find “GenZ” there, Discord, the skull and straw hat flag from the manga One Piece. On September 25, two or three days before the Agadir demonstrations, students from the Ankatso Polytechnic School spontaneously took to the streets, quickly joined by other groups of students. Living conditions at the school were unbearable: no electricity, no water. The energy issue was a truly structuring one, both for the ongoing revolution and for the power that was in place (which is certainly not much in place any more). The year 1960 and Madagascar’s independence did not ensure energy autonomy for the country. Power plants, fuelled by oil—and also operating the pumps needed to circulate water—were at the centre of a set of corrupt practices, in a context of shortages. Frequent “load shedding” consisted of regularly shutting down power plants (and therefore, water supplies) in order to save money. In Madagascar, the coloniality of power is glaringly obvious. The French Empire, however senile it may be, still owns the so-called Scattered Islands territory off the coast of the country, which it is keen to hold onto (stakes: potential energy resources, strategic presence in the Indian Ocean, etc.). President Rajoelina, who has dual nationality, is close to Macron (perhaps he will succeed Lecornu?). France has managed to offload an EDF hydroelectric power plant to replace the depleted national company, Jirama. Jirama’s CEO is none other than Ron Weiss, former head of Israel Electric Group. The State of Israel has several partnerships with Madagascar. One suspects that the business of death, control, and repression is part of this, but there is also, besides the Predator spyware, the dystopia of “modern farms.” As in Morocco, the movement is part of a long history of popular revolts, which can be traced back at least to 1947. The big difference, however, with most previous movements (at least the most recent ones), is that this one was not hijacked by a political leader. In 2009, Rajoelina managed to exploit the uprising to rise to power. Today, the only protagonist is “GenZ Madagascar,” not a proper name, nor a party. While some are currently trying to impose a structure on the movement, nothing is yet set in stone. Just like in Morocco, GenZ is not limited to a group of students (I have the impression that the signifier is floating, and is added to a host of other sociological determinations – perhaps we can even hope that it goes so far as to reconfigure them). The movement has a great social amplitude. Very poor classes are participating in the riots and looting in Antananarivo. Obviously, the government has tried to instrumentalise the looting to discredit the movement (in the past, it has allowed looting to take place for this purpose, by paying people and retaining the police). But this time, there is nothing to be done. Within the first 24 hours of the mobilisation, the government was dismissed and an army general was appointed Prime Minister. Huge bonuses were paid to the police to compensate for the delays in sales, followed by calls for a sort of reverse boycott: shopkeepers were asked to systematically refuse to sell their products to police officers, gendarmes, and their families. Without presuming what will happen and without neglecting that the power vacuum risks “opening the door to all appetites” (fear of the arrival of yet another tyrant), a notable fact has been the collective and continued attack, since the beginning of the movement, on Ravatomanga, the richest man in the country, a filthy capitalist linked to the corruption of the oil and electricity business, introduced into the upper echelons of power for about fifteen years, possessing “a right of life and death over the Malagasy economy.” Remember that it was in a private plane of one of Ravatomanga’s companies that Carlos Ghosn was exfiltrated from Japan (!). “Voldemort of protest ,” Ravatomanga had not been targeted during the last movements: we knew that his name “was not pronounced with impunity.” But now, he has also packed his belongings and gone into hiding in Mauritius. Three main demands crystallised during the popular uprising that, at least temporarily, defeated a government closely supported by the greatest Western powers: the resignation of the government, the arrest of Ravatomanga so that he can be brought to justice, and the dismantling of the “independent” national electoral commission (because it is not). Would a positive response to these demands from the government—or, if it fails to return, from the African Union, which had already governed between 2014 and 2019—be enough to put an end to the movement? What is certain, it seems to me, is that if we want to hope that the various GenZ movements, whose current exploits are exemplary, will come to permanently worry the colonial and global roots of “modern” state powers, they will have to become even more transnational, even reaching the imperial centres of power: they are just waiting for us. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation The post GenZ revolts in Morocco and Madagascar appeared first on Freedom News.

92 INJURIES, 11 MISSING AS ANTI-AUSTERITY MOVEMENT ENTERS THIRD WEEK ~ from cubadebate ~ Indigenous leader Efraín Fuerez, recognized for his community work in Mingas, was gunned down Sunday while marching in protest against high costs of living and government crackdowns that include freezing the bank accounts of activists and suspending a media organisation. The number of attacks has been documented by the Ecuadorian Human Rights Alliance, a group of 14 organisations that emerged after the 2019 national strike. In its most recent bulletin, the organization blamed the state for the spiral of violence and warned that, “the risk persists for those demonstrating in the streets, those who provide media coverage, and those providing humanitarian assistance and human rights monitoring.” According to the organisation, 70% of the documented violations have been committed by the Armed Forces and the National Police, with more than half of the incidents concentrated in Imbabura. Quito and Cotopaxi also record high numbers, with 30 and 10 cases, respectively. Meanwhile, the Federation of Indigenous and Peasant Organisations of Azuay (FOA) denounced, “disproportionate armed repression” and arbitrary arrests during the night of September 30. The group stated that a group of unarmed community members—including women and senior citizens—were violently intercepted and that six people were detained, one of them with serious facial and head injuries. The government, for its part, reported 12 soldiers were injured and 17 were held captive by protesters. All were later released, although several suffered fractures, bruises, and burns. Two police officers were also detained this Wednesday in Chimborazo while working to reopen a highway. The crisis has prompted reaction from the international community. UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his, “deep concern” about the events and called for respect for the right to peaceful protest. Domestically, the National Assembly has launched investigations, although it is divided between two committees vying for authority over control of the security forces. Conaie president Marlon Vargas described Fuerez’s death as a, “state crime” and ratified the continuation of the protests. In contrast, the Federation of Kichwa Peoples of the Sierra Norte announced a, “temporary truce” as a gesture of good faith to facilitate a possible dialogue with the executive branch, although it clarified that, “the resistance remains strong in the streets.” The situation has also had a strong impact on the press. Fundamedios and the Alliance for Human Rights have recorded nine attacks on freedom of expression, including tear gas, physical attacks, and arbitrary arrests of journalists, in addition to hostility from some groups of protesters. Crews from Radio Pichincha and the Associated Press reported damage to their vehicles and attacks during coverage in Quito. In an unusual gesture, a group of military personnel publicly apologised for Fuerez’s death in Cotacachi, lighting candles at the site of his death and sharing a minute of silence with the local population. Tensions in Ecuador persist after more than a week of demonstrations that have left a growing number of victims and a political landscape marked by confrontation between the government, indigenous and social organisations, and international demands for respect for human rights. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Machine translation. Image: Screen capture from Ecuvista   The post Ecuador: Indigenous leader gunned down in social protests appeared first on Freedom News.