Feature Archives

On June 12th, the minarets of the Al-Askariya mosque in Samarra, one of the most revered shrines of Shiite Islam, were reduced to rubble. The mosque was supposed to be one of the most carefully defended locations in Iraq due to its religious significance to Shiites and the violence that followed the bombing of its golden dome in 2006.

On Saturday June 9th, a delegation from the Vietnamese Association of Victims of Agent Orange arrived in San Francisco. They were met upon their arrival by many U.S. supporters including members of Veterans for Peace and members of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign. The delegation spoke at the Veteran's Building in San Francisco on June 10th.

The G8 summit will be held in northern Germany this year from June 6th through June 8th and massive direct action as well as mainstream marches are planned.
June 6th: The first day of the blockades has seen most of the roads that lead to Heiligendamm blocked. Throughout the day different groups set out to shut off access points to the G8 venue. Many groups used a variety of tactics during the day, from sit-down road occupations to building barricades to breaking through police lines to reach their blockade locations. Despite police use of water cannon, mounted police, and helicopters to ferry in reinforcements, many more than expected made it through the no-protest zone to blockade right up to the G8 security fences. Indybay has on-going coverage of events from Bay Area reporters.

Following the killing of a senior Fatah leader on May 13th, violence erupted throughout the Gaza Strip. Two attempted ceasefires collapsed within hours and fighting between Fatah and Hamas has resulted in dozens of deaths, threatening to shatter the two factions' unity government. Israel is intervening in the factional strife with the explicit aim of eliminating Hamas as a military and political force; a senior Israeli cabinet official has even called for all Hamas leaders to be killed. Israeli air strikes have killed over thirty civilians in the past few days, with some of the attacks appearing to be assassination attempts.

On May 9th, German police raided at least 40 locations, including social centers and private homes in Berlin and Hamburg as well as an alternative web provider. Police forces searched the Rote Flora in Hamburg and parts of the Bethanien in Berlin, both planned convergence spaces for the G8 protests next month. Protests against the raids were held in cities across Germany and solidarity protests at German consulates have taken place where the embassies in Edinburgh and Amsterdam were attacked.

On April 30th, at 5pm, sympathizers of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) and students from the Benito Juarez Autonomous University occupied Radio Universidad in preparation for the May 1st general strike in Mexico. The section 22 teachers' union will participate in the march to the main square, the Zocalo, that will take place on Tuesday in Oaxaca City. Radio Universidad was fiercely defended against the invading federal police last November 2nd and continued to broadcast until a few days after the 25th of November, when massive state repression forced much of the movement into hiding.

The US military has ordered that at least 10 areas of Baghdad be entirely sealed off by walls. The western Baghdad district of Ghazaliyah has already been walled off. The 15,000 residents of the area are subjected to curfews and can only enter and leave through one checkpoint, where they are subjected to repeated identity checks and searches. Since April 10, US forces have been constructing a five-kilometer wall made of six-ton concrete sections along the highway dividing Adhamiyah from its Shiite neighbors. On April 23rd, residents the Sunni enclave demonstrated and shouted slogans against the wall and Prime Minister Al Maliki called for an end to construction, but the US military has said that it will continue building the walls.