It was 2006. A young Syrian called Ausama Monajed was on a train to London. One of his hobbies was reading e-books. On this trip, he picked Gene Sharp’s From Dictatorship to Democracy, which maps out strategies for using non-violent…
Rabbis protest for Palestine. It was a Palestinian legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the…
Moez Joudi, left, a co-founder of Al Watan party, attends a training session for members at the party headquarters in Tunis. Lindsay Mackenzie for The National TUNIS // In 1989, when Issam Belhaj turned 20 – then the age of…
Belarusian detainee, arrested during the flash mob ‘Revolution through social network,’ gestures from a prison cell at a detention center in Minsk, Belarus, on July 7. Sergei Grits/AP As the Belarusian government crackdown becomes increasingly aggressive, Internet-savvy protesters…
Minneapolis, MN (WiredPRNews.com) As Southern Sudan celebrates its first independence day, unarmed civilian peacekeeping — a new approach to human security with Minnesota roots — is saving lives and protecting civilians there. Over a year ago, Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), an…
Teresita Cruz-del Rosario is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. (Illustration by Amarjit Sidhu) It is easy to explain the current protests in Malaysia as an instance of the winds of the…
The fall of the regimes in Tunisia and Egypt has produced prolific analysis by media commentators across the spectrum. Some of this analysis has been excellent, but much of the conventional media interpretation of the why, how and…
Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, made an extraordinary trip to the besieged city of Hama. His visit was meant to support tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators holding olive branches and roses in a…
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has used most of the instruments in the dictator’s toolbox to repress his people. He’s beaten and jailed political opponents. He’s thrown student activists out of university. He’s established a monopoly on television and…
A hard core group of Quebec separatists plans to have its own security force on hand to keep things under control at its own protest against the monarchy next week. The Resistance Network of Quebec says it expects…