On Jan. 15, union leaders and members of the Confédération Paysanne held protests in opposition to the EU-Mercosur Deal, signed in December 2024 but still pending ratification, which would reduce tariffs and more deeply link the European market with the bloc of South American nations. Participants unfurled banners in offices of the Agriculture Ministry in protest of the agreement.

Protesters included a large delegation from the French overseas departments and regions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Réunion and Mayotte, who denounced unfair competition from imports that would be imposed under the agreement. Three key spokespersons were among those arrested.

The experts warned that arresting and charging peaceful protesters may violate thr freedoms of assembly, expression and association, enshrined in both the French Constitution and international law. According to farmer advocate groups, use of the BRAV-M—a special motorized anti-riot unit—to quell the protest signaled criminalization of peaceful assembly, raising concerns about proportionality and necessity of police force.

The EU-Mercosur Deal is a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur bloc nations of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The agreement, which has been debated for 25 years, would connect South American farmers with millions of EU consumers. However, domestic producers in France fear the deal will undercut them and drive them out of the market.

The European Parliament voted on the agreement on Jan. 21, with 334 votes in favor and 324 against, although it still awaits ratification by EU member states. Many French  lawmakers have resisted ratifying the agreement unless it includes safeguards for European farmers, environmental protections, and regulatory parity.

Farmer and agricultural worker advocate groups like La Via Campesina, Serikat Petani Indonesia (Indonesian Peasants’ Union), the Kenyan Peasants League, European Coordination Via Campesina and the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations have condemned the detentions and called on French authorities to cease what they describe as “the criminalization of peasant movements.”

From JURIST, Jan. 27. Used with permission. Internal links added.

Photo: UN Human Rights Council via Twitter

Despite the resignations of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and other cabinet ministers, students launched the new protest, demanding the publication of documents relating to the November 2024 disaster, and a budget increase for higher education. Protesters have also been demanding the resignation of President Aleksandar Vučić.

In a meeting at Sremska Mitrovica, Vučić, who has been holding counter-rallies in his support, said that the student demands were already met, calling the protests a “failed color revolution.” Vučić added that there would be no special elections, but that at least half of the cabinet ministers would be replaced.

On Nov. 1, at least 14 people were killed after the roof above the entrance of a recently renovated railway station collapsed in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city. The disaster sparked widespread protests, with accusations of corruption directed at the city mayor and the central government.

Serbia has been facing anti-government protests for over a year now. In December 2023, protesters rallied across the country against the results of controversial general and local elections. The current protests mark the most important political deadlock in the country since the demonstrations that resulted in the resignation of Slobodan Milošević in 2000. In a parallel to Milošević, Vučić’s rule has been marked by accusations of authoritarianism, ties to the criminal underworld, and widespread corruption.

From JURIST, Feb. 16. Used with permission.

Photo of January Belgrade protest: Emilija Knezevic via Wikimedia Commons

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Main protest leader Oliver Barker-Wormawor emphasized the movement’s commitment to non-violence, and stopped short of calling for the resignation of President Nana Akufo-Addo. But some participants took a harder line. Prominent activist Bernard Mornah said: “Let President Akufo-Addo and the Ghana police service be told that anytime anyone resists peaceful change, violent change would occasion. We don’t want to engage in violence, but if they push us to the wall, we have no other option.”

Organized by a new coalition called Democracy Hub, the protest used the hashtag #OccupyJulorbiHouse. Julor Bi translates from the local Ga language as “Child of a Thief”—an obvious taunt at the government. (Jurist, AfricaNews, GhanaWeb, Pulse Ghana, GhPage)

The Ukraine war, with resultant disruption of wheat and hydrocarbon exports, has sparked an ongoing global food and energy crisis. The new Ghana protests come just as the price of oil approaches $100 a barrel for the first time since the immediate aftermath of the start of the invasion a year and a half ago. (NYT)

Photo: Jurist via GhanaWeb TV

“Just one day after taking office, President Wickremesinghe oversaw a brutal assault by security forces on peaceful protesters in the heart of Colombo,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “This action sends a dangerous message to the Sri Lankan people that the new government intends to act through brute force rather than the rule of law.” (NDTV, Jurist)

Wickremesinghe was sworn in as interim president on July 21 after receiving 134 votes out of the 225 in Parliament. The previous government of Gotabaya Rajapaksa had days earlier collapsed amid mass protests over the economic agony. A state of emergency was declared as Rajapaksa fled on July 13, when the presidential palace and prime minister’s office were overrun by protesters. Wickremesinghe, then prime minister, assumed executive powers after Rajapaksa formally resigned from exile in Singapore two days later. He immediately extended the emergency decree. (Jurist)

Wickremesinghe has repeatedly used the epithet “fascists” to describe the protesters. After the government offices were overrun July 13, he went on national television to warn: “We can’t tear up our constitution. We can’t allow fascists to take over. We must end this fascist threat to democracy.” (Hindustan Times, The Guardian)

But Wickremesinghe seems to have his own fascistic past—at least. He is named as one of the “Demons of Batalanda,” accused of having helped oversee a clandestine prison where detainees were tortured as a government minister in the late 1980s and early ’90s. The Batalanda Detention Centre, operated by the government’s Counter-Subversive Unit, targeted militants of the People’s Liberation Front (JVP by its Sinhalese initials), a Marxist party that was then waging an insurgency. Left opposition parties have long been calling for Wickremesinghe to give a full accounting of his involvement with the Batalanda center. (NewsFirst, LankaWeb, Jurist, The Conversation)

Debilitating national debt is causing inflation to spiral in Sri Lanka just as food and fuel prices are spiking worldwide due to the Ukraine war. The protesters are merely hungry and desperate, despite Wickremesinghe’s resort to the increasingly popular propaganda device of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism.

The Sri Lankan government has long been intransigent on accounting for past war crimes, rejecting calls for an international tribunal.

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Civil society organizations are also angry over a recent reform of Serbia’s referendum law, which they say is aimed at effectively stopping popular initiatives against polluting projects by imposing hefty administrative fees. They are also opposed to a new expropriation law, which allows mandatory sale of private lands to the state for development projects, with only eight days prior notice. (AFP, Al Jazeera, Balkan Insight)

Scattered clashes with police were reported during the Nov. 27 demonstrations. At the town of Šabac a group of unidentified masked men assaulted protesters at a road-block and attempted to drive a bulldozer through the human blockade. (European Western Balkans)

The legal reforms were clearly pushed through to facilitate a new thrust of mineral exploitation in Serbia. China’s Zijin Mining Group just began operations at the Cukaru Peki copper and gold mine near the town of Bor. The project is anticipated to make Serbia Europe’s second top copper producer after Russia.

But Zijin’s plans for a mine at nearby Jama, also part of the overall Timok mega-project, were held up by a court order earlier this year. The court found the company failed to comply with environmental standards, and ordered construction of a waste water treatment plant before the facility can open. (Mining.com, Reuters)

Water is life —regardless of ethnicity
Meanwhile, across the border in Kosova, environmentalists claimed a victory Nov. 29 as the country’s Supreme Court suspended the permit for the proposed Brezovica hydro-power plant on the Lepenc River. Legal challenge had been brought by the local Group for Legal & Political Studies (GLPS) and GAIA Kosovo. Over the past years, plans for the project, to be built by the private Matkos Group, have repeatedly sparked angry protests by residents of the nearby village known to ethnic Albanians as Shterpce and to Serbs as Štrpče. Albanians and Serbs alike came together to oppose the project, which would flood agricultural lands while depriving water to downstream communities. (BIRN, BIRN, Prishtina Insight)

Both the movements against the Loznica mine and Brezovica dam have adopted the slogan “Water is life.” The protesters at Shterpce/Štrpče coming together across ethnic lines is a very significant sign of hope. Kosova declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after a bitter war that pitted its ethnic Albanian and Serb populations against each other. Since then, many countries around the world—prominently excluding Serbia—have come to recognize Kosova’s independence, but NATO continues to maintain a troop presence in the country. More than a generation after the outbreak of the last round of Balkan Wars, it looks like the peoples of the ex-Yugoslavia are starting to grasp an inevitable reality… The ethno-nationalist extremism that has caused so much suffering in the region has been concommitant with a loss of any real local control over land, labor and resouces to multi-national entities like Rio Tinto and Zijin Mining Group. And, a corollary: reclaiming any real local control will entail rebuilding cross-ethnic solidarity.

See our last post on the global lithium wars.

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The court found multiple violations of Articles 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment), 5 (right to liberty and security) and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the Convention. It also found single violations of Articles 2 (right to life) and 8 (right to respect for private and family life).

The ECHR stated that law enforcement officials and non-state agents had used “excessive and sometimes brutal force” against peaceful protesters, resulting in the escalation of violence. The court particularly noted the use of stun grenades, tear-gas and plastic bullets for crowd control or dispersal. Many protestors at the Maidan vigil were beaten to the point of losing consciousness. The court said that such interference in the enjoyment of the right to freedom of assembly was “disproportionate and unwarranted in a democratic society,” and discouraged participation in open political debate.

The court also stated that “much of the ill-treatment had been a deliberate strategy on the part of the authorities.” Investigation is still pending in many cases of alleged abuse by authorities, including police officers and judges. The ECHR found that the Ukrainian state has failed to investigate these claims adequately or expediently. The ruling held Ukraine liable to pay pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages to some of the applicants, as well as costs and expenses as set out in the judgments.

From Jurist, Jan. 23. Used with permission.

Photo: Sasha Maksymenko via Flickr