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When #BlackLivesMatter came to Tyrone, Pennsylvania

By Mark A. Bonta / June 12, 2020 / Comments Off on When #BlackLivesMatter came to Tyrone, Pennsylvania

TYRONE, Pa. — The massive pickup truck slows down for the obligatory four-way stop out front of the Tyrone, Pa., municipal building, as the Black Lives Matter protestors stand expectant. It’s Friday, June 5, and they are clutching signs with slogans in black magic marker — “I understand that I will never understand, but I […]

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What you need to know about the other migrant caravan

By Mark A. Bonta / November 13, 2018 / Comments Off on What you need to know about the other migrant caravan

As thousands of desperate Hondurans flee north to the United States, in the full glare of the world’s media, a less-noticed caravan marched in solidarity to the nation’s capital of Tegucigalpa. The activist Catholic priest Ismael “Padre Melo” Moreno and other organizers said the point of the march is to call attention to how the […]

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Mexico remembers a singular act of repression

By Mark A. Bonta / October 9, 2018 / Comments Off on Mexico remembers a singular act of repression

October 2 was the 50th anniversary of one of the worst single acts of political repression in Mexican history. It was just before the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Foreign journalists were everywhere, and a tenacious student-led social protest movement showed no signs of going away. Their rowdy presence was an embarrassment for the Gustavo Diaz […]

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Another critic of Eritrea’s president jailed

By Heather Bourbeau / October 4, 2018 / Comments Off on Another critic of Eritrea’s president jailed

The Eritrean government continues to imprison its critics, most recently former Finance Minister Berhane Abrehe, who has been jailed since September after releasing a book and video calling for President Isaias Afwerki to step down. In both the book and video, Berhane said that Eritrea’s “struggle for independence was never to install dictatorship. We need […]

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Hondurans farmers want to shut down an iron mine

By Mark A. Bonta / October 2, 2018 / Comments Off on Hondurans farmers want to shut down an iron mine

Exercising sovereignty over land is a difficult and dangerous in Honduras, and often a last resort for defenseless and endangered communities. In Guapinol, Tocoa, in the eastern region of Colon, local farmers have taken the law into their own hands, blocking a road and setting up a makeshift community which, amazingly to them, has already […]

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Mine protestors await eviction following ruling

By Mark A. Bonta / September 19, 2018 / Comments Off on Mine protestors await eviction following ruling

Non-violent Honduran protestors blocking a mining access road near their village of Guapinol over the last couple of months predicted that their encampment would not last. But they were unprepared for the severity of the national government’s threatened response. According to a court order, the 18 environmental protestors are to be arrested and hauled before […]

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