Thousands Of Hong Kong Students Go On Strike In Democracy Battle

HONG KONG (AP) — Thousands of Hong Kong college and university students boycotted classes Monday to protest Beijing's decision to restrict voting reforms, the start of a weeklong strike that marks the latest phase in the battle for democracy in the southern Chinese city.

The strike comes as dozens of the city's tycoons and business leaders paid a rare group visit to Beijing to meet with China's communist leaders, who want to bolster support from Hong Kong's pro-establishment billionaire elites for the central government's policies on the semiautonomous city.

62 detained as protests resume

MONTREAL — Disgruntled students took to the streets of downtown Montreal Tuesday night to voice their displeasure over tuition hikes that will see their fees increase by about $70 a year.

In a scene reminiscent of the nightly demonstrations that brought parts of downtown Montreal to a standstill last spring, students gathered in Parc Émelie-Gamelin and marched into the night with police keeping a close eye on their movements.

The march began peacefully, but was broken up by police about 10:15 p.m. after several acts of vandalism were committed by troublemakers who had infiltrated the boisterous crowd.

The (CL)ASSE is ascendent: Quebec student movement realigns in wake of strike

"The times, they are a changin'" sang Bob Dylan, and nowhere is that more true than in the Quebec student movement.

Lost amid the celebration of the victories of this year's Maple Spring is a different consequence of the longest strike in Quebec history, one which has gone largely unnoticed outside student circles.

There is a fundamental realignment going on within the student movement in this province, one which promises to have far reaching repercussions. CLASSE, the temporary coalition formed to fight the tuition hike, may have dissolved, but its mother organization, the ASSE (Association for Syndical Solidarity among Students) is ascendent.

Chilean Student Movement Awarded For Organizing Nation’s Largest Protests Since Pinochet Era

Today we look at the Chilean students’ movement, which led last year’s massive citizen democracy movement — the largest protests since the days of opposition marches to General Augusto Pinochet a generation ago. For more than a year, the movement has rallied hundreds of thousands in the streets of Santiago and other major cities to demand greater access to affordable university education, as well as deeper structural changes in Chile. The country has the highest per capita income in the region, but also one of the most unequal distributions of wealth. We are joined in our studio by two of Chile’s most recognizable student protest leaders: Camila Vallejo and Noam Titelman. They are in the United States, in part, to receive the 2012 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award, which is given by the Institute for Policy Studies. It is named for the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who were murdered in Washington by agents of the U.S.-backed Pinochet regime in September 1976.

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CLASSE interview: The victory in Quebec belongs to the movement, not to the PQ

Members of CLASSE are speaking in cities across Canada this week, on a 'Maple Tour' sponsored by rabble.ca and other organizations. Full details for this speaking tour are available here. 

Students in Quebec, whose strike shut down the province's higher education system for the first half of this year, celebrated the achievement of their top goals last month when the new Parti Québécois (PQ) government announced it was rescinding a planned tuition hike and repealing most of the repressive Law 12 aimed at restricting the right to protest.

'Green Square' leader renounces tuition hikes, endorses free education

If nothing else, Karo Baillargeon certainly seems to have a knack for getting noticed. The former President of the Mouvement des Étudiants Socialement Responsables du Québec (MÉSRQ), otherwise known as the Green Squares, a Liberal attempt to astroturf support for their tuition increase among students, has had a tumultuous few months.

She was briefly a candidate for the Quebec Green Party, before being fired for refusing to support the party policy of free education, and went on to support Option Nationale before casting a strategic vote for Quebec Solidaire in her riding of Outremont.

Charest's defeat is a victory for students

"In politics, the victories are never as bright as you would like. We must make do. But for the moment, we should not be embarrassed to say that we won: the [tuition] increase will be set aside, Bill 12 also... and Jean Charest has resigned." - Former CLASSE co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois

There is so much to say about last night's election, it's hard to know where to begin. Before the results had sunk in came news of a tragic shooting at the PQ's Metropolis party. A clearly deranged man, wearing a bathrobe and shouting, in French, about Anglos waking up, took the life of one man, and left another in hospital. Our thoughts go out to the victims and their families, and, as always, we wonder how a non-automatic AK-47 could possibly be legal. But enough ink has been spilled on the act of a lone maniac, so I'll stick to the election.

Student strike stalwart and citizen journalist arrested, held for nine hours

In the wee hours of this morning news broke on Twitter that a protester going by the Twitter handle of @frogsarelovely had been arrested. Her real name is Cécile Riel, a 55 year old Montreal resident.

Riel is a popular and well respected supporter of the student strike, who has attended virtually every demo since its beginning. She live tweets from every protest, providing invaluable first-hand updates and information for those unable to attend.

She is the very definition of an engaged citizen journalist, using new media to report on the demonstrations in real time for a global audience.

In Montreal's streets, the movement continues

If there was any confusion over whether the suspension of strikes at most schools signalled an end to the broader social movement the strike generated, it was put to bed with an emphatic bang Wednesday in the streets of Montreal. The largest demonstration since the spring sent a strong message that this movement is here to stay.

Place du Canada was packed by the time the speakers took to the roof of a truck to address the assembled crowd. CLASSE Financial Secretary Jérémie Bédard-Wien kicked things off with a characteristically strong speech, in which he made a noteworthy reference to this demonstration being the largest electoral mobilization in Quebec history. Coupled with the abundant placards reading "I'm voting for ____", which invited protesters to fill in the issue or party of their choice, there seemed to be a clear aknowledgement from CLASSE that while the election will not solve our problems, it would be folly for students to boycott it.

Quebec Election 2012: Student Protesters Resurface Amid Campaign

MONTREAL - Student protests made a reappearance in the Quebec election Wednesday after having dropped off the radar in the campaign's first weeks.

Thousands of students marched in Montreal — just as they have on the 22nd of every month, for the last six months.

The strike is ending, but the movement will continue

Over the past few days students at eight of fourteen CEGEPs (junior colleges which provide both pre-university and professional degrees) have voted in general assemblies to end their strike and return to class. Students at the two CEGEPs who did vote to continue the strike, Vieux-Montreal and St. Laurent, will reconvene general assemblies on Friday morning to reconsider their decision.

It appears as if the strike is winding down, or at least going dormant, with many schools promising to revisit the issue after the election. It would, however, be a mistake to assume that the resumption of classes means an end to the broader social movement born out of the longest student strike in Quebec history.

Quebec Student Protest: One Arrest Made At Monday's CEGEP Vote

One person was arrested by Montreal police Monday morning during a student protest to underline the forced return to class.

The sound of people banging on pots and pans made its return to the streets of Montreal on Monday night as hundreds of students mobilized to continue the student strike.

Montreal police deemed the rally illegal from the very beginning at Place Emilie Gamelin at 8:30 p.m.

Quebec Student Protest: Showdown Looms As Reinforcements Expected To Stream In From Ontario

MONTREAL - The more hardcore Quebec student activists say they will receive help from outside the province as they form picket lines to block the return to school.

They say that at schools where student assemblies vote to remain on strike, they plan to enforce those votes outside classrooms as they start to reopen next week.

'I leave with only one regret': Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois resigns as co-spokesperson for CLASSE

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson for CLASSE and the most recognizable face of the student strike which has captured the imagination of progressives the world over, has resigned.

"I am leaving, but the movement will continue. What I am quitting is not the mobilization, nor the struggle, nor the CLASSE: I am quitting my role as spokesperson. I will remain at your side, in the streets, and in our assemblies."

Quebec Student Protest Vote: Only Select Media Allowed To Attend

MONTREAL - A group of Quebec students voting on whether to return to school, a decision that could hold far-reaching political consequences, is limiting media coverage of their event.

The debate and vote were taking place Tuesday evening during an election campaign in which student strikes are among the central themes.

Quebec election 2012: Charest will not repeal Bill 78 if re-elected

SAINTE-MARIE, QUE.—Two thousand professors in Quebec and around the world have signed a manifesto declaring their support for striking students in the province, a move that forced Premier Jean Charest on Monday to once again defend his controversial Bill 78.

Making a pro-student statement in the midst of a heated provincial election campaign, lecturers from the province’s colleges and universities are criticizing the emergency legislation for forcing students and teachers back to school next week.

Age collides with politics in today's fractured Quebec

Sitting on a stool at Caffe della Via, a hip student hangout on the fringes of Montreal’s fast-gentrifying Petite Italie, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is remarkably composed.

Although he leads Quebec’s most radical student activists – known by the acronym CLASSE – he’s no scruffy agitator or starry-eyed dreamer. A study in Gallic elegance, the 22-year-old is poised, articulate, groomed to an almost preppy shine. The only outward sign of his militancy is a red square, a symbol of the student protests he’s sparked, pinned to his shirt.

Students are the wild card in the Quebec election: political scientist

On the first full day of the Quebec election campaign, university tuition hikes have become the central issue.

On Wednesday morning,  Premier Jean Charest did the expected by pulling the plug on his Liberal government and sending Quebecers to the polls for a September 4 election.

By that evening, thousands of students took to Montreal's streets in a continuation of protests over the Liberal government's planned tuition fee hikes. According to The Canadian Press, there were 15 arrests and some minor damage to property.

80,000 take to the streets of Montreal, as Human Rights Commission declares Bill 78 unconstitutional

It's been a wild weekend here in Quebec. On Thursday, the Quebec Human Rights Commission denounced virtually the entirety of Bill 78, in the strongest terms I have yet seen used.

Although the denunciation was sharper, the main difference between the QHRC report and other groups which have assailed the embattled law, like Amnesty and the Quebec Bar Association, is the fact that this was friendly fire.

Red squares for Indigenous solidarity: Montreal protests logging of Algonquin land

Last week in Montreal, clanging cookware and red squares became symbols of solidarity with an Indigenous community defending its land rights. On Wednesday, July 18, about 200 people demonstrated at the Montreal headquarters of Resolute Forest Products, the logging company currently locked in a stand-off with Algonquin protestors near Poigan Bay, Quebec.

Banging pots and pans, the crowd denounced Resolute for continuing to log in the territory of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake despite staunch opposition from the people living there.