On Thursday, about 1200 people demonstrated in Leipzig for Khaled Idris Bahray, an Eritrean refugee who was seemingly murdered by neo nazis after a Pegida demonstration. The Dresden police have been implicatedin a cover up of his murder, and will soon be under investigation as a result of a complaint filed by a Green MP.
During the demonstration, there were some clashes between demonstrators and police, and eventually a smaller portion of the protest was kettled. Police let the protestors go, but not before collecting all of their cell phones. This was seemingly illegal, and police have yet to explain their actions.
The clear motive for this is surveillance. Not only do the police have software to extract data – such as social media networks, text messages, contact lists, and other personal information –from cell phones, but they also may intend to plant bugs in the phones which were confiscated. German activists on Indymedia have suggested that anyone who had their phone taken and returned by the police get rid of the device entirely, including any SIM cards. Encryption is always a good precaution, but it’s not foolproof. One activist on Indymedia said
Numerous tools can be used to allegedly crack encryption. Phones can be cracked by German authorities using a “Universal Forensics Extraction Device” (UFED), which the Israeli company Cellebrite used. This is a complete system in which a phone must be simply connected to, for it to read the data. The manufacturer calls it “a complete solution for logical and physical extraction of existing, encrypted, and deleted phone data”. But to what extent the decryption succeeds is unclear. The system transmits queue call logs, SMS messages and contact lists. Password cracking is also possible with “Passware KitForensic,” which is used in the United States or “Distributed Password Recovery” which is used by Russia. Android systems can be read with the Swiss software “Lantern” or “Extraction Wizard,” a Swedish company.
It’s important to know that it is possible to encrypt Android cell phones with Customrom, but storing numbers in the address book is always unsafe. The Android phone should also have a removable battery. Eventually it seems the only option will be to have “burner” or “throwaway” phones to use at actions, but that would be monumentally expensive, so the fight for secure data encryption continues.
Demonstrations for Khaled are ongoing, there was also a demonstration in Bochum last night. Also, activists have released a promotional video for the Saturday action in Dresden, and there will be a Sunday “funeral march” in Berlin.
The largest demonstration was held in Barcelona, but the protest was conducted simultaneously in ten cities of the Spanish State. Greater police presence harasses the concentration convened in Madrid. PHOTO GALLERY @FOTOMOVIMIENTO
The more crowded march was the Barcelona one, but protest day was done simultaneously in a dozen cities in Spain.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 people attended the Saturday afternoon demonstration in Barcelona in a call from the Seven Imprisoned Support Assembly following the Pandora Operation. The march has started six quarters from Plaza Catalonia, followed closely by a dozen vans of Mobile Brigade (Brimo, antiriot hitmen). The police deployment, however, was minimal, as most of the Catalans Riot command are in holidays. The operational leader was a sergeants and not a sub-inspectors as usual, and was set only by two of eight Units based Sabadell. They was support by the ARRO unit , Barcelona pro-riots unit, who had been entrusted with the protection of Portal de l'Angel shopping center (own by "el Corte Inglés" fascist trust), the Justice Department and the CDC headquarters in Corsica Street.
Simultaneously held up to a dozen protests throughout Spain. In the center of Madrid a hundred protesters, 200 in Zaragoza and dozens Castellón, are some of the highest concentrations. Solidarity but also has internationalized and has shown today before the Spanish consulate in the capital of Slovenia and displayed in Lisbon tomorrow.
"Terrorist is who condemns us to a life of misery, not who rebelled against it," was the slogan that opened the event in Barcelona. Also shouting "The only terrorist is the Capitalist State" with the crowd went in and out of "El Corte Inglés" fascist shopping center and the ice rink that these days occupies the Catalonia Square. The journey of a mile walk along the Paseo de Gracia flow normally with the fascist policemen vans at a distance. "Terrorism is not reached at the end of the month", "If touch one you touch us all" and "Ito ito, ito, the small bird to fall" in reference to the police helicopter hovering in progress at all the time and has inpirated some slogans more. The March reached Gran de Gracia. At this point where some protesters have broken with hammers crystals of banks, shops and a large hotel chains.
Banco Sabadell, La Caixa, Banco Santander, BBVA and Caixa Catalonia bank just ended with broken glass and some others multinational franchises apparel and a shop of gold and silver sales. The large windows of the "Hotel Casa Fuster" have been very damaged. It so happens that this building was the consulate of Nazi Germany in Barcelona in 1936, shortly before becoming the spring of 1937, the headquarters of the defense committee of the revolution driven by the CNT, FAI, the Libertarian Youth and the Iberian Communist Youth. Phalange took the building again in 1939. After the "Transition" period was the scene of a renewed dispute between the council and the local movement. The claim that there was both a social facility mitigated by the Catalan Socialist Party PSC, which chose to give the estate to Noga holding (based in Granada) license luxury hotel.
The sound of broken glass preceded a warning of "imminent charge" that the Mossos d'Esquadra issued by the speakers.
The sound of broken glass preceded a warning of "imminent load" that the Mossos d'Esquadra issued by the police van speakers. However, the MArch has reached Diamond Square and there has been called off, without oportunity to antiriot charge the bulk of the protest. Have been, however, some sliding between demonstrators and plainclothes agents. In one of these actions, Goya Street, a boy has been retained, has been identified and released.
To remember that Pandora operation, driven by the Mossos d'Esquadra Autonomic Catalan Police, unfolded the morning of December 16, fourteen searches of buildings ("Kasa de la Mountanya", Libertarian Ateneo d'el Palomar, Poble Sec Anarchist Ateneo and eleven homes), eleven people arrested, seven of them imprisoned. Atorneis explained that some of them are dispersed and isolated under FIES penitentiary regime; they spend twenty hours a day completely isolated. Casta Judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez signed orders for admission to prison and, at the request of the Mossos d'Esquadra, agreed to the extend the secret summary of the investigation that began two years ago with multiple telephone interventions and monitoring.
As learned the direct drive of the Mossos d'Esquadra specializes in tracking the anarchist movement is still in force operating against the anarchist groups Coordinated (GAC), that supposedly would be the target of what the cabinet's press department Interior called "anarchist terrorism operation." Despite not being able to know the details of the case, through which the order was sent to prison seven anarchists learned that two of the signs would inculpatoris reading and distribution of the book "Against Democracy" and the use of the service encrypted e-mail server that offers Rise Up.
The Spanish democracy not stops giving lessons. This morning of December 27 has been in Opera Square in Madrid, during concentration on solidarity with detainees by the under the eye judge Bermúdez before his so evident "anarchist terrorism".
Democracy that Goberment Delegate Cristina Cifuentes, and her well trained blue puppies understood as repression to anyone who disagrees with the postdictatioral regime. Massive identifications and an arrest, besides shoving and utter contempt for freedom. Meanwhile hundreds of pedestrians and citizens, those who will vote in their elections setting a good example in the "festival of democracy", spent long with purchases under his arm.
A concentration that almost has not even reached sixty minutes, with just one hundred attendees, but blue puppies well trained in rows with batons in their hands and helmets on belts, we assume that ready to democratize all the rebels that shout against this cruel, violent and chaotic system.
We have been filled with rage, because their violence is legitimized by law while our resistance causes the most horrible tortures. We have gone with the tension of having the most absolute trampling of human rights. But at the end of the day, we went with the joy of being accomplices of injustice.
Today in Opera, some deliver democracy, and the other fortitude, courage and solidarity.
Now, you should choose which side you're on.
Telecomunications and Computers Services Union (STSI)
Violence broke out between police and demonstrators in Rome on Saturday as tens of thousands took to the streets to protest Italy’s new budget.
Fifteen protesters were arrested and at least 20 police officers were injured, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
“We are laying siege to the city!” chanted the crowd, as a small minority pelted the police and government buildings with water bottles and eggs.
A group of protesters turned over garbage bins and set some of them on fire in front of the Economy Ministry.
Police say they confiscated tear gas canisters and rocks from some of the radicals in the predominantly youthful crowd and found chains stashed away along the route of the march.
Organizers estimated that 70,000 people took part in the protest, while authorities placed the number closer to 50,000.
“With this budget the government is continuing to hurt a country which is already on its knees,” said Piero Bernocchi, leader of the left-wing COBAS trade union that was behind the demonstration.
“Even after austerity has proven to be disastrous, with debt rising, the economy crumbling, and unemployment soaring, they still continue with these policies.”
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Enrico Letta - who is presiding over a fractious Left-Right coalition - presented the 2014 budget that immediately came under a firestorm of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum.
Left-wingers criticized the document for freezing state sector pay and pensions, while right-wingers and businesses said it failed to stimulate growth with insufficient cuts to Italy’s oppressive corporate taxes.
Italy annually spends around 800 billion euro – a sum it cannot afford as it struggles with a recession that started more than two years ago. The latest budget aims to cut the deficit to 2.5 percent – still worse than most of Europe.
On Friday, a general strike paralyzed transport links in the country and forced the cancellation of flights in and out of Rome.
But Saturday’s protests weren’t just about pay. Some called for the government to abandon an expensive fast-train link with France. Others demanded that Italy provide more social housing. Many bemoaned the country’s treatment of immigrants, who have suffered several tragic incidents in recent months as they attempted to reach the coast of Italy.
Letta has gone on television to defend his government, but dissenters have not been placated and say that even bigger demonstrations will be staged next week.
