By Rivera Sun
There’s an old Zen koan that asks: what is the sound of one hand clapping? Contemplating the answer is said to lead you to enlightenment. But I’m feeling far from enlightened as I ponder a recent story about clapping and the silencing of dissent. When citizens showed up to the Emporia City Commission in Lyon County, Kansas, to oppose a 1,000-acre data center, the commission forbade them from “clapping” and “snapping” in support of their fellow speakers. A high school physics teacher, Lux Claridge, decided that such a blatant violation of First Amendment Rights (not to mention democracy) was worthy of only one response: civil disobedience. When the next speaker spoke, he clapped. Four police officers hauled him out of the building and arrested him.
When authorities try to suppress dissent, the best response is to increase it. One way is through civil disobedience like Lux Claridge did. Another is to use creative alternatives to continue to dissent despite restrictions. A third way is to disguise the disobedience, such as the construction sign in Maine that staff said was hacked when it displayed the message: “No More ICE Killings”. A fourth way is to refuse to be intimidated into silence, like Mohsen Mahdawi, who continues to speak out despite being arrested and imprisoned, released, threatened with deportation, and then threatened again.
Defending civil liberties requires exercising them in defiance of attempts to scare us into submission. For example, an activist alleged to have involvement in Atlanta’s Cop City protests has been charged for using a ‘duress’ password to wipe the contents of his phone when police detained him. How many people are reading this story and setting up a duress password, even if they’d never heard of such a thing before? The Trump administration tried to claim that the phrase ’86-47′ was a violent threat. Activists pushed back and won. Now former FBI Director James Comey is urging a judge to dismisses charges against him over his social media post of a photo of seashells that spelled out 86-47 on a beach. This week, activists in Charleston, South Carolina, held a “March for the First” to overturn a 2021 ordinance that restricts their ability to hold demonstrations without a permit. Using street demonstrations that could be dispersed by police at any moment, they are using nonviolent direct action to challenge the injustice of the ordinance. After the Spokane 3 received a shocking guilty verdict for ‘conspiracy to injure or impede officers’ during a demonstration where immigration agents assaulted a crowd of hundreds of people, the community rallied for a Night of Resistance in support of both the convicted activists and the wider community, reclaiming healing and determination.
The struggle against the suppression of dissent is not limited to the United States. Political repression is everywhere. Myanmar courts sentenced nine activists up to 37 years in prison for calling for a boycott of the last election. Political prisoners in Iran have sewn their lips shut as part of a mass hunger strike involving 1500 prisoners on death row, scheduled for execution by the regime. In the United Kingdom, where the government banned Palestine Action and inaccurately labeled them terrorists, a lawyer is now on trial after reminding a jury of their right to acquit one of the activists. From health care providers to Israelis in Tel Aviv opposing settler violence, people around the world face censorship and repression as they speak out against the genocide in Gaza and abuse of Palestinians.
Amidst this alarming trend, it’s important to remember that we have power. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. There are several countervailing stories this week that show that resistance is not futile. US federal prosecutors moved to drop charges against SEUI labor leader David Huerta, who was illegally arrested for using his constitutional rights to protest against ICE in Los Angeles in 2025. The case against former Olympian and current journalism David Hearn is unraveling as evidence of damage to the Reflecting Pool falls squarely on Trump, not Hearn. Attempts to charge immigrants and protesters with assaulting immigration agents are increasingly falling apart due to lack of evidence. After 53 years of impunity, Chile has finally caught and imprisoned the last of the Pinochet dictatorship’s soldiers who were involved in the torture and murder of folk singer Victor Jara. Notably, calls to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are growing in the United States. Nearly 50% of Americans believe Netanyahu should be arrested and faith leaders joined hundreds of people to protest his meeting at the White House. Mayor Mamdani of New York declared that Netanyahu is a war criminal and urged the federal government to arrest him, explaining to the public that the city itself does not have the authority to make an arrest.
Justice is not only served in the courts, however. We also win accountability through action. The consequences of abusive behavior and policies can be opposed by movements through economic, social, and cultural blowback. For example, thanks to Tesla Takedown and the campaign against DOGE’s destruction, Tesla shares continue to plummet and Elon Musk’s Cybertruck is now officially the biggest flop in automotive history.
When governments and institutions fail to protect the people, nonviolent action often rises up in its stead. When a school district planned to use robot teaching assistants in STEM and arts classrooms, the community rose up in protest and forced them to drop the project. (The fact that the humanoid robots were made by the same company that makes robot sex toys didn’t impress parents either.) A group of 98 teens from all 50 states assembled for an intense 4-day session to craft a powerful set of guidelines for students, teachers, and administrators on AI in K-12 schools. The AI Boom is a massive corporate project, but it can be disrupted and many people are already working on it. These efforts are connected to a broader movement against abusive tech, including data center resistance in local communities and on tribal nations; and campaigns against surveillance infrastructure such as Flock cameras. Pope Leo’s clear message to Catholics on the dangers of AI and tech is being taken to heart by people far beyond the Church. On a humorous note, one of my favorite acts of tech resistance is this parody site for OverlypAId, which satirically recommends replacing CEOs with AIs for a tiny fraction of their bloated salaries.
Turning our attention to immigrant justice, ICE dropped plans for two detention centers in rural Pennsylvania after the state’s EPA warned that doubling the region’s population would destroy the water supply. Hunger strikes are spreading in detention centers despite – or perhaps because – of authorities’ attempts to stop them, including through deportations, relocations, and torturous force feeding. A Nationwide Day of Action against ICE Killings was held last weekend with over 300 communities participating in vigils, marches, rallies, and other actions. The executive director of Detention Watch spoke about how the effort to limit warehouse-style detention centers has been largely successful and how immigrant defense is entering a new phase. Other organizers are sharing many ways to take action even if you can’t take to the streets.
The police murder of Corey Ruiz sparked community-wide protests in Madison, WI. Organizers from the Twin Cities brought a piece of the George Floyd Memorial to the place in Madison where Ruiz was killed. Minneapolis also held a bicycle protest in solidarity, calling for justice for all the lives stolen by armed state agents, including ICE and the police. Both in the US and abroad, people are linking the struggles for racial justice, immigrant justice, and Palestinian justice together. These struggles are inseparable from a range of other issues, including mass surveillance, authoritarianism, colonialism, and militarism. As Australians held a Unite Against Racism rally, they spoke to some of these connections and how the white supremacist group One Nation seeks to divide and conquer the vision of multiculturalism.
In more global Nonviolence News, protesters in Libya stormed an energy facility while demonstrating against blackouts. More health care workers have gone on strike in the Democratic Republic of Congo as Ebola cases reach 3,000 and the death toll rises to 1,500. A fresh round of protests are erupting against Argentinian President Javier Melei’s economic austerity measures, saying that the nation’s budget surplus and slight credit rating improvement is stolen from the well-being of students, seniors, and workers. India’s farmers held a national day of action against Free Trade Agreements, with walkouts, road blockades, civil disobedience, and demonstrations across the country. Berlin is reeling after a fatal attack on the annual Pride March; the LGBTQ+ community has held memorial vigils and creative acts of defiance to counter the fear and rally the community even in grief. Australian teachers held a work stoppage to demand better pay and benefits. Another humanitarian convoy is headed to Palestine, this time bringing 15 buses of 500 activists overland from Bosnia to the West Bank. The Canada Human Rights Museum defied immense pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby to take a powerful stand for racial justice and historical truth-telling by installing a multi-year exhibit on the Nakba and the Palestinian-Canadian stories. As India’s youth protesters declare victory over the education minister’s resignation, many are wondering what’s next for the Cockroach Party?
In the Nonviolence News Research Archive, you’ll find plenty more to pique your interest and entice you toward further reading. You’ll see articles on how public defenders in the Bronx walked off the job to demand better pay for their lowest paid workers and how home care workers in New York just won their wage theft case in court. You’ll find stories about climate lamenters turning grief into action and what North Carolina residents learned about small scale energy resilience projects in the wake of Hurricane Helene. You can also hear the perspectives of three Indigenous feminist climate organizers who are striving to center Indigenous knowledge and solutions in the climate transition.
Explore all 80 stories in our Nonviolence News Research Archive>>
One of the most heartening aspects of the stories we collect for Nonviolence News are the numerous examples of systemic and structural interventions that are implementing systems of care. Just as violence comes in many forms (like poverty, inequality, and homelessness) so too can nonviolence come in systems like cooperative banks, housing coops, neighborhood grocery stores, and more. We’ve been contributing hundreds of these stories to a project called 2026: The Year of Nonviolent Solutions. This week, we have even more to add in. The Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union is marking 40 years, a 9,000-person membership, and $150 million in local business and housing cooperative loans. A Philadelphia neighborhood trust asked its members what they wanted and then built the grocery store they longed for. Virginia is the latest state to require employers to transparently post salary ranges on job descriptions, giving applicants better ability to negotiate salaries. Baltimore’s 911 system has stepped up to connect people to mental health and counseling service referrals.
Each week, I seek out a few articles to read slowly and think deeply about. My picks this week included an article by civil resistance researcher Maria Stephan inviting us to remember the ways Catholics worldwide have risen up for democracy. Another writer shares a warning from anti-authoritarian movements in other countries: shaming your opponents does not work. A third piece points out that there is no such thing as neutrality in a time of rising authoritarianism … and higher education institutions must stand on the side of democracy.
A favorite story? In Germany, there was an act of solidarity that moved me to tears. As five pro-Palestinian activists entered a courtroom after being arrested for opposing genocide, their supporters burst into song. Voices rising and falling in the chords of a classic protest song remade for the current injustices, they showed the court, the media, the world, and their friends that they are not alone. Nor are they alone. All over the globe, millions of people are taking risks to speak out and stand up. Like Luz Claridge, Mohsen Mahdawi, and so many others, we are a world refusing to stay silent in times of oppression.
So … in the baffling koan of these times, what is the sound of our one hand clapping? All our voices, singing.
Rivera Sun is a change-maker, a cultural creative, a protest novelist, and an advocate for nonviolence and social justice. She is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, The Way Between and other novels. She is the editor of Nonviolence News. Her study guide to making change with nonviolent action is used by activist groups across the country. Her essays and writings are syndicated by Peace Voice, and have appeared in journals nationwide. Find out more about her here.
This article was sent on August 1, 2026, by Nonviolence News <rivera@riverasun.com> to The PeaceWorker.