Tehran Beats Back New Protests - Wall Street Journal

Iranian police used tear gas and electric prods to crack down on the country's biggest antigovernment protests in at least a year, as demonstrators buoyed by activism across the Middle East returned to the country's streets by the tens of thousands Monday.

European Pressphoto Agency Iranian demonstrators clash with Iranian riot-police during a demonstration in Tehran. The opposition reported that tear gas had been fired near Tehran's University and Azadi Square.

The day of planned antigovernment rallies began largely peacefully, according to witnesses, with protesters marching silently or sitting and chanting. But as demonstrators' ranks swelled, police and antiriot forces lined the streets, ordered shops to shut down and responded at times with force, according to witnesses and opposition websites, in a repeat of the official crackdown that helped snuff out months of spirited opposition rallies a year ago.

By day's end, online videos showed garbage bins on fire, protesters throwing rocks at the police and crowds clashing with motorcycle-mounted members of the pro-regime Basij militia.

Thousands of Iranians gathered in several locations across Tehran Monday, heeding calls in recent days by opposition leaders to demonstrate in solidarity with Egyptian and Tunisian protesters. Farnaz Fassihi has details.

Monday's protests come as calls for regime change have led to the popular ousters of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. They mark a broadening from Iranian rallies that drew hundreds of thousands through 2009 and early 2010.

Those rallies targeted what opposition leaders said was a flawed presidential election that they say unfairly returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Monday's protests, by comparison, demanded that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the core of power in the Islamic Republic, step down.

"Mubarak! Ben Ali! It's now the turn for Seyed Ali!" people chanted, according to witnesses and videos, referring to the country's spiritual head.

In Tehran's Enghelab Avenue, the main route for the rally, a crowd of young men and women on Monday evening stomped on a giant banner depicting Mr. Khamenei and set it on fire, a sign of deepest disrespect in the Muslim world. Videos of the scene showed crowds cheering in response.

Iran's government and its opposition alike have sought to identify themselves with the mood of change sweeping the Middle East. Iranian officials sought to paint this year's Arab revolts as Islamic uprisings like the Iranian revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi more than 30 years ago.

Iran's opposition protesters, meanwhile, have renewed their challenge to the government, emboldened by rallies led by a similar cadre of educated, tech-savvy youth seeking better economic opportunity and more political freedoms.

Hussein Malla/Associated Press An Egyptian police officer, center, confronted anti-Mubarak protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo Monday.

Those who saw the rallies in Tehran placed the number of protesters in the capital in the tens of thousands. Witnesses in the cities of Mashad, Isfahan and Tabriz saw crowds they estimated at thousands of demonstrators each, with blog reports and other online dispatches placing overall participation in such cities at over 10,000 each.

Iranian officials have all but banned reporting on anti-regime protests, making it difficult to estimate not only the size of crowds, but the number of casualties, fatalities and arrests.

Iran's protests coincided with a visit Monday by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who briefly addressed the unrest sweeping the Mideast at a joint press conference with Mr. Ahmadinejad. "We see that sometimes when the leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the nations' demands, the people themselves take action," Mr. Gul said. He didn't mention Iran.

Iranian officials didn't comment on Monday's protests. The Fars News Agency, affiliated with the country's Revolutionary Guards, reported that a "group of thugs" commissioned by the U.S. and Israel had taken to the streets to cause riots. Fars News said protestors had shot and killed one person and injured several others.

WSJ's Charles Levinson and Jerry Seib report on how public protests in Egypt have sparked protests throughout the Middle East, namely Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Yemen and Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday charged Tehran's leadership with hypocrisy following its stated support for Egyptian protesters.

Iran's government "over the last three weeks has constantly hailed what went on in Egypt, and now, when given the opportunity to afford their people the same rights…once again illustrate their true nature," Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Washington. "We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week."

To support Iranian protestors, the State Department began using social media, particularly Twitter—sending its messages, for the first time, in Farsi—in calling on Iran's government to allow protestors to freely assemble and communicate.

Separately, an online collective known as "Anonymous" said it had launched so-called denial of service attacks on a number of high-profile Iranian government sites. In a DOS attack, computers flood a server to prevent it from displaying a web page.

The group, which has attacked a number of corporate and other websites in apparent retaliation for moves against the document-leaking organization WikiLeaks, targeted the websites of Iran's state news broadcaster and the website of President Ahmadinejad, among others. It is unclear how successful the attacks were, but those two sites weren't accessible late Monday.

This year's uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have inspired populations across the Middle East, showing how rulers once thought invulnerable could be toppled in a wave of popular discontent. Iran's regime has so far provided a counterexample, as it has shown less reluctance to take a violent line against its people. Opposition groups and human-rights organizations say more than 100 people were killed and more than 5,000 jailed in Iran's demonstrations of late 2009 and early 2010.

Opposition leaders in Iran started with relatively modest goals after the 2009 election, including nullifying the election results, which they said were rigged. Iranian officials said the results reflected the will of the people.

Now, analysts say, revolts in Egypt and Tunisia have galvanized Iranian protesters around the goal of regime change. "It's very clear that we are now way beyond a post-election crisis," said Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University. "People are going after the regime."

Monday's protests began peacefully in the early afternoon as men and women streamed on foot along pre-designated routes in multiple cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, Mashad and Shiraz. Drivers honked in support. Shopkeepers waved the victory sign.

In response, the government deployed heavy security. Cellphone and text-messaging service was down along the protest routes, Iranians reported.

As the afternoon waned, crowd swelled and began chanting against Mr. Khamenei, according to eyewitnesses and reports posted on the Internet. Security forces attacked people with electric prods and tear gas. Protesters ran and hid, and then regrouped defiantly a few feet away.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Turkey's Gul, left with Ahmadinejad, said Monday that leaders should pay attention to their peoples' demands.

One witness described a scene in which a flower-decorated car in a bridal convoy became stuck in the protests. With security forces in pursuit of demonstrators, a bride in full regalia stepped out of the car and helped shove protesters inside to protect them, this person said.

Witnesses said the plain-clothes Basij militia were dispatched on motorbikes and vans later in the evening. They took position in side streets and beat protesters with sticks and batons, witnesses said.

Various observers reported several injuries and arrests. Their accounts weren't possible to verify.

"I saw a young woman thrown to the sidewalk, her head split open and she was bleeding, but the guy kept kicking her," a young man from Tehran said via Internet chat.

A young female activist said by telephone from the city of Isfahan that plain-clothes Basij militia had attacked a group of young men and women and dragged them into a parking lot on Revolution Avenue. They locked the gate and began beating them with wooden sticks and electric batons as the protesters fell to the ground and screamed, the activist said.

"Everyone was terrified and we felt helpless. All we could do was shout 'Death to the Dictator,' but the police chased us," said the activist.

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi had called the protest and vowed to participate. But they were put under house arrest all day, according to opposition web sites. When Mr. Mousavi and his wife attempted to leave the house, security forces stopped them, and blocked their street with multiple police cars, according to the website.

As darkness fell on Tehran, the city was rocked again by the chants from residents on rooftops across the capital: "God is great," and "Death to the dictator," according to witnesses. The Facebook page of the protest, 25 Bahman, said it would soon announce further plans for demonstrations in the following days.

—Jay Solomon in Washington and Cassell Bryan-Low in London contributed to this article.

Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com

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Young Patriots Threaten Protests and More in Ivory Coast - Voice of America

Nico Colombant 31 December 2010

Young Patriots are threatening a return to the streets where they have won previous victories for incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. (File Photo)

So-called Young Patriots who support incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast are now threatening street protests against his rival, internationally recognized President Alassane Ouattara.  

Friday, the Young Patriots leader who is now the Youth Minister in the disputed Gbagbo government, Charles Ble Goude, reiterated a warning against Mr. Ouattara and the United Nations. He says if after January first U.N. peacekeepers are still protecting Mr. Ouattara at the Golf Hotel in the main southern city Abidjan, Young Patriots will take their responsibilities in their own hands and liberate the compound.

Ble Goude says he is waiting to see if the peacekeepers will force Mr. Ouattara to leave.  If not, he says, Young Patriots will decide how to proceed.

The former student leader has been on a list of U.N. asset freeze and travel sanctions since 2006 for previously inciting mob violence.

After one of his previous actions several years ago forced international peace mediators to back down on requests they were making, Ble Goude had this to say to VOA. "Now this is a victory. Therefore I asked all the Young Patriots in discipline to leave the streets and to go home. The day I will see or I will feel the danger coming I will ask them to come back in the street again," he said.

Core members of the group include former and current student activists as well as unemployed young men from southern and western ethnic groups.

Stephen Smith, a U.S-based anthropologist who previously worked as a journalist in Ivory Coast says the Young Patriots could give the already worrisome Ivorian crisis a new dimension. "It is the struggle over the streets, it is the struggle of what Ivorians sometimes refer to as being the Ministry of the Street, which means who controls the public space, and if they can bring together the people maybe sometimes by paying but also obviously there are followers. (Mr.) Gbagbo got 45, 46 percent of the vote, so they are people who really stand behind him and if they all come together there can be 100,000, 200,000 people gathering in Abidjan, that intimidates, that makes other people feel that there is no way they will ever get (Mr.) Gbagbo to relinquish power," he said.

The Ivorian constitutional council threw out votes of the November, 28 election, from northern Ivory Coast, which remains under the control of former rebels, giving victory to Mr. Gbagbo.

But the United Nations which helped organize the vote said Mr. Ouattara, who is extremely popular in the north, had won the vote by a wide margin. International bodies are now threatening the use of force against Mr. Gbagbo if he does not leave power.

Daniel Chirot, a U.S.-based sociologist who saw Young Patriots up close during recent research he did in Ivory Coast, says a lot is at stake for their members. "You could see them, their leaders going around in nice cars, with guns, with pretty girls, and benefiting from the situation and they are not going to lie down. For them, if (Mr.) Gbagbo loses power, it is a disaster, because they lose their sources of revenue, their livelihood, and they are armed so it is not just a popular movement," he said.

The Young Patriots deny they are armed.  They say they are fighting for Africa's second independence from outside interference.  Their Ivorian political opponents say they are thugs who ally themselves with militias and mercenaries to create chaos whenever Mr. Gbagbo's power is under threat.  

Mr. Gbagbo's initial election victory in Ivory Coast in 2000 against a former military ruler was also marred by violence and confusion over ballot counting.  Two years later, the northern rebellion began, as did the Young Patriots southern-based movement.

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Violent protests against nuclear waste train - ABC Online

By Rachael Brown, wires

Posted November 8, 2010 10:55:00

Police wielding batons have clashed with protesters who disrupted the passage of a train carrying nuclear waste from France to Germany.

The train is returning German nuclear waste for storage after it was treated in France.

The train was stopped in northern Germany by activists abseiling from a bridge over the railway tracks.

Officers used batons and pepper spray on hundreds of protesters trying to sabotage the tracks and the activists retaliated by throwing firecrackers.

During the clash the activists managed temporarily to set fire to an armoured police vehicle.

A police spokeswoman said the fire was quickly extinguished and no officers were hurt.

The train carrying the nuclear waste, dubbed by activists as "the most radioactive ever", is heading for Dannenberg where the 123 tonnes of waste will be loaded onto trucks for the nearby storage facility of Gorleben, in central Germany.

The country's anti-nuclear campaigners have been outraged by a parliamentary vote to extend the lifespan of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants, which were meant to come offline in 2020.

Over the weekend, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Dannenberg to signal their opposition to the cargo.

Organisers said 50,000 people had turned out but police said the figure was closer to 20,000.

Around 16,000 police have been mobilised to deal with the protests in Germany.

- ABC/AFP

Tags: nuclear-issues, recycling-and-waste-management, government-and-politics, world-politics, activism-and-lobbying, germany

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Nicolas Sarkozy calls for calm as French pension protests gather pace - The Guardian

Drivers queue for petrol on the ring road in Nantes. Photograph: Frank Perry/AFP/Getty Images

Strikes gathering pace against Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reforms appeared to be pushing France closer to crisis today as fuel shortages were felt across the country and violence erupted on the sidelines of protests by children.

On a sixth day of the national demonstrations, Sarkozy was forced to appeal for calm and "responsibility" after cars were burned, shop windows smashed and at least two photojournalists assaulted in Nanterre, west of Paris, and Lyon. Authorities said they believed those responsible for the incidents were not genuine protesters but "thugs" who had come to disrupt the proceedings.

While the violence was kept on a limited scale, the president could do little to stop the oil refinery strike from biting hard in large parts of the country. Jean-Louis Borloo, the ecology minister, said today that just under 4,000 petrol stations, of a total of 12,500, were "awaiting supplies" – without saying all these were suffering actual shortages.

On the outskirts of Paris and in parts of Normandy and the north-west, long queues formed as motorists waited for deliveries. The manager of one petrol station in the centre of the capital, who did not want to be named, said there had been no diesel delivered since Monday morning. "If this carries on we'll see things kick off," he said.

Nicolas Paulissen, deputy head of the FNTR haulage union, said tomorrow would see fuel supplies for freight vehicles become a big problem. "Without trucks it's impossible to supply factories and shops and the economy becomes paralysed," he told Reuters.

Of all the sectors that have been disrupted by the unions' strategy of "soft" rolling strikes, it is the action in the fuel sector that has most rattled the government. Despite repeatedly assuring France that chronic shortages are out of the question, ministers have formed a crisis centre to deal with the situation.

Speaking from an international summit in Deauville, Sarkozy said an emergency meeting would be held to "unblock a certain number of situations". Shortages, he added, "cannot exist in a democracy".

"There are people who want to work, the immense majority, and they cannot be deprived of gasoline," he said.

Sarkozy insists he has no intention of rowing back on his pension reforms, which include raising the symbolic and much-fought-for basic age of retirement from 60 to 62.

He is facing what is arguably his toughest week in power as he waits for a vote in the senate which, although not quite the end of the reform's passage into law, will close the main chapter of parliamentary debate.

But those marching in Paris today refused to let the prospect of a vote, already postponed once last week and now due to take place at the end of this week, get them down. For them, the reform is unjust, hitting hardest women, workers in hazardous jobs and those who start work at a young age – and worth fighting against tooth and nail.

"The vote is of no importance," said Didier Caron, a 51-year-old Renault employee. "It's the street. If the street works well, it could still win."

As the familiar chants rang out and students and children rubbed shoulders with pensioners and postmen, the manifestation drew 3.5 million people on to the streets, according to the unions, and 1.1 million, according to the interior ministry. Some shouted their calls for an intensified grève générale (general strike). Others took a quieter approach. One man's sticker read: "rêve générale" – general dream.

"I am here to show my discontentment with this government's politics in general," said one hospital worker, Armelle, who like many protesters was expressing her rage with the Sarkozy agenda as a whole, rather than just the pension reform. "This is my fifth time. I am mobilising for myself and for all French people. I feel as though our public services, which are so important to us in France, are disappearing."

For most, however, the issue of the day was the now infamous réforme des retraites, the law which the embattled rightwing president is said to regard as his single most important piece of legislation in the latter half of his presidency. A reform which the government and many economists say is long overdue, it aims to cancel a deepening pensions shortfall and, in political terms, display Sarkozy's reformist credentials to an electorate weary of his failure to deliver on lofty promises.

Reiterating his commitment to the law, which would also raise the age of full pension entitlement from 65 to 67, the president said that carrying out the controversial changes to secure future generations' pensions was his duty.

But it is those future generations of pensioners that Sarkozy is having the most trouble convincing. Today, days after they entered the fray for the first time, children ramped up their action even further, leaving 379 secondary schools blocked or disrupted to varying degrees – a record since the beginning of the protests.

Véro Du Cheyron, 51, social worker with the mentally disabled: "I am protesting today because this reform is a symbol of a society which always favours the rich and hurts the little people. When the banks go under, the government saves them. But it's not saving us. So I'm fighting for me and my children. They say that people are living longer so they have to work longer, but they don't say anything about the health problems that come by doing that. Also, as a woman, the reform will hurt me as we're usually the ones who have to stop work at certain times. I had always planned on retiring at 60, but it looks like that won't be possible any more."

Laura Tanniou, 22, student: "We may be only students now but we still want to make the most of our retirement! The government is talking about demographics but a lot of what they're saying is not true. The reality is that we're getting older but also getting to an age where you shouldn't be working. At 67 you're more likely to be unemployed than in work. You do hear people saying the French should just face up to it, but they don't understand: we are fighting to hold on to the benefits our grandparents won for us. I suppose that if there has to be reform, the better-off should contribute more than the less well-off."

Nicolas Sene, 27, restaurant manager: "I think the French should get up and, instead of whining, just work a bit harder. I started at 19 and have never stopped. Yesterday, I worked a 13-hour day. I think that as time goes on, we are finding new ways to enable the body to resist old age, and we're therefore capable of working a bit longer. There are certain industries, mind you, which are tough – mining, or even the restaurant business. But for people who just sit in offices all day I think they could be made to do a little bit more time. As for me, I'd like to think that as a manager I could carry on as long as I have the lucidity and the strength."

Benjamin Debry, 28, florist: "It'd be difficult for me to join the strike today, but I do support those who have. As for the protests, we French are the specialists in this. We are the country of justice and freedom and so we, the people, have a right to shout out when something's not right. It's important. We all care about our pensions and obviously we'd like to not be totally worn out by the time they arrive. I agree that some people are going to have to work longer. But it should be done on a case-by-case basis. Some people are in very hard jobs. I don't think it would hurt others to do an extra two years."

Frédéric Delouche, 40, postman: "My work is very hard on a physical level. I've been doing it for 10 years now and after a while various parts of your body begin to hurt – your back, your wrists, your joints. For people like me in arduous jobs, what this reform is suggesting is just not doable. I certainly can't see myself still coping with it at the age of 67, and to me it is completely unfair that I should be made to do so. What I want is to be able to retire at 60 – or, OK, at 62 – but on a full pension. And to get rid of [Nicolas] Sarkozy. He shouldn't be president. He just doesn't know how to negotiate."

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High school students join France worker protests - Los Angeles Times

Riot police surround a woman during a student demonstration in Lyon. French oil workers defied the government's demand Monday to get back to work and end scattered fuel shortages, stepping up their fight against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62. (Laurent Cipriani, Associated Press / October 19, 2010)

Camille Maupas, a 14-year-old high school student, stood in the middle of a major intersection in the center of Paris, took a deep breath, smiled and sat down.

So did about 150 fellow students, who spontaneously decided to block the intersection at Rue de Rivoli and Rue du Renard, causing a traffic jam near City Hall on Monday, to protest against a government plan to raise the retirement age.

With no pension at stake, the students are a worrisome wild card in the eyes of the government, and a recent addition to an intensifying protest movement against President Nicolas Sarkozy's promise to help reduce the state deficit by forcing workers to legally retire at 62, instead of 60.

Students have blocked entrances to their schools with large objects, and on Monday some youths clashed with riot police and burned cars. The violence was blamed on youths who are not part of the student protest.

As authorities prepared for another national strike Tuesday, a larger swath of the population was already feeling the effect of nearly a week of continuous strikes by workers, especially in the energy sector, who were joined early Monday by truck drivers who blocked major roads around France, driving at a snail's pace in "escargot operations."

Despite government assurances, fears of gasoline shortages pushed drivers to fill up their tanks, causing more than 1,000 of France's 12,500 gas stations to temporarily run dry.

"The most serious concern is fuel," said Richard Laisne, 58, a Paris taxi driver. "Because if there's a fuel problem, there's no work for me." He said he filled up his tank Sunday.

Government leaders continue to assure the public that there was no reason to fear a shortage, and Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Sunday, "I won't let our country be blocked."

A spokesman for the Energy Ministry said trucks were on their way to restock gas stations that ran out of fuel.

Flight cancellations and delays are expected Tuesday as airport and public transport workers plan to strike. The government again advised airlines to reduce the number of flights they have planned to Paris and to arrive with their fuel tanks as full as possible, despite insisting there was no risk of fuel shortages at France's major airports.

With striking workers blocking roads, trains, gasoline depots and refineries, there could be a long delay before hard-hit gas stations are able to function normally.

A crisis unit was created Monday by the Interior Ministry, and key gasoline depots and pipelines have been unblocked by authorities, who said they did not use force. Days after certain depots were opened, others were blocked by new protesters Monday. Workers at all of France's 12 oil refineries are on strike too.

The Senate is expected to pass the retirement overhaul bill by Thursday or Friday, but protesters say they will continue striking.

"It's a political success. Everyone is involved," said Josiane Jousset, 62, of the strikes. "The government got a good slap in the face."

Media coverage of the student protests showed images of burned cars, shattered storefront windows and glass walls at bus stations in various towns across France, and were reminiscent of 2005 riots in the country's low-income suburbs.

In the center of Paris, participants said their intentions were peaceful.

"We are pacifists. We just want to be heard," said Hugo Behar, 16.

Though the Sarkozy government contends that the French need to work longer in order to finance future pensions, Hugo said the reform would mean fewer jobs for younger people, because aging employees wouldn't be able to leave their posts open for the next generation. "I don't want to be out of work at 30," he said.

"We aren't doing this to get out of class. … We hope to prevent the vote" in favor of pension overhaul, said Camille, the 14-year-old student.

Lauter is a special correspondent.

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French protests jeopardise airport fuel supplies - The Guardian

French protesters take to the streets of Toulouse to challenge pension reform plans as strikes hit fuel supplies. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

France's main airport has only a few days' worth of fuel left, it was announced today, as the strikes against government pension plans continued to hit infrastructure.

The transport ministry warned of the fuel shortage at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris as unions worked to rally millions of people for another national protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's bill to raise the retirement age.

The country has already endured four days of strikes, resulting in grounded flights and cut rail services. Ten of France's 12 oil refineries have been shut down or are in the process of being closed and several fuel depots have been blockaded.

A ministry spokesman said officials were working to restore aviation fuel supplies, and the economy minister, Christine Lagarde, urged people "not to panic", the BBC reported.

The fuel supply into the Paris region and international airports was cut yesterday from a pipeline running south from Le Havre.

Trapil, the company that operates the pipeline to the Paris airports, said Roissy-Charles de Gaulle could run out of fuel as early as next week.

A transport ministry spokesman said reserves would last until late on Monday or Tuesday. But he said the pipeline was now working intermittently, adding: "We are exploring possible solutions to supply the airport [at Roissy]. We are confident."

Lagarde said: "There is no reason to panic over this ... I am sure that we will unblock the situation through intelligent social dialogue."

However, about 10% of petrol stations have run out of fuel and panic buying has broken out in some areas.

Meanwhile more than 200 marches are planned today to oppose the plan to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, and from 65 to 67 for a full state pension.

Rail networks and air travel is expected to be affected but the government's main worry is students becoming rowdy. Riot police used teargas yesterday to disperse crowds in the city of Lyon. Dozens of students were arrested across the country and several police were injured.

In another sign of growing protest, truck drivers – the heavyweights of French demonstrations because of their ability to block roads – have heeded a call to join the action.

Maxime Dumont, head of the CFDT union's trucking section, said drivers could block fuel depots, refineries and food warehouses and clog roads by driving slowly along them.

"In the transport sector we can do a bit more to help the workers. We are going to join the movement to make the government give way," Dumont told Reuters.

More than a million people took to the streets in the most recent national protest on Tuesday, according to police. Trade unions organisers said 3.5m had taken part. A sixth day of nationwide strikes and protests is planned for Tuesday.

About 70% of people polled this week think the strikes will build into a national protest movement like the one in 1995, and more than half of those questioned said they would support it.

The pension reforms have already been approved by the national assembly, the lower house of the French parliament.

The senate has endorsed the key articles on raising the retirement age, and is due to vote on the full text on Wednesday.

The government says the legislation is the only way to a stop a €32bn (£28bn) annual pension shortfall ballooning to €50bn by 2020.

France has a long tradition of overpowering unpopular government proposals through militancy on the street, although analysts believe many French people are reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that raising the retirement age in line with other European countries is inevitable.

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Funeral protests could upend common view of free speech - Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Williamsburg, Va. —

More than 500 mourners walked quietly through rows of flags and into a white chapel on a recent Saturday afternoon to honor a dead soldier.

Army Lt. Todd Weaver was remembered as a scholar, athlete and born leader. He served in Iraq after high school, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the College of William and Mary two years ago and was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Sept. 9. He left behind a wife and a 1-year-old daughter.

But before entering the church parking lot, the mourners drove past an unusual demonstration. Scores of flag-waving bikers and students stood near the corner, surrounding three women holding brightly colored signs. They read: "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "God Hates Fags" and "You're Going to Hell."

Shirley Phelps-Roper and her two daughters are determined to go where they are not wanted and to spread their message that U.S. soldiers are fighting to promote tolerance of homosexuality. Their funeral pickets have prompted new laws across the nation to keep them away from grieving families.

When the Supreme Court opens its new term this week, the justices will be confronted with a potentially momentous question. Are vile and hurtful words always protected as free speech, even when the target is a private person, not a public figure?

The case of Snyder vs. Phelps, in which a jury in Maryland awarded the father of a dead Marine almost $11 million in damages against the Phelps family after a funeral incident in 2006, is one of two major 1st Amendment issues to be heard this fall.

The justices also will decide whether California and other states can limit the sale of violent video games to minors. So far, such laws have been struck down on free-speech grounds.

And the court will rule on other major issues, including whether employees can be forced to reveal their private lives in order to work on government jobs and whether states can punish employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The ruling on the funeral protesters could upset the common view that the Constitution protects wide-open free speech on the streets and on the Internet. In the past, the high court's great pronouncements on the 1st Amendment have protected protesters and publishers who clash with the government or with public officials.

The Phelps case poses a different issue. They have not gone just to the Pentagon or the White House to protest the sending of soldiers to war. Instead, they have picketed grieving families and derided the parents for having raised their young men to "serve the devil."

"We are saying you must obey God," Phelps-Roper said amid the counter-protesters last week. "He is punishing you for disobeying."

Her elderly father, Fred Phelps, founded the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., and in recent years, his daughters and granddaughters have traveled the country to spread his "fire and brimstone" message.

Albert Snyder, the father of the dead Marine, admitted he did not see the protesters or their signs on the day of his son's funeral, except in the television coverage. A few weeks later, however, he read a screed posted by Phelps-Roper on her website that denounced "satanic Catholicism" — the Snyders are Catholics — and accused Snyder and his wife of raising their son Matt to "defy his creator."

Snyder sued and alleged an intentional infliction of emotional distress. The trial judge upheld the jury's verdict, but reduced the $10.9 million damages to $5 million.

Last year, however, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the entire verdict and said the Phelpses' signs and messages were "constitutionally protected" speech.

To the surprise and dismay of 1st Amendment champions, the Supreme Court voted to hear the father's appeal and to decide whether a private figure can sue if he is the "target of hateful speech."

"It would be a sweeping change" if the court were to uphold Snyder's lawsuit, said Robert Corn-Revere, a 1st Amendment lawyer in Washington. "Where do you draw the line between public and private?" he asked, if protesters on a public street can be sued because their message is hurtful.

A ruling in favor of the Marine's father also could have a big effect on the Internet, because bloggers often attack non-public figures with mean and hurtful comments.

Nonetheless, Stanford University law professor Michael McConnell thinks the court will say the Constitution does not shield the Phelps family. Snyder "is not a public figure. He is a private person" who was the target of a hateful protest, McConnell said.

Stephen McAllister, former dean of the University of Kansas School of Law, says he too thinks the high court will lean in favor of upholding the lawsuit. "This is not just about punishing an offensive message. It is about their methods and tactics. They chose a private funeral and a grieving family to publicize their message," he said. "It is targeted to cause severe emotional distress."

The case will be heard Wednesday.

Taylor Reveley, president of the College of William and Mary, spoke at the funeral for Weaver. He described the protest as troubling but best left ignored. "They had no impact. They were kept well away from the church," he said.

He compared the protesters to the Florida minister who gained worldwide attention for threatening to burn the Koran. "If these people didn't get any publicity, they would go away. But we are much better off as a society if we let people protest, even if their views are abhorrent," he said.

david.savage@latimes.com

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