Freedom's on the march. From the BBC, March 20:

An Afghan man is being tried in a court in the capital, Kabul, for converting from Islam to Christianity.

A March 21 statement from the San José de Apartadó Peace Community:

We call for national and international solidarity to demand the freedom of GILDARDO TUBERQUIA, member of the Internal Council of the Peace Community, who has been illegally detained today, March 21 at 8:45 AM, by the Police. Gildardo refused to register his personal information at the police roadblock at El Mangolo, located at the exit of Apartadó on the road to San José de Apartadó. He was detained for demanding that the police comply with Sentence C-1024 of 2002 of the Constitutional Court, which prohibits organisms of the State from demanding the registration of personal information, such as place of dwelling and work, activities and family relations, and others not strictly needed for legal identification of the person.

Lukashenko is doubtless correct that the protesters are backed by the West—or are about to be. Can we—meaning progressives in the West—possibly think of a more creative response to this dilemma than rallying around Lukashenko? From the BBC, March 21:

Hundreds of demonstrators have spent the night camped out in the Belarussian capital, Minsk, as they continue a protest over the presidential election.

From the UK's Iraq Union Solidarity, March 17:

Support the Tehran busworkers!
Since April 2005, Tehran busworkers have combatted mass jailings and sackings to insist on their right to form a union and claim unpaid wages. Most recently, bus workers protesting the laying off of hundreds of their colleagues for taking part in a strike on 28th January were handed a list of 46 confirmed dismissals. The list includes five members of the union's executive who are still in prison.

From Madison's Capital Times, March 18:

Wisconsin will blaze a trail in April when, for the first time, voters will go to the polls as part of a statewide effort to pass referendums opposed to the war in Iraq.

Sarah Ferguson writes for the Village Voice, March 19:

Seventeen demonstrators were arrested Sunday for blocking traffic as part of a funeral procession intended to transform Times Square into a "Zone of Mourning" on the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The Zapatista "Other Campaign" continues to advance across central Mexico, drawing attention to local struggles. In Guanajuato, Subcommaner Marcos was denied entry to the state prison, the Social Rehabiliation Center (CERESO), where he sought to visit political prisoners, on the grounds that he refused to remove his ski mask. In a press conference outside the prison, Marcos accused both Guanajuato governor Juan Carlos Romero Hicks and Mexican vice president Ramon Muñoz of ties to the ultra-right paramilitary network El Yunque. (La Jornada, March 14; Marcos statement, March 13)

Tens of thousands of Mexican miners went on strike from March 1 to March 3 at 70 companies in at least eight states--Hidalgo, Coahuila, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Queretaro, Michoacan, Guanajuato and Mexico state--in a wildcat action protesting local conditions and government intervention in the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM).