160 reverse trial
"Another form of psychological intervention is the reverse trial. Sometimes the combination of circumstances and the behavior during the trial of those prosecuted for political, religious, or other reasons significantly reverses the roles of prosecution and defender in the trial. The defendants become the prosecutors, and the trial is turned into a demonstration against the government and is used by the prosecuted to publicize their beliefs, program and indictment of the established order. This is what we call a reverse trial."...
High scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Indian peasants in Champaran campaign for rights, 1917
During the time of British occupation of India, peasants of Champaran district of the Bihar state were highly exploited by the indigo cultivation. The lessees of Indigo and agricultural areas had been Indians until 1793, but as the British Empire beg...
Environmental Activists prevent construction of coal-fired power plant in Kingsnorth, England, 2007-2010
In December of 2006, Eon, an energy company, submitted an application to the Medway council in Kent, England to build coal-fired generating units, the first to be built in England since 1974. The plant would emit more carbon dioxide than the world’s ...
Germans defend Ruhr Valley from French and Belgian invasion (Ruhrkampf), 1923
Following a loss in World War I, Germany was charged to pay reparations for their destructive role. The bill was $33 billion. Germany had been weakened by the war and paying the reparations at the rate in which they were due would have completely cri...
Industrial Workers of the World campaigns for free speech in Spokane, Washington, U.S.A., 1908-1910
Around the turn of the 20th century, employment agencies, or, as they were known to many workers, “job sharks” had a monopoly on casual laborer in the American West. Industries such as mining and agriculture would contract labor out to an agency, whi...
U.S. student Tim DeChristopher disrupts government auction of oil lands, 2008
In October 2008 the Bureau of Land Management finalized three Resource Management Plans that would open new federal lands for oil and gas leasing in Southern Utah. Some of the lands were adjacent to national parks and monuments, including Dinosaur Na...
Montague, Massachusetts, citizens stop nuclear power plant construction, United States, 1974
In 1973, the Northeast Utilities (NU) company began developing plans to build a nuclear power plant in the small town of Montague, Massachussets. The company’s investment in the plant totaled $1.52 billion, roughly thirty times the assessed value of ...
Mu Sochua defends women’s rights against Cambodian government, 2010
Mu Sochua fled Cambodia during the genocide under Pol Pot in the 1970’s. When she returned to her homeland in 1989 as a mother of three, Sochua began a tireless effort to further women’s rights in Cambodia. At the start of her political career she se...
Rochester, New York, women defy ban on voting, 1872-1873
Before the U.S. civil war (1861-65), women struggling for their rights worked also for the end of slavery. The annual women’s rights convention of 1857 failed to meet because Susan B Anthony had spent her time that year lecturing against slavery. In ...
White Rose Resistance to Hitler's Regime, 1942-1943
Amidst the omnipresence of violence during World War II, nonviolent protest is often overlooked or unheard of. However, there were several resistance campaigns that took place in Germany, led by its own citizens. One such campaign in the period of 19...
African Americans sit-in against segregation at Royal Ice Cream Parlor in Durham, N.C., 1957
In the 1950’s, Durham North Carolina was like most cities in the South: hot and segregated. At the time, the civil rights movement was already polarizing the nation, with the Montgomery bus boycotts in 1955 bringing to prominence such names as Martin...
Low scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
African Americans sit-in against segregation at Royal Ice Cream Parlor in Durham, N.C., 1957
In the 1950’s, Durham North Carolina was like most cities in the South: hot and segregated. At the time, the civil rights movement was already polarizing the nation, with the Montgomery bus boycotts in 1955 bringing to prominence such names as Martin...
Rochester, New York, women defy ban on voting, 1872-1873
Before the U.S. civil war (1861-65), women struggling for their rights worked also for the end of slavery. The annual women’s rights convention of 1857 failed to meet because Susan B Anthony had spent her time that year lecturing against slavery. In ...
White Rose Resistance to Hitler's Regime, 1942-1943
Amidst the omnipresence of violence during World War II, nonviolent protest is often overlooked or unheard of. However, there were several resistance campaigns that took place in Germany, led by its own citizens. One such campaign in the period of 19...