173 nonviolent occupation
"Nonviolent occupation may be used after a nonviolent invasion or a nonviolent land seizure, or by people who have been ordered to leave their land or building. Thus nonviolent occupation may involve technical trespass and the violation of other laws. Nonviolent occupation was successfully practiced by Bishop Ambrose during Easter week, 385 A.D., when he defied orders of the imperial government of the Roman Empire to surrender one of the larger churches in Milan to the Arian Christians."...
Potentially awesome partners
High scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Polish shipyard workers' initiate regime change, 1970-71
In the face of a stagnating post-war economy, Polish Communist leader Władysław Gomułka, the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR), decided to end government subsidies for food and other everyday items in late 1970. Although the ...
Egyptians bring down dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, 2011
Beginning in 1981, Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for over twenty-nine years. Though he ran for presidential reelection several times, elections were marked by widespread fraud, and opposing politicians were legally prohibited from running against Mubarak...
Ukrainian students hunger strike and protest against government, 1990
Dissatisfied with lack of democracy and the Soviet Union’s influence on their country, Ukrainian university students in L'viv established the Student Brotherhood in March of 1989. In December students in the capital city of Kiev formed the Ukrainian ...
UK community stages protest camp to build opposition to fracking - 2013-14
By 2013, pressure to use hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to release methane (natural gas) from shale rock formations in the UK began to grow. Prime Minister David Cameron endorsed pursuing this method of extracting natural gas. The government began i...
Chinese activist Feng Zhenghu occupies Tokyo airport, ends his own exile from China, 2009-2010
Feng Zhenghu is a Chinese human rights activist who openly supported the pro-democracy movement that ended in the Tiananmen Square Crackdown of 1989. In the 1990s, Feng studied and worked in Japan. Upon his return to Shanghai in 2000, the Shanghai go...
Sunagawa farmers prevent expansion of Tachikawa Air Force Base, 1956-57
The Tachikawa Air Force Base (AFB) was a US airfield in western Tokyo. The US military and the Japanese government planned to use this airfield for transporting nuclear weapons. In order to accommodate for the larger aircraft needed to transport thes...
South Korean environmentalists protect Gyeyang Mountain against golf course development, Incheon, 2006-2011.
Incheon is a dense city of 3 million in the northern part of South Korea. One significant destination in the area is Gyeyang Mountain, which lies adjacent to the city and attracts 10,000 tourists daily. Gyeyang is largely undeveloped and is home to o...
Sarayaku people successfully defend their land against oil extraction, Ecuador, 1996-2012
On 6 August 1996, Argentinean General Fuel Company, also known as Compañía General de Combustibles (CGC), signed a contract with the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Ecuador without consultation of Kichwa natives of Sarayaku. The contract allowed CGC ...
Indonesians overthrow President Suharto, 1998
“I have decided to quit as president.”- Indonesian President Suharto, 21st May 1998\n\nThese words echoed across Indonesia, as students who had been occupying parliament for the past three days fell to their knees; while others cheered around televis...
Earth Quaker Action Team Campaigns Against PNC Bank for Financing Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining 2010-2015
The Earth Quaker Action Team’s first campaign, BLAM! (Bank Like Appalachia Matters!) began on 18 February 2010. Ingrid Lakey, Board Member of EQAT, sent a letter to PNC Vice President Jean Caulfield, which described the health and environmental dange...
Low scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Toronto hippies campaign for street closure, Canada, 1967
In 1967 Yorkville Village, Toronto was a neighborhood inhabited by many aspiring artists, hippies, greasers, bikers, youth, and others looking to embrace the counter culture lifestyle. This lifestyle attracted many youth who travelled from all across...
South Korean women labourers protest closing of YH wig manufacturing company 1979
Workers engaged in conflict with their employers, the YH wig making company, as early as 1975. Since the founding of the company in 1966, the executives had hired employees at very low wages, siphoned funds to America, and illegally fired workers. Th...
Oregonians protest and occupy Trojan nuclear power plant, United States, 1977-1978
When Oregonians received notice in 1968 that the Portland General Electric Company (PGE) planned to install a nuclear power plant in Rainier Oregon, concerned citizens began to work within the political structure to prevent the plant from entering th...
Austrian communist workers general strike for better wages, 1950
Following the conclusion of World War Two, Austria was separated from Germany and zones were created, each of which was controlled by one of the four allies (United States, United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union). Austria had a crippled economy because...
Belarusian citizens protest presidential election, 2006
On 19 March 2006, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko won his third term in office. The citizens of Belarus, however, did not meet the announcement of Lukashenko’s 82.6% majority win with cheers. Rather, immediately after the Sunday election, opp...
Yale University students protest sweatshop labor, 2000
On 1 March 2000, 400 Yale University students rallied to demand that their administration withdraw from the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and join the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) instead. Both organizations focused on monitoring sweatshop labor an...
Ohio citizens campaign to stop incinerator in East Liverpool 1991-1993
The Waste Technologies Industry, Inc. first proposed to build an incinerator in the floodplain of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio in 1977. Throughout the 1980s, the company battled with the local government officials and other regulatory agenc...
Americans blockade Washington, DC, to protest the Vietnam War, 1971
“If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.” That was the central slogan of the Mayday campaign.\n\nThe Anti-Vietnam War movement included striking examples of nonviolent direct action. Many of the protests against the Vietnam W...
Anti-Roads campaign fights highway construction in England, 1991-1995
Twyford Down, a small area in southern England, was the site of the Department of Transport's (DoT) plans to extend the M3 highway from London to Southampton Port in 1990. The DoT had used economic analysis to determine that the time saved from this ...
Students and staff at the College of William and Mary campaign for higher wages for housekeepers 2010-2011
Beginning in 1999 and lasting into 2001, students at William and Mary and members of the Tidewater Labor Support Committee (TSLC) carried out what they called a "Living Wage Campaign," during which they protested and petitioned the school’s administr...