
Rising Up in Protest: A Year in Photos
Fists raised and voices lifted, people around the world took to the streets in 2020—to stand up against police brutality, demand democracy, and confront other injustices. A look at some of the photos that captured the year’s most defining movements.
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Jan. 1: Tens of thousands of protesters take part in a pro-democracy march in Hong Kong.
ISAAC LAWRENCE/AFP via Getty Images
Jan. 5: Protesters hold photos of Major Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Iraq, during a demonstration outside the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
YASIN AKGUL/AFP via Getty Images
Jan. 14: A Lebanese youth runs with a national flag as smoke billows from burning tires during a demonstration on the northern outskirts of Beirut.
JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images
Jan. 16: Extinction Rebellion and Red Rebels activists protest during a climate march to the Australian Embassy in The Hague as they take part in a worldwide campaign to draw attention to bushfires in Australia.
KOEN VAN WEEL/ANP/AFP via Getty Images
Jan. 18: Women inspired by the Chilean feminist group Las Tesis dance during the Women’s March in New York .
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images
Feb. 19: Thousands of women hold green scarves—a symbol of their fight—as they demand the decriminalization of abortion during a protest at Argentina’s National Congress in Buenos Aires.
RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
Feb. 24: A demonstrator is detained by riot police during clashes that erupted at a protest against Chilean President Sebastián Piñera in the country's seaside resort of Viña del Mar.
JAVIER TORRES/AFP via Getty Images
Feb. 26: Greenpeace activists project an image of Pekka Lundmark, president and CEO of Finnish utility company Fortum, onto the cooling tower of the coal-fired power plant Datteln 4 of Uniper in Datteln, western Germany.
INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images
March 8: Dressed as Marianne, a symbol of the French republic, members of the conservative activist group Manif pour Tous (“Protest for Everyone”) mark International Women’s Day by protesting against assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy in front of the National Assembly in Paris.
LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images
March 8: Police arrest a woman protesting against gender-based violence in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on International Women’s Day.
VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP via Getty Images
May 4: A Kenyan man protests in front of a cart carrying the body of Vitallis Ochilo Owino at Muthaiga Police Station in Nairobi. Police officers are accused of beating Owino, 39, to death the previous night while he was walking in the streets after curfew hours.
LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images
May 8: Pro-democracy lawmaker Eddie Chu Hoi-dick attempts to climb a wall as security members try to restrain him from protesting at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong.
ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images
May 24: A pro-democracy protester is arrested by police in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong as a proposal to enact new security legislation in Hong Kong is debated. Four days later, China’s National People’s Congress approved the proposal, which is expected to ban treason, subversion, and sedition.
ISAAC LAWRENCE/AFP via Getty Images
May 28: A protester carries an upside-down U.S. flag, a sign of distress, next to a burning building in Minneapolis. Protests broke out all across the nation—and in many other countries, including New Zealand, France, and Spain—over the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by Minneapolis police three days earlier.
Julio Cortez/The Associated Press
May 31: Demonstrators march along Interstate 94 in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a protest against police brutality and the death of Floyd.
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May 31: A man holds up his fist during a protest against police violence near the White House in Washington.
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June 3: Monique Gray leads a crowd of protesters in a chant in support of Floyd and against police brutality near Dolores Park in San Francisco.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images
June 6: Mike D’angelo screams while holding on to a street sign newly named Black Lives Matter Plaza during a demonstration against racism and police brutality near the White House in Washington.
JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AFP via Getty Images
June 7: U.S. Rep. John Lewis looks out over the newly painted Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington. Lewis, a civil rights icon, died the following month from pancreatic cancer.
Jonathan Capehart/The Washington Post via Getty Images
June 9: A man named Alexis kneels with his baby at a protest in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in Dakar, Senegal.
JOHN WESSELS/AFP via Getty Images
June 13: Patrick Hutchinson, a demonstrator participating in a Black Lives Matter protest in London, carries to safety a suspected far-right counterprotester who was injured near Waterloo station.
Dylan Martinez/REUTERS
June 13: French riot police detain a protester during a Black Lives Matter protest on Place de la République in Paris. A wave of global protests in the wake of Floyd’s fatal arrest magnified attention on the 2016 death in French police custody of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old Black man.
ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images
June 14: A protester displays “Black Trans Lives Matter” wings while marching in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
Michael Noble Jr./Getty Images
June 15: A woman shouts in Atlanta as she protests outside a burned Wendy’s restaurant following the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks in the restaurant parking lot three days earlier.
CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
June 19: Men pray during a Juneteenth ceremony near the site where Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis.
KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images
June 28: Patricia McCloskey and her husband, Mark, draw their firearms as protesters enter their neighborhood during a protest against Mayor Lyda Krewson in St. Louis.
Lawrence Bryant/REUTERS
July 22: Police detain protesters during a demonstration against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside his official residence in Jerusalem. Netanyahu was indicted in January for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
July 29: Mothers block the passage of a federal law enforcement vehicle during a protest against racial inequality and police violence in Portland, Oregon.
Caitlin Ochs/REUTERS
Aug. 14: A protester embraces a member of the Belarusian Interior Ministry who was standing guard during a demonstration against police violence and the disputed presidential election results in Minsk.
Vasily Fedosenko/REUTERS
Aug. 18: Students flash the three-fingered Hunger Games salute at an anti-government/pro-democracy rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom, Thailand. The country has seen near-daily protests by university students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha and a discussion of the role of the unassailable monarchy.
LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP via Getty Images
Aug. 21: A Palestinian demonstrator argues with Israeli security forces in the West Bank village of Haris, southwest of Nablus, during a rally against Israel’s plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.
JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images
Aug. 28: Jacob Blake Sr., whose son was shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, earlier in the week, speaks at the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Jacquelyn Martin-Pool/Getty Images
Sept. 2: A police officer is hit by an egg during a scuffle with protesters during an anti-government demonstration in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Stoyan Nenov/REUTERS
Sept. 7: Right-wing demonstrators chase a Black Lives Matter protester after a pro-Trump caravan rally convened at the Oregon State Capitol building in Salem.
David Ryder/Getty Images
Sep. 10: A riot police officer is reached by a petrol bomb during clashes with demonstrators protesting police brutality in Medellin, Colombia.
JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/AFP via Getty Images
Sept. 23: Demonstrators embrace each other after a grand jury indicts one of three police officers involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Sept. 30: Security personnel detain a protester during a demonstration outside the Uttar Pradesh Bhawan in New Delhi, a day after a 19-year-old woman who was allegedly gang-raped died from her injuries. Indian police were accused of forcibly cremating the victim’s body.
SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images
Oct. 8: Activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party try to break through a police barricade during a protest march toward the office of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata, India, to protest the law and order situation in the state.
DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP via Getty Images
Oct. 18: A church burns as demonstrators gather in Santiago to mark the first anniversary of the social uprising in Chile. The demonstration was held a week before Chileans successfully voted in a referendum to rewrite the dictatorship-era constitution—one of the key demands when the protest movement began a year ago.
MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images
Oct. 27: A demonstrator screams at a line of police officers during a protest in Philadelphia near the spot where Walter Wallace Jr. was killed by two police officers a day earlier. Protests erupted after the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Wallace Jr., a Black man who police say was armed with a knife but whose parents say was bipolar and in crisis at the time of his death.
Mark Makela/Getty Images
Nov. 8: A woman takes part in a protest against the government of Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández at Plaza de la República square in Buenos Aires.
ALEJANDRO PAGNI/AFP via Getty Images
Nov. 13: A counter-demonstrator and supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump clashes with a protester during an anti-Trump rally in Washington.
Hannah McKay/REUTERS
Nov. 14: Counterprotesters clash with a supporter of Trump at a rally in Washington.
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
Nov. 18: Protesters burn tires during a demonstration calling for the departure of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in Port-au-Prince.
VALERIE BAERISWYL/AFP via Getty Images
Dec. 1: Farmers cover their faces amid fumigation by the municipal corporation near a roadblock at the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh state border in Ghazipur as they continue their march to New Delhi to protest recent agricultural reforms.
SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images
Dec. 1: Students stand behind a rainbow flag in support of the LGBTQ movement during a “Bad Student” protest outside the Ministry of Education in Bangkok.
MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP via Getty Images
Dec. 4: People traveling on a bus beg peasants to let them through after five days stuck on the Pan-American highway in Ica, Peru. The highway was blocked by those protesting for labor reforms, better wages, and other benefits for agricultural workers.
ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP via Getty Images
Dec. 21: Indian farmers get foot massages inside a tent as they continue to demonstrate against the central government’s recent agricultural reforms by blocking a highway at the Delhi-Haryana state border in Singhu.
SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty ImagesRising Up in Protest: A Year in Photos
Fists raised and voices lifted, people around the world took to the streets in 2020—to stand up against police brutality, demand democracy, and confront other injustices. A look at some of the photos that captured the year’s most defining movements.