Vox's Worldly

Zack, Jenn, and Alex talk about two huge ongoing protest movements: demonstrations against police violence in Nigeria and against monarchical privilege in Thailand. The team breaks down the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the violent police unit at the heart of the Nigerian protests, and talk about the problems with policing in that country in general and in international context. Then they discuss the student-led protests in Thailand — kicked off by authoritarian repression in the name of Thailand’s very strange king — and put it context of the general struggle for democracy in the Southeast Asian country. References: Deutsche Welle has a great video on Nigeria’s protests. One of the big problems with SARS is that its officers don’t get paid much. Multiple academic studies point to the lack of community policing as a major problem in Nigeria. The Conversation has a smart piece on why ending SARS won’t lead to much better policing in Nigeria. Here’s that Charles Tilley study Zack mentioned. Amnesty Intern