The word 'nonviolent' is correct and usable in written English.
You could use it to describe a peaceful approach to a situation or to describe someone or something that does not use violence. For example: The protesters adopted a nonviolent strategy to achieve their objectives.
Proponents of nonviolent action argue that nonviolence could be even more effective if society focused its resources on training citizens for nonviolent resistance and on coordinating nonviolent action.
Most of the activists I know engage in the odd nonviolent demonstration, like the protesters at Fortnum & Mason, some of whose guilty verdicts were overturned yesterday, or the people halfway up West Burton power station.
Backed by the government-funded Quilliam Foundation and their media cheerleaders, the neocons have pressed tirelessly to end residual official engagement with mainstream nonviolent Islamist groups, hitherto aimed at isolating the genuinely extreme groups actually in the business of blowing up buses and tubes.
It would have been fascinating to attend a talk by Professor Mary E King about her book The Power of Nonviolent Action (1988).
Meanwhile, Freedom Watch's Larry Klayman called for "a second American nonviolent revolution", compounding the silliness with a call "that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Qur'an down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up".
Theresa May, backed by a casually enthusiastic prime minister on the Today programme, has suggested that a ban on some nonviolent extremist groups and speakers appearing on television and social media should be introduced.
He emphasised that the movement has been largely nonviolent, and blamed the clashes on excessive police action and the government's refusal to yield.
It has been strongly opposed for years by a coalition of environmental groups, including some involved in nonviolent civil disobedience who have been monitored by federal law enforcement agencies.
Mr Belafonte was sceptical of both religion and non-violence ("I wasn't nonviolent by nature," he explains, "or if I was, growing up on Harlem's streets had knocked it out of me"), but was won over by King's humility.
At the same time, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent the Smarter Sentencing Act which among other provisions would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders to the full Senate for a vote.
That, say critics, is what SWAT teams should be used for: not for serving warrants on people suspected of nonviolent crimes, breaking up poker games or seeing that the Pumpkin Festival doesn't get out of hand.
