End Repression & Torture in the Basque Country

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Monday February 09, 2009 16:09

by Chair - Irish Basque Solidarity Committees (Dublin Branch)

dublinbasque at gmail dot com

No Time for Love in the Basque Country!

Calling all friends of human rights and lovers of freedom!

In the last couple of years, three Basque political parties have been banned and two youth organisations. Two newpaper/ media services have been closed down. Many demonstrations have been banned and armed police roadblocks used to block access to them or to intimiditate people.

There are currently 765 Basque political prisoners scattered over French and Spanish territories and their sentences have been increased. Prominent political activists have been jailed or threatened with jail for their activities and for acting as intermediaries in truce or peace talks. Detainees are regularly tortured (one anti-torture organisation has collected 64 separate testimonies of torture for 2008).
The Basques continue to resist and to re-organise. For example, over 75,000 marched in January in support of the poltical prisoners. Currently a coalition of political and social activists seeking to put up a democratic platform for the elections (Democracy 3 Million), although it gained the thousands of signatures necessary, has had some of its leading organisers arrested and is being threatened with disbarring from elections. Thousands marched against the environmental damage of the planned High-Speed Train (AHT) and were attacked by police with scores of plastic bullets.

As part of International Solidarity with the Basque Country Week, the Dublin Branch of the Irish Basque Solidarity Committees is organising the following events:

a speaker from the Basque Country will be speaking at a number of meetings in Dublin on Friday 13th and

there will be solidarity actions on Saturday 14th. Support as many of these as you can.

The speaker is representing Kamaradak, which is a Basque youth pro-independence left movement with an emphasis on internationalist solidarity.

Friday 13th

Repression and Resistance in the Basque Country

Speaker from Kamaradak

at UCD and at Trinity College Dublin (we are not permitted by university authorities to publish the details outside of their areas).

8.00pm Teachers' Club, 36, Parnell Square, Dublin 1 (has bar)

Saturday 14th

Street protest against repression

No Time for Love in the Basque Country

11.30am in front of GPO, O'Connell St.

1.00pm (approx) As it passes down O'Connell St, join parade commemorating Bob Doyle and other Irish of the International Brigaders who fought against Franco, proceeding to Liberty Hall and celebration of anti-fascist solidarity.