Dominican Republic: Army attacks peaceful ecologists with machine-guns

The fascist degeneration of the Dominican Republic continues. After all kind of absurdly racist maneuvers like the removal of citizenship to all people with origins in nearby Haiti since a century ago or the pathetic fiasco of forcing women to straighten their hair in order to get the ID card photo taken, today the fascist involution of the Dominican state has taken a further step. 

A Green March in defense of the declaration of Loma Miranda as National Park was held these days (picture), with a camp being set in the would-be park. The Dominican Army has surrounded the camp, what triggered the mass support of the local inhabitants of El Algarrobo for the protesters. 

The Army has reacted by firing gun-machines. It is unclear at this time if anyone has been injured or killed. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es] (background[es])

Dominican Republic: extremely racist measures may leave more than 200,000 without nationality

The Dominican Supreme Court decreed that all citizens whose ancestors acquired the nationality since 1929 be deprived of it. This affects especially to at least 210,000 Dominicans of Haitian ancestry who may now become stateless, in clear violation of international Human Rights conventions, as well as the general legal principle of no retroactivity. 

Article 15 (of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

• (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
• (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Naturally, the Dominican Republic is signatory of this convention.

There is a long history of mistrust and racism between the two countries of Hispaniola. Haiti controlled the Spanish-speaking eastern half for decades until this one broke apart, raising the issue of Mulatto vs. Black racism (sometimes bidirectional). This ethnic and racist conflict has shadowed the relations between both states but never reached this level of outright denial of the most basic human rights by such a high institution.

Protests and diplomacy have been going on since this absurd resolution but with no results so far.

Police agent murders student in Dominican protests

Willy Florián (22, student of medicine) was murdered by police in the context of growing protests in the Dominican Republic against a new law that greatly increases taxes. Mr. Florián received two direct gunshots to his chest by a police agent, according to witnesses. 

In a rather unusual move for other countries, national police chief José Armando Polanco ordered the immediate arrest of 19 agents involved in the incident. A bullet which remained lodged in the victim's body is being analyzed to see if it corresponds to police ammunition and the weapons of the implicated agents. 

Students and other citizens marched in Santo Domingo and other towns against the new tax law, without the agreement of the opposition Revolutionary Party (social-democrats). Those who marched on Congress were dispersed with pepper gas.

Source: LINyM[es].