Spain's fascist repression against Catalonia knows no bounds

Do not cry for a land that fights, fight for a land that cries!

Today several Catalan politicians were jailed on accusation of "sedition" or "rebellion", what is a nonsense because they never used violence to overthrow the status quo but the Spanish Inquisition (Supreme Court in this case) is making things up and twisting the law all they can in order to step up the repression. 

One of them, the Secretary General of Catalan Republican Left (ERC), Marta Rovira, chose to exile herself to Switzerland, joining a growing number of Catalan political leaders in exile, either in Switzerland or in Belgium. 

Another of those imprisoned today was Jordi Turull, who is the only candidate for the Presidency of the Catalan Government (Generalitat de Catalunya), vote that was being held today (he did not get enough votes because the decisive Popular Unity List (CUP) abstained on grounds of wavering republicanism and lack of a social program). 

Also imprisoned were Carme Forcadell (former President of the Catalan Parliament), Raul Romeva (former head of the Republican unity list Together for Catalonia), Josep Rull and Dolors Bassa (former consellers or ministers).

This every day looks more like Turkey. 

But the streets are angry, very angry.

Not only because of Catalonia, there are many other open conflicts feeding into each other, notably the retirees have been staging massive protests in the last weeks against the effective pension cuts while police salaries are increased, military expenditure doubled as Trump demanded, corruption cases keep showing at every corner like mushrooms and the illegitimate debt to save the Spanish banks and other private ventures like useless highways, i.e. to save German and other international banks for slightly longer, is being increased every day. 

The Precariat is also angry and starting to get organized and protest. Also a synchronous conflict has been happening in Murcia City between working class neighbors and the state who illegally is imposing that the bullet train (TAV, another useless waste) goes through their neighborhoods, right by their homes in many cases, above ground, cutting the city in two. The government went so nervous that police was seen patrolling with loaded guns just a couple of days ago, something unseen since ETA began its disarmament process. 

But where anger is really spilling over is in Catalonia, always in the nonviolent manner they have conducted their independence process so far. I do not have yet all the info but I know that semi-spontaneously, organized by the Comittees of Defense of the Republic (CDR, popular assemblies working in national network), there have been many demos and pickets. Notably they have cut the train traffic at the station of Lleida, the border with France at Puigcerdá, and have walked out in most towns across the country, in several cases suffering violent police repression. 

Popular picket at Lleida train station (and some cops)

demo in Barcelona

police brutality today in Catalonia (credit: Jordi Borras)

These images (from FB group We Stand in Solidarity With Catalans) aren't but a tiny relation of what has been happening today again in the forbidden Catalan Republic. And I suspect that it is only the beginning of something huge, because the general mood is clear: if they jail our leaders, they will have to jail millions of us. 

There are informal calls for long-standing general strike, for repeated road, railroad, airport and harbor blockades. Not sure what exactly will come out of this but it looks that, once again, we are in a proto-revolutionary scenario, at the very least in Catalonia. 

And let's not forget that Catalans are 7.5 million people, 16% of the population of the failed state of Spain, and also one of the most vigorous economic areas in spite of Madrid sucking every single large company or almost. 

As a side note, the government can't even pass the budget, because they can't muster a majority to do so, they are resorting to pointless resistance by means of the state apparatus, dominated by fascist currents like the greedy Catholic order Opus Dei, but they lack any sort of coherent governance beyond last trench repression without any sort of compromise with common sense and social consensus. 

The situation is anything but under control: the failed banana kingdom is one step or several closer to total collapse. And I will applaud when that finally happens, because in order to save the Spanairds (by force or grade) Spain must be destroyed, razed to the ground and power returned to the peoples. 

Gora herrien borroka! Long live the struggle of the peoples!

Catalan Parliament approves independence

The Parliament of Catalonia approved this afternoon the independence of Catalonia (full text of the declaration, in Catalan). The voting was secret and the results were as follows: 70 yes, 10 against and 2 blank votes and 52 absentees (hardcore Spanish nationalists who don't recognize the right of Catalonia to self-determination). There seems to be one missing vote in the account, nobody seems to care.

People celebrate Catalan Independence near Parliament

With this action Catalonia ends all procrastination in favor of negotiation, which has not been listened to by Spain at all. On the contrary, the Spanish government, which is weak electorally but, thanks to the many tricks of the Neo-Francoist constitution still has absolute majority in the Senate*, and has managed anyhow to muster the support of the so-called "Spanish Socialst Worker Party" to approve also today the suspension of Catalan autonomy, activating article 155 or the Spanish Constitution, the kind of constitutional provision that Hitler was fond of resorting to in order to consolidate his power some 70 years ago.

Today a conflict between two sovereign states begins: one enjoys international recognition and has 95.000 police agents (plus the military, which won't surely be used because there's no war), the other is unrecognized (yet) and will fight only with the power of NONVIOLENT POPULAR RESISTANCE. Who will win?

I forecast that Catalonia will prevail. Why? Because they have already demonstrated their willpower, discipline and nonviolent firmness, in previous confrontations such as the referendum of October 1st, the General Strike of October 3rd and many other episodes of popular struggle in the last many years.

Against that determination Spain can only exert force. Its appeals to Catalan unionists to walk out have failed (sure: they brought many buses from Spain proper but rallied very few people from Catalonia itself) so they only have the farce of Spanish laws and courts that are, since today, not legal in Catalonia anymore. And they have 95.000 ill-paid and overworked police agents who will soon be shown as useless to implement Spanish law against millions and millions of disobeying Catalans.

Catalonia is Kosova on steroids: it is much larger, richer and visible than poor little Kosova was when it had to confront, in the pre-Internet era, a similar situation. Back then it was obvious that any solution not implying the independence of Kosova would fail. It took eight years of very brutal Serbian occupation but they eventually succeeded, not without a blitz war.

The situation is nevertheless different in Catalonia: Kosova did not matter, it was a mere humanitarian issue, but Serbia/Yugoslavia did not matter much either. Spain however has major geostrategical relevance because of the Strait of Gibraltar (plus French historical backyard geostrategy), so its NATO allies won't betray her. But Catalonia also has major strategical relevance, being one of two main knots linking the Iberian Peninsula to Europe (the other is the Basque Country) and this is a trump card the Catalans can play: sabotaging via strikes and blockades the commercial routes will no doubt have a demolishing impact in Spain's economy and its international reputation. 

Additionally Spain is effectively bankrupt: only the European Central Bank buys Spanish bonds these days, the pensions' reserve fund has been exhausted and Spain is financially unable to pay for almost anything. This is going to lead to a major crisis in Spain but a crisis that will shatter Europe and the World. Because so far the bankruptcy crisis had been delayed in Europe so far but now it will become absolutely unavoidable. 

That's the bargaining chip of the brave Catalan People: that's how a People determined to fight (noviolently) can bring the World to a halt. 

Catalonia will be free. The whole World Order (itself in deep crisis) cannot impede it. How could it? Catalonia is (together with the Basque Country) the motherland of Insubmissió: some three decades ago we gloriously defeated the Spanish Army with NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE, and Catalan society has learned that lesson well, probably better than us Basques. They cannot be defeated, they will prevail and teach the World a lesson.

_____________________________

* Every Spanish province, regardless of population or ethnicity, gets 4 senators, three of which go to the most voted party and the fourth to the second one. Most Spanish provinces are rural, nearly empty provinces of Castilian or assimilated ethnicity.

Trump uses the Army to repress peaceful citizens in Dakota

A few days ago I was called the attention to a DHS (US Gestapo) leaked draft document that authorized the use of the National Guard (Army reserves) to enforce Trump's "final solution" to the issue of illegal immigration. I was at first a bit dismissive of the credibility of such claims, after all it is very apparent that a large segment of the US Oligarcy, led by the likes of Soros, Clinton, McCain, etc. are actively opposed to Trump, but they seem to be very real.

The evidence is on how the protest camp against the pipeline at Standing Rock was brutally evicted yesterday, with use of military forces and equipment. And journalists have been the first victims of the fascist repression. The information is therefore not fully clear but it is apparent that some protesters have been injured and many more arrested, often on absolutely no grounds.

In this no-words video report you can appreciate some of the magnitude of the militarization of repression:

Here a raw report from inside Oceti Camp as it was being raided:

I can only imagine this are "testing grounds" for a brutal escalation in repression and militarization inside the USA (and therefore in all its imperial area of influence). They are primarily targeting "minorities" because that is how you boil the frog alive: by only slowly increasing the temperature. You know: "first they came for the communists and I did not speak out..." But this affects every single person inside the borders of the USA and also outside (as the practices are being extended, in various ways, to every single country in NATO-plus).

This is the true ugly face of Capitalism, a psychopathic abuser that sometimes pretends to be "nice" but only to deceive you and then shows its true face: brutal repression and exploitation. On the good side, it is a symptom of its final crisis, on the bad side, unless we wake up and take back what is ours, is only going to get much worse before people wake up and do what we must.

Erdogan arrests MPs in a new phase of his totalitarian coup

The Islamist President has launched a new offensive against what may remain of "democracy" in the Turkish Republic. Tayyip Erdogan, self-proclaimed admirer of Hitler and one of the main backers of Islamist terror in Syria and Iraq, has taken yet another step forward in his career to become an absolutist tyrant, ordering the arrest of many leaders of the Democratic Party of the Peoples (HDP), including its two co-presidents, which are both MPs. In order to do that he has decreed the end of Parliamentary immunity. 

Among the victims of Erdogan's fascist repression are Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag (photo), Turkish and Kurdish, male and female, co-presidents of the internationalist and socialist party that was in the last half-transparent elections (the last ones were a partial fraud) the third largest in the Turkish state and, by far, the largest one in Northern Kurdistan and some other "less Turkish" areas of the East. Also arrested have been the co-mayors of Diyarbakir, Gultan Kisanak and Firat Anli, who have been replaced by some guy directly appointed by Ankara. Many other HDP MPs have been arrested as well.

Connection to Internet in North Kurdistan and possibly other areas of the Turkish state has been severed. In the rest of the state access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. is extremely difficult. 

Coverage of what is happening, in Western as well as in Russian media, is scant at best, very distorted at worst. 

Erdogan's slow motion coup recap

Right after the (staged?) military putsch attempt of July, Erdogan began purging the state from everyone who disagreed with him: public officers, judges, teachers, etc. were expelled en masse. This was the real coup, something Erdogan had prepared beforehand. A new phase of the coup is happening this week: first he jailed key progressive journalists of the main independent newspaper Cumhuriyet, now he's frontally charging against the HDP. If someone blinks, as Merkel just did, he says that they are "aiding terrorism", by which he means not the terrorism of his Islamist paramilitary dogs nor the one perpetrated by the Turkish state against Kurds recently as well, but the armed struggle of the Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK). 

Incidentally the very first part of Erdogan's coup was to break the years-long truce with the PKK (using, as the Nazis did so often, a false flag attack as pretext) in September 2015. This change of Kurdish policy awaited almost exactly until the arm of Syriza was broken in the Greece-EU standoff of early 2015. Why? Because earlier he was ready to stage a war against Greece if Athens dared to disobey the Troika's mandate. Only once the "western front" was clear, he turned to the "eastern front" with all his might and cruelty. That is because the petty dictator knew that Turkey would have a very hard time fighting in those two fronts simultaneously, plus the still not healed internal Turkish class front (remember the widespread 2013 protests). 

But why would Turkey attack Greece? Because the Western powers asked them maybe? Well, I can't say for sure but most probably yes. It was mainly because of the unspoken but known Turkish threat that Greece could not afford to challenge the Troika, exactly the same reason why Cyprus could never incorporate the British colonial bases because, well, Turkey invaded the north of the island back in the day.  

So when Erdogan now, after the mysterious military coup of which we know almost nothing, appears to have pushed him towards Russia, I just have a very hard time believing anything. Putin is here behaving very naively, in my opinion, unless he has some hidden cards that I am unaware of. It would not be the first time the retorted maneuvers of the Western secret services catch the Kremlin off guard anyhow, look at what happened in Ukraine! 

Russia is tough in the military aspect no doubt but when it comes to intelligence they seem to be always behind NATO and particularly Washington. It is not the first time that Russia plays unwillingly the West's game: a lot of UN Security Council resolutions that gave the USA pretext for war against small countries, from Afghanistan to Syria itself, were passed with the approval of Moscow and Beijing. Putin is not that smart, really: he's been conned too often. Maybe this Turkey's flirting is just another instance of the same NATO convoluted power games, or maybe is just Erdogan on his own tricking Russia into not backing the PKK (a well funded Kurdish guerrilla would be a nightmare for his totalitarian aspirations), only to backstab Moscow later again when he feels stronger.  

In any case Erdogan, Hitler's 21st century apprentice, is clearly consolidating his totalitarian power in the Turkish state, without making any major concessions to anyone, blackmailing the EU into submission by manipulation of refugee flows and quite possibly terrorist attacks signed by his loyal DAESH puppet, making peace with Russia after shooting down their airplane and keeping the very all-powerful USA unwilling to make any sudden move against him. 

One could say it's masterful, I say it's devilish. 

Update on the ongoing French social uprising (video)

Good synthesis of the latest developments in the ongoing uprising in France:




From LINKS International Journal (a strongly recommended site).

From islamic terror to state terror: France brutally smashes Climate March

The effects of the prolonged and probably to be permanent state of emergency in France are already becoming patent: the Climate March was crushed today by the French police with tear gas and batons, just because... there is no right to demonstrate anymore in the Republique. 

Hundreds of people were arrested. 

The result of capricious state over-reaction to the terror attacks is that France is now heading to become a Islamic State of its own kind. Maybe not Islamic but similarly fascist in any case.

→ Russia Today.

India: thousands arrested in Hyderabad to prevent march against state terrorism

The state of Telangana has arrested some thousands almost overnight, mostly in Hyderabad, in order to prevent a demonstration against state orchestrated assassinations of Maoist militants. The exact figures are unclear: the Hindustan Times states that the figure is between 3000 to 4000 while Democracy and Class Struggle puts the figure of arrests as high as 10,000. 

The march, called by the Telangana Democratic Front and declared illegal by authorities, was meant to denounce the assassination by state forces of two Maoist militants in what is claimed to be a "fake encounter". 

The fact that so many people were arrested suggests that the sympathy for the Maoists is much larger than the government claims. In any case the mass arrests against freedom of speech and demonstration are symptomatic of a broken system that is leaning dangerously towards totalitarianism unable to face its own crisis in a constructive manner because it would imply giving away elite privileges.

Source: Odio de Clase.

If someone still doubts the Basque Country is occupied...

... that one only has to look at what happened yesterday in Altsasu (Navarre).

Every year the Sovereign People of Altsasu attempts to celebrate a fiesta-protest known as "Ospa Eguna" (Go Away Day), demanding the evacuation of the Spanish Military Police (Guardia Civil) from the town and valley, and more in general from the whole Basque Country, because they are disruptive, abusive and unwanted occupation forces.

And every year the occupation forces try to demonstrate they are the ones in command and not the People. That's what I call a dictatorship.

This year it was painfully obvious:

The "logic" for the military aggression was that "we don't like it". Not even using and abusing the law and the judicial system, just absolute arbitrariness from those who know that they won't be ever challenged in their own legal and political system. 

Yes, Franco won the war and his ghost is still very much alive.

Very large protests across the USA against racist killer cops

Once again the inhumane brutality of the bourgeoisie's thugs, alias police agents (yes, those are the real thugs, not a bunch of people raging because of systematic murder and abuse by the authorities), manages to trigger the just rage of many many thousands across the streets of the cities of the supposedly most powerful state on Earth, totally unable to control its own racist cops.

On Twitter:
→ #BaltimoreUprising
→ #NewYorkCity2Baltimore
→ #BlackLivesMatter
→ #FreddyGray
→ etc.

ETA calls for a broad national agreement for self-determination

On the Basque Fighters' Day, September 27th, the Basque guerrilla Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basqueland And Freedom), in unilateral permanent ceasefire since more than three years ago, has issued a new communication.

They argue that the international situation for self-determination of oppressed peoples has entered a new stage with the Scottish and Catalan referendums and that, being the right to decide an overwhelming demand of Basque society, a broad-spectrum agreement must be reached among the political forces around this immediate goal.

While this demand is clearly hegemonic among Basques, the occupant authorities from Madrid of Paris are doing everything to harm the Basque Country, imposing all kind of laws and economic impositions and increasing political repression against Basque citizens. 

That is why ETA calls for a broad National Agreement with the goal of effectively implementing the right of self determination in the Basque Country. Being this a key historical moment for the hopes of freedom of the Basque Nation.

With the sight quite clearly on Catalonia, which is calling for a referendum for November 9th in spite of all Spanish legal and political obstacles, ETA mentions that the upcoming months will see critical developments for the hopes of the Basque People, making a rally call for all activists of the Basque Nationalist Left to work for the success of this opportunity.

They reckon that the way ahead is not easy, but they sustain that it is possible:

We are building the road to freedom and, with faith in our strength, illusion and energy, we will achieve it.

They finish with the usual slogan:

Long live the Free Basque Country!

Long live the Socialist Basque Country!

Keep working until independence and socialism are achieved!

Sources: Gara: 

• Full ETA communication in Basque language.
• Synthesis of the previous communication in Castlian-Spanish language.

The tug-of-war of Spanish Neo-Fascist political repression

The Spanish Inquisition¹ acquits 40 Basque Youth activists (right: the trial). Good news? Well, so it would seem in principle but context matters a lot: these 40 Basque citizens have suffered prison, tortures and political persecution. They are now formally acknowledged as innocent but repression fell on them for many years, no apologies, no compensations, no nothing. In fact they can suffer again, as can I or anyone with dissident opinions, further repression at any time.

It is happening all the time. Not just dozens, maybe hundreds still suffer prison, like Arnaldo Otegi for having an opinion and/or a political activity, but new cases of political repression on opinion "crimes", torture and arbitrary imprisonment happen all the time.

This week, Tomás Madina, activist of the memorialist movement, which tries to reveal the truth of fascist murderous repression in the so-called "Spanish Civil War" (i.e. the Fascist military coup), was arrested by the Spanish Military Police, tortured and arbitrarily accused of being member of ETA ("all is ETA" doctrine, you know). He has been sent to prison by the Inquisition. Possibly he will be acquitted in the future (or maybe not) but he will anyhow have suffered the political repression in full force: arbitrary arrest, tortures, false accusations, time spent in prison, etc.

This is how the police state works today: innocent people are persecuted for their ideas and political activism, preventively tortured and imprisoned, then, years later, they are often set free, the intended damage done.

Repression against independent journalism growing

Among the victims of this kind of repression are journalists and media that does not bow to the monolithic institutional discourse. In the Basque Country this began with the closure of Egin newspaper, probably the best newspaper ever in the history of this country, with a lot of investigative journalism and very good news coverage and analysis in its late period, as well as the related Egin Irratia (radio) and Ardi Beltza magazine (investigative journalism monthly). Soon it was followed by another even more outraging attack against free expression with the closure of Egunkaria, the only Basque language newspaper, and the torture of its leading journalists.

The popular reaction was strong in both cases and successor media soon arose but huge damage was done anyhow, artificially forcing new staff and depriving these media of their economic assets. In the long run, a decade later, the cases were dismissed, the damage was already done.

This kind of repression has not ceased at all, although now it is more focused against the new Internet-based media, which offer information and analysis almost impossible to find in the bourgeois mainline old-school media.

In the Basque Country Apurtu.org was closed and some of its members arrested and tortured. Only for the case to be dismissed a couple of years later. Not before its successor site, Ateak Ireki, being closed on the same spurious grounds.

In all Spain

A peculiarity of our time however is the increased political dissidence in other parts of the residual Spanish Empire, including its Castilian core, and the subsequent generalization of the political persecution and repression.

Mainline bourgeois media are pictured as shields of the police state in this cartoon

Recently independent media from all the state have denounced this increase in political repression, with a huge list of cases:

• Police attack against the offices of La Directa in Barcelona.
• Closure of BurlataHerria.org (Navarre) under accusations of "apology of terrorism" (for reporting about political prisoners).
• Arrest of La Haine journalist in Madrid, including violent beatings of other journalists who supported him.
• Judicial persecution against the camera of Ahotsa.info (Navarre) for filming an "atheist procession".
• Threats by the Spanish Inquisition against Topatu.info, forcing them to remove a video on the meeting Danbada Eguna or be closured.
• Criminalization of Ahotsa.info by ABC newspaper (reactionary) for reporting on political arrests in real time.
• Pointing out and criminalization of several photo-journalists of Madrid that were later arrested by the Spanish police. 
• The already mentioned closure and persecution of Navarrese news sites Apurtu.org and Ateak Ireki. 
• Arrest of La Haine journalist in the Unemployed People's March of 2012.
• Arrest of two journalists of Periodismo Humano when they filmed an attempt by immigrants to cross the border wall of Melilla. 
• Arrest of a journalist of LaTele.cat covering the "surround the Parliament" massive demo of 2011 in Barcelona.
• Arrest of a journalist of Diagonal newspaper when taking photos of a police anti-immigrant raid in Madrid 2011.

Etcetera. They denounce that this kind of repression is typical of autocratic states like Colombia or Chile, as well as Spain.

The political repression is not limited at all to persecution of journalists. Gratuituous police violence against protesters has become the norm, as well as huge fines for exerting the basic right to protest. Just to mention a recent case, police brutally attacked a huge number of citizens (below) protesting against the discourse of Minister Martínez Soria in Telde, Gran Canaria, arresting six and beating many more, including one woman with serious head injuries (right).

Another also every day more common variant of repression are spurious accusations of links to "terrorism". For example Galician independentist militant Maria Osorio has recently chosen to publicly go clandestine as a way  to rebel against the Spanish repression. This is of course not an easy choice.

Solidarity with her has taken form as the campaign "I also hide Maria Osorio in my home".

But while this kind of spurious "anti-terrorist" political repression has been so far more common against independentist activists, it seems that it is going to become a more generalized trend. The Spanish authorities have been these days warning against "Anarchist terrorism" in a clear attempt to generalize fake "anti-terrorist" repression to all the nations of the residual empire.

_________________________________________

¹ Spanish Inquisition: officially known as Audiencia Nacional, successor of Franco's Tribunal of Public Order, in charge of persecuting political dissidence and protecting the political and financier elites, as well as police agents. All major cases with some political significance go through this special political court located in Madrid.

Barcelona: persistent riots against the demolition of social center

The day after the elections, the authorities forcibly evicted the occupied social center Can Vies of the popular neighborhood of Sants, Barcelona, in spite of important popular opposition. 

Demonstration in defense of Can Vies

Can Vies being demolished

As result two nights of riots have ensued so far in the neighborhood.

Setting up a barricade

Burning of an official media van

Large fire barricade

Source: Webguerrillero[es] (link1, link2, link3).

Update (May 29): protest did not just continue yesterday night but extended to other neighborhoods and even Palma de Mallorca, across the sea. Police has arrested at least 28 people in Barcelona and other four in Palma. Source: Sare Antifaxista.

Navarre: institutional apology of historical fascist terror protected by today's fascist prohibition of protest

Rally poster

The rally called by Ahaztuak 1936-1977 for Friday in Pamplona was suspended after the Spanish Government forbade it and therefore would have been attacked by police forces, making protest nearly impossible and most risky.

The rally, which has been moved to the next weekend, was meant to protest for the institutional apology of fascist terrorism by the Spanish Army's infamous "America 66" regiment, which raped and murdered many citizens in Valdedios, Asturias, in 1937.

The regiment, still active, is being institutionally honored for their alleged "service to Spain" with an exposition in the Citadel of Pamplona (a fortress meant to control the oft rebellious city) with the support of the far-right unionist city council.

The popular anger about this act of fascist apology by the neo-Francoist Spanish Regime is so strong that the authorities ordered to protect the citadel with a massive police deployment. 

Four antimilitarist activists of the Conscientious Objection Movement (KEM-MOC, War Resistants International) attempted to enter the fascist exposition dressed in denounce costumes as publicity men but were impeded to do so by police. 

United Left has denounced the exposition at court. 

For the organizers, Ahaztuak 1936-1977 (The Forgotten Ones 1936-1977, an association dedicated to the recovering of the historical memory and denounce of the many crimes against Humankind of the Spanish Fascist regime):

The prohibition is another instance of the persistence of the Spanish model of impunity that we have denounced since long ago, a model where the insult to the victims of Francoism and the impunity of their aggressors are combined; the continuous obstacles to mobilizations and claims by the victims of Fascism, together with all the facilitations and praise for the Francoist criminals; the abandonment by the institutions of our denounces and claims, together with the help and support by those same institutions to the Francoist criminals via subsidies and homages like this one we pretend to denounce... a prohibition that furthermore takes place in a city that, to greater shame, still retains other Francoist symbols: a mausoleum "to the fallen for God and for Spain", were putschist generals Mola and Sanjurjo rest and are honored yearly by their acolytes.

Sources[es]: Ahaztuak 1936-1977, Naiz Info.

Turkey: protests grow after mine disaster

Rigging the local elections was of no use for the Islamist regime of Erdogan: protests continue and even grow every other week.

This year's May Day had an obvious global epicenter at Istanbul and other Turkish cities, with major clashes, which have by now become almost routine in every single demonstration, as the dictatorship does not tolerate any form of protest. 

The recent mining catastrophe of Soma, that killed almost 500 workers, has become yet another rally point for all those demanding a regime change in the Eurasian state. The worker unions KESK and DISK have been organizing all sort of rallies and strikes, which have regularly resulted in clashes with a police determined not to allow a single space for protest but obviously not powerful enough to control a citizenry that is up to the eyebrows. 

It's not an accident, it's murder! chanted the many thousands who marched by Istanbul this Thursday. Similar demos took place in Izmir and Ankara. 

Meanwhile the regime continues its struggle for popularity by personally beating citizens (as did one of Erdogan's ministers this week) or reciting idiotic and unacceptable discourses like the one by Erdogan himself who claimed that such a major catastrophe is "something normal" and "inevitable".

He could have well said: slaves' lives are for their masters' profit and would sound exactly the same. 

In the mine of Soma, where 6500 workers labored, there was just a single and very small refuge (5 m², the size of my kitchen), which was useless to save the lives of the miners. 

But I'll tell you what Erdogan is thinking: security measures are expensive, workers' lives are not. 

80 miners die on average each year in accidents through the Turkish state.

Sources: Webguerrillero[es], RT.

Clashes in Honduras after the dictatorship evicts opposition from fake Congress

At about 4:00 pm, the military police ordered by the de facto President J.O. Hernández (who "won" clearly rigged elections) evicted the representatives of Libre, the main democratic party of Honduras, from Congress using all kind of violence (beatings and even tear gas). 

At least three deputies were seriously injured and had to be hospitalized.

The last legitimate President Manuel Zelaya stated: "they are beasts those who rule Honduras, they only needed 100 days [after the fake elections] to show us their fangs". 

Around Congress clashes between demonstrators and the army continued all evening and night and the situation looks like escalating to revolutionary proportions. 

The punctual demand that triggered all this was that members of Libre are included in the new Constitutional Court and is not just a one sided tool for the "libertarian" (totalitarian) putschists. 

Source: LINyM[es].

Mayday, mayday, we are being robbed, enslaved, murdered!

May Day indeed. Today. 

The World has been marching or even rioting today against this most outrageous and growingly unbearable tyranny that is Capitalism, a tyranny in which a tiny oligarchy controls nearly all resources and, therefore, the media and the governments.

The hottest spot was Istanbul, where many gathered to reclaim Taksim Square, being brutally attacked by not less than 40,000 police agents, resulting in generalized street battles. 

Istanbul today (source)

One must be ready for police aggressions in Turkey (source)

Street battles in Istanbul (source)

Istanbul today (source)

There were also some direct actions in the Basque Country against banks and other large corporations, although peaceful marches and rallies dominated the day.

LAB column at Bilbao (source)

CNT bloc (source)

In Colombia the farmer strike reached its third day, with road blockades and dynamics of provocations and attempts of criminalization that appear similar to those of 2013.

Road blockade in Colombia (source)

In other images:

Madrid (source)

Madrid (source)

La Paz (source)

Jakarta (source)

Manila: burning the President in effigy for his betrayal and lies (source)

Baghdad (source)

Yerevan (source)

Update: some more photos from Central America:

Guatemala: for the right to unionize (source)

Panama: in the midst of a major construction strike (source)

Honduras: against tyranny (source)

Spain charges against political dissidence online

The so called Spider Operative got 21 citizens, largely Basque but also from other parts of the residual empire, arrested under the anti-terrorist law for allegedly supporting terrorism and attacking ETA victims. The propaganda machinery, alias mass media, quickly spread the government's version without any contrast. The reality? Not much. 

The propaganda centerpiece was what a single individual, whose name has not been made public and whose Twitter account was deleted, posted: such blunt aggressive and clearly illegal comments that he is strongly suspected to be a police agent provocateur. The other 20? Nothing worth mentioning. 

So why were they arrested? The experience of Aitor Martínez (pictured) is very informative: he was never informed of the specific charges and the state-appointed attorney acted as accusation.

First of all Aitor was illegally arrested because the agents did not identify themselves as such. This is common practice but it is blatantly illegal. 

Second, he was accused of generic "computer crimes", with no detail whatsoever. He has gathered information that police already had a political file of his person, reporting him as member of the Basque National Liberation Movement and collaborator with a website, surely Topatu.info.

Worst of all was the attitude of the state-appointed attorney (under the anti-terrorist law you cannot appoint an attorney of your choice). She accused him of "doing something" and when he rejected her suspicions of drawing any ETA icon, she began asking him if he may have used black eagle (ancient Navarrese flag) or icons for prisoner amnesty, all perfectly legal stuff. 

Aitor Martínez also mentions that another girl, who was questioned before him, said that all she had done was to go to a National Day rally. 

In the propaganda video of the Spanish Military Police (Guardia Civil) the names of all the accused except precisely the one who posted the really criminal tweets are publicly revealed. This may not have such major consequences in the Basque Country, sadly used to decades or even centuries of the worst repression, but imagine the stigma that can befall to a youngster from Asturias or other localities of the state where some of the victims of this political raid are from. 

Aitor suspects that the author of the criminal tweets is an agent provocateur of the Guardia Civil itself, who provided single-handedly the propaganda material that has been used to accuse all the rest. 

He thinks that the goal of the operative is to spread fear.

Meanwhile fascist criminals are left at large

Basque MP Sabino Cuadra (pictured) denounced the recent aggression that he suffered in Jaén at the hands of fascist groups rallied precisely by the so-called Association of Victims of Terrorism (AVT), as well as other far-right groups, and how these enjoy impunity under the Spanish repressive system. 

Cuadra is considered by many the most outspoken "Spanish" MP,  who is able to call things by their real name.

Also the known criminal torturers Antonio González Pacheco ("Billy the Kid") and Jesús Muñecas, who are persecuted in Argentina under the principle of global jurisdiction for crimes against humankind, have been protected by the Spanish political court Audiencia Nacional (the Inquisition), allowing them to remain at large.

Turkish government blocks YouTube afer leak showing plans to frame up Syria into a casus belli

After banning Twitter it was already speculated that the next in line in Erdogan's fascist spree of repression would be YouTube, because it was the main window to what is happening in the country. 

Therefore this development would not come as surprise, except for the direct trigger: a conversation between three top Turkish officers on framing up Syria into a casus belli in order to invade the Arab country. 

The video has already been deleted from YouTube (why? Uncle Sam's long hand obviously) but the transcription is as follows:

(from Russia Today)

So Turkey's beleaguered Islamist PM Erdogan is looking for a pretext to invade Syria, what in this conversation is transmitted by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Davutoglu. 

Let's remember that Syria is a secularist modern state, similar to what Turkey used to be before Erdogan, and that relations between both states used to be good.

Let's remember that it was not Syria but Israel which actually made an act of piracy against the peaceful humanitarian Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, murdering several Turks and injuring many others. There you have an spontaneous casus belli, not just for Turkey but for all NATO (the ship is Turkish territory and it was in the area guaranteed by NATO, north of the Tropic of Cancer). 

So the Chief Spy Fidan has a plan: send some Turkish spies to bomb some Kurdish border village or whatever is needed to create the pretext. The Deputy Chief of Staff Guler seems to back the idea.

So the Deputy Foreign Minister Sinirlioglu doesn't seem too happy about how the "national security" has become a mere pretext for Erdogan's pathetic and corrupt domestic policies. Guess who may get fired for thinking too much?

We seldom see from so close the way key political and in this case war and false-flag attack decisions are made. We are bound to look back over what has happened and try to deduce some logic out of it and whatever evidence the powerful wrongdoers may have left. 

Naturally if you do, you're often insulted as "conspiranoid". Well conspirations happen and much more often than we appreciate. By this I do not mean that every conspiration theory floating around is just right but that we can't decide without looking first at the evidence. As I learned from my father, who grew up under Fascism, one must read "between lines" and not literally in order to understand, in other words: one must discern the hidden meaning behind the propaganda we have for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday. This is not easy and requires training and, to some extent at least, a sharp mind.

The Deep State is real, call it Gladio, call it Ergenekon, call it CIA/NSA/HS or call it just your usual elite-serving and self-serving political and military elite.

World Word III risk

No kidding. Turkey intervening in Syria would most likely cause a war spiral: Iran no doubt would back Syria right away and Russia, so extremely pressed with the Ukranian putsch, will feel the need and opportunity to intervene here or there, backed by its huge nuclear arsenal, which is probably the only one matching Washington's. 

Turkey is a NATO member and in this case NATO would have no qualms to intervene, unlike what happened with the Mavi Marmara (which was a genuine casus belli). The hawks in the USA and Europe alike have been looking for a pretext to attack Syria for a long time. So this can quickly spiral out of control into a nuclear war. 

No kidding, really. 

In fact we are probably now more at risk of nuclear war than almost any time during the Cold War. And mostly we can blame US-led aggressive imperialism for it (it's Syria but also Ukraine and the overall Brzynski plan to besiege both Russia and China in Eurasia. Plan for which the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are key spearheads, as well as the incorporation of much of Eastern Europe into NATO and EU.

What happens with YouTube and Twitter?

An Ankara court has supported Twitter appeal against the Turkish decision to block it, however the authorities have a whole month to comply, what means that the social media will most likely be unavailable for the local elections of March 30, which may well be a major defeat for Erdogan's fundamentalists, judging on the state of massive uprising that the country is since last year.

In any case, if the false flag attack is performed and there is intervention against Syria and, as I forecast, the situation spirals into generalized war, forget about freedom of speech at all in the Internet as in any other media. We will all have to resort to TOR encryption and IP hiding systems and even then we will be persecuted by the Gestapo, whatever its new name may be. 

The first victim of any war is always freedom of speech.

Main source: Russia Today.

Spain: Madrid mobilizations and police repression move to university: 50 arrested

Yesterday there was another popular assembly in Puerta del Sol surrounded by aggressive riot police forces. Eventually they decided to call another assembly for today at 18:00. Some of the members joined the occupation of university grounds by students on strike.

The student strike at the Universidad Autónoma was violently repressed by police forces, who entered at request of the rector, just as happened under Fascism. 

Police occupation of the university (SoliObrera)

At least 50 people have been arrested.

Occupation of the faculties have been called for tonight in solidarity with the victims of police repression.  Tomorrow a festive march ("pasacampus") has been called as well.



Recap: 

1. Police attacked first in order to divert media attention to clashes they provoked

How to make a 2+ million demo into a public order issue where you can criminalize the masses? The reactionary Spanish government decided to send the dogs in just before the news hour. There were no provocations other than some people trying to set camp, although there was indeed self-defense with whatever was at hand. 

By controlling all the mass media via their bourgeois mafia, the government has managed to turn the tables on: they don't almost mention the millions marching and all the support necessary (half the country?) but the "violence". They don't invite march leaders to the media but police agents and reactionary journalists trained to bark in favor of their master. Not a single network escapes this trap, what implies that there is no media democracy in Spain de facto and you need to resort to Internet in order to grasp some of the truth.

2. They are using "Venezuelan" defamation tactics

Just as it became notorious in the Venezuelan fascist "revolt of the posh", where images of repression from around the world were relabeled as if they were happening in Venezuela (Basque victim of Spanish torture became "Venezuelan", Tahrir repression by Mubarak's police became "Venezuelan", etc.), the Spanish authorities are resorting to falsification of information in order to defame and criminalize the masses. 

To the right one such example: a cold case of a weapon hidden in a crutch has now been presented by police as "evidence" of the "hidden weapons" that demonstrators on March  22 carried in their fantasy alt world. 

3. Scapegoating

The case of the latest political prisoner is a clear one of frame-up: Miguel has been sent to prison for allegedly taking part in the incidents of Atocha but he was actually arrested 2 km away in Recoletos, where he was probably among those trying to set up camp.

There is no evidence beyond police declarations. In the Spanish inquisitorial "justice" system, these may be enough (depending on the credibility the judge gives them) but it is well known that police lies almost systematically and the previous example is one of those. 

Freedom for Miguel

4. Tortures

Those arrested were treated worse than animals and subject to practices that can only be considered torture. They were kept for eight hours standing against a wall with their arms up, deprived of water and not allowed to use the toilet, deprived of food for 24 hours, menstruating women were not allowed to change their tampons in the almost two days of their arrest. 

Sources[es]: La Haine (link 1, link 2, link 3), @Acmp.Diginidad.Madrid, @SolidaridadObrera





Evening update: 53 students arrested, protests continue

The last info on the arrested students is that they are 53. The Vice-Rector had the whole building locked and with many activist students locked inside. They could eventually open a door but police had already arrived (on the Rector's request) and rounded up some 25 inside and the rest while they attempted to find refuge elsewhere in the campus.

Much of the focus of the Madrid protests has therefore been derived to the Universidad Autónoma, where road blockades and occupations continue, now also demanding the resignation of the Rector.

The daily assembly at Sol continues but they have by the moment desisted from setting up camp and are also focusing on the students' struggle.

Sources[es]: La Haine, Acamp.Dignidad.Madrid (Twitter). 

 

Spain: Dignity Camp evicted by police

At dawn (7:30 CET) police forcibly evicted the people still resisting at Puerta del Sol square in Madrid. They identified those present and arrested two. 

They also blockaded again the access to the plaza. 

A rally has been called for today evening (19:30) in Sol in support. Earlier (19:00) there is a rally against mysoginist violence (5 women killed in the state last week alone).

Other rallies have been called in several cities, notably Barcelona and Valencia.

Sources[es]: La Haine, Kaos (incl. video of the eviction).

Relatedly, a student strike is ongoing in Madrid today. Clashes have erupted as, again, the only answer by the government to popular demands is repression.

Fire barricades at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (→ Iniciativa Comunista)

See also for background:

• Almost 3 million people take Madrid demanding Dignity in spite of media silence and brutal police repression (Saturday 22)
• Protests continue gripping Madrid in spite of police (Sunday 23)
• Thousands march in Madrid again. Camp set up at Puerta del Sol (Monday 24)