At this time there is two authoritarian regimes cracking down on their opposition. One of them is Burma, called Myanmar by the military junta that rules it, there has been a lukewarm reaction to the events taken place there, after all, the USA and England benefit from the political unrest in the area.
Guess what is the other authoritarian regime getting away with flagrant human rights violations.
You do not know the answer?
Well, may be you have been reading articles like this one:
Yes indeed, the press covering the issue places a few paragraphs to distract the reader from reality and voila, nobody says nothing to demand an explanation to Madrid's totalitarian measures against Basque politicians thus violating basic human rights and civilian liberties, oh yes, I went ahead and highlighted those paragraphs.
What the note does not tell you is that despite the four years since Batasuna was banned in great part thanks to a law that is a throwback to Franco's regime the Spanish government has been unable to act accordingly to one of the cornerstones of justice, timely trial. Indeed, four years later court dates have not been established in spite of judge Garzón having access to all of Batasuna's classified information that has been is his hands since the day the political party was banned when the police stormed the headquarters seizing all the computers and files.
What else does Garzón needs to take the Batasuna members to trial? Is he that dumb as a prosecutor? Yes, what you read is not a mistake, in Spain individuals like Garzón act as district attorneys and as judges at the same time, name another democracy in the world with a judicial figure like that one.
Madrid scored big when it got the international community organizations like the UN and the European Community to consider ETA a terrorist group, shortsighted, those who followed Madrid's lead now witness how the Spanish political class accuses any Basque organization that they wish to attack as being part of ETA. That way Madrid has closed down schools, radio stations, magazines, newspapers and banned political parties. Yes, I said Madrid not Moscow, not Beijing, not Yangon but Madrid. One would thing that blatant attacks against democracy could never take place in Western Europe, but there it is, backwards Spain doing it again and again.
But as long as the UN and the EC do not demand more accountability from Madrid's actions individuals like Zapatero and this predecessor Aznar will continue to twist and bend the law in order to step up their repressive measures against the Basque people.
Yes, there has been demonstrations against the Yangon government in the last few days, but due to articles like the one I just presented there will hardly be any demonstrations against Madrid's abuse of power.
The silence of the lambs will be defeaning.
Guess what is the other authoritarian regime getting away with flagrant human rights violations.
You do not know the answer?
Well, may be you have been reading articles like this one:
Basque separatist says Madrid has declared war with arrests
Sat Oct 6, 9:21 AM ET
A top member of banned Basque separatist party Batasuna said Saturday the arrest of most of the party's leadership was "a declaration of war" by the Madrid government.
Pernando Barrena, the most senior official of the political wing of the armed ETA group still at liberty, said the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wanted to "slam the door" on the Basque independence movement.
"The repression will not make us back down" from the fight for independence, he said.
Barrena, accompanied by some 80 Batasuna militants, was speaking at a press conference at a hotel in the port city of San Sebastian in northern Spain.
Sporadic incidents of violence in Spain's Basque Country, including the burning of a post office on Saturday, followed Thursday's arrests, regional police said earlier.
Four masked men burst into the post office in the town of Lezo, told the single employee present to leave then sprinkled the room with petrol and set it alight, gutting it.
In other incidents, petrol bombs were thrown at a courthouse and municipal office building at Pasai San Pedro, and an attempt to set a bus on fire at Markina was thwarted by police.
The actions were typical of youthful supporters of ETA, which is fighting for independence of the Basque Country of northern Spain and southwestern France.
A total of 23 people were detained late Thursday in a police raid on a meeting of Batasuna in the Basque town of Segura. They included 19 members of the banned party's leadership, two of whom are French.
They will appear Sunday morning before Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who ordered the crackdown in a hardening of the government's stance on ETA since the group officially ended a 15-month-old ceasefire in June.
Spanish radio said some of the suspects were being transferred to Madrid Saturday, but police searches in the region were still going on.
Premises raided included a property near San Sebastian of the Communist Party of the Basque Lands, which is allied to Batasuna but not banned.
On Friday hundreds of people demonstrated in protest against the arrests in various Basque cities, including 1,000 in Bilbao, the region's financial and cultural centre.
ETA has killed 819 people during almost four decades of fighting for its cause. Both Batasuna and ETA are listed as terrorist organisations by the European Union and the US government.
Barrena said Friday that the roundup was designed to boost the Socialist government ahead of March elections, when the question of regional autonomy and the "Basque problem" are expected to be major issues.
Batasuna has been banned as a party since 2003 for refusing to condemn violence and cut its links to ETA. The detained leaders face charges related to Garzon's investigation into those links, especially the party's suspected financing of ETA's activities.
Yes indeed, the press covering the issue places a few paragraphs to distract the reader from reality and voila, nobody says nothing to demand an explanation to Madrid's totalitarian measures against Basque politicians thus violating basic human rights and civilian liberties, oh yes, I went ahead and highlighted those paragraphs.
What the note does not tell you is that despite the four years since Batasuna was banned in great part thanks to a law that is a throwback to Franco's regime the Spanish government has been unable to act accordingly to one of the cornerstones of justice, timely trial. Indeed, four years later court dates have not been established in spite of judge Garzón having access to all of Batasuna's classified information that has been is his hands since the day the political party was banned when the police stormed the headquarters seizing all the computers and files.
What else does Garzón needs to take the Batasuna members to trial? Is he that dumb as a prosecutor? Yes, what you read is not a mistake, in Spain individuals like Garzón act as district attorneys and as judges at the same time, name another democracy in the world with a judicial figure like that one.
Madrid scored big when it got the international community organizations like the UN and the European Community to consider ETA a terrorist group, shortsighted, those who followed Madrid's lead now witness how the Spanish political class accuses any Basque organization that they wish to attack as being part of ETA. That way Madrid has closed down schools, radio stations, magazines, newspapers and banned political parties. Yes, I said Madrid not Moscow, not Beijing, not Yangon but Madrid. One would thing that blatant attacks against democracy could never take place in Western Europe, but there it is, backwards Spain doing it again and again.
But as long as the UN and the EC do not demand more accountability from Madrid's actions individuals like Zapatero and this predecessor Aznar will continue to twist and bend the law in order to step up their repressive measures against the Basque people.
Yes, there has been demonstrations against the Yangon government in the last few days, but due to articles like the one I just presented there will hardly be any demonstrations against Madrid's abuse of power.
The silence of the lambs will be defeaning.
~ ~ ~
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