Public Meeting on the Basque Country

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Thursday August 12, 2004 15:43 by Hawkeye

Public Meeting on the Basque Country

When: 7.30pm the 17th of August
Where: Teachers Club, Parnell Square, Dublin 1

Sinn Féin Átha Cliath and Ográ Shinn Féin are proud to welcome a delegation
of Basque youth activists to Dublin this August as part of a campaign to
raise awareness of the ongoing criminalisation and repression of Basque
activists struggling for an independent homeland.

In the last twelve months the Madrid Government has banned or closed
newspapers, political parties, language groups, cultural organisations and
youth movements that support, or give a platform to those who support,
Basque language, culture and independence.

Abuse of political prisoners by the Spanish security apparatus continues
unabated as the Madrid Government uses the excuse of the war on terror to
criminalise those campaigning for an independence Basque socialist republic.

The election of the Socialist Government in Madrid has done little to
alleviate the situation with a list of candidates for the European elections
that would have represented Basques north and south of the Pyrenees being
banned despite tens of thousands of signatures in support.

“They are trying to exterminate a country, a language and a culture, but
they will never succeed.”