Irish solidarity with the Basque Country

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday February 25, 2008 15:56 by Irish Basque Committees irishbasques at hotmail dot com

International Week of Solidarity with the Basque Country. Last Saturday the Irish Basque Committees organised picket lines accross the country.

Last Saturday dozens of people gathered in Derry, Belfast, Cork and Dublin to show solidarity to the Basque people and their right to self-determination.

They had to confront rain, wind and cold and even Special Branch's harrasment.

Supporters dropped hundreds of leaflets, waved Basque flags and held banners with "Freedom for the Basque Country" slogans getting a great response from cars and passers-by.

Hundreds of people gathered at the same time all across Europe and America.

These are hard times in the Basque Country. The Spanish and French governments respond with repression to the calls for dialogue, negotiation and recognition of the Basque Country’s right.

200 political, social and union activists have been arrested since the negotiations broke up, two political parties have been banned and hundreds of thousands of people have been left out of the next elections, peaceful demonstrations are brutally attacked, arrested people are savagely tortured, political prisoners are scattered at hundreds of miles from home…

The Irish Basque Committees want to let the Basque people know they are not alone on their struggle for democracy, rights and peace.

The Irish Basque Committees want to call upon the Dublin and Belfast governments to use their influence to persuade the Spanish and French governments to accept that the Basque people have the right to decide freely their future, including independence, and to respect that decision.