Basque Solidarity Events

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Thursday August 12, 2004 14:58 by Sinn Féin Átha Cliath

Solidarity with Basque Prisoners and the people of the Basque Country.

When: 5.00pm the 16th of August
Where: The GPO O'Connell St

Public Meeting on the Basque Country

When: 7.30pm the 17th of August
Where: Teachers Club

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.”