La Mer

Spain Jails Catalan Leaders

The former chief of Catalonia's regional police and other regional security officials have been charged with sedition over their role in events leading last year to a banned independence referendum. ("sedition" is a fascist concept)

Marta Rovira, the head of the Catalan Republican Left party who was also summoned to the High Court, announced Friday she had left Spain to live in exile in Switzerland.

Oriol Junqueras, the former Catalan vice president, has been in prison since December.

A German court ruled that Catalan independence leader Puigdemont cannot be extradited to Spain on a charge of rebellion and ordered him to be released him on bail while it considers his return on a lesser charge

In a written statement, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, reiterated the Scottish government’s support for the “Catalan people to determine their own future”. 

“We will submit there are no guarantees of due process in Spain, of a right to a fair trial in a country where most members of the Catalan government are already in prison or in exile. If returned we submit she will be subjected to degrading and inhumane treatment by the Spanish authorities.”

The Right Of Self-Determination Should Be Enforced As Against A Claim Of Territorial Integrity When Doing So Will Advance The Fundamental Values Of The International Community

[in 1940 Gestapo handed over the President of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, to Franco's Fascist State - who had him executed.]

Mitsuko Uchida on Debussy

Boulez on "Jeux"

The Hell with Samba Beat

execution-style murder of a Rio de Janeiro councilwoman who was an outspoken critic of police killings of poor residents.

The death of a Brazilian community leader followed concerns about contaminated water around the aluminium plant.

There were 58,383 violent deaths in Brazil that year (2015), according a report by the Brazilian Forum for Public Security,

Brazilian lawmakers closed ranks to shield President Michel Temer from standing trial on obstruction of justice and corruption charges, sparing him in the second such case in just two months.

IT WAS a moment many Brazilians thought they would never see. On April 7th, after spending three days among his supporters in the headquarters of the metalworkers’ union in São Bernardo do Campo, a suburb of São Paulo, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former president, handed himself over to the federal police.

On 10 March 1959

tens of thousands of Tibetans took to the streets of Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, rising up against China’s illegal invasion and occupation of their homeland. Every year thousands of Tibetans and their supporters take to the streets across the world to mark the anniversary of Tibetan National Uprising Day.

It is a critical time in Tibet. China continues to intensify its grip on Tibet by imposing severe limitations on freedom of expression and opinion, by detaining non-violent protesters without judicial process, and by interfering with cultural expression and religious tradition to the point where Tibetans believe their very existence as a people is at risk. In the past five years the situation has caused at least 150 Tibetans across the plateau, young and old, to set fire to their own bodies in protest against China’s rule.

Imagine being snatched from the street or even your home. You are loaded into a police car and driven to an unknown location. Your friends, colleagues and family don’t know where you are. Nor do you. 

Tibetan and European Women

Sonam Lhatso, a nun from Kardze County, Sichuan province, is serving a 10-year prison sentence after she took part in a protest against patriotic education sessions and forced denunciation of the Dalai Lama, on 14th May 2008.

She was arrested along with 50 fellow nuns from Pangri Nunnery and was subjected to beatings. According to some sources, she might be held in Mianyang Prison, Sichuan Province. The authorities have refused to confirm this, or provide any details about her wellbeing, despite appeals from her fellow nuns.

Yeshe Choedron is a retired medical doctor. She has been in prison since 2008, when she was arrested in Lhasa and later sentenced to 15 years in jail for “espionage”. Her arrest and imprisonment are believed to be linked to her participation in the 2008 protests and her human rights activism.

Yeshe Choedron is a mother and has not been able to see her children since her sentence. According to sources in Tibet, she is also in very bad health. She is believed to be in Drapchi Prison in Lhasa.

Bulgaria just refused to nationally apply the powerful European convention to fight violence against women. But that’s not all. It currently leads the EU - and the Union-wide process of ratifying the convention. Member states could vote to make Europe a safer place for all women as soon as in 2 weeks - but not if Bulgaria keeps resisting taking meaningful action - at home and at EU level. It now stands in the way of protecting 250 million women and girls: in Bulgaria, but also all across Europe.