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After the Supreme Court on May 16 banned the Basque party Abertzale Sozialisten Batasuna (ASB) from contesting the May 27 local and regional elections, more than 82,000 Basques signed petitions for the creation of new electoral lists. However hundreds of pro-independence and left candidates in the Basque Country have also been banned on the basis of suspected links to Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA — Basque Homeland and Freedom). Some 133 candidate lists of the legal party Accion Nacionalista Vasca (ANV — Basque Nationalist Action), which formed in 1931, have also been banned. A statement on May 23 signed by 17 members of the European Parliament described the bans as “a serious attack against the most basic civil and political rights in Europe” and called for a political, peaceful resolution of the conflict in the Basque Country.

OSLO — On May 23, 43 organisations signed a letter to the Moroccan government demanding an immediate end to its attacks on Sahrawi students. Since early May, Moroccan police have been on an offensive against Sahrawi students at colleges and universities throughout Morocco and Western Sahara. Dozens of students have been beaten, arrested and detained and there have been reports of sexual abuse and harassment of victims in hospital. On May 9, Sultana Khaya, while peacefully calling for the release of fellow students, was brutally attacked by police, leaving her blind in one eye. The violence is also disrupting students’ final preparation for June exams. The letter called on the Moroccan government to release the arrested students, guarantee the Sahrawi students’ physical safety and freedom of expression, prosecute those responsible for the violence, and “address the underlying legitimate grievances of the Sahrawi students by respecting human rights in occupied Western Sahara and allowing for a free, fair and transparent referendum on independence in the occupied territory”.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) could not be clearer: “The right to strike is one of the essential means available to workers and their organisations for the promotion and protection of their economic and social interests” (1983).

Tom Lewis, 83, is a long-time Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly subscriber in a small town between Bundaberg and Gin Gin, Queensland. His eyesight is rapidly failing and he can no longer read. But last week he renewed his subscription to the paper and made a $100 donation to our fighting fund.