Democracy

Releasing the interim report of the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption on December 19, employment minister Eric Abetz said the findings showed the decision to hold a royal commission into unions had been “vindicated”. However, the fact that almost every substantial case examined by the royal commission was already making its way through the legal system, suggests the system is working. A royal commission is a tool government can effectively employ when there is a serious failure by the existing regulatory system.

The Basque people have suffered long-standing repression and denial of national rights under Spanish rule, including many jailings of supporters of Basque self-determination. The Basque nationalist movement is entirely committed to peaceful, non-violent means, with Basque armed group ETA declared a “permanent cessation” of armed activity in 2011. Spanish state repression has not ended, however. The statement below was released on January 17 by the Basque Peace Process website. ***

The day before the huge January 11 demonstration in Paris against the killings at the Charlie Hebdo office, another demonstration marked another set of killings in the French capital. On January 10, tens of thousands of Kurds and their supporters marched to mark the assassination two years earlier of three Kurdish women activists of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and to protest the French government’s foot-dragging on clarifying the truth about the crime.

The Socialist Alliance national conveners released this statement on January 9. * * * The Socialist Alliance condemns the massacre of journalists, cartoonists and others at and around the offices of the Paris-based publication Charlie Hebdo. However offensive anyone may have found some of the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo, this act of brutal violence is not justified.

The statement below was released by Socialist Alliance national co-conveners on January 9. *** The Socialist Alliance condemns the massacre of journalists, cartoonists and others at and around the offices of the Paris-based publication Charlie Hebdo. However offensive anyone may have found some of the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo, this act of brutal violence is not justified.

The statement below was released by the Tamil Refugee Council in Australia on January 9. The day before, opposition-backed presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena beat incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who oversaw war crimes and abuse of the human rights of Tamils and others in Sri Lanka. *** The Tamil Refugee Council urges the Australian government to use the change of leadership in Sri Lanka to push for a resolution to the country’s most pressing issue – the long-standing oppression and persecution of Tamils.

No one can have anything but the profoundest condemnation for the attacks on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. It is reported that 12 people are dead, shot in a commando style attack, and that at least nine of them are journalists. The magazine has recently published a cartoon of the Islamic state leader, and has a record of publishing anti-Islamic satire. The gunmen are assumed to be in some way connected with Islamic State (ISIS).

The statement below was released by France's Left Front, a left group uniting the Left Party, the Communist Party of France other other smaller left groups, in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hedbo that left at least 12 people dead. About 35,000 people attended the union-called demonstration on the evening of January 7 that the statement mentions. The translated statement is taken from John Passant's blog. ***

Green Left Weekly will soon be sending Vivien Messimeris and Dick Nichols (our European correspondent) to Athens to report on the historic January 25 Greek elections, which could result in the election of the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, to government on a strong program opposing the ruthless austerity imposed by the big global bankers on Greece.

Greece will hold elections on January 25, which polls indicate are likely to be won by the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), which campaigns against the brutal austerity that has caused widespread misery across Greece.

The European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) is a grouping of left-wing members of the European parliament, which brings together elected reps from the Party of the European Left and the European Anticapitalist Left. It released the below statement on January 5, ahead of January 25 general elections in Greece that polls indicate the anti-austerity Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) -- part of the GUE/NGL -- is likely to win.

Recent organising and demonstrations around the issue of police accountability in Philadelphia, set in motion by grand jury decisions in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York not to indict police officers who gunned down unarmed African American men, have taken a new, though rather historically familiar, twist.