Democracy

  • Catalonia: Left unites to pays homage to Andreu Nin

    It took 76 years and one day since his abduction on the orders of Stalin during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), but on June 17 all parties of the Catalan left came together in Barcelona to recognise the contribution to the Catalan and Spanish working people of revolutionary fighter Andreu Nin. At midnight on June 16, 1937, Nin, the general secretary of the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), was abducted by Stalinist agents outside the POUM’s headquarters.

  • Ecuador: Assembly passes law democratising media

    In an atmosphere of festive social mobilisation, the National Assembly of Ecuador adopted the Organic Communications Law on June 14, mandated by the 2008 Constitution. It has taken more than four years for the law to come to light. The law is part of a new democratising trend with respect to communications that is taking shape across Latin America. The most significant antecedent for this is Argentina’s Audiovisual Media Law.

  • United States: All Occupiers phones logged

    “In light of news that every day the entirety of telecom giant Verizon’s call system records are handed over to the NSA, news that Occupy Wall Street protest attendees’ cellphones were logged should hardly come as a shock,” said Salon.com on June 7. “It nonetheless bears noting that cellphone metadata of march and rally participants was likely specifically logged, as security expert Steven Ramdam recently noted. “This means that individuals were directly targeted for their engagement with First Amendment-protected activity.”

  • Free Sireen Khudiri, Palestinian political prisoner

    Sireen Khudiri is a 24-year-old Palestinian teacher, human rights activist and political prisoner. She studied computer science at the Open University in Tubas, on the West Bank. Khudiri is an advocate of the rights of children in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank to have a decent education and has been active in non-violent campaigns against the abuses imposed by the Israeli occupation authorities. Khudiri also writes to publicise the struggle of the Palestinian people for their rights.

  • Snowden says being attacked by Cheney 'the highest honour'

    Edward Snowden said on June 17 that it was as a compliment to have former US vice President Dick Cheney call a “traitor” for leaking classified information from the National Security Agency. Sowden, who has been charged with espionage by US authorities, made the comment in a June 17 live web chat with investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald hosted by The Guardian.

  • John Pilger: Huge US spy program reveals 'democratic' lie

    In his 1928 book Propaganda, Edward Bernays wrote: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. “Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” The American nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays invented the term “public relations” as a euphemism for state propaganda. He warned that an enduring threat to the invisible government was the truth-teller and an enlightened public.

  • Union leader calls for safe passage for Assange

    Maritime Union of Australia national secretary Paddy Crumlin released the following statement on the one-year anniversary of Julian Assange entering the Ecuadorean embassy in London on June 19, 2012, to seek political asylum. *** Throughout the MUA’s long history, our union has been at the forefront of a global human rights movement seeking justice and transparency.   We continue that long tradition today as we mark the one-year anniversary of Julian Assange entering the Ecuadorean embassy in London.  

  • Venezuela: Opposition clings to unreasonable doubt despite audits

    In Venezuela's April 14 presidential elections, called after the tragic death of president Hugo Chavez, the candidate from Chavez's United Socialist party of Venezuela (PSUV), Nicolas Maduro, was elected with just over 50% of the vote. In response, the right-wing opposition cried fraud and organised days of often-violent protests that lead to the deaths of eight Chavez supporters and the torching of PSUV and government offices, as well as health clinics from the government's pro-poor programs.

  • Dave Zirin: Turkish football ultras join uprising

    Mark Twain's maxim that "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme" is echoing in the streets of Istanbul. The echo is heard in everything that makes Turkey resemble a sequel to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution that toppled assumed President-for-Life Hosni Mubarak. Turkey and Egypt are of course two very different countries with different leaders, different political systems and different histories. But the revolt of the highly intense, usually apolitical "ultra" football-fan clubs must be noted.