News from around the world

Mass demonstrations took place in the cities of Shiraz, Khorramabad and Kerman Shah, a predominantly Kurdish city, to protest the high cost of living, poverty, unemployment and participation in the war in Syria, which caused damage to the Iranian economy according to the demonstrators.

Some 150 academics who signed a petition calling for peace in Turkey’s Kurdish regions are now facing trial. Uraz Aydin, the editor of the leftwing journal Yeniyol faces additional charges of terrorist propaganda.

Given the recent events in Honduras, Anticapitalistas joins the international call of the Honduran people to denounce the electoral fraud by the current President and candidate for re-election Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party, who did not accept the first published results of the elections of November 26, which gave as potential winner of the presidency the opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla of the Alliance Against Dictatorship. We also denounce the repression and murders committed by the police and military forces against the mobilizations that are taking place in the country, leading to the declaration of a state of emergency.

For the third consecutive time, since the local elections in 2007, the PST cam out on top in the commune of Barbacha Thursday 23 November, with 1,483 votes, ahead of the FFS [1] with 1,312 votes, which was close behind but did not manage to win back control of the APC (Communal Popular Assembly).

The Italian feminist movement Non una di meno (not one less) issued the following call for a national demonstration on 25 November, the International Day Against Violence Against Women.

The Philippine government officially declared on October 23 that the battle of Marawi was over and that this historic Muslim city had been fully recaptured after five months of fierce fighting against the jihadist group of the Maute clan and its allies.

In response to the Catalan Parliament´s declaration of independence, the Spanish Senate decided to apply the antidemocratic article 155 of the Francoist constitution in all its strength, allowing Rajoy´s Council of Ministers to take over the regional government of Catalonia. The Council, which had already taken over Catalonia´s finances, deposed its president, Carles Puigdemont, and his ministers, dissolved its parliament, with the excuse of calling antidemocratic regional elections on 21 December, and took over the Catalan police force, the Mossos D´ Esquadra, among other institutions.

The death of Mohcine Fikri - a fish vendor crushed in a garbage truck on October, 28th, 2016 while trying to retrieve his confiscated merchandise in Al Hoceima - has paved the way for the rise of ‘Hirak’, a popular movement of the Rif that fights for social justice and the right to equal development. Since that the date the northern region of Morocco has witnessed a historical turmoil. Despite the militarisation of the region and the state’s manoeuvre to discredit the upheaval, Hirak was able to mobilise thousands of demonstrators in the north of Morocco.

This statement was issued by Anticapitalistas, section of the Fourth International in the Spanish state, on 29 October 2017.

Today [27 October] Parliament approved the resolution that Catalonia become an independent Republic and for the opening of a constituent process based on the will of the people expressed in the referendum on 1 October. We support and welcome this decision, but it has not convinced the whole of the democratic Catalan bloc. The break with the regime was a necessary step for 1 October to be irreversible. However, it lacked a left hand to integrate non-pro-independence sensitivities, that must be included in the constituent process.