The panic-gripped Indian state responded to massive support for the farmers’ movement by accusing everyone of conspiring against it.
Police arrested a 21 year old environmentalist for allegedly using social media to mobilise support for the farmers. She had shared a campaign “toolkit” promoted by Greta Thunberg.
Disha Ravi was frogmarched from her home in Bangalore last weekend and flown hundreds of miles away to New Delhi for interrogation.
Delhi police described the kit as “a call to wage economic, social, cultural and regional war against India”.
Earlier in the week cops also stormed the editorial offices of independent news website Newsclick.
The editor’s home was raided for 36 hours and vital equipment seized.
The crackdown comes as state attacks on farmers continue. Both must be met with massive resistance.
It is time to bring together all those who oppose the hard right government and take to the streets in a mass show of defiance.
Catalan pro‑independence parties have increased their parliamentary majority in the region’s elections last Sunday.
En Comu Podem, the coalition that includes the regional branch of Podemos, retained its eight seats.
The biggest advance was by the pro-independence and anti-capitalist Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) which won nine seats.
However the governing PSOE socialist party took the largest single share of the vote.
It stands for the unity of the Spanish state.
One very worrying sign was that the far right Vox party grabbed 11 seats in the regional parliament.
It took more than its conservative rivals combined.
The poll was triggered last September after the region’s president was banned from office.
He displayed pro-independence symbols on public buildings during the 2019 general election campaign.
The results underline the importance of raising class struggle issues as well as independence.
Workers’ are fighting back for better pay and conditions
Founder Elizabeth Holmes was convicted
