Tens of thousands of people marched in downtown Madrid on Saturday to protest the government's anti-terrorism policies and its willingness to negotiate with the armed Basque separatist group ETA.
Crying "Zapatero, resign," referring to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, marchers mobilized by the Association of the Victims of Terrorism (AVT) waved placards scrawled with "Not in my name!" and "Memory, dignity and justice."
Others in the demonstration, which also had the support of the right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) and the Catholic Church, bore photos of some of the 800 people killed by ETA during its 40-year campaign to establish a Basque state in northeast Spain and southwest France.
The PP-led Madrid government said 1.4 million people turned out for the demonstration, more than 10 times the police estimate of 110,000.
The AVT and right-wing parties accuse Zapatero's socialist government of negotiating secretly with ETA.
The government denies this and says ETA must lay down its arms as a precondition for any talks.
AVT rented 200 buses to bring people to the capital from all over Spain with the aim of matching the success of a rally it staged last July, which drew hundreds of thousands of people to the capital.
Public opinion in Spain about ETA has become even more polarized as Zapatero began talking in recent months about entering into a peace process and hinting "the beginning of the end" of the group was in sight.
But ETA put Zapatero on the back foot one week ago when it called on Basques to take "new steps" towards peace but failed to declare an expected truce.
On Saturday it released another statement saying that "respect [of the right] of all citizens of the Basque Country to decide" their future was key to resolving the conflict.
Like most people in Spain, the organizers of Saturday's march are against any political concessions, such as offering the recognition of self-determination, or pardons for prisoners, in return for an ETA ceasefire.
Such opinions are however not unanimous. Some ETA victims, most of them Basque socialist legislators, on Wednesday gave their support to Zapatero's efforts "in the hope that future generations might live in peace and freedom."
The widow of Fernando Baesa, a Basque socialist assassinated by ETA six years ago, released a statement on Saturday saying such demonstrations were divisive and only strengthened those bent on violence.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
RSS