Month: October 2017

France’s famed film institute La Cinematheque Francaise says it will go ahead with a retrospective of works by director Roman Polanski despite opposition by feminist groups.

 

La Cinematheque said Wednesday that calls to cancel the Polanski screenings – attended by the director – only began “in the last few days” as the sexual harassment accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein gained force. The statement said it would not change the program that begins Monday.

 

Weinstein denies the allegations.

 

The institute said its role was not to moralize – in regard to the Polish-born director who in the 1970s pleaded guilty to having sex in the U.S. with a 13-year-old girl whom he plied with champagne and Quaaludes.

 

Since Polanski fled the U.S., he mostly has lived in Paris.

 
…

Russia has freed two prominent Crimean Tatar activists opposed to Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region, their lawyer said Wednesday.

Ukraine’s leader thanked Turkey’s president for helping broker the release.

Ilmi Umerov, deputy head of the Crimean Tatars’ semi-official Mejlis legislature before it was suspended by Moscow, was sentenced last month by a Russian court to two years in jail for separatism.

Ahtem Chiygoz, another Crimean Tatar leader, was sentenced at the same time to eight years for stirring anti-Russian protests.

“What everyone had been waiting for so long, has happened,” a defense lawyer for the Crimean Tatars, Nikolai Polozov, wrote on his Facebook page. “Two more hostages, two Ukrainian political prisoners have gained their freedom.”

There was no immediate confirmation of their release from Russian authorities.

The Tatars, a mainly Muslim Turkic community that makes up about 15 percent of Crimea’s population, have largely opposed Russian rule in the peninsula and say the 2014 annexation was illegal, a view supported by the West. They suffered mass deportation under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Nariman Dzhelyalov, a Crimean Tatar leader, told Reuters the two, Ilmi Umerov and Ahtem Chiygoz, had landed in Turkey.

“This is the result of Turkey’s talks with Russia with Ukraine’s participation,” he told Reuters.

“After Erdogan’s visit to Kyiv, representatives of Russian competent bodies turned up at Umerov’s house in Crimea to agree the terms [of the release].”

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his role in helping free the pair.

Moscow says the overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to join Russia in a proper and fair referendum.

Western governments and human rights groups had alleged the two Crimean Tatar leaders were imprisoned for speaking out against Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and pressed Moscow to release them.

Umerov’s supporters said at the time that the two-year jail term handed to him actually amounted to a death penalty for the elderly man who suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

Russian officials denied the prosecutions were politically-motivated.

A U.N. human rights report said last month that Russia had committed grave human rights violations in Crimea, including its imposition of citizenship and deporting of prisoners. Moscow said it deemed those allegations “groundless.”
…

Peter Hirschmann has often recounted his own story of fleeing Germany as a teenager to escape Adolf Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, then joining the U.S. Army to fight the Nazis.

But the 92-year-old started to cry as he read a three-page letter, neatly printed in blue fountain pen, which arrived out of the blue from Nuremberg and stirred very different thoughts of his past.

 

Its author, Doris Schott-Neuse, told him how her grandfather had acquired Hirschmann’s family home under the Nazis, expressing her shame and imploring him for forgiveness.

 

Spurred to look into her family’s past after helping a friend dealing with traumatic issues related to her own, the 46-year-old civil servant was shocked to find the family narrative she’d believed for years was a half-truth at best, and felt compelled to reach out to the elderly man in Maplewood, New Jersey, near New York City.

“I am deeply ashamed for what us Germans did to yourself, your family and to your friends and relatives and to the members of the Nuremberg Jewish community,” she wrote. “It is hardly bearable to start thinking about the details — what a horror and nightmare it must have been to live through this.”

 

Included in the envelope were photos of the Hirschmann family home today.

 

“I teared up because it brought back to mind all of those memories of mine,” Hirschmann recalled in an interview.

 

___

 

The home is a stately building on the northeastern outskirts of Nuremberg, on Eichendorffstrasse 15.

 

“It was probably one of the nicer homes around according to the standards of the day,” Hirschmann said. “Of course things have changed; it wouldn’t rank as one of the great mansions that you would see, but at the time it was a really lovely place.”

 

Hirschmann fondly recalls helping tend his family’s fruit, vegetable and flower gardens.

 

He also remembers how his parents set up sprinklers for him and his friends after the Nazis came to power and steadily removed of Jewish rights — like at the local public pool.

 

“All of a sudden there was a sign up there: ‘Juden und Hunde Verboten,’ which means Jews and dogs not allowed,” he said.

 

Schott-Neuse has little memory of the home itself. Her aunt inherited it in 1969 after Schott-Neuse’s grandmother died, and Schott-Neuse was 5 when her aunt sold it. She has vague recollections of Easter egg hunting in the garden and her aunt’s small black-and-white television.

 

She didn’t know either of her grandparents, and she’d never asked a lot of questions. From her aunt, she learned a vague story about the house.

 

“She told me there were Jews who were the owners, who were able to escape to the United States and my grandparents helped them,” she recalled. “I don’t know if I want to believe that any longer. The letter was not only telling the family I was very sorry, but it was also searching for what was going on.”

 

___

 

The medieval Bavarian city of Nuremberg was an early Nazi hub. It was at a rally in 1935 that the Nazis announced what became known as the Nuremberg Laws — revoking the citizenship of Jews and excluding them from many walks of life.

 

At that time, Hirschmann’s father, Julius, was a successful businessman with a two-story, three-bedroom house in the suburbs.

 

By 1938, the so-called “Aryanization” process was in full swing, as Jewish businesses and properties were taken over by non-Jewish Germans, in the prelude to the full-scale mass murder of some 6 million European Jews several years later.

 

As Schott-Neuse combed through property registers in Nuremberg’s city archives, she uncovered documents showing how the Nazis had methodically and bureaucratically seized the Hirschmann’s home. By 1941, it was listed as being owned by by Muhr W., salesman.

 

Willi Muhr was Schott-Neuse’s grandfather.

 

“I thought he bought it directly from the Jewish owners but this doesn’t seem to be true,” she said.

 

Though she knows little about her grandfather, she assumes he must have had Nazi connections, since “it was a prime real estate area and you probably don’t get this really nice house with a large garden,” without any.

 

“That is what prompted me to write the letter, because I thought that the family also doesn’t know what happened and I wanted to say I’m so sorry, because it’s not done and over… there are Holocaust survivors still living,” she said.

 

After the war, Hirschmann’s family was paid restitution, though because of the depressed German housing market, it was a tenth of what the home had been worth before.

 

___

 

Peter Hirschmann and his family managed to safely flee Nazi Germany before the outbreak of war in September 1939. They ended up in Newark, New Jersey, and started over.

 

By the time Peter turned 18, the U.S. had entered the war. He signed a waiver allowing him to be drafted even though he was still a German citizen.

 

As a soldier with the 78th Infantry Division, he saw his first major action in Belgium in December 1944, in the Battle of the Bulge.

 

Like thousands of other Americans he was captured, but as a German Jew, he was in unique peril. When his captors found out he spoke German, he bluffed, saying he learned it in high school. He survived the final months of the war in a Nazi camp.

 

“If he had found out my background I would have been shot without any explanation,” he said.

 

He still chokes up remembering the young German soldier guarding him, who dug through his things and gave him a chocolate bar — and hope.

 

“He was my enemy, and he treated me like a human being,” Hirschmann said.

 

More than 70 years later, when he received Schott-Neuse’s letter, he accepted her overture without hesitation, telling her by email it was particularly touching “because it is obvious that you, too, are suffering and it pains me to think of that — you, who are blameless.”

 

He told her that it would have been easy for her to remain silent. The two have been corresponding regularly, but currently have no plans to meet face-to-face.

 

“You were not satisfied with that and examined the depths of your heart to reveal the era’s true impact. You had the option to ignore it and instead you confronted it,” he wrote. “My tears reflect the fervent hope that the humanity, dignity, and compassion you have shown is shared by others of your generation and the generations to follow.”
…

Serbia’s defense minister on Tuesday criticized remarks by the top U.S. diplomat in the region, who recently called on Belgrade to choose between aligning itself with either Washington and Brussels or Moscow if it intends to secure European Union status.

Addressing Serbian news outlets, Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin, who has been known to advocate a pro-Russian stance, said comments by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Hoyt Brian Yee represent “the greatest pressure against Serbia yet.”

The “statement was not made by a friend or a person respecting Serbia, respecting our right to decide independently,” Vulin said, calling Yee’s remarks “very undiplomatic.”

It was late Monday when Yee, speaking at the Serbian Economic Summit in Belgrade, said EU candidate countries should clearly demonstrate their desire to become members, and not seesaw between two sides.

Calling the U.S. Serbia’s partner on the country’s path toward the EU membership, “the EU hopefuls should clearly demonstrate that they really want to become members,” Yee said. “You cannot sit on two chairs, especially if those chairs are too far apart.”

Among the six Western Balkan countries aiming to join the EU — Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania — Serbia may be closest to securing membership. Still recovering from a decade of wars and economic turmoil in the 1990s, however, Serbia also maintains unusually close ties with Russia.

Serbia received MIG-29 jet fighters as a “gift” from Russian president Vladimir Putin just days ago.

Yee expressed concerns that Serbia has turned only halfway toward the EU, and the other half toward Russia, adding “that countries should pick one side regardless of how difficult that might be.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s office said that during a meeting Tuesday, the U.S. envoy expressed “perception that Serbia is with one foot on an EU path, and another in a union with Russia.”

Vucic’s office later issued a statement saying the president carefully listened to Yee’s concerns and responded to his remarks “very directly.”

“[Vucic] will make his answer public in the coming days,” the statement said.

Jaksa Scekic, a Belgrade-based pundit and journalist who has covered Balkan affairs for more than three decades, called the statement “mixed,” adding that it was “probably the best sign that it was a joint product with opinions from both sides.”

“Serbia has been playing this game for a while now and this is nothing new,” Scekic told VOA’s Serbian Service. “The country risks staying in isolation and it has to decide. Usually after harsh rhetoric, we will probably see gifts and bribes coming from all sides. We will have to wait and see which gift Serbia will take.”

Under pressure from its historic Slavic ally Russia, Serbia, like some of its Balkan neighbors, has been pressured by Russia to stay out of NATO and other Western bodies.

“It is clear from Russia’s actions that it wants to have disjointed Balkans, not strong and united,” Yee said.

This story originated in VOA’s Serbian Service. Some information is from AP.
…

Russia used its U.N. veto Tuesday to block a resolution extending the mandate of the investigators probing chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

In a Security Council vote, 11 countries supported extending the mission for another year, while Russia and Bolivia voted against the measure, and China and Kazakhstan abstained.

The investigating team, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism or JIM, is expected to make public a report on Thursday that could identify the party responsible for a deadly April 4 attack in the rebel-controlled town of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib that killed and sickened scores of civilians.

Three days later, the United States launched an airstrike on a Syrian air base which Washington accused the regime of Bashar al-Assad of having used to launch the poison gas attack.

Accountability

While the question of whether sarin or a sarin-like substance is not disputed, who used it still has to be officially confirmed, and it is anticipated the JIM’s report could shed light on the matter.

It would be politically embarrassing for Russia, a staunch ally of President Assad, if evidence shows that the regime — and not, for example, Islamic State militants — are responsible for the attack. In Syria, the government is the only party to the conflict that possesses air capabilities. Russia has previously suggested that the gas was released from a bomb on the ground and not in the air.

Russia’s U.N. envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, first sought to postpone Tuesday’s vote through a procedural measure until after the release of the JIM’s report, saying the hastily-called vote was an effort by Washington to embarrass Moscow.

“You need to show up Russia and show that Russia is guilty of not extending the JIM, in fact you are the one who is begging for confrontation,” Nebenzia said of the U.S. delegation, which drafted the text and pushed for the vote.

While the procedural vote had the support of China, Kazakhstan and Bolivia, it fell short of the required eight-vote majority and failed to prevent the other vote going ahead, forcing Russia to use its veto.

Eighth veto on Syria

“I want to underscore that today’s voting is senseless also, because it won’t have any impact on the future of the JIM,” Nebenzia said after casting his veto — the eighth time Russia has done so on Syria. “We will return to the issue of extension in the future — we have not stopped it.”

The mission’s mandate does not expire until November 16, so the council has three weeks to approve an extension without disrupting the team’s work, as happened last year when consensus could not be reached on the JIM’s extension.

“The question we must ask ourselves is, whether the JIM is being attacked because it has failed in its job to determine the truth in Syria, or because its conclusions have been politically inconvenient for some council members,” said U.S. envoy Michele Sison.

“Russia called for the formation of the JIM, they negotiated its terms, they agreed its mission, and yet when faced with the prospect of the JIM revealing the truth, why has Russia alone chosen to shoot the messenger?” asked British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft.

Some diplomats said the move for the vote now was intended to avoid politicizing whatever conclusions the report draws and avoiding having them affect votes for the extension.

All council members expressed the hope that they could return to the issue and reach consensus on extending the JIM’s mandate before it expires next month.
…

A trial begins in Istanbul Wednesday for eleven prominent human rights activists, including two foreign nationals, in a case that is drawing criticism from international human rights organizations who say it is part of a campaign by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to silence criticism and scrutiny in Turkey in the wake of last year’s coup attempt.  

The defendants face prison sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

Amnesty International’s chairman in Turkey, Taner Kilic, and Idil Eser, Amnesty International’s Turkey director, are among those on trial. The case centers on a digital security seminar that was held on Buyukada, an island on the Sea of Marmara near  Istanbul, that focused on security and coping with stress. In a 15-page indictment, prosecutors allege the meeting was part of a conspiracy to unseat the government by inciting civil unrest

“It’s a completely baseless case, there is not a shred of evidence,” said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International’s Turkey researcher. “It’s an attempt to scare and silence human rights civil society. That’s why Turkey’s most prominent human rights defenders and human rights organizations have been swept up in this case,” he said.

Key members of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, one of Turkey’s most respected and oldest human rights groups, are among those on trial Tuesday.

Erdogan has vigorously defended the charges against the activists, portraying the case as an example that no one is above the law and evidence that Turkey faces a threat by international conspirators and unidentified countries following the failed coup. Erdogan on Tuesday lashed out at EU nations whose leaders have been critical of his crackdown and what they see as tightening controls on free speech.   “We expect European leaders to stop targeting Turkey and to return to common sense,” the Turkish leader said at an event in the capital, Ankara, on Monday.  

Mounting tensions with Europe

Tuesday’s trial is likely to further ratchet up tensions between Turkey and Europe. Two of the defendants are European nationals:  Swedish national Ali Gharavri and German Peter Steudtner, both of whom were giving seminars at the meeting where the human rights advocates were arrested.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has strongly criticized the arrests, saying “Innocent people are caught up in the wheels of justice,” in Turkey.”

“Linking the work of Steudtner and other human rights activists, who are on trial with him, to the support of terrorism, to imprison and prosecute them, is highly absurd,” wrote European Parliamentarian Rebecca Harms in a statement released Tuesday. “The arbitrary detention of foreign citizens in Turkey proves to be more and more a measure by which the Turkish leadership wants to pressure the home countries of those concerned,” she said.

Under emergency rule introduced last year following the botched military coup, more than 50,000 people have been arrested and 150,000 others have lost their jobs.

Critics point to what they see as a lack of evidence to justify many of the prosecutions.

“If you look at the evidence, for example, against Idil Eser, Amnesty International’s director, it’s all to do with an Amnesty International campaign and public documents,” said Gardner. “The prosecutors have had three months of investigations to come up with evidence against human rights defenders and came up with nothing.”

Among the evidence against the defendants is a Tweet telling participants to turn off their phones and “enjoy the boat ride” to the island where the seminar was being held.

Courts as intimidation tool

There is a growing suspicion among observers that the trial is part of a campaign to intimidate wider civil society.

“The arrests of the human rights activists, I think, gives us a very bleak picture of the Turkish civic society, or what the regime means by ‘civic society,'” observes political scientist Cengiz Aktar. “It’s not very different from what we see in Russia, completely curtailed and diminished.”

Tuesday’s prosecution of human rights advocates comes amid a rash of arrests and trials of journalists. Media freedom groups have dubbed Turkey the world’s worst jailor of journalists, claiming more than 150 reporters are imprisoned.

On Tuesday, six more journalists went on trial for reporting on leaked emails that allegedly were written by Berat Albayrak, son-in-law of President Erdogan, and Turkey’s energy minister. The emails are considered to be in the public domain, yet observers note the journalists are being prosecuted for publishing state secrets.

The clampdown on media and freedom of expression is drawing further condemnation among Europeans already skeptical of Turkey’s readiness to continue its bid to some day join the EU.

“There cannot be an effective political debate when journalists cannot report or question political leaders without fear of harassment or arrest,” said Tanja Fajon, a Slovenian politician with the Social Democrats and member of the European Parliament. “As Turkey’s political situation worsens, it remains imperative to offer support to, and speak about, those imprisoned for their journalism.”

 
…

When Britain’s Cambridge University put physicist Stephen Hawking’s 1966 thesis on line for the first time Monday, the university’s website collapsed.

Professor Hawking’s “Properties of Expanding Universes” has been the most requested item in the university’s library.

To meet the demand, and with Hawking’s encouragement, Cambridge made it available on line.

About 60,000 people sought to access it, causing the system to periodically shut down throughout the day Monday.

Hawking is the world’s best-known physicist and expert on the cosmos.

His landmark 1988 work “A Brief History of Time” has sold more than 10 million copies.

With his thesis now available for anyone to read, Hawking said he hopes to “inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet, to wonder about our place in the universe and to try and make sense of the cosmos.”
…

Britain’s democracy is one of the most secure in the world and will remain so, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday in response to a question about a suggestion that there may have been foreign interference in the Brexit vote.

Opposition lawmaker Ben Bradshaw last week urged the government to look into reports by an advocacy group suggesting that the origin of some Brexit campaign funds was unclear.

Bradshaw said in parliament the issue should be investigated “given the widespread concern over foreign and particularly Russian interference in Western democracies.”

At a regular briefing with reporters, May’s spokesman was asked if the prime minister was concerned about the reports. “I am not aware of those concerns,” he said.

“More broadly, as we’ve always said, the UK democratic system is amongst one of the most secure in the world and will continue to be so.”

The Electoral Commission, which regulates political finance in Britain, said in April it was investigating campaign spending by pro-Brexit organization Leave.EU, without giving details.

A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission said on Monday that investigation was still going on and it would not provide any further information until it was complete.

 
…

The building that houses EU summits, where toxic fumes forced EU leaders to switch venues last week, will be closed for a further week as investigators

seek to resolve the problem.

The fumes leaking from the drains have forced the Europa Building, also known as “The Egg,” to be evacuated twice this month, including before a summit of EU leaders on Thursday and Friday.

The new building was opened in January amid controversy over its 321-million-euro ($378 million) price tag.

Staff and meetings will be temporarily transferred to the next door Justus Lipsius building until the issue is resolved.

About 20 catering staff had to go to hospital on October 13 and an unspecified number on Wednesday. An EU official said the Council and Belgian health and safety agencies believe the two incidents were due to the same source.

Reporting by Lily Cusack; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Toby Chopra.
…

An unidentified male assailant has rushed into the Moscow headquarters of news radio station Ekho Moskvy and stabbed a deputy editor in chief and anchor, Tatyana Felgengauer.

Ekho Moskvy editor in chief Aleksei Venediktov wrote on Twitter that the attacker struck Felgengauer in the throat with a knife in the October 23 attack.

The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case into charges of attempted murder.

The attacker was detained by station security personnel, while Felgengauer was hospitalized in serious, but non-life-threatening condition.

He said that police are working at the scene. No more details were immediately available.

Venediktov said the assailant rushed past station guards after spraying them with a chemical.

It is unclear how the assailant made it to the station’s offices on the 14th floor. The crowded building has only two public elevators that are notoriously slow.

Venediktov told RFE/RL that the attacker went directly into the room where Felgengauer was sitting.

“He knew the layout of the rooms at the station,” Venediktov said. “There can be no doubt about that.”

“The attacker didn’t shout anything,” station deputy editor in chief Sergei Buntman told the Meduza website. “Everything was quiet. He just walked up to her, grabbed her, and stabbed her.”

The Uzbekistan-born Felgengauer, 32, is stepdaughter of the well-known Russian journalist and military expert Pavel Felgenhauer. She has worked at Ekho Moskvy since 2005.

Owned by a Kremlin-controlled Gazprom natural gas company, Ekho Moskvy is one of the few remaining independent media outlets in Russia. It has managed to avoid being targeted for criminal investigations, which are often used in Russia to silence media.

Journalists frequently come under attack or are harassed in Russia. In September, Ekho Moskvy journalist Yulia Latynina fled Russia after being attacked and threatened in Moscow.

Political analyst Yekaterina Vinokurova wrote on the social-media site VKontakte that “Tanya and Ekho Moskvy have been under assault for years.”

“They have attacked journalists from the station,” Vinokurova wrote. “They have hung banners with their photos saying they were ‘enemies of the people,’ ‘agents of the [U.S.] State Department, and so on. There has been all sorts of garbage about them coming from state television…. Now we have come to this and they shameless are talking about the motive of ‘hooliganism.'”

Physical attacks on Russian opposition figures and journalists are often investigated under the relatively lax law against “hooliganism,” rather than as assaults or attempted murder.

Vsevolod Bogdanov, chairman of the Russian Union of Journalists, condemned the attack on Felgengauer.
…

Catalan separatists are devising nonviolent plans to resist the imposition of direct rule by Madrid.

With days to go before the Spanish government secures parliamentary approval to curb Catalonia’s semi-autonomy, separatist leaders are promising to disrupt Madrid’s efforts to shutter their regional government, which could start by the end of the week.

Separatists stand firm

They have pledged to meet any deployment of the national police with what the leaders say will be “walls of people.” And they say that new bosses sent in by Madrid to oversee Catalonia’s own regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, and Catalonia’s public broadcaster as well as the regional tax authority will face obstructionism and disobedience.

Spain’s conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, and the country’s three main national parties are adamant that the unruly northeastern region won’t be allowed to secede. They maintain Catalans broke the law when they held an independence vote on October 1, which was deemed illegal by Spain’s Constitutional Court.

Government strategy

According to Spanish officials, Madrid’s current plan is to remove from their offices only the top echelon of Catalonia’s government, including regional president Carles Puigdemont and his deputy Oriol Junqueras but will leave in place other Catalan ministers, government officials and the executives of public companies so that they can continue to oversee day-to-day administration.

“We are going to ask them to be professional and to continue to provide services for their citizens,” a Spanish official told VOA. The strategy is to be as light-touch as possible and for the intervention to be as brief as possible with quick early regional elections.

Direct rule

On Saturday, the Spanish prime minister announced plans to impose direct rule on the troublesome Catalonia — marking the first time since 1933 that an elected Spanish government has stripped Catalonia of its semi-autonomy.

The separatists’ answer came Sunday when an estimated 450,000 took to the streets of Barcelona to protest on a warm sunny evening the proposed direct-rule measures and to demand the release of two prominent independence leaders, who have been jailed on charges of sedition.

Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, has pledged the region will not accept Madrid’s plan for direct rule, describing it as the worst attack on Catalonia’s institutions since General Francisco Franco’s 1939-1975 dictatorship, under which regional autonomy was dissolved completely and the Catalan language suppressed. His advisers say he may declare a formal break with Spain on the day, most likely Saturday, that Madrid moves in to take over.

And they expect many of the regional government’s more than 200,000 employees will obstruct the Spanish government. Spanish officials say all Catalan employees will remain in their positions under the current direct-rule plan, unless they work “for the independence of Catalonia.”

Threat of prison

The separatists are plotting their resistance, defying a warning from Spain’s attorney general that acts of rebellion will carry lengthy prison terms. “Passive resistance” classes are being held — some taught by 70-year-old Pepe Beunza, who spent years in Spanish prisons in the 1970s during Franco’s dictatorship.

He says separatists shouldn’t be afraid of imprisonment, arguing “we need to demystify the jail.”

“If the repressive drift does not end, the time will come when we will be freer in prisons than in the streets,” he says. He argues Catalan separatists will endure any crackdown by Madrid and come through “more convinced of their cause and stronger.”

Separatist propaganda on a winning streak

As the dangerous game of political chicken nears a denouement there are many here in the Catalan capital who feel impotent and puzzled why the conservative national government of Mariano Rajoy keeps on gifting — as far as they are concerned — the Catalan separatists propaganda wins.

In Barcelona’s warren-like medieval Barri Gotic, or Gothic Quarter, an area filled with trendy bars, clubs and Catalan restaurants as well as tourists, VOA found more people ambivalent about independence than for it. But all were alarmed about how the confrontation might play out, and critical of the central government’s strong-armed tactics — like its attempt to stop the October 1 referendum, which left about 800 people injured.

They worry Madrid is being led by the nose into yet another trap that will prompt more support for the separatists.

“The government should be softer,” 30-year-old Maria told VOA. She said she didn’t hold a strong position about whether Catalonia should be independent or not. “Maybe we should have a bit more autonomy,” she mused.

Danny, a 43-year-old street performer, said: “I know the rules, the rights of Spain but I think it most important that Madrid recognize the opinion of the Catalans and this nationalist feeling of Catalonia.”

“There is opposition to the measures that Madrid is proposing,” says Josep Costa, a political scientist. In an interview with VOA on the campus of Pompeu Fabra University, he said: “On the issue of independence there is not unanimity but when it comes to democracy and civil rights there is widespread unity. We see people wanting to show solidarity with the independence movement when it comes to the responses of the central government.”

He thinks Rajoy is pursuing “a flawed strategy.” By pledging to stop Catalonia holding the October 1 referendum, Madrid set itself on the path of repression “because it had to show it still has authority.”

Many are ambivalent

Less than half of the region’s 7.5 million Catalans turned out to vote in the referendum earlier this month, although 9 out of 10 who did, backed independence. But separatists think the political trajectory is favoring their cause.

Tanya Verge, a political scientist and prominent separatist, noted that Catalans have been divided on secession but she said the government’s strategy is backfiring. Catalans who were ambivalent about breaking away from Spain are being pushed into the pro-independence camp, she says.

“There’s a strong Catalan consensus on our right to self-determination, and with Madrid and all the national parties being opposed to even dialogue that’s making more people side with us,” she said.

But an opinion poll Sunday for El Periodico, a Barcelona newspaper, found only 36 percent of respondents backed independence, a 10 percent drop on previous polling.

 

 

 
…

Amid the turmoil in Spain’s separatist-minded Catalonia region, two wealthy Italian regions voted overwhelmingly Sunday for more autonomy from Rome.

Referenda were held in Veneto – the northern region that includes the tourist haven of Venice – and in Lombardy, another northern region with the city of Milan as its main attraction.

The presidents of both regions say more than 90 percent of those who cast ballots voted in favor of more autonomy.

Both referenda are non-binding. But the presidents say the voices of their people give them a strong mandate and more leverage when they open talks with Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

Leaders of both regions want to keep more tax revue and have a greater say over such matters as education, immigration, security, and the environment.
…

Key U.S. senators called Sunday for the White House to be more forthcoming about the country’s military involvement in Niger after four U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush there earlier this month.

In separate interviews on NBC’s “Meet the Press” news show, Republican Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senate leader Charles Schumer said they support an effort last week by Republican Senator John McCain to find out the details of the attack as well as the scope of the U.S. campaign against Islamic State in the west African country. Both Graham and Schumer said they had been unaware of the substantial number of the U.S. troops in Niger.

“I didn’t know there was 1,000 troops in Niger,” Graham said. “This is an endless war without boundaries and no limitation on time and geography. You’ve got to tell us more.

“We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world militarily and what we’re doing,” Graham said. “So John McCain is going to try to create a new system to make sure that we can answer the question, why were we there, we’ll know how many soldiers are there, and if somebody gets killed there, that we won’t find out about it in the paper.

“I can say this to the families,” Graham said. “They were there to defend America. They were there to help allies. They were there to prevent another platform to attack America and our allies.”

Schumer said, “We need to look at this carefully. This is a brave new world. There are no set battle plans.”

He said that he would favor revisiting the current congressional authorization for overseas military action that is 16 years old, an agreement stemming from the 2001 terror attacks on the U.S.

“There is no easy answer but we need to look at it,” he said. “The answer we have now is not adequate.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Graham and McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, last week that the military is shifting its counter-terrorism strategy to focus more on Africa. The defense chief said military leaders want to expand their ability to use force against suspected terrorists.

U.S. officials believe the Niger attack was launched by a local Islamic State affiliate, but the Pentagon is still investigating the circumstances of how it occurred.

 
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