Quebec: Students Strike to Protest Education Cuts – And Win!
Tens of thousands of Quebec students took part in a six-week strike. In late April, student groups voted to end the strike and accept a government offer to reinvest $482 million into grant and loan programs over the next 5 years. This reinvestment would include restoring the $70 million that was cut last year, precipitating the student action. The students’ unity and tenacity had forced the government to back down and restore funding.
Grassroots activism and creative campaigning were key. The students called attention to their cause by asking supporters to wear a red felt patch in solidarity, and at one point released 103 mice released into Quebec Premier Jean Charest's office, intended to represent the combined $103 million to be cut from grant and loan programs this year and last.
Despite the agreement, the groups representing Quebec students have assured their constituents that this fight is for the long haul, promising that "if Mr. Charest wants to break this agreement next year, or decides to increase tuition-fee levels, well, there will be a fight on his hands.�
Czech Republic: Dynamic’s sister magazine under attack
An anticommunist campaign is on the rise in the Czech Republic. There has been an increase in anticommunist actions, including demonstrations, petitions, concerts and an attempt to criminalize the Czech Communist movement. In a country where the Nazi occupiers killed, imprisoned, and enslaved thousands of Czech communists who were involved in the anti-fascist resistance in World War II, many are alarmed to see anticommunism coming from the government.
Two legislators in the Czech Parliament have launched a campaign to criminalize communism. They want to amend a law which states that "A person who supports a movement blatantly aimed at the suppression of human rights and freedoms or that promulgates national, racial, religious or class hatred" faces five years in jail. The amendment would change the wording of the law to "... supports or propagates communism, Nazism or any other similar movement."
The two legislators started an action against the communist magazine Mlada Pravda (Young Truth). Mlada Pravda is a monthly magazine which is produced by the Communist Youth Union (KSM). It reports on struggles for the rights of youth - students, trainees and young workers – in the Czech Republic and worldwide. The legislators attacked Mlada Pravda for “propagation of Leninism“ and “calling for a socialist revolution“.
The KSM issued a statement against this anticommunist campaign, calling it a move towards the ‘fascistization� of Czech society. The KSM calls for the unity of all people who are against this attack on democratic rights and freedom of speech.
Cuba: US Raises Bounty on Shakur, Threatening Socialist Nation
A new bounty of $1 million has been posted for the return to New Jersey from Cuba of former Black Panther Party leader Assata Shakur. Shakur, 57, has now been placed on the FBI list of “domestic terrorists.� U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales reportedly authorized the million-dollar bounty on April 28, upping a reward of $150,000 set in 1998.
In 1973, Shakur, who then went by the name of JoAnne Chesimard, was accused of shooting a police officer. She was well known at the time to police authorities as a high-profile Black liberation activist, and was on the FBI’s most-wanted list.
At her trial, Shakur contended that police bullets had already wounded her so severely that she could not have shot the trooper. She had been tried and acquitted six times on other alleged offenses before her 1977 conviction.
The U.S. government has long used the case of Assata Shakur to demonstrate the supposed “terrorist inclinations� of Cuba, despite Cuba’s outspoken denunciations of terrorism and its frequent offers to join other nations to stop it.
Why publicize a new bounty now, more than two decades after Shakur’s escape? Observers speculate that the U.S. government wants to deflect criticism of its silence about the recent arrival in Florida of the anti-Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who has applied for asylum. Many see the threats to Shakur as an indirect threat to socialist Cuba.
One of the most heartfelt reactions to this development from the Black community in the U.S. was a statement from rapper Mos Def, in which he wrote: “When we consider Assata Shakur living under political asylum in Cuba, we believe that nation is exercising its political sovereignty, and in no way harboring a terrorist. Cubans sees Assata as I, and many others in my community do: as a woman who was and is persecuted for her political beliefs.�
- Courtesy of www.pww.org
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