Tag: Central Europe

Europe

Germany: RAF fugitive remanded in custody

A former member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) arrested in Berlin after 30 years on the run has been remanded in custody. Daniela Klette was apprehended folowing an informant's tip, prosecutors announced. A second suspect was also detained in the operation, although authorities later determined that he is not tied to the group. Popularly known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the RAF has carried out a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, robberies and shoot-outs with the police since the 1970s. Fugitive members of the group are on the EU's most wanted list. (Image via Janus)

Europe

Polish farmers clash with police

Polish protestPolish farmers clashed with police during a mobilization on Warsaw, part of ongoing protests over increasing economic pressures on the agricultural industry. The demonstrations are part of broader farmer-led protests across Europe demanding relief from taxes and rising costs. Farmers are also protesting against new environmental regulations imposed under the EU Green Deal, which aims to combat global warming. Farmers are additionally unhappy with the waiver on custom duties for imports from Ukraine. Last month, Polish farmers launched a 30-day nationwide protest, while truckers blocked borders with Ukraine in conjunction with the farmers' actions. (Photo: Silar via Wikimedia Commons. Sign reads: "I am a farmer, not an EU slave!!!")

Europe

Antifa march against Budapest Nazi-nostalgia fest

antifaAnti-fascist protestors marched in Budapest in response to a previously banned right-wing gathering to commemorate the so-called "Day of Honor"—when German and Hungarian soldiers made a last stand against the Soviet forces besieging the city in 1945. Activists travelled from across Europe to take part in the protest against the event, which similarly drew far-right adherents from across the continent. The dueling rallies came amid diplomatic tensions between Budapest and Rome, as an Italian anti-fascist arrested at last year's protest against the "Day of Honor" remains imprisoned in Hungary, potentially facing a lengthy term. (Banner reads: "Stop the idolization of fascism! Whether in Budapest, Dresden, Pliberk, Riga or Sofia." Photo via Twitter)

Europe

Thousands protest far-right party in Germany

antifaMass protests took place across 114 cities in Germany against the far-right political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The demonstrations came in response to revelations that party leaders held a national meeting of extremist figures to discuss mass deportations, including of "non-assimilated citizens." According to activist group Together Against the Right, the weekend demonstrations brought out over 1.5 million attendees across the country, under slogans such as "DEFEND DEMOCRACY," "IT FEELS LIKE 1933," and "NEVER AGAIN IS NOW." (Photo: Leonhard Lenz via Wikimedia Commons)

Europe

Synagogues attacked in Germany, Tunisia

HammaUnknown assailants targeted a Berlin synagogue with Molotov cocktails, while rioters in Tunisia burned down the country's historic El Hamma synagogue. There was no significant property damage at the Kahal Adass Jisroel synagogue in Berlin, but El Hamma in the Tunisian city of Gabes was effectively destroyed. Although El Hamma no longer functioned as a house of worship, it held major symbolic significance for Tunisian Jews, who are still shaken from a May shooting at the Ghriba Synagogue in Djerba, the oldest in Africa. (Photo showing damage to Tomb of Rabbi Yousef al-Maarabi at El Hamma synagogue via RadioJ)

Europe

Nord Stream pipeline sabotage: rush to judgment

Nord StreamUkraine is denying involvement in September's attack on the Nord Stream pipelines following a New York Times report citing anonymous US officials to the effect that an unnamed "pro-Ukrainian group" was to blame. Russia's online partisans are meanwhile hyping a piece by Seymour Hersh, similarly citing anonymous officials to the effect that the attack was a US covert operation. Rarely has there been a more blatant case of the cyber-commentariat deciding what to believe on the basis of political convenience. (Map: Wikipedia)

Europe

Germany calls for Ukraine war crimes tribunal

DniproIn an address at the Hague Academy of International Law, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for an international tribunal to prosecute Russian officials for war crimes and the crime of aggression in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. Making her case for the tribunal, Baerbock said loopholes in international criminal law allow Russia to escape the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Baerbock was referring to the 2010 "Kampala Amendments" to the Rome Statute, which allow the ICC to prosecute the crime of aggression—but only with a referral from the UN Security Council. Since Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, it can veto any such referral. (Photo: EuroMaidan Press via Twitter)

Europe

German police clash with anti-mine protestors

LuetzerathGerman police clashed with protestors as thousands rallied for the protection of the village of Lützerath, which is set to be destroyed to make way for a coal mine. Earlier in the week, a German regional court upheld a ruling to clear the village, which is in the brown-coal district of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Utility company RWE says they reached a deal with the regional government last year that allows the village to be destroyed in return for ending coal use by 2030, rather than 2038. Lützerath is the last of 14 villages sacrificed for the Garzweiler mine, with thousands of residents resettled, and churches and schools bulldozed to make way for the energy expansion plans. Thousands of protestors were moved from empty buildings in the village last week. (Image: @XRebellionUK)

Europe

Podcast: Russia, Ukraine & the Reichsbürger cult

Reichsbürger In Episode 155 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the accusations that the coup conspiracy by the ultra-right Reichsbürger cult in Germany was Russian "hybrid warfare." The plausibility of this claim reveals the degree to which far-right forces around the world today look to Moscow for tutelage and sponsorship. Volodymyr Zelensky's historic Congressional speech was dissed in the most vulgar terms by Tucker Carlson—whose comments were avidly promoted by RT, the official Russian state propaganda outlet, as per explicit instructions from the Kremlin. This same RT similarly promotes Putin-shilling voices of the "tankie" pseudo-left. Our rightist enemies are enthused by the genocidal regimes of both Syria's Bashar Assad (backed by Russia) and the Argentine generals of the 1970s (backed by the US). They've rallied around Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, as well as the neo-Ustashe in Croatia. It is only confused "leftists," indoctrinated by campism and accustomed to seeing everything in terms of geopolitics, who fail to recognize the fascism on both sides—and get taken in by fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Despite the left's obsessive fixation on the Azov Battalion, reactionary forces around the world are looking to Putin as their great leader—not Zelensky. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via EU Political Report)

Europe

Reichsbürger plot: Russian ‘hybrid aggression’?

ReichsbürgerThe Brussels-based pro-EU think-tank International Foundation for Better Governance (IFBG) is calling the apparent thwarted ultra-right plot to overthrow the German government by the so-called "Reichsbürger" movement "a classic example of the hybrid aggression of the Russian Federation." The statement notes that chancellor Olaf Scholz, reportedly one of those marked for "physical elimination" in the Reichsbürger plot, is a key supporter of Ukraine among Western leaders, and was chiefly responsible for the recent German donation of Gepard mobile anti-aircraft systems to the Kyiv government. IFBG concludes: "The circumstances demand that Russia must be completely isolated, receive the maximum possible sanctions and be recognised as a terrorist state by the parliaments of Western countries." (Photo of 2013 Reichsbürger rally in Berlin via WikimediaCommons. Banner reads: "The German people, freed from Napoleon in 1813, freed from EU-fascism in 2013") 

Europe

Germany recognizes Holodomor as genocide

HolodomorThe German Bundestag voted to formally recognize the Holodomor, a politically induced famine that decimated Ukraine in 1932-3, as a genocide. The declaration found that Soviet authorities demanded inflated quantities of grain from Ukrainian farmers and punished those who fell short with additional demands. Affected regions were cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union so that Ukrainians could not receive aid. As a result, approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians starved to death. The Bundestag characterized the Holodomor as a project of Joseph Stalin to suppress the Ukrainian "way of life, language and culture," and one of the most "unimaginable crimes against humanity" in Europe's history. The motion also recognized Germany's own history of genocide and the Bundestag's "special responsibility" to acknowledge and condemn crimes against humanity. Ukraine declared the Holodomor a genocide in 2006. (Photo: 2019 Holodomor remembrance in Kyiv. Credit: EuroMaidan Press)