Human Dignity Protest was a resounding success - Unity in the making! Despite political division and attacks people unite on Human Rights Day!

Human Dignity Protest was a resounding success - Unity in the making! Despite political division and attacks people unite on Human Rights Day!

The Human Dignity group organised a protest in Gibraltar against the Spanish Government's ongoing harassment in using the Border to create queues for political means! The group has highlighted that in doing this they are targeting children, elderly etc of their Human Rights and in fact compare this to being an act of terrorism.

Over 300 people attended which was a bigger turnout than expected for two reasons - one there was magically no queues and secondly there was so much scaremongering going on.

The fact and the reality has been it was a success and many people showed their support in their personal capacities!

There will be another one but this time to be held on the Spanish side of the frontier. So let us see how many more attend on World Peace Day.



 Two people read out all the regulations broken by Spanish Government in using the queues as a weapon! Read out in both English and Spanish!

Human Rights Day - Demonstration For a Humanitarian Frontier,
A Demonstration took Place at the Gibraltar Frontier By Approximately 300 People From Both sides of the Border in Unity and Peacefully, Spanish Cross border Workers and Gibraltarians.
United in one common Cause, For the Humanitarian Human Rights to Be Respected By The Spanish Government On The Gibraltar/Spain Frontier.
The Demonstration was a Huge Success and made its mark celebrating International Human Rights Day in One common Cause By Both Sides of the Frontier. Two Cities United in Putting an end to the Inhumane treatment of People Suffering Madrid's Tactics.
Remarkably there were no Queues Whilst Demo Took Place and the Press were there, Makes You Wonder.....
Pics By T.Bickerstaff (c) (Defenders of Gibraltar) All Rights Reserved

 

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Workers unite over ‘inhumane’ border queues

by Brian Reyes

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the border yesterday to express their anger and frustration at lengthy queues caused by Spanish customs checks.

There were people from Gibraltar and La Linea and their message was one of unity in the face of controls that on Monday caused four-hour tailbacks for cars and two hour waits for pedestrians.

“We have to be united,” Anne Marie Struggles told those gathered there. “Let’s not fall into the trap of hatred.”
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 http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=32056
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the border yesterday to express their anger and frustration at lengthy queues caused by Spanish customs checks.
There were people from Gibraltar and La Linea and their message was one of unity in the face of controls that on Monday caused four-hour tailbacks for cars and two hour waits for pedestrians.
“What’s happening at this border is inhumane,” said Gibraltarian campaigner Juan Pecino, one of the organisers of the protest.
 According to the Royal Gibraltar Police, some 300 people braved the chilly wind to attend the demonstration.
The crowd, mostly Spanish but with a healthy contingent of Gibraltarians too, chanted in unison in Spanish: ‘Los pueblos, unidos, jamas seran vencidos.’ Two communities, together, will never be defeated.
“Gibraltar and La Linea have always lived side by side,” said a Spanish woman who gave her name as Rosa. “The politicians should just let us be.”
To ram the message home, the demonstrators joined hands and held them up high, before turning to face the border and giving the Guardia Civil officers a round of applause, albeit laced with an insult or two.
The demonstration, held to coincide with International Human Rights Day, drew opposition from many people in Gibraltar who felt that Spanish workers should protest in Spain, not on this side of the border.
But Juan Jose Uceda, a spokesman for the cross-border workers association Ascteg and one of the organisers of the protest, said it had not been possible to obtain permission from Spanish police in time.
Yesterday, he vowed that the demonstrations would continue and that the next one would be on the Spanish side of the border at the end of January.
“The next one will be on our side,” he told demonstrators over a loudspeaker.
“We’re not going to stop and every day there will be more of us.”
He told those gathered that the demonstration would provide the seeds for a cross-border grassroots campaign and that they would take their message to Brussels.
“We’re going to shame them in Europe,” he said.
The organisers of the demonstration were at pains to stress that it was an apolitical movement attended by individuals acting in a personal capacity.
But there were well-known local faces in the crowd, including Voice of Gibraltar Group spokesman Julio Pons and the Defenders of Gibraltar’s Gareth Gingell and Anne-Marie Struggles.
It was Mrs Struggles who, loudspeaker in hand, summed up the mood at the end of the event.
“We have to be united,” she said. “Let’s not fall into the trap of hatred.”
Behind her, the border holding area was empty, cars and pedestrians alike whizzing through uninterrupted.
“Today we’ve won,” said Salvador Molina Sánchez, chairman of Ascteg. “There are no queues.”
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So now as we look back we can write with a positive note that it is good to see that new groups are emerging to tackle the issues we all face together! The frontier queues is not only affecting Spanish workers - it is affecting every human being who wishes to go to and fro freely. It is affecting all cross border workers. It is also affecting free trading and as such will have an adverse affect on businesses on both sides.

The fact is that the standing up for our rights is NOT against people but rather the Spanish Government. For many years we have evolved as a human beings and overcome racial discrimination and gender discrimination but as yet we need to overcome nationality and political discrimination!

We have seen beyond the colour of our skin and seen beyond our gender but as seen in the past few weeks people just do not seem to be able to overcome the difference in nationalities!

Over the past few weeks we have also seen and experienced that people fee; threatened by UNITY and should never be! It is the UNITY of the people that has won many rights over the world over history!

Democracy is the way forward - people have a right to support and to fight for what they believe is right for them. We should be proud that there are people who have such convictions and can see beyond nationalities and are able to see the bigger picture of UNITY!

So well done to the HUMAN DIGNITY group for your bravery and courage in standing up for what you believe - even if it goes against the the flow.

IF anything the protest has worked and we have seen a formation of another group - Unions on both sides uniting for the common cause of the problems of the border queues to cross frontier workers!
http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=32087

Cross-border union moves against border delays

 A group of Gibraltarian and Spanish unions and business associations have jointly declared “the inordinate delays at the frontier and the restriction of free movement of citizens between two EU territories as totally unacceptable and contravening universal human rights.”
 The group, which they say has been born out of need to defend the common socio-economic interests of the area is made up of Unite the Union, teachers union GTA/NASUWT, civil service union GGCA, Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce, Gibraltar Federation of Small Businesses from Gibraltar and APYMEL, CCOO and UGT from Spain.
Jointly they have identified the normalisation of movement across the frontier as its prime objective.
During their first meeting, which was held on Wednesday last, they agreed to create and to operate a Cross-Frontier Group, as an instrument of cooperation and collaboration with particular reference to socio-economic issues and the defence of common interests.
At future meetings, the group said they will develop a plan of action to lobby at a political and institutional level with the aim of demanding from the European authorities a permanent solution to the reality of the current situation that is having negative consequences on social, economic and employment issues.
The Cross-Frontier Group has appointed Michael Netto from Unite and Juan Carmona from APYMEL as representatives.
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Also the protest has started things moving for dialogue as reported by Gibraltar Chronicle below: http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=32091

Friday, 13th December 2013

Chief Minister meets PSOE chiefs in Spain in bid to ease cross-border tension

by Dominique Searle

Jointly holding up the banner for tripartite talks and the so called ‘ad hoc’ talks process, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and senior national executive members of the socialist opposition party PSOE met yesterday over lunch in Palmones.
The move comes at a time when the Government is set to introduce regulations to the Nature Protection legislation that would ease traditional but legal fishing in Gibraltar waters. And in the wake of the resignation of the La Linea fishing guild’s chief.
 The Gibraltar Government also used the opportunity to urge better relations between the Campo and the Rock calling for both sides to work to protect jobs and economic activity.
No 6 was last night highlighting the willingness and ability of the Gibraltar Government to talk with Spain whilst the PP Government are yet to agree terms for talks, although Madrid
is known to be reluctant to accept any three party talks within the ‘ad hoc’ sessions.
This stance has led to Madrid in effect freezing relations in a stalemate designed by its Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo to put pressure on the Gibraltar economy and local citizens in a hope of a return to the pre-2004 Brussels era.
The idea of the ad hoc talks had originally been put forward by UK as being made up purely by the persons necessary to negotiate on specific issues of concerns, but not sovereignty.
MEETING
At the invitation of La Linea Mayor, Gemma Araujo Mr Picardo held his meeting with the PSOE members after the mayor had hosted her own Gibraltar working group with PSOE’s visiting team and La Linea representatives.
The visiting PSOE delegation was composed of Gaspar Zarrias, Federal Executive member and Member of Parliament in Madrid with responsibility for Municipal Policy; Juan Moscoso, Federal Executive member and Member of Parliament in Madrid and PSOE spokesperson on the Foreign Affairs Committee; Irene Garcia, Secretary General of the PSOE in Cadiz and; Francisco Cornejo, Regional Municipal Policy.
According to No 6, at the meeting with the PSOE leaders and Mr Picardo, Ms Araujo outlined her concerns in respect of the effect that the present frontier restrictions are having on La Linea.
“These were shared by the members of the PSOE from Madrid and Cadiz who were in attendance and who had heard these concerns outlined at their earlier meeting in La Linea. They reflected the views of all sectors and collectives in La Linea in the later meeting with Mr Picardo, including those of La Linea fishermen.”
A No 6 statement said that all those present confirmed their view of dialogue as the way forward – “whether under the Trilateral or Ad Hoc formula” - to foster progress in good neighbourly relations and to exploit mutually beneficial economic activity in the future, as well as the methodology for resolving any matters in dispute between Gibraltar and Spain, apart from the issue of sovereignty.
Mr Picardo said he had explained his Government’s strong commitment to dialogue under both the Tripartite Forum and the Ad Hoc Formula proposed by Foreign Secretary William Hague which Gibraltar has supported from the moment it was proposed. He also expressed the Gibraltar Government’s willingness to “find real ways of co-operating with La Linea and the Campo Area not just to resolve disputes but also to create employment and economic activity for the benefit of people in the area.”
Mr Picardo took the opportunity to outline the reasoning behind the recent Parliamentary amendment to the Nature Protection Act, and how the work behind that had originated in the continued dialogue with Ms Araujo.
“I was very pleased to be able to meet senior members of the PSOE in Spain today. I have known Mr Moscoso, Mr Zarrias and Ms Garcia for some time now and I was very supportive of Ms Araujo’s work to bring them to the region to hear the concerns of the people of La Linea directly,” said Mr Picardo.
The meeting was reported by No 6 as having been held in a convivial and fraternal atmosphere and was an opportunity to continue the links that had already been developed between Mr Picardo and the senior members of the PSOE in attendance.
“I was also delighted to meet Mr Cornejo. The attitude of the senior PSOE members I met was to confirm that they felt, as we do in the GSLP/Liberals, that dialogue is the only way forward, to promote good neighbourly relations, mutual understanding and policies designed to deliver mutual economic benefit for people on both sides of the frontier. La Linea and Gibraltar have an almost symbiotic relationship and Gemma Araujo and the PSOE have rightly promoted dialogue as the way forward, an attitude that we have welcomed and echoed.”

AYUNTAMIENTO
The Ayuntamiento’s Gibraltar session was held to discuss the most recent developments at the frontier and the implications of the restrictions imposed by the PP Government in Madrid for Spanish workers on the Rock and for businesses in La Linea and the Campo.
In statements to the press Sr Zarrias and Sr Moscoso urged Gibraltar and Spain to have a “change of heart” that will “allow dialogue and a bringing together of both sides.” They also urged an end to the “unacceptable” queues at the border, and for special support for La Linea to help it face the economic difficulties that are accentuated in the border town.
Sr Moscoso said that the PP were mistaken in seeking to compete with the PSOE’s own defence of its claim of Gibraltar sovereignty. He said that defending that claim did not require abandoning the rights of workers and citizens where a great link exists across with Gibraltar.
FISHING
A key factor in the current move towards some form of détente, at least initially with the Campo, will be the introduction of legislation that would allow some level of fishing that is economically viable for the fishermen but does not cross Gibraltar or EU fishing restrictions.
This week the head of the La Linea fisherman’s guild, Leoncio Fernandez, resigned after falling out with other board members over his involvement in the recent protest in Algeciras targeting Chief Minister Fabian Picardo’s speech to law students.
Many are speculating that his successor could take a more pragmatic and less political approach to the fishing issue.

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So all in all a great success in uniting together. Although as Defenders of Gibraltar we did not attend as a group - there were many of us who attended in OUR PERSONAL CAPACITY!

I was one of the many who did and I regret nothing and I am humbled to have played a part in the making of UNITY amongst the people.

I have no need to please anyone as I am true only to myself and my convictions and my main one as an individual is not to promote hate of anyone because of their nationality! We are all equal! Yes we are different but equal and I will never change no matter if standing up means I am not popular but this is a democracy and as such I will in my personal capacity stand up for our rights.

Anne-Marie Struggles