Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The deafening silence or, worse, tacit complicity of the EU and Irish Government regarding what is now a dangerous and escalating situation in Catalonia is really quite shocking. The Rajoy government is threatening to invoke Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which has never been invoked before, to disband the regional government and impose direct rule on Catalonia, against a background of vicious repression of a completely peaceful and extraordinarily moderate movement seeking self-determination that sought to do nothing but put ballot papers into a ballot box. It was faced with vicious repression, involving the dragging of people around the streets. They were prevented from going to vote at the ballot box. This week saw the arrest of civil society leaders who did nothing more than organise peaceful pro-independence protests. Raids were organised of offices of political parties that are in favour of independence.

Deputy Gino Kenny and other Deputies were in Catalonia the weekend before last. The plan was to have public representatives from Ireland and elsewhere sleeping in the houses of Members of Parliament from Catalonia to observe events in the likelihood of the latter being arrested, which is a very real prospect. What are the Irish Government and EU saying when this affair could escalate out of control tomorrow? They are saying nothing. There is no condemnation and no assertion of the right to self-determination, on which, by any definition, the people of Catalonia have a right to air their view, as set down by the UN charter. They tick all the boxes: they have a language, culture and history. One does not have to agree with their demand for independence but one has to agree with their right to exercise self-determination. It is quite extraordinary that the EU, including the Irish State, and states around the world that are signed up to the UN charter and, consequently, the principle of self-determination do not do so. It is even more extraordinary that a state such as Ireland, which had to fight for its right to self-determination, is not supporting the right of the Catalan people simply to make the decision and the right not to have to face vicious repression, and not calling for the release of civil society activists who are being arrested just for organising peaceful protests. There is nothing but silence, and worse, complicity and tacit endorsement of Mr. Rajoy's repression, thereby suggesting he has a right to impose his will on the Catalan people.

It is absolutely shocking and disgraceful. The EU is covering itself in shame when it parades itself as some sort of progressive entity on the world stage and says nothing about the denial of national self-determination as set out even in the UN.

I wish to give another example of that, namely, what is happening in Turkey. I just met a delegation of human rights defenders from Amnesty International, the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly and other civil society and human rights defender groups in Turkey where 11 of their leading figures, including the director and chairman of Amnesty Turkey, were arrested in a raid on an open workshop in Istanbul in July of this year by Erdogan's police and are now facing trumped up charges of association with terrorism. This is against a background where 50,000 people are now in prison - teachers, MPs, journalists, civil servants, members of the military - and 150,000 are being investigated in what is an absolutely ruthless crackdown on everybody who utters even the slightest opposition to the Turkish regime. What is the European Union saying about that? Nothing. What is the Irish Government saying about it? Nothing. I appeal to the Minister of State with a very concrete ask. Next Wednesday in Istanbul those human rights defenders will have their first hearing in court. Could the Irish Embassy send observers to the show trial that is taking place, to observe what is being done to Amnesty International activists, front-line human rights defenders, by the Turkish Government, to speak out against that, and to insist that the European Union tries to exercise some pressure and influence and condemn what the Turkish regime is doing?

If the European Union is trying to present itself as some progressive force in the world that believes in human rights and ignores what is happening in Catalonia and Turkey it is digging its own political grave.

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