In the wake of his recent humanitarian visit to Cuba, RICHARD BURGON points to the now urgent need to defend the island’s political sovereignty and its right to self-determination
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Munich terror: why the workers were marching
DAVID CONWAY explains the crisis in the German childcare sector that had driven workers to the streets — a cause that is not being reported alongside the deadly ramming attack on their march
TRAGEDY: A man lays flowers
at a memorial marking the spot
where a car drove into a
workers’ demonstration — the
flag of the union Ver.di can be
seen on the right, February 16
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ON February 13, a car tragically ploughed into a peaceful demonstration by public-sector workers in Munich. Among the 39 injured, a woman and her two-year-old daughter unfortunately lost their lives.
The demonstration, organised by the Ver.di trade union, was aimed at highlighting the growing crisis in Germany’s public sector. But as the story unfolded, British media’s focus shifted away from the issues it was protesting, towards the background of the perpetrator, an Afghan national with a valid German residence and work permit, as well as to whether the attack was an act of religious terrorism, despite no evidence linking the offender to a jihadist group.
By the end of February 13, reference to Ver.di was often forgotten by much of British media and in some news items there was no reference to how the attack was on trade union activists altogether.
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