separatists

When Scotland voted against independence in Thursday’s referendum, people across the world reacted with a mixture of relief, disappointment and trepidation at what the result might mean for other separatist movements. Yet while Scotland’s silent majority for unity won out in the final ballot, the Yes campaigners succeeded in making their voices heard, not only by the Westminster political establishment but in global headlines. 

Tens of thousands of protesters in Spain’s Basque region defied Madrid on Saturday night by holding a mass demonstration marked by tensions over jailed members of the armed separatist group ETA. Crowds filled the streets in the northern city of Bilbao in a march for “human rights, understanding and peace,” after a judge banned another demonstration planned to demand concessions for the Basque prisoners.

Just over two months ago, the Tamils went to the polls for Sri Lanka’s Northern Provincial Council elections with defiance, yet with a cautious sense of festivity. Military harassment of voters and party candidates had been thorough and brutally innovative throughout the campaigning; in addition to the typical battering of election monitors, cash-for-votes and widespread intimidation, government supporters had even printed a fake newspaper.

China's domestic security chief has blamed a Muslim Uighur separatist group for planning a "violent terrorist incident" this week on Beijing's Tiananmen Square that killed five people and injured dozens of others. Meng Jianzhu, a member of the 25-member Politburo with responsibility for domestic security, said Friday that the incident had been organized by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. The group is based in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

About half of Bloc Quebecois and Parti Quebecois supporters think that Muslims and Jews have too much influence in their province, while nearly a third of British Columbians think the same of Sikhs and Asians, a new poll suggests. While that sentiment is particularly pronounced by separatists and in Quebec in general, the rest of Canada fares little better in the Forum Poll on multiculturalism, with about one-third of Canadians saying Muslims have too much influence in their home province.