Lefteast
This interview is on the recent waves of deportations, detentions and relocations of migrants and refugees in Turkey, the majority of whom are Syrians. This wave is accompanied by rising xenophobia, systematic harassment of and discrimation against the Syrian population in Turkey, who are blamed for the increasingly complex political and economic problems of the […]
Note from LeftEast editors: We repost this interview, which was originally published on the alternative Canadian online magazine Rabble.ca on September, 3rd 2019. Political graffiti plastered on almost every wall. Three naked mannequins carelessly placed in a large garbage bin on Kallidromiou Street. Trees full of oranges on Ioustinianou. Strefi Hill. The view of Acropolis a […]
Note from LeftEast editors: This is Part I of “Serbia’s Labor Law: a Counter-Proposal” reprinted from the author’s blog with his kind permission. I went to work in the morning and returned late in the evening. And on Sunday I had to go to work. I did not have any free time anymore. The owner […]
On the 26th of July, Alexandra Măceșanu, aged 15, was declared missing. The teenage girl had been kidnapped 3 days prior from nearby the city of Caracal, in the south of Romania, held against her will and raped by 65-year-old Gheorghe Dincă. Dincă confessed not only to her murder, but also to that of Luiza […]
Note from LeftEast editors: In the spring of 2017 small towns across Macedonia turned into hubs of grassroots struggles against international mining projects in the country.[1] These citizen initiatives shared the same fear: that concessions for exploitation granted as part of a wider policy for attracting FDIs will bring devastating environmental and social consequences with […]
For the past few weeks, protests for fair elections in upcoming municipal polls have become weekly in Moscow and St. Petersburg as thousands have defied authorities to attend unsanctioned rallies. The police crackdown has been particularly harsh in Moscow. Protests on July 27 and August 3 resulted in over 2000 detentions. Images of police in […]
In the Russian capital, administrative wrangling by the Moscow authorities has provoked mobilisation from below – capitalising on long-held discontent by city residents. Thanks to Open Democracy-Russia, LeftEast is able to share the following interview with Alexander Zamyatin, municipal deputy in Zyuzino, Moscow. He is chief editor of Mirror. In defiance of expectations, this year’s […]
A report from Stoyo Tetevenski For some time now, the discord on major social issues between the progressive Social Democratic and Socialist parties in Europe, on the one hand, and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), on the other, has deepened. The BSP has been repeatedly criticized by the socialist family for its positions on migration, […]
“I hope that politicians will pay greater attention to the people who work as unlicensed labour – the thousands of caregivers, help personnel, child caregivers. The relations between foreign workers and bosses are unequal and demands for labour contracts will never be fulfilled without political will. It is necessary both for the legalisation of our work and for accessible services for the ill and children.”
What PD and LSI leaders hope is that by withdrawing momentously from political privileges, such as the MP salary, they will be accepted by the popular classes as their genuine political representatives. In addition, they have tried to imitate some of the slogans, the gestures, and ideas of the student movement. They promise an uncompromising war against the oligarchs, and organized crime, tuition-free universities, the implementation of other important social rights, while maintaining, in a characteristic right-populist agenda, neoliberal economic policies like a 9% flat tax, and other pro-business mantra. Secretly, they hope that by withdrawing from the system, history will repeat itself.