- The plenary session in which the 2017 budgets are to be approved has been held and members who have been on hunger strike since March 24 have been expelled. It has been promulgated that no cuts are made to the Income Guarantee Income.
Nineteen days of hunger strikes and spectacular mobilizations of activists and citizens for social justice have brought their protest to the Basque Parliament. In the hemicycle of Vitoria-Gasteiz the budgets of 2017 agreed by the PNV, the PSE and the PP are being discussed and when the PP’s elephant was going to speak No tragamos! (we don’t swallow) shouting the slogan.
Strikers Fired from Parliament for Defending Social Rights #RGIrestrictoNo #notragamos pic.twitter.com/NdjsJ2F7H1
— ARGILAN (@Argilan) April 11, 2017
Members of the movement call for no cuts to the Income Guarantee Income. They explain that the budgets designed by the Basque Government will do so, not because the DSBE will not increase the minimum interprofessional wage age and since 2012 it is experiencing a 7% reduction. In addition, they denounced the stigmatization of the members who receive this support and emphasized the need to protect the rights of citizens.
On March 24, eight people began a hunger strike for social justice, the rights of citizens and the DSBE in the Arenal de Bilbao, five of whom had to leave the strike. Since then, a large number of mass mobilizations have been organized.