EXCELLENT! Your front page, “Clara stays: Spain backs down” (July 20) is a victory for democracy and for those individuals and newspapers, precious few though they may be, in successfully supporting Professor Ponsati and other Catalan political leaders forced to seek sanctuary and justice from Spanish repression of their rights to freedom of speech and expression. Bravo!

Elsewhere in yesterday’s issue, however, there is clear evidence that democracy is under threat and it behoves those of us who believe in democracy, every one of us, to defend it in every way we can. As Selma Rahman so rightly reminded us in her letter (Let’s unite against those who misuse power, July 18), quoting Niemoller: First they came for …” It can take courage to challenge the powers of repression but it is vital that we do so.

David Pratt’s article “There is now no denying the apartheid state that is Israel” (July 20) is a warning which must not be ignored. Whether it’s called apartheid or hafrada, racial or religious segregation should never be acceptable in any country. It has not been ratified without criticism, of course, as Mr Pratt describes, eg Benny Begin abstained from the vote, “warning of the party’s growing disconnect from human rights”; and the American Jewish Committee is reported to have been “deeply disappointed” saying aspects of the law “put at risk the commitment of Israel’s founders to build a country that is both Jewish and democratic”.

I was heartened to read Ireland reacted to this news by banning the importation of products from Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and effectively paving the way for the country to become the first EU nation to enforce a boycott , “showing what can be done if the political will is there”. Exactly.

A page further on, “Macron security official filmed brutally beating French protestor” (July 20), caught my eye. On this evidence France, under Macron, is following the example of Spain and Israel, in resorting to violence to suppress the expression of views they dislike. Is there any political will in the EU to challenge this repression? Spain’s withdrawal of its European arrest warrant is encouraging, but as Aamer Anwar noted, “whilst this is a tremendous victory we also remind people that political prisoners still remain in custody today in Spain”.

All those who support democracy, I believe, should be pressing their MPs, MSPs and MEPs to come to an agreement about how to take measures to counteract the danger posed by allowing forces of repression to flourish. Individually we might decide, like the Irish, to boycott produce from anti-democratic countries, so not buying Israeli goods, not holidaying in Spain, choosing cheddar cheese instead of brie, etc. Each one of us should register our opposition to repression of hard-fought freedoms.

Lovina Roe
Perth

REGARDING David Pratt’s article on Israel’s apartheid state, most readers will have no knowledge of how the present situation came in to existence, so I go back to 1916 when my late father was fighting the troops of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine (who controlled most of the Middle East and who were allies of Germany in the First World War).

Our troops were making very little headway, so Westminster promised the Palestinian Arabs that if they fought on Britain’s side, they would be given their independence after the war. They agreed and so helped the British victory there. A year later, in 1917, they were betrayed by the Balfour Declaration which promised a Jewish homeland (not a state) in Palestine, though it also expressed the requirement that existing people would have their rights, land, religion etc respected, and that Jerusalem would be a joint capital for Christians, Muslins and Jews.

When the war ended, instead of Palestine becoming independent as promised, it became a British Protectorate to ensure equality between Jews and Muslims. In 1939 the Second World War started and in Palestine two Jewish terrorist groups, Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, frequently attacked British forces (which included my late brother-in-law) and Arab villages, and bombed the army headquarters in King David Hotel.

Going forward to 1948, Britain shamelessly abandoned Palestine to the terrorists, 700,000 Palestinians became refugees and Irgun Zvai Leumi became the first terrorist government. Since that time, many human rights abuses by the Israelis – including burning all Palestinian legal documents so their ownership of houses, businesses, land etc could not be proved; erecting barrier walls; altering water supplies; and building settlements on Palestinian land – have shown Israel to be completely uncivilised.

In Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, we read the words frequently “...and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. Only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves, and the spoil of the cities which we took”.

Nothing much has changed since Biblical times!

Andrew D Mowatt
Hamilton