Police clash with strikers

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33193, 5 April 1973, Page 13

Police clash with strikers

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BARCELONA, April 4. Strikes and stoppages threatened to hit the major Spanish port of Barcelona today in protest oxer the killing of a construction worker yesterday in a clash between police and strikers, informed sources said.

I Mr Manuel Fernandez Mar-i (quez, aged 27, a married man I with a two-year-old son, was (shot dead in the suburb of, San Adrian, north of Barcelona early yesterday when [armed police tried to break (up an illegal demonstration (held by some 2000 construction workers at a power ■ plant.

I Another 25-year-old worker ' was wounded and 10 police [ suffered various injuries, the? Barcelona Civil Governor’s; 1 office said. The workers downed tools on Monday to demand higher! pay and a shorter working week. Last night about 40; students hurled stones at the: central offices of the power plant in Barcelona and several hundred more turned out into the streets to protest against the worker’s, death, the sources said. The incidents lasted only a few minutes, however, and , ; the students dispersed before j I police arrived on the scene. Clandestine opposition ■ groups were calling for gen- , ; eral strikes in Barcelona , I within the next few days, but , : it was doubtful whether the e ; calls would be heeded, the , ! sources said. I ! Decision deferred A move in the United 1 ; Nations Human Rights Com- ' ' mission in Geneva to secure 1 universal recognition for the 1 ' rights of conscientious objec- ? ! tors has been deferred until 1 • next year, at the Soviet ■ Union’s request. A resolution 'by the Netherlands and I Austria invited United ■ Nations member-states with 1 > compulsory military service ’ to recognise objections on the 1 ■ ground of conscience or pro- > found moral conviction, and !to provide objectors with ■ “appropriate work for the I advancement of the well- ■ being of society.”—Geneva, April 4.