Catalan independence referendum, 2017

Now that the champagne hangover is passed, here is some numbers and reflections about Sunday elections.



In one sentence : Spain is again drifting towards more fascism, when Catalonia continues the rise towards independence.



Historic results for the independentists, with the highest level of votes for them in a Spanish general elections since the return of the democracy since the physical death of Franco.



Few results :


Congress :

Independentists : 1.642.063 votes - 23 seats ( going up since last election in April )

Unionists : 1.536.283 votes - 18 seats ( going down since last election in April )



Senate :


Independentists : 14 seats
Unionists : : 2 seats.


Excellent results too in Euskal Herria, with 0 seats for Vox - PP or C's .


After the wipe-out of C's ( from 57 to 10 seats ) , Albert Rivera , head of C's leaves politic ( the day after the politic has left him )



So once again, majority for the independentist side compares to the unionist side .

So PSOE and Podemos had reached a preliminary agreement .


About Catalonia , the agreement is clear : everything should be " always within the frame of the Constitution " (exact sentence : “siempre dentro de la Constitución” ).


If we make the account :



PSOE (120) + Podemos (35) + Más País (3) + PRC (1) + PNV (7) + CC (2) + BNG (1) + Teruel (1) = 170.



That is the best scenario , if all these people agree . But even with that, it won't be enough , the absolute majority is = 176.


So far ( that I know of ), only PSOE , Podemos, Mas Pais, PNV agrees. And nobody on the right side.



Tonight , Junts per Catalunya, CUP, and ERC are against any support to Sanchez . Not even abstention for the second vote .


Unless Sanchez let go something big in the Catalan side, I don't see things happening anytime soon...


***************************************


Far from these offices negotiations, the situation in the streets/roads are turning into a big headache for Madrid .


Spain is nearly cut out of Europe by road, the only two motorways there is are blocked.



After having blocked the AP7 motorway at the Spanish/French frontier ( or North Catalonia/South Catalonia " frontier " ) for 30 hours, the Tsunami Democratic movement has now isolated Spain from the rest of Europe, cutting the 2 mains motorways ( the same AP7 , but in Girona ) , and the AP8 in Irun ( Euskal Herria ) , plus one national road crossing the frontier too.
Few other places in Barcelona , Sabadell and Tarragona are blocked too .
All these demonstrations has been without incidents or violence so far.

EagererBeaver wrote: »

No mention from you Bertie about French riot police forcibly removing these twats from the roads?

Nothing much to say really ...

But since you want details :

The local French Mayor did some negociations yesterday evening between the demonstrators and the French Police .

They succeeded to an agreement : let pass the night quiet everybody and moving the morning after .
A stage being installed on the motorway, it was a night of concerts / singing, etc ... without any incidents with the police.



This morning , the French Police did push the demonstrators towards the South, across the frontier , but not very violently ( few pepper sprays / batons / dragging people on the floor ) . Honestly, and in my opinion, that was a pretty calm evacuation , compares to the BRIMO / CNP that we saw the last few days .
There was no rush, all this took hours...
Few people were arrested, but spent only few hours in the police station ( not days! )



Does this answer your question ?

EagererBeaver wrote: »

Tear gas, forced removals, physically dragging people across the border.

It's just that when spanish police do it, you try to portray it as evidence of the oppressive nature of a fascist state. Just wondering why not such an outcry this time?

I know that it would have been handy for the Spanish media , and the unionists in general , to have the same heavy repression from the French police than the one we saw the last weeks coming from the Spanish and Catalan police.


That would have been handy for justifying their own violence.


The same way than China is currently using the images of the Spanish and Catalan police repression, to justify their own.


The only problem is just that it didn't happen that way.


As said previously, I haven't found in the French police that day a disproportionate use of violence.

And the vast majority of the Catalans I heard are from the same opinion.
As said a message from the " Firefighters for the Republic association " : " Mossos has still a lot to learn." :rolleyes:



Yet, some incidents happened , as I said previously ,and I don't deny it : the removal from the road of Albert Casals , young paraplegic , for example is shocking . Some pepper sprays could have been avoided too .




But overall , there were no tear gas ( despite what you said, but you surely mixed up with pepper spray ) , no rubber balls and a very few baton kicks only , with an extra 12 hours of demonstrations negotiated calmly.
No violent charges from the police,the evacuation has been done calmly, no long arrests, etc... and above all : nobody hurt .





We are far from the " a por ellos " of the Spanish police there , and the number of their victims ! ( I lost the account of lost eyes , to be honest . Wasn't it 4 the last time ? ...)




By the way, I haven't see any shocking situations neither on the afternoon when the Mossos took the job after the French Police.

It's true that , shortly after that, Tsunami Democràtic called for a new demonstration in the same motorway, but further South . That brought people to leave the place by themselves.


( If you want to check back what I'm saying , there is plenty of videos online .

I don't intent to spam the thread with some, but you can search " La Jonquera " , with the correct date . ( and the correct color of helmet too !!! )).

EagererBeaver wrote: »

No no, I can read just fine as it happens:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50387514

Tear gas.

That is a problem of vocabulary , then.


There is two types of " chemical repellents " used against demonstrators :


- Tear gas , which is shot with a riffle from a long distance, usually doing a parabolic trajectory, sometimes shot horizontally ( very dangerous ), or like a grenade-type that is thrown away.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tear+gas&safe=active&client=ubuntu&hs=4ZK&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_89W23uflAhVAUBUIHRuWA1kQ_AUIESgB&biw=1853&bih=928


- Pepper spray ( what BBC call " tear gas canisters ") , witch is basically a small extinguisher , triggered by hand at short distance .
https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&client=ubuntu&hs=CaK&channel=fs&biw=1853&bih=928&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=xUDMXfmPJIbEgQb25JWoAg&q=pepper+spray&oq=pepper+spray&gs_l=img.12..0l8j0i30l2.88372.91113..93284...0.0..0.102.1006.11j1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i67.EwGeV047V6s&ved=0ahUKEwi5hty63uflAhUGYsAKHXZyBSUQ4dUDCAY






What I meant from the beginning is :



- the French Police used only the hand- mannered pepper spray ,( far less harmful ) and not the riffle-shot tear gas. ( that create instant panic ) that is extensively used by the Spanish and Catalan Police lately .
All this to say that the method of the pepper spray is a far softer one ( when use with parsimony, of course , like it was the case that day ).



Sorry if there was some confusion in the discussion about that.


( PS : By the way, a bit of experience of demonstrations " In Real Life " shows immediately that the use of the riffle-shot tear gas would have been useless with the wind that was on-site that day ...;) )
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ERC is meeting tomorrow with Sanchez team, to try to find an agreement on the investiture of Sanchez.


'ERC says : They will have to move a lot'



'We are going to the meeting to explain to the PSOE that for the moment they have our' no '

'We will explain that we are in a political conflict between Catalonia and the state, and that we are committed to a democratic resolution and a negotiating table where we will put self-determination and amnesty', said ERC .



Here, they are willing to hear what Lastra ( PSOE ) has to say.


However, they emphasize that their initial position is the 'no' in Sánchez, and that if they want ERC to rethink their position 'they will have to move a lot'.


https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/psoe-erc-comencaran-negociar-dema-investidura-sanchez/

( original in CAT )


https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=ca&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vilaweb.cat%2Fnoticies%2Fpsoe-erc-comencaran-negociar-dema-investidura-sanchez%2F
( automatic translation, in ENG )



Hope Rufián won't go too far from what the ERC voters wants !
ERC is for the moment holding the keys to the investiture of Sanchez . They have to, at least , abstain during the second round . A " no " from them will block everything.

Strange that , when it's about to keep their comfortable places and salaries ( or to get more of the two ), Sanchez and Co are able to pick up the phone and propose a meeting to some independentists !!!

BluePlanet wrote: »

Fair enough to have an opinion but the Spanish Supreme Court is really the arbitrator on Spanish law regarding sedition.

Well, the final sentence of the Spanish Court is nothing more and nothing less than another opinion , based on their own vision of the events and their own interpretation of the laws...


But strangely enough, that opinion is at the opposite of human-rights specialists who expressed themselves on the subject ( and as well raising questions in the Council of Europe and the European Court of Justice lately ).


The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and EuroMed Rights have denounced ‘serious irregularities’ in the Catalan independence trial that " didn’t offer the minimum guarantees to be qualified as fair’, with " repeated violations of the rights to defense and to a fair trial.

https://www.spainenglish.com/2019/10/10/serious-irregularities-catalan-trial/


A United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called for the immediate release of three jailed Catalan pro-independence leaders , considering " their detention and imprisonment to be a violation of fundamental rights, especially freedom of speech."

https://www.spainenglish.com/2019/05/29/un-group-demands-release-sanchez-cuixart-junqueras/



The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in a motion for a resolution, is asking : Should politicians be prosecuted for statements made in the exercise of their mandate?


" The authors of the motion underlying this report were “concerned about the growing number of national, regional and local politicians prosecuted for statements made in the exercise of their mandate, in particular in Spain and Turkey."

http://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-DocDetails-EN.asp?FileID=25279&lang=EN


At the EU Court of Justice : " Spain does not have the right to deny a jailed Catalan MEP his right to sit in the European Parliament, the advocate general of the Court of Justice of EU, Maciej Szpunar, has advised it. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/catalan-nationalist-s-right-to-recognition-as-mep-endorsed-1.4080570

BluePlanet wrote: »

You are intentionally using that word to be evocative on an irish internet forum.
None of the parties in Spain refer to themselves as unionists.
It's a propaganda word.
Wikipedia even has as article about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_unionism

"The adoption of the term unionism into the Spanish context and its loaded usage with negative connotation relates to attempts to draw parallels with the Orange Order of the Unionist movement in Ireland."

No. I use the word " unionist " because it is the one that is used in Catalonia and in Catalan language.
A quick search in Google with the key words " unionista/unionisme espanya " will show you that.
I could be wrong, but I don't think that all these press articles in Catalan or Spanish are " intentionally using that word to be evocative " to the Irish people.:rolleyes:

BluePlanet wrote: »

None of the parties in Spain refer to themselves as unionists.

You are right. They call themselves " defender of the unity of the country " .
Exactly like theEnglish Unionists,no ?
That said, there is nothing wrong at being called a Unionist per se .
Some Spanish are even proud of it :
( Original in SPA ) : https://elpais.com/politica/2015/10/20/actualidad/1445365551_910797.html
( automatic translation in ENG ) : https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Felpais.com%2Fpolitica%2F2015%2F10%2F20%2Factualidad%2F1445365551_910797.html

BluePlanet wrote: »

In reality the major parties of Spain are Nationalists and may end up having to get into bed with ultra Nationalists like Vox.

" May end up ???"


It's done already , and it's just the beginning, I'm afraid ...


See Andalusia last January : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/09/spanish-conservatives-sign-deal-far-right-vox-party-govern-andalusia/


Or lately in Madrid : https://www.catalannews.com/politics/item/madrid-assembly-passes-motion-calling-for-banning-of-separatist-parties




PS: when using Wikipedia, it's always interesting to read the same article in different languages. See your same link in French or Catalan, for example .

Big slap in the face of the Spanish " justice " this morning , coming from Europe .


EU court: Spain wrong to stop Catalan separatist taking up MEP seat .
Oriol Junqueras should have been released from pre-trial detention, ruling says.



Europe's top court ruled on Thursday that a leading Catalan separatist should have been allowed to leave prison to take up his seat in the European Parliament


"A person who is elected to the European Parliament acquires the status of Member of Parliament as a result of and from the time of the declaration of the election results," the court stated in a press release . "

https://www.politico.eu/article/oriol-junqueras-eu-court-spain-catalonia-mep-decision/

( in ENG )


https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2019-12/cp190161en.pdf
( in ENG )


The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, declared shortly after that :

" It is a very important ruling which has a direct impact on the composition of this institution (...) I call upon the competent Spanish authorities to urge to align with the ruling."



https://twitter.com/EP_President/status/1207647230783569920


Another slap in the face arrived later during the day :



The European Parliament lifts former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and former Catalan minister Toni Comín's ban on entering the European chamber .



President of the European Parliament David Sassoli has lifted the entry ban on the institution he imposed against Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín tonight, when the European Order against them was reactivated in October, after the Court of Justice. of the European Union has sentenced in favor of Oriol Junqueras . The decision has already been notified to Puigdemont and Comín by email and telephone, which will be accessible to them to prove themselves as MEPs.


https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/el-parlament-europeu-aixeca-el-vet-a-puigdemont-i-comin/
( in CAT )
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=fr&sl=ca&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vilaweb.cat%2Fnoticies%2Fel-parlament-europeu-aixeca-el-vet-a-puigdemont-i-comin%2F
( in ENG - automatic translation )


We will hopefully see these three MEP taking their seats soon !

( With a fourth one for Clara Ponsati, currently in exile in Scotland , who is in the " MEP waiting list " , ready to take one of the UK seat once Brexit is done .)
Note that these four MEP has been elected with more than 2 Millions of votes, votes that are not currently represented in the EU Parliament at all...

Barna77 wrote: »

I heard though about Casado's sickening agenda, bringing up terrorism. What else could we expect from PP. Terrorism is always on their minds...

PP and others ... :rolleyes:

We see there the well-known " Todo es ETA " of Basque Country .


Do you remember the spectacular arrests of Catalan civil rights activists and sent to jail on terrorism charges , with the big titles on the Spanish press ?


https://www.ara.cat/especials/portadaaportada/portades-diaris-dimarts-24-setembre-2019_0_2312768894.html


Well, few months after, what is left of the terrorist charges ?



" ‘no material contact with explosives’" , " did not have any explosives in his home " , " these ‘precursor substances’ found at his home relate to his work of restoring furniture and antiques. " , etc...

https://www.spainenglish.com/2020/01/10/activists-terrorism-charges-released-bail/
:rolleyes:

Barna77 wrote: »

Madrid is a joke. Meaning the regional government (PP).

Isabel Díaz Ayuso , President of the Community of Madrid ( from PP ) , explaining on the radio 2 weeks ago :

" The virus is named CoviD 19 , because it's Coronavirus, December- 19 "