1 October

 

How could it be possible in any democracy that voting would be a crime?

1 October 2023, marked six years since the Catalans voted on a referendum to decide whether or not they wanted to remain part of Spain. The Spanish state did everything it could to stop the vote. They deemed it illegal, they hunted down anyone who might be printing the ballots, or making any other kinds of preparations, and when it looked like all their efforts to find the millions of printed ballots had failed, they sent in 20,000 troops and housed them on large ships in Barcelona harbor, ships that had Tweety and other cartoon characters painted on the sides. At first it made them look like fools, but on the day, they looked like fascists.

On 1 October 2017, these troops donned their riot gear and dressed in black they went out and beat up hundreds of unarmed citizens who had gone to polling places to vote. Young, old, it didn’t matter. Catalans were the enemy. The images of police in riot gear bludgeoning unarmed people, some elderly, others with children in tow, were captured on countless photos and videos and were shown on pretty much every news media around the world, although it isn’t clear if they saw any of it on Spanish television.

Afterwards, the New York Times repeatedly reported on the “botched” referendum, as if the failure had been because of some sort of incompetence of the Catalans, and always added that it had been illegal.

The Charter of the United Nations states that all peoples have a right to self-determination. That is what the referendum was about. The question it was asking was Voleu que Catalunya sigui un estat independent en forma de república? Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic? (Note that Spain is not a republic, it is a monarchy.) People could vote yes or no. Since there had been no agreement with the Spanish government, the referendum was not binding, so that it was really only a measure of what Catalan citizens wanted. But even that was enough to frighten Spaniards.

Over two and a quarter million people turned out to vote that day, that is, 43 percent of registered voters turned out in spite of government threats. Slightly more than 92 percent of them voted Yes; and less than 8 percent voted No.

It seemed to me that all those intellectuals who read The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times, the EU, and all the rest of them, would stop to ask themselves how it could be in a democracy that voting on a referendum would be illegal? And how could they buy it that peaceful, unarmed people who were going to drop ballots could be violently attacked by riot police (they had seen the videos) and then be called terrorists by the Spanish media and the Spanish government.

There were 1066 reported cases of victims of police violence on the day of voting – that is, people who showed up at clinics and hospitals to be treated for wounds. One man lost an eye when he was hit in the face with a rubber bullet. Rubber bullets are illegal in Catalonia and Catalan police cannot use them, but Spanish police are a law unto themselves. To watch them on the television that day was to see a reincarnation of the German Nazi bullies who enjoyed hurting people who had no way of defending themselves.

One thousand four hundred and thirty-two people have been investigated for criminal acts connected to the referendum. Not all of them have come to trial, but each one has had to find legal help and live through the nightmare that criminal investigation engenders. Although when I looked it up on the internet, I was told that in Spain, jury trial “is deeply embedded in its constitutional evolution,” I have lived in Spain for over twenty years and don’t remember ever hearing of even one jury trial in the country. As in all trials, the so-called Catalan terrorists and traitors have been tried by judges. And judges are all appointed by the government in power, whether that is the Popular Party or the Socialist Party, both of which are vehemently anti-independence. They have to be because you can’t win a general Spanish election if you support Catalonia, much less Catalan independence.

Back to the New York Times. It was Rafael Minder, their former correspondent from Madrid who continuously wrote that the referendum was botched – a loaded word. He has since left the NY Times, hopefully they got rid of him because of his botched work as a supposedly unbiased and knowledgeable journalist (I can say that because I am not a journalist, I am a blogger) but maybe he went on to the greener pastures of the Financial Times under a bright sun.

When you think that with 20,000 additional police (many of them paramilitary) sent to prevent a peaceful civilian mobilization of citizens from voting, and yet two and a quarter million people did vote (on printed ballots that all the Spanish police never could find ahead of time), the Catalan referendum was not really botched at all. It was a great success. Sadly for the Catalans, independence is still off somewhere, beyond the horizon, but I hope that at some point Americans and others begin to give them some support. After all, wasn’t it in 1776 that we Americans won our own independence? It’s not such a new concept.

Catalonia Today review of No Regrets: A Life in Catalonia

At the age of fifty-two, I took my cat and flew off from the San Francisco Bay Area to a new life in Barcelona. I had gone salsa dancing, met and married a Catalan, and we were going to live in his hometown.

The adventures began before we even left, with the purchase, sight unseen, of an apartment in the Barri Gotic, and subsequent horrible discovery in a guidebook of what went on in that street. Then there was the shock of the deed arriving in the mail with a different price – a much lower price – than what we had paid.

Once there, things didn’t work out as planned and that set off an even greater adventure than I had bargained for. Things that should be normal weren’t: buying bedding, keeping drunks from peeing under our balcony, buying Chanukah candles in a country where there have been essentially no Jews since 1492.

"Autobiography is a notoriously difficult genre, whose authors often slide into rampant egocentrism or report details that may have mattered very much to them but are of no interest whatsoever to anyone else. Happily, Dvora Treisman has avoided such pitfalls and has produced an entertaining if sometimes melancholy memoir about her life in Catalonia, full of episodes which might appear trivial at first but in fact deftly push the narrative forward so that the reader is, more often then not, left wanting to find out what happens next."  From the review by Matthew Tree, in the June issue of Catalonia Today. You can find the review here.

You can purchase the book on all the Amazon sites, Barnes & Noble, Casa del Llibre, Come In Bookshop in Barcelona, and most brick and mortar bookshops in the U.S. and Britain.

The New Spanish Inquisition

A new Spanish Inquisition is underway. This time its focus is political and not religious. The target is the Catalan independence movement.

It began four months ago with charges of rebellion against Jordi Sanchez and Jordi Cuixart, the two leaders of the large grassroots independence movements that held huge peaceful demostrations each year for the last six years on 11 September where, each year, one million or more people took part. It followed with charges of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds against the all members of the former Catalan government. Five of those charged, including the President of the Generalitat (Catalan government), left the country and went into exile in Belgium; several, including the President of the Catalan parliament, were imprisoned after their initial hearing and subsequently released on bail; the remaining four, including the Vice President of the Generalitat and the two grassroots leaders (the two Jordis) remain in prison, in preventative custody. They have been charged with rebellion even though not one ever committed any act of violence. The judge in charge of the case has said as much. But he has also said (in fact, written in his interlocutory) that they must be held because they have not renounced their commitment to Catalan independence. In other words, they are being charged and held for their political beliefs.

The Spanish government then instructed its police to investigate the finances of the Generalitat to see how much money was spent on the October 1^st referendum. This would pertain to the charge of misuse of public funds. I should make clear that although the Spanish government and the entire international press refers to the referendum as being illegal, it was not. Referendums are mentioned in the Spanish constitution and they are allowed. However, this one was suspended by the Constitutional Court. It was therefore a suspended referendum, not an illegal one. It should always have been clear to the international press and the international public (and questioned by them) that in a democratic country, no referendum should ever be illegal. Voting is, after all, the basis of a democracy.

The Spanish police searched and investigated and came to the conclusion that no public money was spent on the referendum. So much for misuse of public funds.

But Madrid is not satisfied and today, the Minister of Internal Revenue has announced that 60 news media, businesses, and persons will be investigated to see if they were indirectly involved in receiving payments from the Generalitat that were then turned into payments for the illicit referendum. Among the 60 are journalists, newspapers, media groups, all kinds of businesses, and private persons. They were selected based on their known support of Catalan independence.

They have called this a witch hunt. I call it an Inquisition. You are guilty because you believe in a political idea that the government doesn’t like. Or maybe you are guilty because you read a newspaper that presents a view that the government doesn’t like. Or maybe you write and sing songs that the government doesn’t like. Two singers were just convicted for that and sentenced to three years in jail. Maybe you listen to those singers and you will be charged soon with listening to songs that the government doesn’t like. People who have posted comments critical of the Spanish government or police (or king!) have been charged with hate crimes – a designation usually reserved for crimes or speech against a vulnerable minority. Since when is criticizing the government a hate crime? Since the new Spanish Inquisition went into effect.

One More Catalan in Exile

People who have some interest in Catalan independence probably know who Carles Puigdemont is.  He is the deposed president of the Generalitat (the Catalan government), who much to the dismay of Spanish President Rajoy, who deposed him and called for new elections (although it was not his prerogative to do so), won those elections.  Instead of staying in Spain when charged with rebellion, together with four of his government deputies, he high-tailed it for Belgium because he was not assured that he (or they) would have a fair trial (since the charge of rebellion, substantiated by the preliminary court ruling, with no known act of violence, would by itself suggest that this is simply the making of a political trial and that it is not possible that it be fair).  His other motive for going to Brussels had to do with “internationalizing” the independence process and the undemocratic and illegal Spanish response to the independence movement.  In prison he would be allowed to talk to his wife for ten minutes a day by phone, but barred from communicating directly with the media.  Ensconced in Brussels, he holds press conferences, gives interviews, writes and publishes articles, attends university and other forums and debates, and is active in informing the world about what is happening in Catalonia and ensuring that Spanish repression remains in the public view.

Not many people know who Anna Gabriel is.  She was a deputy in the last Catalan parliament that was disbanded by Rajoy when he axed the Catalan government.  She is a member of the political party CUP, which is a left-wing, anti-capitalist party.  She is also being charged with rebellion and she has also decided that she can best serve the cause of Catalan independence and informing the world about Spanish repression by leaving the country.  She is cited to appear before the judge tomorrow (Wednesday) but she will not appear.   She has gone to Geneva. 

If the Spanish court demands her extradition, she will argue that she would not receive a fair trial in Spain where she is being charged for her political activities and already condemned in the Spanish press.  Switzerland does not extradite people for political crimes and it is believed that there is little chance that an extradition order will be presented or that it would be honored.  Her lawyers believe that extradition would be illegal because there is no evidence to suggest that Gabriel has committed any crime, whereas there is much evidence, on the part of the Spanish government, the judiciary, and the police, of political persecution.

Gabriel compares Spain with Turkey and says that Spain does nothing to ensure her safety (or that of anyone who is pro-independence).  Many people have been physically attacked, some, like Gabriel (and Puigdemont, and Mireia Boya, also from the CUP) have received death threats and yet the Spanish police do nothing to find out who the perpetrators are and bring them to justice.  On the other hand, they busily charge schoolteachers who held classroom discussions about what happened on 1 October, and private individuals who have posted opinions critical of the Spanish government or the Spanish police with hate crimes.

Gabriel says she has always campaigned peacefully for a referendum and she criticizes the Spanish government for wanting to stop the movement for independence with repression rather than political dialogue.  She says she decided to go into exile when she saw that after more than three months, Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Sanchez, and Jordi Cuixart were still in prison and that everyone in the former government was under judicial threat.

Gabriel intends to bring to international attention the lack of judicial impartiality in Spain.  Her attorney is Olivier Peter, a young Swiss who works in the area of human rights and has presented cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg¸ including several recent cases where Spain was found in violation of international law and condemned (and fined).  She is also planning to work with attorneys and organizations that work for civil and human rights that are linked to the court.  Gabriel herself is an attorney and before her service as a deputy in the Catalan parliament, was a law professor in Barcelona.

 Whereas both Carles Puigdemont and Anna Gabriel have been involved in the politics of bringing about Catalan independence, they come from opposite ends of the political spectrum.  This is one of the arguments against the accusation that Catalan independence is a populist movement because it incorporates the Catalan right (Puigdemont) and the Catalan far left (Gabriel) and other parties in between such as L’Esquera Republicana.  Now those two opposites will lead the two international fronts bringing to light the illegal and undemocratic actions of the Spanish government and judiciary to the world.  

Madrid is in a Frenzy

Madrid is in a frenzy.  Last October, after sending in 10,000 military police to ensure that the Catalans would not vote on a referendum, which more than 2 million of them did anyway, Spanish President Mariano Rajoy called for special elections.  This was an illegal move – illegal under Spanish law which specifies that only the President of Catalonia can call for special elections, but never mind.  No one stopped him.  He did it thinking that the independence parties, knowing the elections were illegally called, would not participate, and that Catalans were tired of hearing about independence and frightened by the police violence and subsequent repression and so the pro-unity parties would win a majority.  Rajoy, who has never, not once in the last seven years since he was elected, agreed to talk to any Catalan leader, knows nothing about Catalonia and misread what the public wants.  He thought they would be frightened and tired and would shrug their shoulders in the way common to Spaniards.

But Catalans are different. As the banners at the soccer games say, “Catalonia is Not Spain.”  They did not shrug their shoulders.  The parties ran their candidates, and the citizens voted for the three independence parties, who once again have the majority in the Catalan parliament.  So what was Rajoy to do?  Sit down to talk?  No.  He wouldn’t even engage in the pro forma talk with the newly elected Speaker of the Catalan parliament for him to present the candidate agreed upon by the Catalan parliament to be the next President of the Generalitat (Catalan government).  That candidate is Carles Puigdemont.   He is also the person who got deposed three months ago by Rajoy.  But the Catalans voted for him again.  And he’s back!

What was Rajoy going to do?  Not let the Catalans have the president they elected in elections that he himself called.  So, since earlier in the week, his interior minister has set up extra controls at all the borders, making sure that Puigdemont does not attend the investiture session of parliament scheduled for next Tuesday at 3 pm. 

Spanish Interior Minister Zoido has said on television that Puigdemont will not be allowed to cross the border into Spain.  They have it guarded at all points.  He will not be able to enter by air, land, or sea.  All roads (except forest tracks) have guards inspecting vehicles, even the trunks of passenger cars.  Airports large and small, harbors and ports, all have extra security.  What Zoido failed to remember is that Puigdemont is a Spanish citizen and you cannot prohibit a Spanish citizen from entering Spain.

What Zoido really meant and eventually said is that, as there is an arrest warrant out for him, if Puigdemont were to enter Spain, he would immediately be arrested.  So if he tries to pass through in a car (or the trunk of a car, they really are inspecting car trunks!), in a helicopter, light plane, or boat, they will catch him. If he somehow manages to elude those controls (maybe the police were taking a break when he whizzed by, stuffed into a trunk), National Police are guarding the parliament building.  They have been inspecting the sewers in around the parliament building to make sure he cannot enter by subterranean passage, and they have also been staked out at the Barcelona Zoo, which is a close neighbor to the parliament building in the Parc de la Ciutadella.  It isn’t clear to me what they are doing at the zoo, although some have conjectured that they thought he might take shelter there and then try to enter the parliament dressed as a gorilla or elephant.

What’s with all the whoopla?  It isn’t illegal for Puigdemont to enter Spain.  If they want to arrest him, surely, it would have been easier and far less expensive for the Spanish government to simply place a couple of guards at the parliament building which is his obvious destination and arrest him there on Tuesday.  He’s not a terrorist.  He wouldn’t be armed.  Is it possible they hadn’t thought of that?  That they aren’t interested in saving money?  Or saving face?

President Puigdemont is not likely to enter Spain stuffed into the trunk of a car.  But waiting for him at the parliament building wouldn’t have planted the nasty seed that they’ve tried to plant in the minds of people.  They’ve insulted the Catalan president by conjuring up undignified images of him crumpled up in the trunk of a car, or wading through sewage to get to his investiture.   And yet to many, it’s the Spanish who look ridiculous stopping people at the border and looking into the trunks of their cars.  Unless there is a terrorist alert, the Spanish/French border is usually clear and open (the French police did not agree to participate in the operation).  And mucking around in the sewers did not make the police look particularly dignified.

Not being sure they would find Puigdemont, on Thursday, the Spanish Vice President Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, got on television to announce that the government was going to file a petition to prevent the investiture session from taking place.  Actually she said they would file it if the Congressional Counsel approved it.  The Congressional Counsel did not approve it, saying it was illegal, but they filed it anyway.  There was a post on Facebook showing Saenz de Santamaria talking to the press with a quote below.  It may or may not be exactly what she said, I didn’t listen to the whole presentation, but it certainly embodies what she and the government is doing.   It reads: "We totally respect the Catalans, but what is unacceptable is that they take advantage of elections to vote for whomever they want."

The Spanish government filed the petition with the Spanish Constitutional Court to prevent the investiture session from being held on Tuesday.  This is illegal.  The Court can only pronounce on an act, and if the investiture is not proper, it also hasn’t taken place yet.  But they’ve pronounced anyway.  Since they can’t prevent the session, they said that Puigdemont can only attend if the judge trying the case of rebellion gives permission.  This pronouncement is even more improper than stopping the session would have been.  For one thing, it is also preventative, and for another, no one asked them to do that and the court only functions in response to petitions that are presented to it. 

But Puigdemont is no fool and has turned around and filed a request with the said judge to be allowed to attend the session on Tuesday.  We’re all waiting to see what the judge will say and what will happen next.

There is a move on now for people to congregate in front of the parliament building on Tuesday, everyone wearing a mask.  We’re all Puigdemont!

Words Matter

Words matter and the Spanish nationalists have been brazen with theirs while the Catalans have been prudent.  When Madrid announced that the independence referendum was illegal, the Catalans did not jump up and say, loud and clear, “That’s a lie.  Nowhere in the Spanish constitution does it say that any referendum is illegal.”  They said it, but they said it softly and infrequently.  And yet, this is true.  So the word “illegal” took off, and all the international press use it.  (You would think that maybe one enterprising journalist from the London or New York Times or the Washington Post would have looked into the legality or not of referendums in Spain by now.)   

In any case, the UN Charter states that all nations have the right to self-determination, which gives the Catalans the right under international law to vote on a referendum even if it WERE written in the Spanish constitution that it was prohibited.  Inexplicably, “United Nations Charter,” “right to self-determination,” and “international law” have also eluded the mainstream international press.  If all journalists do is report what an authority says and nothing more, we don’t really need journalists at all.  We can just read press releases and watch press conferences unattended by the press – like what goes on at the White House these days. 

When the entire Catalan government was charged with sedition, rebellion, and embezzlement of public funds, the international press took up these heavy-duty words without question.  Sedition means inciting to rebel.  So if you charge rebellion, there is no reason to charge sedition too.  Then when you look at rebellion, you find that it means armed resistance.  The Catalans have no access to arms and have not practiced any violence.  (Most countries dropped the crime of rebellion when they abandoned the absolute rule of monarchs.)  And finally, embezzlement of public funds means you have taken funds for your own private use.  The funds in question were used to hold the referendum vote so it was public money used for a public purpose.

For these reasons, the Belgian judge was not fooled by Spain’s vocabulary and was not going to honor the arrest warrant issued by Spain for the return of Catalan President Puigdemont and the four counselors who are in exile in Brussels with him.  The Spanish judge, having received advanced word, cancelled the arrest warrant to save Spain the embarrassment of having it be denied or reduced to the only charge possible, which was embezzlement.   

On 5 January 2018, the appeal of Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras to be allowed bail was denied by the tribunal reviewing it.  In the 27-page interlocutory, the word “violence” appeared 27 times.  Except for the attack of two police cars at one demonstration on 20 September, there has never been any violence in any demonstration or other activity of the independence movement since its inception over six years ago.

The judges even state that Junqueras has never participated in or ordered any violence be committed.  But, the judges wrote, one cannot ignore that in mobilizing people they might become violent.  Further, when put in situations in confrontation with police who are there to maintain Spanish law, violence can be committed.  Here they were referring to the police violence on 1 October that was committed when riot police confronted and attacked citizens trying to vote.  In other words, they are blaming Junqueras for the police violence ordered by Spanish authorities in order to keep people from voting.

The judges also say that the aspiration for independence is legitimate and they don’t negate that Junqueras can want that.  But then that means that negotiation with Spain would not be possible since independence is not a legal possibility and that would mean that Junqueras would once again have to take unilateral actions as when the Catalan parliament declared independence on 27 October. 

Rajoy called for new elections for the Catalan parliament and in those elections Junqueras won a seat.  One of the reasons for this appeal was so that he could be released on bail and serve the public who voted for him.  Junqueras’s attorney has pointed out that what was a petition to be allowed bail and released from prison while awaiting trial has been treated as a trial verdict, even before the investigation has been completed.  Junqueras has evidently already been tried and convicted although there has been no trial.  The judges say that he might commit the same criminal acts, although he has yet to be convicted of any criminal acts.

The words in the 27-page interlocutory remind me of the peculiar logic of some of the characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  It’s a similar kind of mixed up world.  Only this is not a fantasy story – it is Spain in the 21^st century.

Until now, Catalans have referred to Junqueras and the others in prison as political prisoners – a term the Spanish dislike and deny.  Now they are beefing up their vocabulary and calling them political hostages.   

According to the Council of Europe, Spain has a way to go to comply with its recommendations regarding corruption in parliament, the judiciary, and prosecution.   It was announced a few days ago that “The Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body GRECO today published a report assessing Spain’s compliance with its recommendations to prevent and combat corruption in respect of members of parliament, judges and prosecutors.

 “Four years after the adoption of the Fourth round evaluation report in December 2013, GRECO concludes that there has been limited progress in Spain in complying with its recommendations and that the country’s level of compliance remains "globally unsatisfactory". Spain has not yet fully implemented any of the eleven recommendations GRECO issued in 2013. Seven recommendations have been partly implemented and four have not been implemented at all.”

Junqueras may well be a political prisoner, a hostage, and a victim of Spanish judiciary corruption.  He will soon be taking his case to the International Tribunal for Human Rights.  Maybe a visit before that body will help Spain overhaul its corrupt system and better define what is and is not legal and what it means to rebel.  And maybe in the future they will be more prudent in choosing their words.

Catalans tell the E.U. to Wake Up

Today 45,000 Catalans went to demonstrate in Brussels.  Brussels is the capital of Europe, it’s where the European Union has its headquarters. 

Forty-five thousand is a lot of people.  That was the count of the Brussels municipal police.  The Belgian federal police estimated the count at 60,000.  They travelled 1,346 kilometers (836 miles).  It takes 13 hours by car or bus from Barcelona.  Going by plane is faster but it costs more.  A round trip bus ride costs about 100 euros.  There were 250 chartered buses and many regular and chartered planes full of Catalans.  And many people went by car and a few even in motor homes.  

Although a few went a day or two early or stayed a day or two afterwards, most went only to spend the one day.  Those who went by charter bus left Wednesday afternoon to sleep on the bus and arrive in Brussels on Thursday morning.  The demonstration started at 11 am.  They got back on the same bus that afternoon to travel by night and return home the next morning.  To spend the few hundred euros to go by plane or to put up with the discomfort of traveling two nights in a row on a bus takes determination.  The Catalans who went to Brussels were determined. 

Spain managed to convince the world that the referendum held on 1 October was illegal.  But there is nothing in Spanish law or the constitution that says so.  And if there were, there is the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, to which Spain is a signee, that says that all people have a right to self-determination.  So under international law, the referendum was perfectly legal.  Even so, the European Union has gone along with Spain to say that the referendum was illegal.  They also squirmed their way out of condemning the police violence on 1 October, which in any democratic context, is unacceptable, whether or not those going to vote were going to vote on a legal or illegal referendum.  Going to vote is not illegal and does not under any circumstances merit police batons hitting you on the head.

The 45,000 Catalans who descended on Brussels today did so for several reasons.  First of all they were there to show support for their democratically elected president who has not only been illegally removed from office by the Spanish government, but has also gone into exile to avoid charges of rebellion and sedition, among others, charges that stem from his having a different political viewpoint than the Spanish government has. 

Different viewpoints are not allowed in Spain – in fact, the Spanish government says they are unconstitutional -- and there was evidence that fair treatment and a fair trial would not be forthcoming.  Those government officials who remained in Spain were all hauled off to jail immediately from their preliminary hearing, before any trial, and even before any investigation into the charges.  And they have been sitting in jail, without benefit of bail, for over a month, until a few days ago, six of them were released on bail, while four others remain in prison, the judge saying that their release could explode into violence. 

Why suddenly worry about violence when there has never been any violence on the part of the Catalan independence movement?  Maybe the judge is worried about the Spanish fascists exploding into violence if the Catalans are released?  This could be a possibility since there has been violence at each and every one of the ultra-right fascist demonstrations.  But in that case, wouldn’t it be more just to imprison the fascists? 

It turns out that Puigdemont’s going into exile to Belgium was a good move because when the Spanish issued an extradition order, expecting the Belgian judge to pack Puigdemont up and send him back, the judge didn’t do that.  He gave the accused (Puigdemont and four of his cabinet who are with him in Brussels) over a week to prepare a defense to the extradition charges.  The accused in Spain were given 24 hours to do the same before they were sent off to prison without bail from their preliminary hearing.  After the hearing he reserved two weeks for his own decision.  And before the date set for his decision, the Spanish suddenly withdrew their extradition order.  Why?  Because it seemed that the Belgian judge was not going to honor it and that would make the Spanish look bad.  What are charges of sedition and rebellion that carry 30 years prison terms in Spain, are not crimes at all in Belgium.  Spain’s fame as the home of the Inquisition lives on.

Besides showing support for President Puigdemont and his four ministers, the Catalans wanted to bring the issue of the lack of human and civil rights that they are suffering to the door of the European Union, the international organization that was founded on the priniciples of ensuring those rights and who are seen as failing their EU citizens who live in Catalonia.  They have had their legally elected government deposed and replaced by political leaders in Madrid for whom they did not vote.  They consider it a coup d’etat.  They have leaders in jail without bail before any trial.  They are in jail for their political beliefs and that is not something the EU should tolerate.

Seven hundred Catalan mayors have been charged with disobedience for having made polling spaces available for the referendum vote.  Some have already been called to testify before the judge, others are pending.  Several people have been arrested by police for having said things critical of the Spanish government or the Spanish police on social media.  Broadcasters on radio are also being charged for saying things critical of the Spanish government or police.  The Catalan public broadcasting company is under constant scrutiny and daily threat of being taken over by the Spanish government if they utter a word that the government doesn't like -- such as calling President Puigdement "President Puigdemont."

Each day Catalans' civil liberties are being curtailed.  One day they can’t hang yellow ribbons from government buildings, the next day city governments are instructed to remove any yellow ribbons that citizens tied anywhere they might appear throughout the city – park benches, bridges, lamp poles, balconies, or be charged with disobedience. 

They can’t light their public fountains with yellow lights.  A group of seniors is prohibited from wearing yellow ribbons and scarves and demonstrating in front of their city hall in the town of Reus, demanding the release of the political prisoners in Madrid.  The right to demonstrate and protest is fundamental in a democracy, but Catalans are being prohibited from exercising those rights.  Catalans believe that if they want to wear yellow, they should be free to wear yellow.  Catalan media is prohibited from referring to President Puigdemont as “President Puigdemont” even though every ex-president is referred to in that way.  The media cannot say he and his ministers are in exile. 

Initial reports I’ve read in the foreign (English-speaking) press say that the Catalans went to Brussels to ask the EU to support their move for independence.  But that isn’t so, not that they wouldn’t like that.  They went to Brussels to show support for their president who was illegally deposed, with the consent of the EU.  They went to Brussels because two leaders of their legitimate government, the government they elected, are in prison as are two grassroots leaders -- all of them imprisoned without trial for their political beliefs.  These are political prisoners and Europe should be concerned.  They went to Brussels to tell the EU that it should be ashamed for having abandoned its founding principles of human rights.  They have abandoned their citizens -- all Catalans are EU citizens -- to repression by the Spanish government.  Frans Timmermans, the European Commission Vice President, gave a short, cynical statement after the demonstration today that if the Catalans don’t like the Spanish constitution, they should set out to change it.  But Timmermans knows that Catalans are a minority in Spain, and a minority cannot change the constitution when the majority does not want to.  The Catalans went to Brussels to tell the E.U. to wake up.  That democracy is threatened in Spain by flagrant repression, and if democracy is threatened in Spain it is threatened in Europe.

Spain Takes Note of Belgian Justice

The decision of Judge Llarena to withdraw the extradition order against members of the Catalan government in exile was meant to save face, but what it did was to highlight the anomalous functioning of Spanish justice for all to see.

It was possible that the Belgian judge would not approve the extradition order on the basis of doubt that the accused would receive decent treatment and a fair trial in Spain.  But word had it that the Belgian judge was not going to allow the charges of rebellion, sedition, or misappropriation of funds, leaving only the charge of disobedience.  Rebellion and sedition carry penalties of up to 30 years in Spain, while disobedience carries no prison sentence – only the possibility of the person being suspended from holding office. 

Llarena withdrew the extradition order of the president and his cabinet because he knew that there were only those two possibilities: (1) that the Belgian judge would not grant it - finding that in Spain there are no procedural guarantees for a fair trial, or (2) that he would accept it but limit the charges to disobedience.  This is because the charges of rebellion and sedition do not exist in Belgium, or in most other modern countries, having been condemned to obsolescence sometime after the middle ages, and a European extradition order must be for a crime that exists in both member states or appear on a list of 39 specified crimes.  In any case, even the Spanish definition of rebellion requires violence and there was no violence in this case.  And finally, in Belgian law, misappropriation of funds can only be applied when the accused has personally appropriated the funds and that was not in the accusation.  This would mean that Puigdemont and the four ministers, if extradited, could only be tried for disobedience, which carries no prison sentence. 

Either of these two outcomes – denying the extradition or reducing the charges -- would be a great embarrassment to Spain and the Spanish justice system.  When Llarena wants to hold a trial which could condemn the accused to thirty years in prison, and Belgium considers that at most they could be prevented from holding office, the difference in the possible charges and the penalty is so gross that it is inexplicable.   So to avoid the embarrassment of having to answer to the inexplicable, Llarena withdrew the extradition before the Belgian judge’s decision on the matter.

With the withdrawal of the extradition order by the Spanish, the Belgian judge has immediately withdrawn preventive measures (where unlike their counterparts in Spain who are in prison without bail, those in Belgium were free without bail but had to remain in Belgium and make themselves available to the court whenever called).  President Puigdemont and his ministers are now free persons except if they enter Spain where they would be immediately arrested to face charges of crimes that are not crimes in other European countries.

The first consequence of the withdrawal of preventive measures against the legitimate government of Catalonia will be that President Puigdemont, counselors Ponsatí, Serret, Comín, and Puig will be able to participate freely in the demonstration on Thursday in Brussels where it is expected that 20,000-30,000 Catalans will gather before the EU headquarters to demand that the EU uphold the basic human and civil rights written into its constitution and supposedly guaranteed to all EU citizens (Catalans included). 

They are coming to Brussels because the coup d'état against the self-government of Catalonia would not have been possible without the total support of the European Commission.  Claude Juncker made a bad decision for the interests of the Union and in terms of European morals and politics.

President Puigdemont made a statement from Brussels about the cancelling of the extradition order, saying that the “Spanish are not so brave when the world is looking at them.  When they can’t control the whole chain, when they don’t have judges who are friends, or prosecutors who are close to them, and they have the whole world looking at them, then they are not so brave.”

Puigdemont asked why the charges against the rest of the accused were also not withdrawn.  He said that they were victims of a political persecution for carrying out the mandate of the Catalan public that voted for them.  “That’s not a crime, that’s democracy,” he said.

He said the extradition order was withdrawn because Spain has realized that the accusations of rebellion and sedition are not acceptable in Europe and that Europe prohibits persecution for political crimes.  He also said that leaving Spain and going to Europe was a useful strategy because it brought to light the state of Spanish justice.

Belgium Looks at Spanish Justice

Carles Puigdemont and the four ministers: Toni Comin, Meritxell Serret, Clara Ponsati, and Lluis Puig (pictured at right) testified today before a Belgian judge who will decide whether or not to agree to the extradition of the five to the Spanish justice system.

The defense will argue that Spanish justice wants to try the five for their political ideas and decisions.  They say that Spain is not charging them for individual crimes, but for political decisions that were well known to everyone and for which they were democratically elected.

According to the lawyers, the Spanish National Court has delivered five arrest warrants with identical offenses for the five - disobedience, rebellion, sedition and embezzlement of public funds - although it does not provide details of how they were committed or make any distinction between the five accused, although they held different responsibilities as members of the government.  One lawyer says that Spain does not specify what actions their clients carried out specifically for committing these crimes.

The lawyers, moreover, specifically reject that Puigdemont and the four ministers, sacked by an illegal application of article 155 of the Constitution that the Spanish government activated, could be charged with any criminal offense derived from the exercise of their public function related to the voting on 1 October. According to the Belgian press, lawyers will defend before the judge that political action, if it is an offense, is not a criminal offense, which is why extradition should be denied.  The attorneys say that criminal law has nothing to do with it. It has to do with acts related to constitutional or administrative law. The European arrest warrant is political and manifestly abusive, they say.

According to Belgian law, the Belgian judge may reject a European arrest warrant if it is shown that the interested parties will be tried for their political convictions in the country that claims them. But the defense strategy goes even further: lawyers will argue that the crimes of sedition and rebellion do not exist as such in the Criminal Code of Belgium. If the offenses for which they are charged are not classified as criminal offenses in both countries-, the European arrest warrant can be rejected for that reason.

Lawyer and Belgian law expert Denis Bosquet assures that, unlike Spain, the Belgian justice system "is absolutely independent" of the political branch. "The first difference between Spain and Belgium is that Spanish justice has put the ministers who remained there to appear in the Spanish court in jail. And they are not bandits. They are people who, by virtue of a political mandate, have organized a referendum ". The Belgian lawyer claims to be "surprised" because the Spanish government and the king "have expressed themselves so freely and critically" about everything that has to do with the 1 October referendum vote and its judicialization. "I was very shocked to see Philip VI's speech because he talked about irresponsible behavior of politicians. If the Belgian king made such a comment, he would have a very serious problem. In addition, in Belgium such intervention of the justice system would be inconceivable in the face of a political problem."

The ministers who appeared before the Spanish judge were
all sent to prison without bail to await trial

Belgian law could also refuse extradition if it is shown that those affected will be tried for their political beliefs or if it is proven that their fundamental rights can be violated in Spain. The Belgian prosecutor's office may have doubts in this regard.  In the middle of the week he asked the National Court for additional information regarding the extradition demand that affects Puigdemont and four advisers. The Belgian prosecutor was concerned about the conditions of the prison where the five Catalan politicians would be housed if Belgium approved the extradition and he asked Judge Carmen Lamela for information about the Spanish penitentiary system. In particular, he asked what prison the members of the Government would enter, what kind of cell they would be held in - he was even interested in the square meters - and how would their day to day would be in jail.

The Belgian prosecutor's office was also interested in procedural issues, such as what will happen when the president and the ministers arrived in Madrid, if Belgium accepts to approved the extradition, and which court will judge them. Finally, Belgian law asked for clarification about the information provided by Lamela (the Spanish judge in this case) in her account of alleged crimes committed by members of the Government, such as dates and details of the 1 October referendum vote.

Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said yesterday evening that the Spanish National Court had already sent all the additional information to Brussels. "Nobody in Europe will give us lessons on the exemplary rule of law," said an offended and arrogant Zoido.

Although it is not in their defense briefs, perhaps Zoido’s words will also be taken into consideration by the Belgian judge, who might think that asking for information in order to fairly view a pending case is simply part of his job and be put off by the exhibition of Spanish arrogance on the part of the Interior Minister, the person responsible for Spanish justice.

The judge heard the allegations of the Spanish prosecutor today.  The proceedings for the defense have been adjourned until 4 December after which the magistrate will have one or two weeks to study all the documentation provided by the defense of the members of the Government and issue a resolution. If he rejects the extradition warrant, the Belgian prosecutor's office – but in no case the Spanish - could appeal the decision if he deems it necessary. In the event that the judge gives a green light to extradition, the five members of the Government will be able to appeal twice.

According to data collected by the European Commission, Belgium arrested 74 people for arrest warrants issued by other member states, 17 of which - one in five - were not extradited by decision of Belgian law.

The fact that the two civil leaders and the eight ministers who presented themselves before the Spanish judge are all in jail awaiting trial while the Catalan President and other four ministers who presented themselves to the Belgian judge are free while awaiting their extradition hearing says a lot about the difference between Spanish justice and Belgian justice.  If Puigdemont and his ministers had not gone to Belgium and involved the Belgian justice system in this case, they would all be in jail in Spain, and the rest of the world would not know much about it.  Now, everyone is watching.

Comparing Apples to Apples

When politicians speak of a silent majority, beware.  Pay attention and see if you can find evidence of that majority.  Where are they hiding?  In the case of the PP in Catalonia, their silent majority never receives as much as 9% of the vote.  And they are not hiding, they simply do not exist.  The silent majority who would vote for PP, who like the fact that their elected government has been taken over and their legitimately elected leaders are in jail does not exist.  If you believe in it, you probably also believe in the great pumpkin.

Spanish President Rajoy is here in Barcelona today stumping for his party (the PP) in pre-campaign mode leading up to the elections he called for 21 December.  According to Spanish law, it was illegal for him to call elections.  That is the prerogative only of the President of the Generalitat (the Catalan government).  But he did it anyway and no one in the EU or anywhere else bats an eye because he says it is legal.  It’s reminiscent of Trump who says his Muslim travel ban is not a Muslim travel.  There are lots of people who believe that too.  But fortunately for Americans, they are not the ones in the judiciary.  Spain does not have that safeguard.

In his speech today Rajoy claimed the elections would be “clean, fully democratic,” as well as “with transparency in their development and scrutiny,” unlike, he said, the illegal referendum that had no legal guarantees.

But his elections do not replace the referendum.  They replace the clean, democratic elections with all legal guarantees that took place in Catalonia on 27 September 2015, when the current (or recently eradicated) Catalan parliament was elected.  That parliament, the elected President, all the ministers, have been thrown out, told not to return to their elected posts or face charges of disobedience.  Most of that government is in prison and the rest are in exile in Belgium.

The referendum, that, according to international law, was not illegal, did not have the legal guarantees because Rajoy destroyed those guarantees.  It could have and would have been perfectly clean and fully democratic if left to be carried out as planned.

So if Rajoy wants to talk about clean, fully democratic elections, let him compare the one he has called with the one he obliterated.  Let him compare apples with apples.

Banging Pots Is Not Violence

Spanish leaders never tire of talking about the rule of law and the constitution.  They insist that the Catalan referendum was illegal.  Is that so?  My understanding is that the Spanish constitution talks about the indivisibility of Spain, but there is nothing that says that referendums are not allowed, and in fact, they have been used throughout the country for various issues. 

Democracy is defined as government by the people.  The people exercise their democratic rights by voting to elect representatives or voting on referendums to give their opinions on specific issues.  If it is true, as those in Madrid say, that a referendum on independence is illegal, then Spain needs to consider that international law contradicts and overrules that.  A vote based on the right of self-determination is protected in the United Nations Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Spain is a signatory, and is a right of all peoples.  If the Spanish government doesn’t know this, surely the EU does.

But you don’t need to study the Spanish constitution or international laws and treaties to understand that voting is a basic right in any democracy.  It is the only concrete way that citizens can choose their leaders and tell them what they want them to do.  Any country that doesn't allow it doesn't provide democratic rights to its citizens.

In the recent crisis in Catalonia, two civil society leaders were charged with sedition and sent to prison, without bail, to await a trial that could take years to happen.  These are the two Jordis, Jordi Sanchez, leader of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Jordi Cuixart, leader of Omnium Cultural.  These two organizations have been the driving and organizing force behind the massive pro-right-to-decide, pro-independence demonstrations that have been taking place over the last six years.  Both Jordis are known pacifists who have always in every public appearance, called for peaceful, civil demonstrations, and the Catalans have always taken heed and done exactly that.  Catalans (and others) consider them to be political prisoners as they have done nothing illegal, have never engaged in or advocated violence, and are being charged and being held without bail before trial, for their beliefs.

The two Jordis are the only Catalans in jail so far.  But there are hundreds of others who have been charged and called to testify before judges, in advance of possible indictments.  These include dozens of government officials, 700 majors of towns throughout Catalonia who made the usual polling places in their towns available for the referendum vote on 1 October, and several citizens, some of whom have been charged with violence for having defended themselves from police attacking them with clubs.  These people were unarmed.  One threw a chair, causing a Spanish police agent to fall.

There are the higher level government leaders, the former President of the Generalitat and former ministers who have already been indicted for various crimes related to the organization of an earlier referendum – an unofficial “consultation” that had no legal consequences but was a way of allowing citizens to express their opinion on whether or not they wanted independence.  It was basically an opinion poll.  This was held in November 2015 and was also deemed illegal, thus the indictments.

Now charges have been filed against President of the Generalitat Puigdemont, President of the Catalan Parliament Carme Forcadell, all the ministers and others from the government and parliament.  They are being charged with sedition and rebellion, never mind that rebellion is defined as employing violence and the only violence employed so far was that of the Spanish police on 1 October (the Spanish government says there is no reason to investigate that violence that resulted in over 1000 citizens being injured and treated by the public health service because the police were just doing their job).  Given that there has never been any violence within the independence movement or on the part of the government, the attorney general had written in his charges that violence could have resulted or could result in the future.  The charge of rebellion is the most serious of all the charges and can carry a penalty of 30 years in prison.  It is hard to understand how people could be so charged on the possibility of something that didn’t happen but might have. 

When the current, legitimate Catalan government was elected in September 2015, they ran on the platform of holding a referendum, setting up the mechanisms for a new state, and declaring independence if the pro-independence vote won in the referendum.  This platform was filed, as required, with the elections supervisory committee in Madrid when the candidacy was set up.  Puigdemont, in his press conference today, asked how was it that now people could be charged with such serious charges when they were completing what their platform had stated and what the people had voted for?

It is likely, if not certain, that if Puigdemont were to present himself before the judge, as he has been ordered to do at the end of this week, he will end up like the two Jordis – instead of testifying and going home, he’d be sent directly to jail.  His bail has been set at 6 million euros.  Before becoming president two years ago, Puigdemont was a journalist and mayor of Girona.  He’s not Donald Trump and hasn’t made a career of political corruption.  How is he supposed to come up with 6 million euros?

Rajoy has imposed elections to be held on 21 December.  Legally, only the President of the Generalitat can call for elections, but Rajoy is using an interpretation of the constitution in invoking Article 155 that goes far beyond what is actually allowed in many aspects of the Madrid takeover, not just the pending elections.  No attorney general or Spanish judge has called him on it, and none will.

Catalans were worried that the pro-independence parties would be deemed illegal and not allowed to run.  So far that hasn’t happened and I don’t think it will because Madrid has another way of dealing with the problem of the pro-unity parties losing.  Today, the Vice President of the Spanish senate has said that if pro-independence parties win the election, they will impose Article 155, the government takeover, again. 

In a shrewd move, on Monday, Puigdemont went to Brussels, the capital of Europe, with seven of his cabinet members, four women and three men.  On Tuesday he held a press conference that those of the press club where it was held said never had so many cameras in the room.  When the press conference began, it went live around the world.

He spoke in four different languages and told the world that he and his cabinet were not seeking asylum; they were there because they weren’t safe in Spain; that they were peaceful people and didn’t want to achieve independence with violence; that the road ahead was long; that they would participate in the elections called for 21 December; and that they were in the European capital so that Europe would react to the situation.

Puigdemont had time to respond to five questions from the press: Euronews, BBC, Sky News, TV3 (Catalan television), and Belgian television.  The Spanish media were pissed that they didn’t get a chance to put forward a question.  They were also pissed that most of Puigdemont’s talk was not in Castilian (could it be that the Spanish journalists did not understand any of the other three languages?).  Puigdemont had delivered his talk in Catalan, Castilian, English, and French – most of it was in French.  “Vergüenza,” they said afterwards, referring to Puigdemont’s polyglot performance and not their own ignorance.

After Puigdemont finished and they were leaving, a Catalan who works for one of the Catalan MP’s went offside with some of the press and suggested to them that they read the charges of rebellion against the Catalan government.  What they cite as violence is the banging of pots that people do on their balconies when they protest.

Puigdemont and the Catalans may not win their struggle for independence by convincing the public of their cause yet it doesn’t hurt to have the public on your side.  No one who pays attention can be very impressed with the lies told publically on Spanish and international television (including the recent BBC interview with Foreign Affairs Minister Dastis who said the videos of the police violence on 1 October were fake news).  Spaniards can be fooled, but the BBC had its own cameras and crews there and knew better.  

Puigdemont doesn’t tell lies.  And he chooses his audience strategically.  Going to Brussels, the capital of the European Union, was good strategy.  Europe has chosen to ignore the police violence, the abuse of civil and human rights, the cessation of a democratically elected parliament and government, the incarceration of political prisoners, and the unconstitutional direct rule imposed by Madrid. (If anyone in Europe wanted to read the Spanish constitution they would see that what Rajoy is doing goes far beyond what is constitutionally legal.) 

The most important thing that Puigdemont said was a question.  Will Madrid recognize the results of the elections they have called for on 21 December?  If the pro-independence parties win another majority, will that vote be respected?  Yesterday the Vice President of the Spanish senate said that if pro-independence parties win, Spain will again impose direct rule.

Puigdemont, with this trip to Brussels, has brought the problem to Europe, physically, laid it at its feet, and told then to react.

Spanish Police Say Tweety Sucks And So Does The Food

One odd story today in the midst of all the news about the Spanish takeover of the Catalan government that is about to happen on Saturday.  Before the 1 October referendum, Madrid sent 12,000 paramilitary police to make sure the referendum did not happen.  These 12,000 agents were unable to find a single voting box but they did find a few million paper ballots.  They were supposed to keep the citizens from voting, but in spite of beating up over 1000 unarmed voters, over 2,300,000 voters managed to slip in between the armed thugs and cast their ballots.

These official thugs are housed in three ships -- one of which lacks the dignity that official thugs should receive because of the cartoons of Tweety and friends painted on its sides.  The police are still being housed there, more than a month after they've arrived.  And they have now complained to the Spanish Minister of Security that they don't like their accommodation.  The food stinks.  The housing is unacceptable.  And the worst of it all, they've found out that they get paid less than the Catalan police do.  Holy Mother of God!  They are pissed off and threaten to take action if something is not done.  I wonder that that action might be.  Maybe they'll chuck it in and go home?

Catalonia. Spain. Twilight for Europe

He explains it better than I can.

By Otto Ozols

I am writing this text on October 15, two weeks after the historical referendum in Catalonia which Spain tried to wreck with brutal police methods. In spite of endless threats and violence, 90% of Catalans voted for independence. The Spanish police confiscated countless ballot boxes, so it is not clearly known how many people took part in all. As I write this text, the president of Catalonia has suspended a declaration of independence for some time, thus once again giving Spain an opportunity to start a dialogue. So far, this proposal has been rejected, and we cannot know how this will end. In the past, Spain has categorically rejected any discussions and any call for dialogue 18 times. For many years, Spain has ignored millions of the country's residents.


So what exactly happened in Catalonia and contemporary Europe on October 1, 2017? To put it very briefly and clearly, people and democracy were kicked brutally and massively. The most terrible things happened afterward, however. It turned out that a twilight of true double morality and collective cowardice has appeared in Europe. The idea that present-day Europe is democratic and seemingly enlightened proved to be a pitiful illusion. Europe reminded me of a village in which the largest elder of a home brutally attacked the smaller and less defended other side simply because the smaller one wanted to engage in dialogue, have voting rights and have the right to make a choice. What was he thinking?! What kind of democracy is this?! It was like in the darkest Dark Ages. The smaller one was told to shut up, and after he refused to obey, he was thoroughly whipped in a merciless, public and offensive way. There was not even any mercy when it came to women and elderly people. 

What did the rest of Europe do? Yes, it just watched, issued some kind of cowardly mumble so as not to offend the big and fat one. Europe simply turned its back on more than two million of its European brothers and sisters, also threatening that in the case of divorce, they would simply be kicked out of the village. The shameless, little and haughty Catalans are dreaming about the right of self-determination?! Has the UN Human Rights pact anything to say about this?! What else? That pact has lots of things to say. They only apply to super-nations and the elect caste -- Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Scots and other first-class nation. No one said that out loud, but the attitude was very clear, indeed. 

Let no one doubt the fact that hundreds of ultranationalists in Spain went into the streets and raised their arms in a way that terribly reminds us of the times when people were divided up between "Übermensch" and "Untermensch." Some nations deserve 100% human rights, while others deserve less. Does this mean that the political elite in the EU really believe that the Catalans belong to these "incomplete ones"? Is it not really the case that a spiritual twilight has once again begun in Europe? Europe's leading politicians and the mainstream media are ready at other times to spend month after month yelling about ultra-radicals and the rebirth of Nazism, but now they are suspiciously quiet. In the village of cowards, it is dangerous to loudly criticise the large and mighty neighbour. That might mean that the cowards themselves would be seriously harmed. 

Many European politicians with serious faces repeated Spanish propaganda that said that the Catalans had violated the Spanish Constitution. These hypocrites probably haven't even read it. They haven't even read the first article which says that Spain is a democratic country. You know what a democracy is? It is a system in which people are free to express their views and in which the freedom of speech and assembly are respected and protected. What happened in Spain? The police simply beat up people who wanted to peacefully express their views by voting, and ballot boxes were taken away by force. Is that democracy? Can it really be that the senior politicians in Europe have lost their minds? This is democracy that can only be part of the understanding of Vladimir Putin, perhaps. 

If we continue to discuss the Spanish Constitution, then we must remember articles 96 and 10.2, which clearly state that Spain must observe international agreements that it has signed. If local laws are in violation of these agreements, then international agreements must still be observed. That's written in the Constitution. The aforementioned UN Human Rights Treaty states clearly in its first chapter that all nations have the right to self-determination, and it is on the basis of such rights that nations can freely determine their own political status and freely ensure their economic, social and cultural development. Spain ratified the treaty in 1977, which means that the right to self-determination of the Catalan people must be observed. Do Spain and its friends feel that UN documents can be viewed selectively? Here we come to an even darker twilight zone. People have been looking through their fingers at fundamental principles related to human rights and democracy that are enshrined in international law. The Soviet Union and its leaders used to do that. The Soviet republics theoretically had various rights, including the right to withdraw from the USSR, but anyone who dared to speak about his or her democratic rights was immediately grabbed by the police, and imprisonment was guaranteed. 

There will be those who will say that it is impossible to compare Spain to the Soviet Union. Euroskeptics do tend to claim that the European Union is similar to the Soviet Union, but Europeans with good faith will say that this is absurd. They are right. But if the police officers of a European city are allowed to beat up unprotected people who had different thoughts and believed in the freedom of speech, then one fine day we will go to bed in the EU and wake up in the USSR. The sad fact is that the twilight of democracy usually sneaks up behind us without us even noticing it. 

Back during the Soviet era, police officers could beat up those who thought differently in the streets. The Stalinist regime punished whole nations and millions of people. In the Soviet Union, the media in the imperialist centre could spit on journalistic ethics and demonise their opponents. That's exactly what is happening in Spain right now. Major newspapers and television channels in Madrid are not far behind the worst examples from the Kremlin regime. The Soviet Union, too, had judges who were appointed by politicians and who tried politicians who satisfied the will of voters, not the orders of the imperialist centre. Will you still say that the comparison to the Soviet Union is absurd? Think again. 

You probably think that there are essential differences between the European Union and the Soviet Union. I will remind you that the political elite in the USSR had to agree on collective and public lies. Leaders at various levels publicly repeated absurd lies on the basis of commands from higher-ranking leaders, and no one believed those lies. After the mass attack against unprotected voters in Catalonia, Spain announced that maybe just two or four people were injured. What followed in Europe was a pitiful farce. As if they had been ordered to do so, government ministers and politicians in many EU member states repeated these obvious lies. The world's leading media outlets, where there are strict editorial selections and only trusted materials are printed or broadcast, reported that several hundred people were beat up and injured. Respectable human rights organisations confirmed the same. The politicians had clearly seen and understood this, but they nevertheless repeated the absurd lies that Spain had dictated. This was shameful for the politicians and their citizens, and this discredited Europe as a union that is based on democratic principles. The most terrible thing, however, is another comparison with the Soviet Union. Politicians and diplomats joined together in mendaciousness even though they knew perfectly well that they were wrong and that citizens did not believe them. Yet more evidence of a twilight in Europe. Of course, there were a few honourable exceptions. The Slovenian parliament voted to denounce the violence of Spain's government and police and supported the right of Catalonia to self-determination. The prime minister of Belgium also plucked up the strength to object. Those, however, were rare exceptions. 

Now, you may be thinking that this author is a terrible Eurosceptic who wants to eliminate peace and mess up Europe's unity. Here we must return to the Soviet Union, where critics of the regime were given stupid names. No, I am not a Eurosceptic. I love Europe, but one in which fellow citizens are not beaten up just because they imagined that they might have the same right to self-determination that was enjoyed in the past by Norwegians, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and many other nations in Europe. Politicians in the aforementioned countries sometimes try to justify their cowardice with another totally idiotic argument, to be perfectly honest. They say that Catalans, unlike nations in the former Russian Empire, have nothing to worry about, because Spain is a democratic country in which no one oppresses them and so on (sometimes people are just beaten up, face lies and are tried in court in a politicised way). That's why Catalans should not even talk about the right to self-determination. Here we must cry oh Britain, poor Britain! If we follow along with this "wise logic," then we have to conclude that Great Britain is not a democratic country, and this is why the Scottish people were given the right of self-determination. That is what we must conclude from what has been said. 

We are told that Queen Elizabeth purred joyfully when she learned that the Scots voted in a referendum to remain part of the United Kingdom. Still, what did she say in advance of the referendum? Elizabeth II was laconic and said "a result that all of us throughout the United Kingdom will respect." She and other Brits thought that Scots are and will be a nation with full rights, one that deserves the same rights as any other nation. The British government did not think that Scots could not make their own decisions or that they are an underdeveloped pseudo-nation that is unable to take independence decisions without the supervision of "older brothers." This has nothing to do with different constitutions or laws, but it has everything to do with attitudes. After the orgiastic violence of the police in Catalonia, the king of Spain said nothing at all that would indicate that he understands or feels sorry for the Catalans. Apparently the Spanish elite feel that the Catalans, as a nation, are not even worthy of dialogue, to say nothing about the choice that was given to the Scots. If the Catalans try to state their choice, they must be brutally beaten up and humiliated, and apparently that is all fine for the king. Can we now complain that the Catalans no longer want to hear anything about this monarch? 

The sad fact is that even seeming societies in Europe have various false biases about the Catalans. These are spread by Spanish ultranationalists, and many people uncritically believe what they say. We must remember that the Catalans are not a Spanish sub-nation, and the Catalan language is not a dialect of the Spanish language, as many believe erroneously. The Catalan language is internationally and academically recognised as a unique and separate language. Any more or less educated person has seen the global language tree in which the Roman language branches have separate twigs. Let me stress that these are separate twigs related to Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French and also Catalanlanguages. The difference between Catalan and Spanish is at least as large as that which exists between Norwegian and Swedish, Estonian and Finnish, Ukrainian and Russian, and Latvian and Lithuanians. The Catalans are one of the oldest indigenous nations in Europe, and they have their own and unique language, history and identity. 

At a time when twilight is covering Europe, it is time to remember something that was once said by one of the most brilliant thinkers of the 20th century, the outstanding diplomat and former president of Estonia, Lennart Meri. In 1993, he delivered an important speech that was titled "Where Does European Identity Begin?" The things that Meri said about Ukrainians can now be applied to Catalans: "Any nation that faces a rejection of self-determination rights suffers a slap against its self-confidence." True, Catalans were publicly slapped and kicked in modern-day Europe in 2017, and the European Commission declared that the police acted appropriately. The European Union and Spain have demonstrated the same haughtiness toward the Catalans that Putin once demonstrated toward Ukrainians, declaring in a conversation with the president of the United States that Ukraine is not a real country, which suggests that Ukrainians do not deserve their own country. The same attitude right now is seen in the attitude that the EU and Spain display toward the Catalans? Does that not suggest darkness of mind? 

In another famous speech, this time in Salzburg in 2000, Lennart Meri spoke very important words that can certainly be applied to Catalonia: "Our world is not growing, but the number of countries in it increases. There are no signs of this tendency abating. The number of small countries is continuing to grow, and it would be light-minded of the world to close its eyes to this reality. The number of small countries can only grow on the account of big ones. In the democratic parts of the world this growth serves to reduce tensions and evoke new creative potential, whereas in the non-democratic parts of the world it increases tensions and induces new crises. The latter is especially valid for the regions where colonialist relationships nurture totalitarian regimes or vice versa, where totalitarian lifestyle has preserved colonialist relations." Here we must remember that Catalonia is not a "small" country. It has 7.5 million residents, and in this sense it is much larger than Denmark, Norway, Finland, or the three Baltic States taken together. In terms of economic capacity, it has one of the most dynamic and powerful economies in all of Europe. 

Short-sighted European politicians are talking about the threat that Europe might split up. Just look at a map that is 150 years old. There was no Ireland, no Norway, no Finland, no Czech Republic, no Hungary. Most European countries did not exist at that time, but now they do exist. Has that weakened Europe? On the contrary, Europe is more unified, peaceful and powerful than any time before. Can we imagine Europe without the aforementioned countries? Should it return to the old empires and patronage in the name of greater stability? No. Europe's creative strength is based specifically in the diversity of nations and the respect of nations. Europe is endangered not by a diversity of countries, but instead by conflicts among nations that have not been resolved for a long time, by human rights violation and by unacceptable state violence against its own citizens. Human rights organisations are starting to talk about human rights violations not just in Russia, Africa and other unstable regions; they are now talking about Europe. 

Europe's might is not based on natural resources such as oil, gold or gas; it is based on values that are the foundation for European stability, welfare and development. If we betray these values, we open the door to Europe's dark past. In the 1930s, Europe watched as a major power betrayed democracy, bartered the interests of smaller nations, and created a gruesome catastrophe. The foundation for all of this was the betrayal of democratic values, turning them into Realpolitik coins. This was done in the seeming name of peace, but stable peace cannot be achieved if its' very foundations are destroyed. 

What to do? First of all, we must understand that we have gone much too far. We must also understand that Catalan independence is inevitable. No relations that are based on violence can be sustainable, and that must be understood by Europe and by Spain itself. The sooner this happens, the better it will be for everyone, particularly Spain itself. Spain cannot prevent Catalan independence, just like one cannot change the flow of a rapid river with a fork. Spaniards and their politicians, of course, must demonstrate extraordinary courage in accepting the fact that Spaniards and Catalans can be brothers and good neighbours, each in their own country. They can be allies at the regional and international level. 

There is no doubt that Catalonia will be an independent and internationally recognised country. We must accept this fact and understand it, and the path toward that moment must be taken respectfully, as is appropriate for a union of democratic and wise countries. It is time for Europe to dissipate the twilight that has settled on its mind. The attack that took place in Catalonia on October 1 was not waged only against Catalans. It was an attack against the very foundation of Europe – the principles of democracy and human rights. If Europe proclaims democracy, but applies it selectively, blindly accepting large, mighty and pernicious countries that leave smaller and less protected nations in the hands of destiny, then it is basically descending to the level of Putin's Russia. That is a road to nowhere. It is time for common sense to return. If unprotected Catalans were beat up today, then someone else will be beaten up tomorrow. Maybe even you. Because European societies will be accustomed to the fact that there are certain times when we must keep quiet and turn our heads in a different direction. 

It is time to respect Catalan courage and to insist that senior politicians in European countries immediately return to the highest fundamental principles of democracy. This requires great wisdom, smart courage and true strength of spirit of the precise type that we are currently seeing in Catalonia. The Catalans deserve being heard. They deserve respect. They deserve independence after many centuries during which they have suffered endless persecution, language bans, concentration camps, forced emigration and the murder of their leaders. People in Europe who continue to believe in the ideas of democracy must not be threatened or beaten up. Every honest European must defend them.

Otto Ozols is a Latvian journalist and writer.
This article was first published in DELFI, by the Lithuanian Tribune and appears here with permission of the author.