organization:catalan government

  • The future of the EU at stake in Catalonia | Asia Times
    http://www.atimes.com/article/future-eu-stake-catalonia

    Fascist Franco may have been dead for more than four decades, but Spain is still encumbered with his dictatorial corpse. A new paradigm has been coined right inside the lofty European Union, self-described home/patronizing dispenser of human rights to lesser regions across the planet: “In the name of democracy, refrain from voting, or else.” Call it democracy nano-Franco style.

    Nano-Franco is Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, whose heroic shock troops were redeployed from a serious nationwide terrorist alert to hammer with batons and fire rubber bullets not against jihadis but … voters. At least six schools became the terrain of what was correctly called The Battle of Barcelona.

    Extreme right-wingers even held a demonstration inside Barcelona. Yet this was not shown on Spanish TV because it contradicted the official Madrid narrative.

    The Catalan government beat the fascist goons with two very simple codes – as revealed by La Vanguardia. “I’ve got the Tupperware. Where do we meet?” was the code on a prepaid mobile phone for people to collect and protect ballot boxes. “I’m the paper traveler” was the code to protect the actual paper ballots. Julian Assange/WikiLeaks had warned about the world’s first Internet war as deployed by Madrid to smash the electronic voting system. The counterpunch was – literally – on paper. The US National Security Agency must have learned a few lessons.

  • How the Catalan government uses #IPFS to sidestep Spain’s legal block
    http://la3.org/~kilburn/blog/catalan-government-bypass-ipfs

    IPFs more or less guarantees the availability of the information, yet as far as I know it does not guarantee anonymity. Notice that Spain is already presseing charges against at least 10 people who cloned this website. Thus, they could just as easily add a rogue IPFS node that collected IPs of citizens sharing it through IPFs and prosecute them too.

  • Open Letter to EC President Jean-Claude Juncker

    From: John Palmer, #Pompeu_Fabra_University

    To: Jean-Claude Juncker, President, European Commission

    Date: 25 September 2017

    Dear President Juncker:

    I write to alert you to recent actions by the Spanish Government that affect research funds provided by the European Commission and infringe on fundamental rights guaranteed under international and European law. My interest in this matter stems from my current position as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Barcelona and, more importantly, as a person who cares about the rights of others and is horrified by the attack on democracy and liberty that is currently underway in the city and region in which I reside.

    On 20 September the Spanish Ministry of the Treasury and Public Function issued Order HFP/886/2017, freezing the finances of numerous public bodies in Catalonia, including those of Catalan public universities like UPF (see BOE-A-2017-10741). It appears from the Treasury’s order and from the regulatory structure on which it draws that it encompasses funds provided by the European Union (see Order PRE/2454/2015 of 20 November 2015, BOE-A-2015-12575). This fact was highlighted in a public statement issued by affected universities on 21 September, demanding that “Spanish authorities desist immediately from these unusual and unacceptable measures” (statement at http://goo.gl/gSiQvG). Universities will be able to gain access to their frozen funds only based on regular certification that they are not being used for activities contrary to the law or to the “decisions of the courts” (Order HFP/878/2017 of 15 September 2017, BOE-A-2017-10609), this latter reference clearly aimed at the upcoming independence referendum called for in a law passed by the Catalan Parliament but subsequently suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court.

    Although it seems unlikely that university funds are being used for unlawful activities, this regular certification process imposes an absurd hurdle for research activities and significantly undermines academic freedom. This is particularly true in light of the harsh crackdown by Spanish authorities against activities even loosely connected to the independence referendum, with detentions and/or prosecutions not only of mayors and senior officials in the Catalan government, but even of private citizens who have helped to disseminate information about the referendum, and of the organizers of peaceful demonstrations against the crackdown. Given this backdrop, it is hard to imagine that the certification process for research funds will not place enormous pressure on academics to avoid criticizing the government or taking any position that might be seen as supporting the referendum, including simply speaking out in favor of the right to vote, freedom of expression and assembly, or self-determination.

    Although the funding issue is what affects me most directly as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow, my greatest concern is with the attack on democracy and human rights that the Spanish state is carrying out against my family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors throughout Catalonia. The prosecutions noted above have been accompanied by raids and detentions by Spain’s paramilitary police force, which has now sent thousands of troops with riot gear to the region. The government has threatened to arrest more members of the Catalan government, to shut down the press, and even to detain school principals. The charges being sought include sedition, which is punishable by many years in jail. These actions amount to serious violations of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, and other European and international instruments.

    One of the core virtues of the European Union is its ability to prevent this type of repression from occurring. Although there is a temptation to view the events here as internal matters of the Spanish state, the reality is that they directly threaten the European Union’s ideals and they add to the creeping spread of authoritarianism that we are witnessing around the world. I urge you to take whatever steps you can to stop the Spanish government from continuing on this course.

    Sincerely yours,

    John Palmer

    https://johnpalmer.github.io/2017-09-25

    Reçu via la mailing-list geotamtam
    #Catalogne #référendum #indépendance #oppression #université #recherche #Espagne #liberté_académique #it_has_begun #chantage

  • The four Catalan republics : 1641, 1873, 1931 and 1934
    http://www.elnacional.cat/en/culture/four-catalan-republics-marc-pons_194937_102.html

    Catalonia is going through an exceptional moment its history which could culminate in the proclamation of the Catalan Republic. A historical milestone that has four precedents. In the history of Catalonia, the Republic has been proclaimed on four occasions: Pau Claris, in 1641; Francesc Macià, in 1931, and Lluís Companys, in 1934, proclaimed it as president of the Catalan government and Baldomer Lostau, in 1873, in the name of the Provincial Deputation of Barcelona. With substantial differences. Lostau and Companys called for the 1714 Catalan règim foral (chartered regime) to be adapted to a republican modernity. Claris and Macià, meanwhile, proclaimed independence. A separate State that in the first case gravitated (for the Spanish military threat) towards the political orbit of France; and which in the second would be redirected (for similar reasons) towards a Spanish republic that, true to Spain’s atavism, was rebelling against the existence of a Catalan Catalonia.