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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:11:02 GMT -7
Catalans March on Barcelona After 2 Nights of ViolenceBy Associated PressOctober 16, 2019 10:49 AMDemonstrators walk along a highway in Girona, Spain, Oct. 16, 2019.BARCELONA, SPAIN - Spain’s government said Wednesday it would do whatever it takes to stamp out violence in Catalonia, where clashes between regional independence supporters and police have injured more than 200 people in two days.
“Everything is prepared and (the government) will act, if needed, with firmness, proportionality and unity,” a government statement said.
It said caretaker prime minister Pedro Sánchez was meeting with other national political leaders and “he doesn’t rule out any scenario.”
Many people in Catalonia have long fought for it to break away from Spain and become a new European country. Demonstrations have traditionally been peaceful, but not always.Violent clashes erupted in Barcelona and other Catalan towns after Spain’s Supreme Court on Monday handed nine separatist Catalan leaders lengthy prison sentences for their part in an October 2017 effort to achieve independence.
Rioting broke out Tuesday evening, when Barcelona police said 40,000 protesters packed the streets near the office of Spain’s government representative.
Protesters turned over metal barriers, set fire to trash cans and threw firecrackers and other objects at police. The outnumbered police used foam bullets, batons and shields to battle the groups amid tense standoffs on Barcelona’s streets.
An organization representing downtown Barcelona businesses, called Barcelona Abierta, said the violence in the city had caused “significant losses” and “deeply damaged” the image abroad of the popular tourist destination.
The tumult prompted Sánchez, who is preparing for a general election Nov. 10, to consult with his party and other leading figures, some of whom are urging him to take a firmer hand.
Albert Rivera, leader of the Ciudadanos (Citizens) party, traveled to the Catalan capital Barcelona and said the country faced “a state of emergency.”
Popular Party leader Pablo Casado, a conservative, called for a government decree that would allow the central government to take over full control of the Catalan regional police, while the far-right Vox party wanted exceptional measures that would temporarily lift some civil rights.On Wednesday, thousands of people joined five large protest marches across Catalonia that were set to converge on Barcelona on Friday.
They included families with children, elderly and young people, and banners reading “Libertat Presos Politics” (Freedom for political prisoners) — a reference to the prominent Catalan politicians and activists leaders sentenced by the Supreme Court.
They have grown into powerful symbols and a rallying point for the separatist movement.
Catalan regional president Quim Torra joined one of the marches, saying he wanted to be next to the people.
“These peaceful marches happening across the country (Catalonia) are the Catalan people’s best response” to the court’s verdict, Torra said.
Torra, one of the separatist movement’s leaders, didn’t criticize the recent street violence.
Spain’s Interior Ministry said 54 members of Catalonia’s regional police force and 18 National Police officers were hurt in the protests Tuesday. Health authorities say they treated 125 people, both police and protesters.Police made 29 arrests in Barcelona, where more than 150 street barricades were set ablaze by protesters, according to the Interior Ministry.
Similar protests turned violent in other towns in Catalonia, which has seen a rise in separatist sentiment over the past decade. Roughly half of the region’s 7.5 million residents support independence, with the other half opposing a breakaway, according to polls.
Students in the restive region went on strike, with organizers urging them to remain peaceful.
The marches and sporadic street protests continued to snarl traffic across the wealthy region. Flights and passenger movements at Barcelona airport have also been disrupted by protests.
Traffic in downtown Barcelona was also slowed by the massive cleanup effort to remove the debris of burned barricades and trash.
Gabriel Rufián, a leading Catalan separatist and member of Spain’s parliament, and some other high-profile secessionists, called for calm.
“Nothing can justify violence,” Rufián told Cadena SER radio.
Most impromptu protesters have responded to an online campaign by Tsunami Democratic, a shadowy grassroots group that uses encrypted messaging apps to call for peaceful disobedience.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said authorities were investigating the group.
But on Wednesday, the group issued a statement appealing for an end to the violence.
The Supreme Court found nine of 12 Catalan politicians and activists guilty of sedition and gave them prison sentences of nine to 13 years. Four of them were additionally convicted of misuse of public funds. The other three were fined for disobeying court orders.
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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:12:08 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:22:05 GMT -7
This are no Hooligans nor Neo-Nazi's or far left anti-fascist demonstrators. These are Catalan civilians, civilians from Barcelona who want their Catalan state. This movement is a merger of leftwing nationalism, an old Catalan identity, anti-Spanish sentiments and a movement that has roots in the 19th century, the age that Nationalism came to existence in Europe as an ideology and the Spanish civil war from July 17, 1936 until April 1, 1939.Catalan nationalismCatalan nationalism is the ideology asserting that the Catalans are a nation.
Intellectually, Catalan nationalism can be said to have commenced as a political philosophy in the unsuccessful attempts to establish a federal state in Spain in the context of the First Republic. Valentí Almirall i Llozer and other intellectuals that participated in this process set up a new political ideology in the 19th century, to restore self-government, as well as to obtain recognition for the Catalan language. These demands were summarized in the so-called Bases de Manresa in 1892.
It met very little support at first. But after the Spanish–American War in which the United States invaded and annexed the last of the Spanish colonies, these early stages of Catalanism grew in support, mostly because of the weakened Spanish international position after the war and the loss of the two main destinations for Catalan exports (Cuba and Puerto Rico).en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_nationalism
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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:30:03 GMT -7
You have also pro-Spanish Catalans and Spanish people who live in Barcelona in Catalonia.They also held their mass demonstrations in support of Spanish unity earlier.Mario Vargas LlosaJorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born March 28, 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist and college professor. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat."
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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:37:17 GMT -7
Spain: Catalan nationalist march ends in violence outside parliament
Supporters of Catalan nationalism marched in central Barcelona on the National Day of Catalonia on 12 sep. 2019. You see that the leftwing nationalist Catalan Nationalism and separatism has Communist and socialist elements. And the Catalan nationalist demonstrators carried the communist hammer and sickle next to the Catalan nationalist flags.
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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:41:23 GMT -7
This girl has the fanatical look most Nationalists and other radical political groups have in Europe. I doubt if she really is a pacifist. I met some Catalan nationalist people from Barcelona in the past in France. They were very fanatic and very anti-Spanish and had some sort of Catalan superiority feelings. I didn't like them.They were very doctrinaire, fanatic and absolutist in their thinking. I think that there is nothing wrong with Catalonia being part of Spain with a lot of autonomy. In understand Spain. The Netherlands wouldn't be happy either if Zeeland would suddenly announce that it would become the independent Republic Zeeland, which wants only contacts with the EU, Belgium and Germany. Or Frisia (Friesland becoming independent, taking some Frisian Islands with them. Or some of the Eastern provinces. No we wouldn't like that. Poland wouldn't like it when Silesia suddenly became the independent Republic Silesia and Germany wouldn't like it when Bavaria would become an independent Free State Bavaria, with closer relations with Ausrtria, France and the Czech republic than with Germany.
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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:53:29 GMT -7
This doesn't look like Pacifism (Non-violent protest)
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Post by pieter on Oct 16, 2019 18:59:21 GMT -7
It seems that the traditional mix of leftwing Catalan Nationalists, Anarchists and Catalan communists are doing their radical work of violent resistance and agitprop ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agitprop ) here amongst the no doubt majority of peaceful Catalan nationalist demonstrators. Since I believe in democracy I believe that Catalan nationalism is a legitimate political ideology as long as it is non-violent and non-terrorist.
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Post by pieter on Oct 17, 2019 13:45:55 GMT -7
Interesting video which shows divided Spain and divided Police forces
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Post by pieter on Oct 17, 2019 13:49:26 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Oct 17, 2019 13:51:15 GMT -7
Protests in Barcelona continues
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Post by pieter on Oct 18, 2019 15:33:21 GMT -7
Separatist violence continues in Barcelona
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Post by pieter on Oct 18, 2019 15:43:34 GMT -7
This look like black bloc people. A black bloc is a tactic used by groups of protesters who wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, motorcycle helmets with padding, or other face-concealing and face-protecting items. The clothing is used to conceal wearers' identities and hinder criminal prosecution by making it difficult to distinguish between participants. It is also used to protect their faces and eyes from pepper spray, which is used by law enforcement during protests or civil unrest. The tactic allows the group to appear as one large unified mass. Black bloc participants are often associated with anarchism, anti-globalization movement or antifascism.
Tactics of a black bloc primarily include vandalism of private property, rioting, and demonstrating without a permit. Tactics can also include use of defensive measures such as misleading the authorities, assisting in the escape of people arrested by the police ("un-arrests" or "de-arrests"), administering first aid to persons affected by tear gas, rubber bullets and other riot control measures in areas where protesters are barred from entering, building barricades, resisting the police, and practicing jail solidarity. Property destruction carried out by black blocs tends to have symbolic significance: common targets include banks, institutional buildings, outlets for multinational corporations, gasoline stations, and video-surveillance cameras.
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Post by pieter on Oct 18, 2019 16:01:56 GMT -7
Clearly Black Bloc, extreme left, Anarchist, Anti-fascist rioters who side with the Catalan separatist Nationalists
That is a scary huge Black Bloc mass in that side street. These few police officers with their teargas guns take some risks there. In Spain and Italy the riot police will be different than the riot police we know from the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.
These Police officers work under great risks with these extreme left Black Bloc and Catalan Nationalist masses who trouw large stones, bricks, concrete blocks, fences, glas bottles, sticks, iron rods and molotov Cocktails at the police. They can easily become heavily injured or worse die if a projectile hits their head, body, or if they break their legs and that crazy black mass storms towards them.
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Post by pieter on Oct 18, 2019 17:38:08 GMT -7
The main movement for the Independence of Catalonia is the rather new 'Big tent' political movement National Call for the Republic (Catalan: Crida Nacional per la República, Crida or CNxR) of the former president of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont, the lawjer and journalist and Quim Torra and the former president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and political activist Jordi Sànchez. The Assemblea Nacional Catalana ("Catalan National Assembly") is an organization that seeks the political independence of Catalonia from Spain. It also promotes the independence of other Catalan-speaking regions, which are collectively known as the Catalan Countries (Països Catalans).
Former president of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont
Joaquim Torra i Pla (born 28 December 1962), known as Quim Torra, is a Spanish lawyer and journalist from Catalonia. Torra is a member of the Parliament of Catalonia and is the current President of the Government of Catalonia.
Jordi Sànchez i Picanyol (born 1 October 1964) is a Spanish political activist from Catalonia, who was president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) between May 2015 and November 2017. He was imprisoned in October 2017, accused of sedition in connection with the Catalan independence referendum. During December 2018 he went on a hunger strike in protest against his imprisonment and treatment.
National Call for the Republic is a pro-independence political party in Catalonia. The party aims to unite pro-independence political parties and organisations throughout Catalonia towards the common goal of establishing a Catalan Republic, regardless of political ideology.
The party held its constituent congress on 26 January 2019.HistoryCrida Nacional per la República was established as a political platform on 16 July 2018, with Carles Puigdemont, Quim Torra and Jordi Sànchez being the driving force behind its establishment. On 8 January 2019 it was registered as a political party in the Interior Ministry register.IdeologyWith an ambition to unite social conservatives and left wing supporters of Catalan independence, the party is a big tent and mass movement organisation with the main ideology of supporting Catalan independence and the establishment of a new Catalan Republic. It aims at serving as the umbrella for a single Catalan independence list. However, other pro-independence political parties, such as Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), have repeteadly ruled out joining the CNxR. The ideology of the National Call for the Republic is a mix of Catalan independence, Catalan nationalism, Republicanism and Souverainism. Souverainism is a doctrine which supports acquiring or preserving political independence of a nation or a region. It opposes federalism and supranational unions, leaning instead toward confederation or isolationism, and can be associated with certain independence movements. The Political position of Crida Nacional per la República is a 'Big tent' position. In politics, a big tent or catch-all party is a type of political party that seeks to attract voters from different points of view and ideologies. This is in contrast to other parties that defend a determined ideology and seek voters who adhere to that ideology and convince people towards it.
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