South Front
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Written by Jordi Oriola Folch for SouthFront
On May 18, 2023, the UN Human Rights Committee has condemned Spain for violating the political rights of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont when it suspended him as a deputy in 2018. LINK
On October 1, 2017, Puigdemont’s government had held a referendum on Catalonia’s self-determination that received the attack of 10,000 Spanish police officers against voters. Despite the aggression, the referendum was held and had a result that, in the face of the Spanish government’s refusal to negotiate, led the Catalan Parliament to declare independence, but the people were not urged to defend it to avoid a bloodbath. The Spanish government reacted by illegally dismissing the Catalan government and imposing elections. The pro-independence parties won them and the Catalan Parliament decided to invest Puigdemont, who was in exile in Belgium to avoid being unjustly imprisoned, as were other members of his government, as President. But the Spanish Justice prevented his telematic investiture and suspended Puigdemont and other deputies.
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The UN sentence condemns Spain for having violated Puigdemont’s right to exercise as a political representative, which constitutes “the essence of democratic government”, and for also violating the right of the citizens who had voted for him. In order not to humiliate Spain, the sentence has wanted to give him the reason in something and has not condemned the Spanish demand that Puigdemont had to be present at the investiture. It is true that there is no right to be invested telematically, but it was the solution that the Catalan Parliament had found in the face of the evidence that he would be unjustly imprisoned if he returned to Barcelona, something that the sentence also recognizes.
The Committee gives Spain 180 days to take the necessary measures and disseminate the sentence. At the moment we have been able to observe that the Spanish press was hiding the news and that, from the Spanish government, the vice-president Nadia Calviño has rushed to lie, assuring that the sentence demands that Puigdemont must return to be judged before the Spanish Justice.
Precisely, on January 31, 2023, the EU Court of Justice ruled that a request for extradition of an exile can be rejected if the requested person belongs to an “objectively identifiable group” of persons whose rights are at risk of being violated. This paves the way for the judgments of the European Justice that will be published shortly where, most probably, they will conclude that the Spanish Justice has a systemic failure with respect to the “objectively identifiable group” formed by the Catalan pro-independence supporters.
Despite the fact that the political power of the EU looks the other way, the European Justice is revealing that there is a situation totally unworthy of the EU regarding how Spain faces, with antidemocratic methods, the problem with Catalonia. Spain has sent police to repress peaceful voters, abuses judicially suspending deputies and preventing free debate in the Parliament of Catalonia, catalogs non-violent protests as acts of rebellion and terrorism, imprisons politicians and peaceful activists, invents accusations through secret police groups that carry out illegal activities (case “Operation Catalonia”), spies illegally with Pegasus politicians, activists and lawyers (case “Catalan Gate”), dehumanizes the independence supporters using the media as a propaganda tool,…
The European political power proposes that we solve this conflict by negotiating with Spain, but if these people suffered the abuses they are inflicting on us, they would understand that there is no basis for fair play that would allow real negotiations.
This abusive praxis comes from the bad faith rooted in Spain since its modern conformation (in 1714), when it chose to politically eliminate Catalonia and any trait of differentiated identity, with the sole purpose of keeping it subdued and draining it economically. That is why the military Baldomero Espartero in 1847, after bombarding Barcelona to quell a revolt, declared: “For the good of Spain, it is necessary to bombard Barcelona every 50 years”, something that has been happening regularly. It is not a conjunctural problem, it is a problem of origin. That is why we want our freedom and we will get it with or without the help of the EU.
