FREEDOM!!!! [4]

"Yesterday we learned that, on occasion of the inter-parliamentary meeting between the EU and the People’s Republic of China held in Brussels last Friday, the Chinese delegation formally asked to broach the subject of Catalonia. The item was added to the official agenda and the Chinese representatives made the most of it, not for Catalonia’s sake but for theirs.

Specifically, the Chinese MPs asked whether the EU supported Mariano Rajoy’s decisions on Catalonia. When the confirmation came that it does indeed, they asked if the two basic rules implied by the intervention would also apply to the EU’s relationship with China from now on. In other words, they asked whether in future the EU would regard Tibet and Taiwan as China’s internal affairs and, therefore, it would refrain from criticising any of Beijing’s actions there. They also enquired if the same measures adopted by Madrid, which violate human rights in Catalonia, would no longer be slammed if they were adopted by Beijing. We are talking about the violation of private correspondence, shutting down web pages and jailing political leaders."

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"Those who say that there are no political prisoners, I would ask them to read the resolution of December 4th on Oriol Junqueras, Joaquim Forn and the two Jordis, that explains that the defendants are at risk of criminal reiteration because they are independentists: [Page 15] "On the one hand, all those investigated in the procedure share - and recognize that they still maintain - the same aspiration that promoted the behavior that is being investigated, that is, the will that the territory of the Autonomous Community in which they reside constitute the base territory of a new republic." This paragraph is quite clairvoyant: the behavior that is investigated is a political project, an idea, which contravenes a basic principle of the criminal law of any minimal democracy gathered in the aphorism cogitationes poenam nemo patitur, nobody can be punished for their thinking. The thoughts do not delineate, it is the facts that generate responsibility.

Those who say there are no political prisoners, I would ask them to continue reading the resolution explaining that to assess whether there is a risk of criminal reiteration or not, to justify the interim prison, it is based on the assumption that "the investigated abjure that behavior for the future". This is not compatible with Article 16 EC, which protects freedom of belief and ideology, and which prohibits the public authorities from questioning citizens in this manner. That the highest judicial authority in Spain uses as an argument of imprisonment not only the ideas or beliefs of the defendant, but also permits that an act such as abjuration may be produced in a statement, an action linked above all to faith and convictions and that in the language itself has been linked to the Inquisition under the expression 'abjure of heresy' (Alcover-Moll). Abjuration and administration of democratic justice are antagonistic concepts.

Those who say that there are no political prisoners, I would ask them to reflect on a text that reminds the accused now released as a result of the act of abjuration of their convictions that "if the result of the 21-D election ends facilitating the investigators a decision-making capacity similar to that of their claims, their precautionary measures could be modified." Therefore, it has no problem in interfering with the political projects of a hypothetical government that emerges from the open electoral process, violating the roles of independence and separation of powers that correspond to the judiciary. A vision that also attacks the right of political participation of the citizens as it conditions the freedom of the political projects that can be chosen and limits the capacity of the elected.

Those who say that there are no political prisoners, I would ask them to think about the statement made by Judge Llarena when he analyzes the pro-independence movements , as a whole, as an amalgam, in an exercise of general cause and says that "the infiltration of numerous violent and aggressive behaviors, which reflected the violent germ that risked to expand." In a case against the Catalan government and the leaders of the ANC and AN it is hard to know what he is talking about, but the judge violates an essential principle of criminal law that is to act always only for past events, never for future events. There is no preventive criminal law in a state that is based on the rule of law.
Those who say there are no political prisoners, I would ask them to react to a resolution that criticizes the fact that the determination of the government has counted on civil society. The participation of people as criminal element. Thus, the interlocutor points out as an element of the criminal plan that "specifies that this determination must be shared by the citizens that support them. (...) the citizens must be actively involved". And there is nothing more typical of a democratic plan and in accordance with the same constitution as public powers that facilitate the participation of citizens in political, economic, cultural and social life (art. 9 CE). It should not be something extraordinary in our institutional system, much less criminal.

Those who say there are no political prisoners, I would ask them to re-read this judicial resolution in relation to the one that the same judge dictated on November 9 for the presidency of the Catalan parliament that verifies the basic thesis that the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation should be protected above all and that you instrumentalize the criminal procedure for this purpose to the extent necessary, by all means. When judicial decisions of this importance departs from, as Llarena himself does, a distinct reading of the constitution and collective rights, stating that there is no possibility of negotiating independence or of articulating a legal path to the construction of the Catalan Republic, it allows the court to infer directly that any contribution to the independentist plan is directly criminal."

Mònica Terribas has responded in her editorial today on 'El Mati de Catalunya Ràdio' to the decision of the Spanish Electoral Board to open a sanctioning proceeding against the station. The board paid attention to a denunciation of the PP and considered that the program had violated the principles of political neutrality. Textually, the resolution of the board said that the publishers of Terribas on November 28 and 30 had a partisan tone and voter openly favorable to those political formations that argue that there is an unfair repression on the legitimate government of Catalonia.*

Terribas' response has been the reading of a fragment of Cyrano de Bergerac , by Edmond Rostand.

«And what should I do?
Find a rich protector, serve it with discipline,
And like a dark ivy surrounding an oak tree
and uses it as a strut while licking the bark,
to climb cunning instead of lifting me to the force?
No thankyou. Dedicate, like any author,
verses to financiers? Become cute
with the vile hope of getting caught up in a minister
the sketch of a smile that is not sinister?
No thankyou. Every day I swallow my toads
for breakfast? Bring your knees full of blue;
And, with so many footsteps, also the abs?
Give continuous tests of dorsal skills? ...
No thankyou. Always want the fish to finish in the cove,
while at all times I swim and keep the clothes?
No thankyou!"

Vice-president Junqueras, the minister Forn and Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart are in prison. Junqueras heads the list of ERC and Forn i Sànchez are part of the list of Together for Catalonia. Those who are outside, are all aware that they say can cause serious problem for them.

And even more: the counselors who have been released after being imprisoned have been warned that they can not speak according to how things are, as the counselor Rull explained in the interview today. He warned that they can not even say what these things are that they cannot speak of, though everyone can easily imagine it.

Bluebottle wrote:
Terribas' response has been the reading of a fragment of Cyrano de Bergerac , by Edmond Rostand.

«And what should I do?
Find a rich protector, serve it with discipline,
And like a dark ivy surrounding an oak tree
and uses it as a strut while licking the bark,
to climb cunning instead of lifting me to the force?
No thankyou. Dedicate, like any author,
verses to financiers? Become cute
with the vile hope of getting caught up in a minister
the sketch of a smile that is not sinister?
No thankyou. Every day I swallow my toads
for breakfast? Bring your knees full of blue;
And, with so many footsteps, also the abs?
Give continuous tests of dorsal skills? ...
No thankyou. Always want the fish to finish in the cove,
while at all times I swim and keep the clothes?
No thankyou!"

And what would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies laps
And licking fingers?-or-to change form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of leterary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be afraid,
Love more to make a visit than a poem,
Seek introductions, favors, influences?-
No thank you! No, I thank you! And again
I thank you!- But...

To sing, to laugh, to dream,
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free, with an eye to see things as they are,
A voice that means manhood- to cock my hat
Where I choose- At a word, a Yes, a No,
To fight- or write. To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne-
ever to make a line I have not heard
In my own heart; yet, with all modesty
To say: "My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call your own."
So, when I win some triumph, by some chance,
Render no share to Caesar- in a word,
I am to proud to be a parasite,
And if my nature wants the germ that grows
Towering to heaven like the mountain pine,
Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes-
I stand, not high it may be- But alone!

"Spain has low rule of law. Some of the significant evidence for this is as follows. Spain’s biggest ever corruption scandals are called Gürtel and Bárcenas. They involve allegations involving criminal expropriation of large sums of money in favour of the Partido Popular, Spain’s governing party in Madrid; and its Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. The investigating Judge, Baltasar Garzón, was suspended not just once but twice on absurd pretexts. Now he is off the case and it has stalled.

One of the accusations against Garzón was that he had investigated Franco-era war crimes against Partido Popular politicians with too much vigour. European institutions have expressed concerns about the independence of the Spanish judiciary and its overly intimate associations with the Partido Popular. The Partido Popular is a successor of a political party associated with one or more Ministers of Franco’s fascist regime in Spain between 1939 and 1975.

A national paramilitary police unit, the Guardia Civil, was engaged by the Spanish central government (controlled by the Partido Popular) to stop the 1 October 2017 Catalan independence referendum. This took place even though, although legally controversial, the conduct of that election did not amount to any crime.

If it was unlawful to hold the referendum (and that remains an issue of legal controversy), then this was purely a civil wrong and not a criminal matter. Spain’s Criminal Code does not criminalise the holding of referenda or ballots. Therefore no branch of the Police was properly involved in trying to stop it.

The Guardia Civil were deployed to Catalonia without legal authority. They confiscated ballot boxes. They attacked people trying to vote, reportedly including firing baton rounds at unarmed voters. They used violence to close polling stations. Whatever the legality of the referendum, the Guardia Civil had no plausible legal authority to do these things.

Subsequently the Spanish courts imprisoned Catalan politicians and activists involved in the independence movement. They did this without those people being accused of any crime. Some Catalan politicians were released only upon payment of bail amounts wholly disproportionate to their incomes or assets. No obvious grounds for detention of peaceful politicians were made out. These politicians were not fugitives; they attended Court voluntarily. Four remain in prison, even though some of their names will appear on ballot papers in the forthcoming elections on 21 December 2017.

Some Catalan politicians fled to Brussels, fearing imminent unjustified detention. The Spanish government issued European Arrest Warrants against them, but then withdrew them. They did this when they realised that extradition procedures before the Belgian courts were bound to fail. The Madrid judiciary had opened investigations against peaceful politicians for medieval crimes, such as sedition and rebellion. No modern democracy respects crimes like this in the absence of established violent intent which was missing.

By obscure constitutional dictate, Madrid dismissed the entire Catalan regional government and its parliament, and imposed rule by decree. The abolished institutions had been democratically elected. Nothing like this has been seen in a modern democracy since the 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis. That led to the resignation in disgrace of the Australian Governor-General, after he had dismissed the democratically elected Australian Prime Minister.

The government in Madrid has banned public bodies in Catalonia from displaying the colour yellow. That is because yellow is alleged to be associated with nationalism. Madrid has made orders to remove cultural objects from a Catalan museum. Madrid has announced that there will be no election observers for the 21 December 2017 elections, because the law forbids them. But there is no Spanish legal rule that says this. The law is flexible on the point. The 2015 Spanish elections to the Cortes Generales were overseen by OSCE. Spain routinely sends election observers to other parts of the world."

"In his masterpiece 1984, George Orwell describes the workings of a dystopian state that tries to control how its citizens think. One of the dictatorship’s favourite tools is what is known as Newspeak, which consists of calling things the exact opposite of what they really are. For example, the state speaks of the "Ministry of Truth" to refer to the ministry that censors and manipulates information, of the "Ministry of Peace" to speak of the war department, the "Ministry of Love" to allude to those engaged in torture and the "Ministry of Abundance" to refer to those who are charged with managing shortages.

Orwell would find the use of Newspeak in Spain utterly fascinating. With more than 900 individuals charged with corruption and people "accidentally" dying days before having to give evidence in court, Spain’s Partido Popular is undoubtedly the most corrupt political party in Europe. Nevertheless, on a daily basis day we see its leaders deliver sermons about the need for "everyone to comply with the law".

The unionists label the pro-independence parties supremacists, fascists and Nazis, even though it is at unionist demonstrations that the swastikas inevitably appear and where Nazi or Francoist salutes can be observed. And it is their leaders (such as MEP Javier Nart) who openly speak of sterilizing (that’s right, sterilizing!) women with a high probability of giving birth to children with disabilities. That is about as Nazi as one can get.

They accuse pro-independence activists of violence, while they imprison their leaders without trial for crimes of "rebellion" and "sedition", two concepts that require acts of violence which no one has ever witnessed. What's more, it is their police who beat elderly ladies outside polling stations, they are the ones who start the campaign with a rallying cry which is an incitement to violence, "Let ‘em have it!", and they are the ones whose demonstrations always end in a punch up.

They say that Catalonia is plagued by social problems because our Parliament wastes time arguing about independence instead of passing laws that "truly interest the people". But the truth is that a total of 26 laws of a social nature have been suspended or overturned by the Constitutional Court at the request of the Spanish government."