How to manage a Referendum

[OFSO]

Authorities have said he will be arrested within 48 hours. Encarcerated in solitary in Madrid as is the leader of the other separatist party. In total they have around 60% of the vote but nothing like putting opposition leaders in prison to clip their wings!

[Bob]

You are saying they wouldn't follow through and lock him up?

[OFSO]

I did not make myself clear - oh yes they will !

[Bob]

Aah, my fault sorry I missunderstood.

[OFSO]

When the Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy called an election in Catalunia on December 21st 2017, he assumed certain things would follow:

- That his party, the PP, would maintain or increase its number of seats in the Catalan parliament;
- That his surrogate party, the "Citizens" party would increase their representation;
- That the voters would reject the separationist parties; and
- That the elected president of Catalunia, Carlos Puigdemont, would not be re-selected.

The reality is:

- The party of the Prime Minister, the PP, had their worst-ever showing and are reduced to three seats;
- The Citizens party received 26% of the vote ;
- The voters supported the two largest separationist parties to over 52%;
- Carlos Puigdement received overwhelming support, despite having fled to Belgium to avoid imprisonment by Rajoy.
(Correction, not by Rajoy but by the judiciary. Appointed by Rajoy's party.).

Yesterday the two largest separationist parties agreed to form a government with Carlos Puigdemont as President of Catalunia.

Before the election Prime Minister Rajoy said he would recognise whichever party or parties formed a government in Catalunia, recognise whoever was elected President of Catalunia, and remove Article 155 which allowed Madrid to seize power in Catalunia.

One can only wonder whether Rajoy will live up to these promises made before the election last December. Or perhaps, in light of the results of the Election, we all misunderstood him.

[OFSO]

Puigedemont's party leaders have traveled to Brussels where as President of the Catalan Parliament he can make his acceptance speech without returning to Spain* where he'd be arrested.


* The most democratic country in the EU, according to the Deputy Prime Minister Santamaria.

[OFSO]

Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena, speaking in Madrid, yesterday rejected the bail applications of Catalan Party Leaders Oriol Junqueras, Joaquim Forn and Jordi Sanchez, who have been in prison for 89 days - in solitary confinement - who had asked to be allowed to attend the opening of the Catalan Parliamant next Wednesday, on the grounds that if they went they were liable to 'cause trouble'.

In noting that they had been legally elected on December 21st last year, he further noted that "being in prison was no excuse for not attending the opening".

(I'm not making this up: it's from the report in El Punt Avui, today Saturday January 13 2018).

[Cacophonix]

Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena, speaking in Madrid, yesterday rejected the bail applications of Catalan Party Leaders Oriol Junqueras, Joaquim Forn and Jordi Sanchez, who have been in prison for 89 days - in solitary confinement - who had asked to be allowed to attend the opening of the Catalan Parliamant next Wednesday, on the grounds that if they went they were liable to 'cause trouble'.

It is the role of oppostion parties to "cause trouble". I really worry for the course of democracy in Spain!

Caco

[OFSO]

Don't worry about Democracy in Spain, Caco.

It's quite safe, 'cos it isn't here.

I do not believe that the opening of the Catalan parliament will take place on Wednesday, since the leaders who received more than 50% of the vote and can thus form a government are either in prison or in exile. President Carlos Puigdemont's colleagues have traveled to Belgium to join him and may try to hold the opening ceremonies for the Catalan parliament in Brussels, however it appears there is a Spanish law which nobody had heard of before which says if the opening does not take place in Spain it is invalid.

Next elections in March, anyone ?

[OFSO]

Things are progressing along the inevitable lines. The Spanish PM has said that if the Catalans attempt to govern Catalunia from exile (which they have to do to avoid being imprisoned in Madrid and would thus be unable to govern as you can't run a nation from inside a prison cell), he will reinstate Article 155 and rule Catalunia from Madrid.

Anybody here read Kafka's "The Trial" ?

[Woody]

Don't know about Kafka, but I've read Catch22 and I think it's just as relevant

[OFSO]

Recap: In December the Catalan President-elect went to Belgium, Spanish issued international arrest warrant, when it was obvious Belgians would not have anything to do with this because the 'crimes' of which Puigdemont was accused do not exist in Belgium, Madrid cancelled the international arrest warrant (although supposedly not for that reason).

Today Puigdemont flew to Copenhagen at the request of the University there who asked him to speak. Madrid has issued another international arrest warrant requesting the Danish authorities to detain Puigdemont and expedite his return to Madrid.

The fascists in Madrid just don't get it, do they ? The list of crimes in Spain encompass acts which haven't been on the statutes of other EU Member States for many years, or which are punished by a fine and not by bread-and-water solitary confinement without a date for a hearing.

Oddly - or perhaps not oddly - the EU has had nothing to say about this.

[OFSO]

Correction to my post above. The Spanish Fiscalia - prosecution - demanded an international arrest warrant for Puigdemont but the supreme court judge denied the motion. He added however that Puigdemont's trip to Copenhagen was a 'deliberate provocation' of Spain.

[Cukup Sudah]

Puigdemont has committed high treason. How come that slipped under your radar, OFSO? Are you not committed to rule of law?

[OFSO]

I do not know what 'high' treason is, but Websters reminds us that treason is

"the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family"

which Puigedemont manifestly is not guilty of and with which he has not been charged.

He has been charged with rebellion and sedition, and misuse of public funds. In the modern world only the latter is a recognised offense and nowhere in any civilised state does it warrant being placed in solitary confinement without charge or possibility of bail.

Accepting some degree of 'breaking the law' however, I would suggest that through the ages there have been many unjust laws and that prohibiting holding a referendum conflicts with many articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Freedoms (1948) (too many articles to list here) up to and including the 16th protocol (2013). Furthermore if statutes which conflict with basic rights were never challenged we would in the UK still have children working down the coalmines (if there are any still open), child prostitution, slavery, bull-fighting, minor criminals deported to Australia for life, and hundreds of other penalties which to us today seem barbaric but which were at the time considered usual practice.

Finally I quote you the Spanish Prime Minister's proclamation four years ago: "Referendums are undemocratic" as an example of a mindset protecting a law which needs challenging.

Had Rajoy not been so pigheaded he could have allowed the Referendum on a legal basis: no doubt the majority would have voted against separation, and it would all be forgotten by now. As it is, an unnecessary situation is becoming worse and worse.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The basic problem is that the UN only recognises the right of self-determination for the peoples of pre-existing states. Naturally, no existing state was going to sign up for the right of peoples to self-determination within states, like the Catalans, or across states, like the Kurds.
The UN's stance on self-determination is illogical in terms of its position on human rights.

[BenThere]

I'm all for a Kurdish state, carved from Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Kurds have defended themselves, promote the most humane culture in the region, and have been honorable allies. They deserve a lot more than they've gotten. Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria are not friendly to the West, but the Kurds are.

[OFSO]

There is only one candidate for Presidency of Catalunia, Carlos Puigdemnt, who is in exile in Brussels. "Only one" because that is for whom the citizens have voted.

The supreme court in Spain has now issued a ruling: he cannot be invested as President of Catalunia unless he is physically in Spain.

However, if he returns he will be arrested on charges carrying a maximum of 35 years in prison: and judging by what has happened to his fellow leaders he will be put in solitary confinement in prison in Madrid, bread & water and bail refused and no date set for a court hearing.

Yet the senior judge of the supreme court has issued a warning that "being in prison is no excuse for not attending parliamentary sessions".

So much for Spanish democracy, the 'best in Europe' according to the deputy prime minister of Spain.

[Capetonian]

Lewis Carroll couldn't have made up stuff like this!

[svhar]

EFSE, Carles, not Carlos.