Though it is largely forgotten today, there was during the late 80s
and early 90s a vigorous debate in numerous sectors of European life
about whether the EU would be best structured as a Union of Regions or
as a Union of States.
Adherents of the first posture hoped and believed that the goal the
then still-emerging Union should be to greatly lessen the importance of
existing national boundaries and governments and to promote, or at least
not stand in the way of, the emergence of new economic and social
regions. For example, since the Galician region of Spain shares much in
the way of language culture and geography with neighboring northern
Portugal, it should, according to this outlook, be free to loosen
existing bonds with far-away Madrid and direct more of its resources and
infrastructural aims toward forging economic and social integration
with nearby and traditionally dynamic Oporto.
This, of course, frightened the proponents of a Europe of States, who
quite rightly saw such developments as a threat to dramatically
diminish the prerogatives of existing governments.
For reasons that are too numerous to examine fully here, but that
include bureaucratic inertia, and the desire of an always meddling US to
have the ability to play states off against each other both within a
dramatically-expanded NATO and the EU as a whole, the idea of the Europe
of Regions was eventually bludgeoned into insignificance by the
proponents of a Europe of the States.
Yet, for all their success in neutering the practical day-to-day
effects of a Europe of Regions, the proponents of the Europe of States
were unable to fully disable certain institutions, such as the European
Parliament and the European Court of Justice, forged and/or strengthened
in the early years of the EU, and whose structure implicitly militated
against the continuing weight and hegemony of state governments within
the overall functioning of the confederation.
For example, while a candidate for the European Parliament nominally
“comes from” one or another member state, voters from any jurisdiction
in the Union can select him or her on the ballot. He or she is thus not
only a representative of, say, Spain and the Spanish citizens, but of
the European people as a whole.
Catalonia has been plunged into turmoil again by Spain's removal of
its regional president, Quim Torra, and his separatist party’s refusal
to call a snap election.
The Spanish Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Torra violated
electoral law, paving the way for his immediate removal as the region’s
separatist leader.
The court upheld last year’s regional court ruling
that Torra was guilty of disobedience for taking three days to remove
banners and yellow ribbons draped on public buildings in support of
jailed pro-independence leaders during an election campaign in 2019, in
defiance of the election commission.
The lower court had banned him from public office for 18 months and
fined him €30,000 plus the legal costs of the trial. In his appeal,
Torra argued that his decision not to remove the symbols immediately was
“political” rather than “administrative” and should be protected by the
right to freedom of expression.
Three years after Catalonia held a historic referendum on
self-determination, we are still a long way from resolving a conflict
that continues to deny Catalonians the right to determine their future.
The Spanish state, immersed in an institutional crisis of a depth not
seen since the death of dictator Francisco Franco, has been unable to
come up with political proposals to solve the dispute.
Several recent developments are standing in the way of progress.
The country’s highest office, the monarchy, has lost all credibility.
Public support for the institution is at an all-time low following the flight of King Juan Carlos I,
who has sought to escape a corruption investigation. His son Felipe
VI’s decision to align with the right-wing, conservative branch of
politics is another blow to the royal family’s reputation. In Catalonia,
some 71 percent of people say they would prefer a republic; only 14 percent prefer a monarchy. The fact that dictator Franco was the one to appoint
Juan Carlos to be his successor as head of state, and thereby restored
the monarchy when he died, no doubt plays a part in people’s growing
rejection of the monarchy.
The Andorra Hustle review – pulsating exposé of international corruption
A heist-movie mood propels this rigorous doc about the role of an obscure bank in a US plan to undermine Catalan separatism
The subject of Eric Merola’s film at first seems small: how a private bank in the tiny mountain nation of Andorra
found itself at the centre of a conspiracy. But its real interests are
wide-reaching: the tactics used by the US government to disrupt
Catalonia’s independence movement, and the modern face of American interventionism.
The Andorra Hustle — Full Documentary (English) — by Eric Merola
Synopsis: If you have never heard of the country of Andorra, you will now.
Andorra, a tiny, independent country situated between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains with a total population of 80,000 people found itself at the center of one of the most convoluted and outrageous bank robberies in modern history: on March 10, 2015, Banca Privada d’Andorra (BPA), a private bank in Andorra, was shut down by Spanish, American, and Andorran governments in Spain’s efforts to destroy the Catalonian Independence Movement thus leaving dozens of innocent civilians facing prison for money laundering crimes that never existed, and scores of innocent families have had their entire life savings stolen from them.
The incentive for the Spanish government to destroy BPA was part of Spain’s ongoing “Operation Catalonia”—a covert state-sponsored war-like operation to undermine the progress of Catalonia’s efforts to separate from Spain due to generations of humanitarian and economic repression Madrid has inflicted upon Catalonia. America’s incentive was to protect Spain’s interests, as an ally of the United States. Andorra’s incentive appears to be purely economical on behalf of its leadership.
BPA was targeted due to the assumption that members of the top Catalonian leadership (President Jordi Pujol, President Artur Mas, and Vice President Oriol Junqueras) had their money stored at BPA. Spanish Police were of the opinion that destroying the bank accounts of the Catalonian leadership would help win their war against Catalonia.
A little known fact presented in THE ANDORRA HUSTLE: America’s FinCEN (US Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) has the power to shut down any bank in the world with a single press release called a “Section 311” – part of the USA Patriot Act—without requiring any evidence of wrongdoing, under the guise of “protecting the world’s financial system”. Spanish Police presented fake evidence of money laundering to America’s FinCEN, resulting in America issuing a “Section 311” against BPA. In the weeks following, the American private equity firm J.C. Flowers purchased the newly destroyed BPA at an 86% discount—precisely verbatim as Spain warned would happen to BPA.
Most mainstream news reporting on the closing of BPA have reported that BPA was shut down due to money laundering activity concerning the Sinaloa Drug Cartel, the Venezuelan government, and Russian and Chinese mafias. This documentary examines these money laundering charges in a forensic fashion, proving that BPA was categorically innocent of these crimes. THE ANDORRA HUSTLE gives the audience a well-researched narrative that contradicts all mainstream news coverage of these events.
Affirm that Catalonia is one Colony of Spain seems, even for the most committed nationalists, a dialectical exaggeration. It is a concept that independentism has not assumed in a regular way, as has been shown in the election programs of September 27. The comparative historical analysis of the features that characterized colonialism from the sixteenth to the twentieth century allows the typology of contemporary Catalan reality to be unequivocally colonial. What are these features? For starters, the armies of the metropolis occupy without a right a country that until then was sovereign. Catalonia was occupied by the armies of Castile between 1705 and 1714. The Principality was then an independent state integrated into a confederation, the Crown of Aragon. Let us remember the occupation of America, Africa or Asia in the centuries of colonialism. We note the existence of the Spanish flag on the facade of Capitania, irrefutable testimony of the current presence of the Spanish army in Catalonia. Second, the invasive power destroys the institutions of the occupied country and imposes military control over it. From the Bourbon decree of the New Floor of 1716 is what has happened to Catalonia. The autonomous periods have been nothing more than a lenitarian force of military occupation. Third, the occupying power organizes the economic downturn of the colony. Let us remember the drainage of American gold to Castile after the conquest. This is what has happened with Catalonia. From the Bourbon Tax to the Cadastre in the XVIII century to the Sixteen billion annual fiscal deficits in recent times, Catalonia has been, for three hundred years, a country spoiled by Spain. Fourthly, the colonizing power has found and promoted, within the colony, political, social or economic organizations favorable to the metropolis and, therefore, opposed to the liberation of that one. These sectors have acted as the fifth column to support the power occupying and curbing the aforementioned release movements. In Catalonia, this fifth column has fought against the forces of the metropolis, independentism. In the past 27-S elections, this fifth branch column has personal names and political organizations that are in the minds of everyone. Fifthly, the Settlers have attempted to disrupt the language and culture of the conquered countries. The imposition has also affected, with repressive or inquisitorial actions of great hardness, the religious beliefs of the occupied countries. The attempt to make Catalan language and culture disappear as an identifying element of the first order of the Catalan state has been constant. The repression of Catalan has been manifested permanently since the first Bourbon arrangements after 1714, up to the Wert law. The decrees, laws, regulations and provisions of the Madrid court against Catalan occupy hundreds of pages and have been unalterable throughout the centuries South American countries know what language repression meant for the maintenance of their own languages. When the metropolis has not managed to make these languages disappear, it is wrong to turn them into second category languages. A last factor. The metropolis never allowed the colony to freely decide on its destination through a referendum on self-determination that allowed decolonization. This is the case of Catalonia. History teaches that colonizing processes have only been defeated when the countries victims of the destructive action of the metropolis have achieved independence. Catalonia is one of the few countries on the planet that has not yet been liberated from colonizing oppression, and if we look only for Europe, we will see that Catalonia continues to be, based on the features I have mentioned, the only colony that still exists in the Old Continent From this there is a broad collective consciousness, that which must allow the liberation National of Catalonia that is already seen on a horizon that is closer to each day.
Hero to pariah: Juan Carlos’ exile sparks anger in Spain
Legal woes have forced former king into exile and tarnished the monarchy in crisis-stricken country
" Juan Carlos’ downfall started one morning in April 2012 in a hunting camp in Botswana, when he tripped on a stair and broke his hip.
Details of the previously undisclosed €40,000 trip — paid for by a Saudi businessman and shared with a former lover and her child — sparked anger at a time when Spaniards were suffering through the global financial crisis. Within days, the then Spanish king emitted an apology: “I am sorry. I made a mistake.”
This week, after more controversy and allegations, Juan Carlos formulated another apology in the form of exile. The royal was to “leave Spain” after “public repercussions that certain past events in my private life are generating”, he wrote in a statement.
It has been a rapid fall from grace for the man once feted as both the architect and saviour of Spain’s democracy. The past decade has witnessed cracks in a phenomenon author Javier Cercas called the “taboo of the king” — whereby Spain’s major media outlets long omitted negative stories about the monarchy.
“We’ve gone from not saying anything bad about the king to convicting him without a trial,” Mr Cercas said. [ ... ] ".
The United States national election is now only three months away and it
should be expected that the out-and-out lies emanating from both
parties will increase geometrically as
the polling date nears. One of the more interesting claims regarding the
election itself is the White House assertion that large scale voting by
mail will permit fraud, so much so that the result of the voting will
be unreliable or challenged. To be sure, it is not as if voter fraud is
unknown in the United States. The victory of John F. Kennedy 1960
presidential election has often been credited to all the graveyards in
Mayor Richard Daley’s Chicago voting to swing Illinois into the
Democratic camp.
◼️◻️📰 Another slap in the face lto the Spanish court prosecuting the exiled Catalan leaders.
#Belgium justice denies #Spain
extradition of @LluisPuigGordi because it is not incumbent upon the
Supreme Court to request it. Yet again, Spanish justice finds itself in
trouble when dealing with truly independent European courts.
Juan Carlos, ancien monarque espagnol soupçonné de corruption, s’exile
Aucune précision n’a été faite concernant le pays où l’ancien roi, qui avait abdiqué en 2014 sur fond de scandales, s’installera.
" Soupçonné de corruption et sous le coup d’une enquête de la Cour suprême, l’ex-roi d’Espagne Juan Carlos a annoncé sa décision de quitter le pays dans une lettre adressée à son fils, le souverain Felipe VI, rendue publique par la maison royale lundi 3 août. Aucune précision n’a été faite concernant le pays où il s’installera.
« Guidé à présent par la conviction de rendre le meilleur service aux Espagnols, à leurs institutions, et à toi en tant que roi, je t’informe de ma décision réfléchie de m’exiler, en cette période, en dehors de l’Espagne », a écrit l’ancien souverain, estimant devoir prendre cette décision sur fond de « répercussions publiques de certains épisodes de [sa] vie privée passée ». Il s’assure ainsi de ne pas rendre la tâche plus difficile à son fils, ajoute-il. Dans un communiqué de la maison royale, son fils fait savoir qu’il accepte sa décision et l’en remercie. [ ... ] "
Juan Carlos et son épouse, Sophie de Grèce, à Ceuta, le 5 novembre 2007. JOSE LUIS ROCA / AFP
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s former king Juan Carlos has decided to leave
his country, a dramatic exit designed to protect the monarchy after a
barrage of corruption allegations surfaced against him.
Paluzie: "In October 2017, the force of the citizenry was prepared to go a long way"
Elisenda Paluzie (Barcelona, 1969) is to be president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) for two more years after being re-elected in June 2020 by the new secretariat of this key pro-independence organization in Catalonia. At a time when the organization she leads is further away than ever from the Catalan political parties and the independence issue has been pushed into the background by the health crisis, Paluzie speaks in this interview with ElNacional.cat about what has been learned from 2017 and how the ANC sees the issue of independence - and a unilateral strategy to reach it - as returning to the centre stage of the Catalan political debate.
Press Release (English) 16 February, 2017 CIA espionage orders for the last French presidential election
All major French political parties were targeted for infiltration by
the CIA's human ("HUMINT") and electronic ("SIGINT") spies in the seven
months leading up to France's 2012 presidential election. The
revelations are contained within three CIA tasking orders published
today by WikiLeaks as context for its forth coming CIA Vault 7 series.
Named specifically as targets are the
French Socialist Party (PS), the National Front (FN) and Union for a
Popular Movement (UMP) together with current President Francois
Hollande, then President Nicolas Sarkozy, current round one presidential
front runner Marine Le Pen, and former presidential candidates Martine
Aubry and Dominique Strauss-Khan.
The CIA assessed that President Sarkozy's party was not assured
re-election. Specific tasking concerning his party included obtaining
the "Strategic Election Plans" of the Union for a Popular Movement
(UMP); schisms or alliances developing in the UMP elite; private UMP
reactions to Sarkozy's campaign stratagies; discussions within the UMP
on any "perceived vulnerabilities to maintaining power" after the
election; efforts to change the party's ideological mission; and
discussions about Sarkozy's support for the UMP and "the value he places
on the continuation of the party's dominance". Specific instructions
tasked CIA officers to discover Sarkozy's private deliberations "on the
other candidates" as well as how he interacted with his advisors.
Sarkozy's earlier self-identification as "Sarkozy the American" did not
protect him from US espionage in the 2012 election or during his
presidency.
The espionage order for "Non Ruling Political Parties
and Candidates Strategic Election Plans" which targeted Francois
Holland, Marine Le Pen and other opposition figures requires obtaining
opposition parties' strategies for the election; information on internal
party dynamics and rising leaders; efforts to influence and implement
political decisions; support from local government officials, government
elites or business elites; views of the United States; efforts to reach
out to other countries, including Germany, U.K., Libya, Israel,
Palestine, Syria & Cote d'Ivoire; as well as information about party
and candidate funding.
CARME FORCADELL LLUÍS Former Speaker of the Catalan Parliament
Parlamentarianism sits in the dock
We have seen how some courts are looking to turn the Parliamentary Board into a censoring body and we can’t allow that
" On Tuesday this week another case that should have never made it this far will actually go to court. The MPs who served with me on the Board of the Catalan Parliament [in 2017] will be tried in a court of law. The Board —the body tasked with preserving the sovereignty of the chamber, upholding the right of MPs to table initiatives, protecting the free exercise of political thought and the freedom of expression— will sit in the dock with them. It will be an unfair trial that will expose, once again, how basic rights, such as free speech and the right to political representation, are trampled on in Spain. We have seen judges decide what may and may not be debated and what the Catalan Parliament may and may not vote on. We have even seen them decide who gets to take up a seat in parliament and who doesn’t. We have seen how some courts are looking to turn the Parliamentary Board into a censoring body and we can’t allow that. As democratic citizens, we cannot allow censorship to enter the Catalan Parliament. [ ... ] "
We have lost any expectations about changing this corrupt kingdom whose Head of State was imposed by Franco. #WeWantDemocracy and we'll build the Republic of Catalonia.
-------
Former Spanish king rules out dropping title as tension grows over corruption scandal
Spain;s former monarch has been embroiled in scandal over his finances
Juan Carlos will not give up his title of King Emeritus in order to salvage the royal family's reputation, according to sources close to the disgraced former king of Spain.
King Felipe VI of Spain is facing growing calls from within the
government to distance his father from the monarchy after a mounting
scandal about Juan Carlos' financial affairs.
The sources say he is willing to make a gesture of goodwill, but wants to retain his title.
In 2018 a Swiss prosecutor opened an investigation into Juan Carlos’s
ex-lover and the former king’s lawyer and financial advisor, both based
in Geneva. [...]
The Guardian and El Pais reported NSO Group's malware was used to target prominent politicians in Spain. Now a former employee says that Spain has been an NSO Group customer.
" On Monday, the media outlets revealed that someone tried to hack the cellphone of Roger Torrent, the President of the Parliament of Catalonia, using a flaw in WhatsApp, which was discovered last year. Torrent is the president of the Parliament of Catalonia, which governs Barcelona and the surrounding region that has recently attempted to become independent from Spain.
Carles Puigdemont, a member of the European Parliament and the former president of Catalonia, condemned the hacking attempt, and implied that the Spanish government targeted Torrenthim. If that's the case, this would be the first known case of a European government using this type of technology against politicians inside Europe. "
The phones of Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent and
two other pro-independence activists were targeted using spyware that
experts say is only sold to governments to track criminals and
terrorists, as revealed by The Guardian and El País.
According to the joint investigation, the spyware
exploited a vulnerability in Whatsapp software that would give potential
access to everything on the targeted mobile phone, from emails and text
messages to the camera and recorder—thus opening the possibility of
turning the phone into a spying device.
A member of the left-wing Esquerra (ERC) party and
one of the most senior politicians in Catalonia, Torrent believes Spain
is behind the attack and says he will take "legal and political action"
to make sure this case serves to put an end to the "dirty war against
the independence movement".
CBC: WhatsApp Attributes Hack of 1,400 Users to NSO Group Technology
Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton discusses why WhatsApp is suing NSO Group after discovering their spyware was used to target 1,400 users—100 of whom were members of civil society—and why this is a significant bellwether.
Phone of top Catalan politician 'targeted by government-grade spyware'
Exclusive: Guardian and El País find regional speaker was targeted in ‘possible domestic political espionage’
One of Catalonia’s most senior politicians has been warned his mobile phone was targeted using spyware its makers say is only sold to governments to track criminals and terrorists.
A joint investigation by the Guardian and El País has revealed that the speaker of the Catalan regional parliament, Roger Torrent and at least two other pro-independence supporters were told they were targeted last year in what experts said was a “possible case of domestic political espionage” in Europe.
According to a US lawsuit, the spyware exploited a previous vulnerability in WhatsApp software that would have given the operator potential access to everything on the target’s mobile phone – including emails, text messages and photographs. It could also have turned on the phone’s recorder and camera, turning it into a listening device.
Torrent, who was warned about the targeting by researchers working with WhatsApp, said it seemed clear the “Spanish state” was behind the alleged attack on his phone, and that he believed it had most likely occurred without any judicial authority.
Roger Torrent said ‘any democrat should feel very uncomfortable’ over the alleged attack.
Photograph: Quique García/EPA
Jose Lluis Trapero is the leader of the Mossos d'Esquadra, the Catalan police, the oldest in Europe. Hero
after the attack on the Ramblas in Barcelona, but accused of sedition
for not having used violence against those who celebrated the
Referendum of 1 October 2017 for independence. He faces 15 years in prison. Perez de los Cobos is a colonel in the Guardia Civil, accused of torture and beatings. For these crimes he received the pardon. The first of October was he who gave the order to his men to use violence against demonstrators. In these two figures there are the two faces of today's Spain.
On
the one hand Trapero, who is inspired by the Chief of Police of Paris
Maurice Grimaud who, in the hot days of the French May, decided to stop
the police violence against the students because "... With the excess in
the use of force ... maybe we will win the battle in the streets, but
we will lose something much more precious: our reputation ... "thus
saving France from a bloodbath, after 72 hours of wild manhunt in the
streets of Paris.
On the other, Perez de los Cobos, a man suspected of involvement in Tejero's attempted coup ,
which at a crucial moment in Spanish history, orders to attack unarmed
citizens in line to vote in the improvised but functioning Catalan
seats. A gesture that dramatized the already difficult situation of the Iberian country.
Political prisoners
Today in Catalonia there are 11 people
in prison accused of sedition and embezzlement (embezzlement for having
carried out the Referendum ...), with penalties ranging between 9 and
13 years. Among them two
leaders of civil society, imprisoned for organizing non-violent
demonstrations (attended by one million people), the president of the
Catalan Parliament Carme Forcadell, for having convened the plenary of the parliament on the referendum and Oriol Junqueras,
vice president of the Catalan government , elected to the European
Parliament but where, due to a legal artifice of the Spanish Courts that
made him fall and above all because he is detained, he has never been
able to exercise his function. Together with them other men and women who peacefully participated in the demonstrations and the Referendum.
It is worth dwelling for a moment on the crime of sedition . For example in Italy there is the crime of "seditious gathering" foreseen by article 655 of the Penal Code. It
has recently been applied to neo-fascist militants who in the
Casalbruciato neighborhood in Rome staged a protest against the nomads
with violent acts and attacks. Penalties envisaged: from the fine to one year in prison. That
is, the penalties (infinitely less than those provided for by Spanish
legislation), apply when sedition is associated with the use of
violence. And so it is in almost all of Europe. So much so that, so far, no EU country has applied the international arrest warrant issued by Spain for Catalan exiles. There was no violence in Catalonia by the referendum organizers and by the citizens. The only violence was that of the Guardia Civil.
That's why for years Amnesty International has denounced the presence of political prisoners in Spain, referring to the Catalans. They
denounce the disproportion of the penalties and the non-existence of
legally correct reasons for keeping the "Catalanist" leaders and
citizens in prison. And that's why even the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has asked Spain for the release of Catalan political prisoners
and their compensation for the time spent in pre-trial detention
having: "exercised their fundamental right to protest peacefully with
the means of civil disobedience ".
The
Emeritus Judge of the Spanish Supreme Tribunal, José Antonio Martin
Pallin wrote in La Vanguardia: “I have read and seen on TV a lot of news
about civil wars and rebel groups armed like real armies. I
have never seen news of criminal charges against a President of
Parliament or against members of a government accused of performing
their political function. "
Continuity with Francoism
Spain that comes out exhausted from Covid has not yet solved its problem with the management of a rule of law. The Catalan affair is the latest example. A story that could be closed by Rajoy
(the then popular Prime Minister, the number one head of the
precipitate of events) with a simple annulment of the referendum and
with the political will to bring all the actors to a negotiating table , has been transformed in a prison and persecution drama.
In Italy we have told this story with a good dose of laziness, with very few exceptions. The 'Catalan independence movement made us reminded Bossi's secessionist and pre-Salvini League. The
Italian Left has shown a certain laziness of thought and has not
understood that the Catalan Movement was exactly at the antipodes of the
Bossi League, for its roots on the left, for its transversal ability to
parties and social classes, for the history that bring back. So
within the Catalan drive there is no aspiration for a rich region that
wants to detach itself from the rest of the nation to "finally do it
yourself". But the aspiration to a more complete democracy that is intertwined with the legitimate request for defense of one's republican identity and language.
In
addition, Catalonia has never questioned interregional solidarity and
has always fulfilled its tax obligations towards Spain without ever
batting an eyelid, enjoying less privileges even compared to other
autonomous regions such as the Basque Country. Not to mention Madrid, which enjoys a special tax regime which makes it a sort of "Holland" in the Spanish state.
Referendum for the independence of Catalonia Photo Roberto Mastroluca
At
the basis of this civil and non-violent rebellion there is a people,
disappointed by the long democratic transition, who wants to
definitively overcome the continuity with the old Franco regime and who can not stand a country that experiences its diversity as a problem and not as a wealth for all.
There
are certainly historical reasons for this perverse continuity between
Francoism and democracy: in Italy Benito Mussolini was executed by the
partisans. Francisco Franco died in his bed. It is no small difference. But there were also conveniences: it was convenient for the parties that had just emerged from illegality to accept the compromise with the oligarchies,
nestled in the state and in the company, to overcome the fear of a
return to the dictatorship of the fragile emerging democracy. In this way, however, there was no justice. Nobody paid
for the crimes of the Civil War, nobody paid for the tens of thousands
of innocent people imprisoned, tortured, shot or "garroted" by Franco. And today the bitter fruits are paid for.
A European issue
And that's why Catalonia becomes a European issue . Because Europe was born precisely from the break with fascism, Nazism and war. And
Europe which today tries to review the light by imagining a
reconstruction on a basis other than the neoliberal dictate, cannot
afford or allow the existence of an à la carte rule of law. The Spain like Hungary or Poland? You have to have the courage to say: yes.
Spain risks becoming like the two eastern countries. But there are at least two conditions that can prevent this drift. The first already exists and is called European law . On
December 19, 2019, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ended
the obtuse claim of the Supreme Tribunal to prevent the regularly
elected Catalan deputies from being proclaimed to European
parliamentarians. And the
European Court does so by affirming a simple but powerful principle:
sovereignty belongs to the people, no other institutional or legal body
can prevent the expression of the popular will.
That
same day, the European Parliament, with exemplary rapidity and beating
the resistance of some Parliamentary Groups over time, accepted the
judgment of the Court of Luxembourg and opened the doors to Puidgemont,
Comin and Ponsai, legitimate representatives of the Catalan people in
Strasbourg. The second condition is, above all, a hope. He resides in the current government led by Pedro Sanchez, in coalition with Pablo Iglesias and with the autonomist parties, including the Catalans. If Sanchez and Iglesias have the courage to seek a democratic way out of the Catalan affair, they must demonstrate it concretely, starting with an amnesty for political prisoners, going through a reform of the judicial system and reopening dialogue with Barcelona.
Only
in this way will we find ourselves facing a democratic turn of
substance in Spanish society, capable of finally showing itself capable
of being able to resolve internal conflicts with politics and no longer
with repression. Will they be capable of it? We all ask and hope for it. But
a more attentive, less distracted, European public opinion that will
become a real "European democratic escort" to this process will also be
needed. If this is not the case, there will be trouble for Spain and Europe.
Ever
stranger circumstances come to light, statements have been hidden, the
imam was an agent of the secret service, the surviving terrorists were
not charged with murder
The
Público newspaper revealed a year ago that the intelligence agency and
other Spanish security forces had been in contact with the Imam
Abdelbaki Es Satty until the attacks in August 2017, which Telepolis
reported in detail ( Spanish intelligence agency controlled terror cell .
Público has now added and published
that a key statement on Es Satty’s work for Spanish intelligence in the
mountain of investigation files has been hidden by 100,000 pages and
has been ignored by the Public Prosecutor and the Civil Guard. The
newspaper does not consider it to be a coincidence, after all, it was a
main witness, the questioning of which was expressly requested by the
Belgian authorities from Spain.
Público
rather assumes that the statement should remain hidden. It is therefore
not mentioned in a summary of the investigation as part of a request
for legal assistance and it does not appear in the table of contents of a
CD on which it is stored. Neither the judge nor the lawyers knew about
the existence of the statement. And no translation of the statement was
sent to the judge responsible.
It
is the five-page testimony of Soliman Akaychouh, the director of a
mosque in Diegem near Brussels, where Es Satty wanted to preach.
Akaychouh was questioned just three days after the attacks and in the
statement published by Público stated that Es Satty said she was in
contact with the Spanish secret service over the phone. "He told me that
he spoke to the Spanish secret service, who among other things wanted
to know where he was," said the head of the mosque.
The
imam was suspicious of the head of the mosque because of his radicalism
and extremism. That is why he contacted the Belgian police. She then
started an inquiry to the Catalan police. However, this did not result
in anything, since the Mossos d'Esquadra, as is known, had not been
informed by the Spanish colleagues about the activities of the
well-known radical Islamist and former drug dealer. As reported by Telepolis ,
the Mossos were also dependent on access to key data and resources at
the Center for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO).
The major parties prevent the imam from being involved with the security forces
These
events are part of a series of curiosities about Islamist activities in
Catalonia and Es Satty. Because since 2003 he was known to Spanish
security forces as a radical Islamist. He was in contact with radical Islamists and was friends with one of those who caused the 2004 massacre in Madrid with 191 deaths
. Strangely enough, Es Satty was released early from jail, where he was
sitting for drug trafficking. And his deportation to Morocco, which had
been expressly stated in the sentence after the sentence, was also not implemented because he did not assume any "danger" .
There are still many oddities. There
is the fact that all major parties in the Spanish parliament also
refuse to investigate the imam's involvement with the security forces. Then there is the fact that the surviving members of the terrorist cell are not charged with murder even though they killed 17 people - including a German woman - and were planning huge attacks. They were prevented because part of the force blew up in the bombing the night before.
"We doubt that Ripoll's Imám is dead"
The
newest and most interesting oddity, however, is that now there are
serious questions as to whether Es Satty, the intelligence agent,
actually blew up when bombing Alcanar, which has always been assumed.
Lawyer Jaume Cuevillas said on Catalan television: "We doubt that the Imám of Ripoll is dead." Cuevillas represents the family of the young Xavier Martínez, who was also murdered during the terrorist voyage on the Ramblas.
He
found no evidence in the investigation files, such as DNA evidence that
could prove that Es Satty was actually in the house at the time of the
explosion. According to the investigators, four to five terrorists are
said to have been there. However, only remains of two people were found
in the pile of rubble, of whom only one could have been identified.
Witnesses also testified that the imam's car left shortly after the
explosion, which was later found in a neighboring village.
The cell phone of Es Satty was also not found in the pile of rubble. The lawyer reports from the investigation files that the phone was still called four days after the explosion. The
email address that the terror chief used to have contact with the
secret service, as Público had uncovered, was also used after the
explosion. It is also
striking for Cuevillas that no one claimed the body of the imam, but the
imam's niece bought two plane tickets the night after the explosion and
hours before the attack in Barcelona. Because of all of this, the lawyer expressed "justified doubts" that Es Satty is dead.
( Ralf Streck )
◼️⬜️ Not only has #Spain not complied with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentention calls to release #Catalonia's political prisoners, but it has also attempted to discredit it in order to get away with ignoring international law.
🗞
Read the opinion by Human Rights expert Neus Torbisco-Casals,
International Law professor Nico Krisch and lawyer & Secretary
General of UNPO Ralph Bunche 👇🏻
Juan Carlos et son épouse, Sophie de Grèce, à Ceuta, le 5 novembre 2007. JOSE LUIS ROCA / AFP
Spain’s King Felipe and his father, Juan Carlos, in 2014.
