Unrest in Spain: the Spanish government is taking control of the Catalan police force

[Blosc]

The "38" number has been said by an anti-referendum and pro-police journal. There are more for sure.

Police has used a non-legal armament against a separatist (who they say is the criminal...). Luckily this has been seen by international reporters. I hope they will not forget that when they wrote the article.

We should remember that for the past weeks Justice has been targeting citizens. And that Madrid ordered the mail posts to open letters and take any mail that has "referendum things" in it. Not very legal either.

[Deleted]

We should remember that for the past weeks Justice has been targeting citizens. And that Madrid ordered the mail posts to open letters and take any mail that has "referendum things" in it. Not very legal either.

fake news.
The justice system protects the rule of law. If it's broken by institutions or individuals doesn't really mater to them.
Madrid didn't' order such thing. The post company (correos) issued a memo to their offices, instructing them to abstain from admitting packages related to the referendum. They explicitly recognized that preventing every communication would be impossible: since letters are confidential and can't be opened.

[Blosc]

fake news.
The justice system protects the rule of law. If it's broken by institutions or individuals doesn't really mater to them.
Madrid didn't' order such thing. The post company (correos) issued a memo to their offices, instructing them to abstain from admitting packages related to the referendum. They explicitly recognized that preventing every communication would be impossible: since letters are confidential and can't be opened.

False. The Justice, which is not independent of the political power, ordered the offices to seize anything related to the referendum. There are reports of letters arriving opened. Even the ones send by a bank.

And yes due to some didn't want to obey that order, the police started to do it itself.

[Deleted]

There is no such rule

Of course a more real issue is that if one member votes no it is no and spain would probably vote no.

The rest of the EU wouldn't even recognize Catalonia as a state.

[Deleted]

Seeing how West/EU/USA has supported division n breaking up countries in Eastern Europe, we now see what hypocrites they are...speak about democracy and now police steal voting boxes..I didn't have much of an opinion about spain or catalan, but now I hope they break free.

[Pannonian]

The rest of the EU wouldn't even recognize Catalonia as a state.

That very much depends of the outcome: If they gain independence with the ok of Madrid there is no real reason for other countries to not accept them. If they declare independence while Spain still claims them as a revolting province, then yes - the EU wouldn't side with them (if Spain doesn't do very stupid things)

[Deleted]

That very much depends of the outcome: If they gain independence with the ok of Madrid there is no real reason for other countries to not accept them. If they declare independence while Spain still claims them as a revolting province, then yes - the EU wouldn't side with them (if Spain doesn't do very stupid things)

Oh, yeah. The path is recognition and consent by Spain. Which they should be seeking.
Madrid will do very stupid things, I'm afraid. But not stupid enough to trigger international concern.

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False. The Justice, which is not independent of the political power, ordered the offices to seize anything related to the referendum. There are reports of letters arriving opened. Even the ones send by a bank.

And yes due to some didn't want to obey that order, the police started to do it itself.

Going to ask for a /reputable/ source on these claims:
-the judiciary extending such specific executive orders
-opened letters
-police intervention in the postal service

[Deleted]

No, they could not, because the solar energy is inefficient. A solar panel can't even recover the energy that was spent on its production during its lifetime.

You don't know what you are talking about. Solar energy pays for itself, even more now that we can start counting some natural disasters as part of the price of fossil energy.

No one will invite you to the EU unless you join the NATO first. So you will buy everything the uncle Sam tells you.

Even if it was true catalan people would be the ones deciding to buy the armaments to join EU or spend that money in pensions, healthcare and education, not a corrupt goverment who has more politicians pending for a jury than not.

They are going to be controlled by new, racially pure elites. That will lead to the tenfold corruption level than the Spanish one. Good luck with that.

This is fucking hillarious. You don't know what you are talking about so I'll stop replying to you here. Racially pure elites? Are you sure you talk about Catalonia? As I said 1 million people went on the strets this spring to ASK to recive MORE refugees. No other people in Europe has done that, even less in Spain. Maybe you have a confusion with US or Germany where they are starting to have a problem with racial pure elites.

[Deleted]

Even if it was true catalan people would be the ones deciding to buy the armaments to join EU or spend that money in pensions, healthcare and education, not a corrupt goverment who has more politicians pending for a jury than not.

It is a thing they could do.
But the Catalan government appears to be among the most interested in cutting social services:
https://d500.epimg.net/cincodias/ima...l_recorte1.jpg
So another thing that they could do, is buy more weapons and spend less in health care or education; it's a more likely scenario, given the precedent.

As I said 1 million people went on the strets this spring to ASK to recive MORE refugees. No other people in Europe has done that, even less in Spain. Maybe you have a confusion with US or Germany where they are starting to have a problem with racial pure elites.

It was half a million according to the organization (less so, by authorities).
Similar protests (of much more modest numbers; obviously: very few cities are as populated as Barcelona) were organized across the country.

In any case, Tackhisis response is uneducated, at best, you'll do good in ignoring that bait.

[Runenwächter]

Even if you hate the EU with a passion, there is a point where petty nationalism start to get self destructive...

So how is this "petty nationalism" playing out for other dwarf states in Europe, for example Luxemburg, Liechtenstein and Monaco. If I remember correctly they are doing very well.

[Blosc]

Oh, yeah. The path is recognition and consent by Spain. Which they should be seeking.
Madrid will do very stupid things, I'm afraid. But not stupid enough to trigger international concern.

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Going to ask for a /reputable/ source on these claims:
-the judiciary extending such specific executive orders
-opened letters
-police intervention in the postal service

I can only find articles written in spanish. This is from a mayor reporting that the letters from the bank have been arriving opened for days: http://www.europapress.es/catalunya/...927113255.html

This one is in catalan. A catalan magazine had problems to be delivered cause of the post office: https://www.llibertat.cat/2017/09/co...e-lliure-39911

I can't find now the article of some letters being opened with a notification of the police, claiming to had opened it to protect the law. So i will decline my previos statement in this. No police intervention in post offices.

The post office has always worked in election days. The decision to not deliver propaganda or magazines just because you don't like what it says it's not democratic. Someone could have defended it if we were talking about the boxes, as the referendum had been declared illegal and the boxes are essential in the matter. But it was just propaganda.

[Deleted]

I can only find articles written in spanish. This is from a mayor reporting that the letters from the bank have been arriving opened for days: http://www.europapress.es/catalunya/...927113255.html

A member of the CUP, of all things, claims things.
Not reputable, and you know it.

This one is in catalan. A catalan magazine had problems to be delivered cause of the post office: https://www.llibertat.cat/2017/09/co...e-lliure-39911

If the publication contained information about the referendum procedure, this seems to be doing exactly what Correos said it was doing: abstaining from processing the posting of such content.
But the content they list seems fair to be published. So don't know. Do we have any copy of the publication in question, along with any extra material they were trying to deliver? or is it just their word?

I can't find now the article of some letters being opened with a notification of the police, claiming to had opened it to protect the law. So i will decline my previos statement in this. No police intervention in post offices.

The post office has always worked in election days. The decision to not deliver propaganda or magazines just because you don't like what it says it's not democratic. Someone could have defended it if we were talking about the boxes, as the referendum had been declared illegal and the boxes are essential in the matter. But it was just propaganda.

They are certainly censoring content. I'm not OK with it, or the closing of the webs with the census and what not. But this is a power that the state has.
Far as I understand, they're not blocking propaganda. I mean... pro independence literature is not exactly a hard thing to find; journalists can have any opinion, and so does the people, and have not been stopped from expressing it. The things they seem to be blocking are those related to the processes that enable the referendum, not the free spreading of opinions.

[Deleted]

It is a thing they could do.
But the Catalan government appears to be among the most interested in cutting social services:
https://d500.epimg.net/cincodias/ima...l_recorte1.jpg
So another thing that they could do, is buy more weapons and spend less in health care or education; it's a more likely scenario, given the precedent.

The catalan society gave a turn to the left since the last few years. In the last election (which was a spanish goverment one) the 2 majoritary voted parties in Catalonia where the 2 most to the left of the spectre of them all. If there is an independence I'm sure the new goverment would be much more left winged than the one who cut the budgets during 2010 - 2015. More so, the party who cut this budgets had to change name (also for corruption cases) and broke with their catholic partners which have disapeared from the political scene, they have lost the hegemony they had, and their corruption and cuts are not forgotten by the people.

[dribbles]

Switched on the news this morning to see pictures I thought would be coming from N Korea or some other such tin pot dictatorshp. Oh no it turns out to be democracy in action in the heart of Junckers 21st century Europe. The Jack booted thugs are now shooting at their citizens.....

[Deleted]

Switched on the news this morning to see pictures I thought would be coming from N Korea or some other such tin pot dictatorshp. Oh no it turns out to be democracy in action in the heart of Junckers 21st century Europe. The Jack booted thugs are now shooting at their citizens.....

You lot were smart to leave this shitshow..

[Xarkan]

Switched on the news this morning to see pictures I thought would be coming from N Korea or some other such tin pot dictatorshp. Oh no it turns out to be democracy in action in the heart of Junckers 21st century Europe. The Jack booted thugs are now shooting at their citizens.....

Blaming Juncker for this is quite a stretch.

[Tackhisis]

So how is this "petty nationalism" playing out for other dwarf states in Europe, for example Luxemburg, Liechtenstein and Monaco.

They do not claim they are independent. They do not claim they are "nations". It is not a way for a real country to exist.

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Oh no it turns out to be democracy in action

"Democracy" doesn't mean you can violate the constitution or any other law. What the Catalonians are doing, is a dictatorial move.

[Puupi]

They do not claim they are independent. They do not claim they are "nations". It is not a way for a real country to exist.

What......? They are independent.

Also, Catalonia is not a dwarf state. It's the size of Denmark with over 7 million people.

[Malacrass]

Sad to see a european government using force to stop a referendum. Simply ignoring/denying it wouldn't have done it?

People will never forget this incident, good job.

[Deleted]

The catalan society gave a turn to the left since the last few years. In the last election (which was a spanish goverment one) the 2 majoritary voted parties in Catalonia where the 2 most to the left of the spectre of them all. If there is an independence I'm sure the new goverment would be much more left winged than the one who cut the budgets during 2010 - 2015. More so, the party who cut this budgets had to change name (also for corruption cases) and broke with their catholic partners which have disapeared from the political scene, they have lost the hegemony they had, and their corruption and cuts are not forgotten by the people.

Turns left and right are a fickle thing. For example, the entirely of Spain voted majority to the left, which only served to strengthen PP and eventually gave Rajoy the presidency.
The internal composition of JxSi is not exactly left, as you probably know: it's a single issue coalition that, yes, has a big republican left component, but is happy having Christian democrats, and center-right liberals among them: mismo perro, diferente collar.

I mean... nationalism is not exactly a left thing for the most part. It can be temporarily dressed with social programs, but it's as anti-equality as it gets, by it's exclusive nature. A very damning exemplification is the role of the non-separatist Catalan person: they're supposed half the population, but can't establish a platform to campaign for NO; they're being excluded from the Catalan "people" as we speak, alienated from their culture. In the same way that the Catalan independentist would claim to be alienated from Spain.
Catalan nationalism is essentially Catalan exceptionalism, and your exposition of what Catalonia could do shows that much: you're imagining a socialist utopia (which is a nice thing to imagine), but the Catalan elite, the ruling class, is still dominated by capitalist markets and center-right liberal policies.
They're happy to break the rule of law that Catalan people voted, massively, in referendum, 40 years ago. If that means so little to them, the welfare state means less.