tusk

Respectful & politically sensitive @eucopresident Tusk. “The force of arguments, not the argument of force.” Good offices from EU at last. https://t.co/64kdHW5BCE

— Amadeu Altafaj (@aaltafaj) 11 d’octubre de 2017

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A good step indeed @aaltafaj, though he should appeal to the Prime Minister who has ignored the Catalan people's claims since 2010, and has done nothing to restore Catalonia to the constitutional framework after the Constitutuional Court's controversial decision, let alone sit down and negotiate.

He should not appeal to president Puigdemont but directly to the millions -an unheard-of majority- of Catalan voters who gave our Parliament the mandate to declare independence, after a deeply harrowing experience on October 1st - at the hands of the pitiless Spanish authorities - that he cannot even begin to imagine. The images are there. In their hundreds.

But in the meantime, @eucopresident, what was the very first thing Spain did thereafter? Appease?

Well, no. The Spanish Civil Guard have once again blocked the website of a pro-independence organisation www.assemblea.cat. See for yourself. They did so, alongside 140 other organisation websites (virtually all private), in the run-up to the October 1 referendum (which, incidentally, no law says is illegal, despite the constant repetition of this word by the Spanish government since early in 2014 as if their legislation had not been repealed over 10 years ago).

It is a perfectly legal civil society organisation advocating independence by democratic and peaceful means. On every occasion, including September 20 concentrations outside Catalan ministries, it has preached the essential need for non-violence. Alongside Omnium Cultural and other smaller organisations, this

Its minutes are freely available. Spanish PP and PSOE MEPs blocked a proposal in the European Parliament that it be awarded a European Citizens' Prize for its outstanding contribution to European democratic values that noone outside Spanish polítics can deny.

It is anathema to Spain. Spanish MEPs tried to get it struck off the EP/EC Transparency Register.

It has been the object of scathing attacks in the Spanish nationalist press since at least early 2014. ABC was talking about "sedition" in September 2013, when the Catalan leadership had a mandate to hold a poll, binding or otherwise, on the political future. and soon was to call for the ANC to be outlawed, in an editorial in its Sevilla Edition (14 March 2014).

Political trials and fines (some fines are in the form of crippling deposits, prior to any decision or appeal) are underway for hundred upon hundred elected politicians, government officials, even private citizens and dozens of civil society for their tweets or manifestoes.

By the way, who is telling Spain to send the 10,000 armed police and the several warships back home? This whole affair is a totally, utterly, profoundly peaceful democratic movement.

This is a political issue that the Spanish government has, since June 2010, stubbornly refused to broach politically.