2023-08-14 00:10:40
Updated Monday, August 14, 2023 – 00:10
Prepare mobilizations in the next three months while pressuring the pro-independence parties to block Congress
Independence protest for the Spanish-French summit in Barcelona in January DAVID RAMREZARABA PRESS Politics The unilateral independence movement urges to recover the “spirit of Urquinaona” on 1-O: “Nothing is over here”
Despite the electoral debacle, the independence movement feels strong. The sovereignist parties, ERC and Junts, know that their 14 deputies are the key that the socialist needs Pedro Sanchez to revalidate the investiture and that is why they demand almost impossible requests, such as an amnesty or self-determination, to put pressure on the PSOE. While the Republicans are more open to dialogue, the formation of the former Catalan president Carlos Puigdemont He maintains a tactical immobility thinking of showing himself as the one who made the Sánchez government give up before the secessionist electorate.
Infected by this political opportunity, the pro-independence entities have proposed to recover the mobilizations, aware that the best asset for pressure was always to get people out into the streets. Thus, the calls scheduled for this August, September and October will be a thermometer of the sovereignist muscle, despite the fact that the figures for 2017 will not be reached, in full effervescence of the ‘procs’. Of course, these calls are a double-edged sword since organizations such as the ANC not only demand unilateral independence and attack “State repression” but also urge ERC and Junts to block an investiture in Congress and slam the door. to Sanchez.
Next Thursday, coinciding with the sixth anniversary of the jihadist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, the citizen platform #17AExigimResponsabilitats calls for a rally in front of the Government Delegation in Barcelona to “denounce that the Spanish state is a murderous state.” The organizers maintain that behind the attack “is the CNI” and they justify it with the fact that the Ripoll imam, Abdelbaki is Satty, mastermind of the attacks, was a “confident of the State”. A few days later, the CDR called for a boycott of the stages of La Vuelta cyclist that pass through Catalonia, Andorra and Valencia.
They remark that they are “stages that invade the Catalan Countries” and urge to organize to make graffiti on the ground against the State or in favor of independence, while they go to the cycling event with ‘esteladas’ and senyeres, in addition to protest banners. In September, the ANC convenes its traditional Diada demonstration in which they will pressure ERC and JxCat to force an electoral repetition. Four columns will leave from four points in Barcelona and will converge on Plaza Primero de Octubre in Barcelona, which the rest of the population knows as Plaza España.
The president of the ANC, Dolors Feliu, believes that many people who did not go to vote in the last general elections will go to this protest march for independence since they consider that “activists are committed people.” In addition, he added that the situation in Congress “will mark the political message” of the Diada and that the mobilization “in the street” will be key to putting pressure on the pro-sovereignty parties.
Facing the commemoration of 1-O, the ANC also appeals to the “spirit of Urquinaona”, although the serious disturbances in this square took place 2 years after the unilateral referendum. Despite this, an act is organized in a place that is a “benchmark of independence” to remember that “citizen mobilization is an indispensable tool to achieve our objective” such as secession. The clashes in the Urquinaona square in Barcelona did not take place on 1-O but in October 2019, after the Supreme Court sentenced the leaders of the independence process for sedition.
For six hours, thousands of demonstrators confronted the police, throwing objects of all kinds. There were 102 injured, 9 of them seriously as three lost an eye and a police officer suffered a fracture at the base of his skull with crushing of two vertebrae. There were 12 more injured policemen and for the first time the Mossos d’Esquadra used a water tank to overcome the protesters’ barricades. However, for sovereignism it has “engraved on fire” the “police charges against a youth that did nothing more than defend the result of the Referendum on October 1 and denounce the political and judicial repression against political leaders and civil society”. For this reason, they will hold an act in Barcelona’s Plaza Urquinaona.
CKD on target
The last time that the independence movement mobilized in the streets was last January for the Spanish-French summit that was held in Barcelona. Some 7,000 people, according to the Urban Guard, protested in front of the Museo Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, scene of the meeting between the Spanish and French governments with their presidents, Pedro Sánchez and EEmmanuel Macron, to the head. However, there were more whistles, shouts and insults from the sovereignists themselves to the members of ERC, with their leader Oriol Junqueras to the head, than against the French and Spanish representatives.
That day, the independence movement only showed the shortcomings of a movement that is increasingly divided. Mainly when a Junqueras left the rally against the summit long before the end and was chased by fifty protesters booing and shouting “botifler.” “traitor”, “asslicker” and “butler”. These attacks contrasted with the cries in favor of Puigdemont.
The organizers, the Consell per la República, mnium and the ANC, intervened in the protest long before the start of the summit. About 50 buses came from all over Catalonia with demonstrators and most of them did not stay long. Of course, a hundred CDR continued the protests with a march towards the French consulate in Barcelona and then tried to go towards Urquinaona and the Police station on Via Laietana but the Mossos d’Esquadra prevented it and some charges were registered.
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