6 ms·

Anyone in Spain got any context on TD and the current political context?

enriquto 7y ago
There's a massive ongoing police operation to suppress the catalan independence movement. The spanish paramilitary is trying to take down the source code of an app that people use to coordinate peaceful demonstrations. They say that this is to "fight terrorism" which is ridiculous, albeit there are already several people preemptively incarcerated, falsely accused of terrorism (still waiting for a trial).
- greatpatton 7y ago
  I think that regarding the Catalan independence the Spanish judiciary system had proven itself to be at the level of the worst dictatorial country. People taking part in it should be shameful. When most of these cases will go up to the EU court they will likely get squashed.
  - enriquto 7y ago
    Sure, but it takes years. In the meanwhile, several arrested teenagers will have spent all that time in jail, some of them even incommunicado (!).
- zentropia 7y ago
  They don't try to supress catalan independence, but violence. People on jail are there because they set fires, throw stones to police or hold some explosive substances.
  - gwright 7y ago
    A good example of why I think "terrorist" and "terrorism" communicate almost nothing other than "I think they are the bad guys". That sort of statement is ripe for debate. On the other hand if you say that someone was arrested for arson, assault, or unauthorized possession or explosives then some objective reasoning can sort things out rather than having to fall back on an endlessly subjective debate of what is or isn't terrorism. The phrase "hate crime" is another example of this problem. Someone being arrested for assault is pretty straightforward to investigate and adjudicate. If you also want the police to make some additional determination as to their motive and thoughts in order to make it a "hate crime" then everything is much more complicated. How about just punish appropriately for the assault and move on. Note, I'm just talking about the use of language here, not trying to discern who are the bad guys in this particular dispute.
    - enriquto 7y ago
      The word "violence" has a similar problem in spanish and catalan discourse. It has been used to describe the acts of blocking a street, moving dustbins around, or simply covering your face. The worst perpetrators of this semantic drift turn out to be catalan "extreme" pacifists, who aggressively condemn anybody who does these things in demonstrations. They are mockingly called the "dustbin protection society".
ricardbejarano 7y ago
I'd rather not to take anyone on Spain very seriously about this, as this is a very "with me or against me" kind of problem, and practically everyone has a strong opinion. Everyone will tell you their side of the story, with half-truths and euphemisms wherever they need them. Source: I'm Spanish, currently living in Barcelona.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  It's true, and neither side is handling this very well. The government could have let the referendum happen but campaign against it, appeasing the people who wanted a democratic vote but still winning. Instead, they went full suppression and made themselves look much worse.
  - petre 7y ago
    It's against their constitution to do so. My country has similar wording in its constitution. Nevertheless, independence can happen if there's enough support for it, either through peaceful means or not. Unfortunately the central goverment's actions only escalate the situation further. It's like they've learned nothing from the Basque conflict.
  - ricardbejarano 7y ago
    The thing is, the government can't let a "comunidad autonoma" organize a binding referendum about a region's secession of Spain, because that would put the region's sovereignty on the region's people, and that's against the Spanish constitution (art. 1.2, the sovereignty of the entire Spanish territory is of all Spanish citizens). That also infringes Spanish constitution's 2nd art., "the Constitution is fundamented atop the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation". It's not that they "should have let them vote", it's that they can't, unless the Spanish citizens reform the constitution and remove those articles. The separatist movement is blocked in that regard, and unless all other UN countries were to recognize Catalonia as an independent state, they are locked in as a "comunidad autonoma" until a constitution reform happens.
    - 7y ago
swebs 7y ago
Basically Catalonia, the region of Spain that includes Barcelona, is attempting to gain independence. The Spanish government is attempting to prevent that. These protests are a result of this tension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Catalan_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Catalan_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
- zozbot234 7y ago
  It's worth noting that much of this "independence" business is not as serious as outsiders might assume. The Spanish government largely brought this 'independence' movement on themselves by rejecting requests for more sensible forms of increased local self-govenment. To a mildly-sophisticated observer, this just looks like a whole lot of overstated politicking. (This is also why PSOE - the party with the more "sensible" position within the Spanish govenment - is pushing for a soft approach. They realize that this will easily blow over as soon as the government comes to their senses.)
  - kgwgk 7y ago
    It’s also worth noting that Spain is already one of the most decentralised countries in the OCDE and Catalonia is one of the regions which a higher level of self-government in the country. Including its own police force, which results in the amusing situation that the regional government is at the same time encouraging the masses to revolt and sending the police to repress the revolts.
joking 7y ago
The tsunami app it's trying to build a decentralized network on a way that anonymous individuals can control and send messages to specific peers, to coordinate "peaceful" demonstrations and make noise on their independence desire. They managed to close the access to Barcelona airport and disturb the lives of thousands of individuals, and their plan is to continue doing so in an anonymous and unaccountable way. Spanish government on the other side, it's trying to find who is behind this network, and making some bold moves, not because their effectiveness, but more to say that it's doing something instead of sitting idle.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  > their plan is to continue doing so in an anonymous and unaccountable way. I mean, the politicians who tried to do this in an eponymous and accountable way got prison sentences, so...
  - joking 7y ago
    They misused the political institutions for their benefit and pushed their agenda even when they have been warned several times of the penal consequences. There can be disagreement with the conviction time, but they are not innocents.
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      What is their agenda? Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it?
      - joking 7y ago
        that's a large simplification of the problem. ¿Can Barcelona where people is less independent secede from the rural Catalonia? ¿Can the rich secede from the poor? As a matter of the actual law, only all the Spaniards can vote for a change like that, but Catalonians will never accept such thing because they will never be able to convince that the separation of Catalonia is a good thing for both sides.

There's a massive ongoing police operation to suppress the catalan independence movement. The spanish paramilitary is trying to take down the source code of an app that people use to coordinate peaceful demonstrations. They say that this is to "fight terrorism" which is ridiculous, albeit there are already several people preemptively incarcerated, falsely accused of terrorism (still waiting for a trial).

greatpatton 7y ago
I think that regarding the Catalan independence the Spanish judiciary system had proven itself to be at the level of the worst dictatorial country. People taking part in it should be shameful. When most of these cases will go up to the EU court they will likely get squashed.
- enriquto 7y ago
  Sure, but it takes years. In the meanwhile, several arrested teenagers will have spent all that time in jail, some of them even incommunicado (!).
zentropia 7y ago
They don't try to supress catalan independence, but violence. People on jail are there because they set fires, throw stones to police or hold some explosive substances.
- gwright 7y ago
  A good example of why I think "terrorist" and "terrorism" communicate almost nothing other than "I think they are the bad guys". That sort of statement is ripe for debate. On the other hand if you say that someone was arrested for arson, assault, or unauthorized possession or explosives then some objective reasoning can sort things out rather than having to fall back on an endlessly subjective debate of what is or isn't terrorism. The phrase "hate crime" is another example of this problem. Someone being arrested for assault is pretty straightforward to investigate and adjudicate. If you also want the police to make some additional determination as to their motive and thoughts in order to make it a "hate crime" then everything is much more complicated. How about just punish appropriately for the assault and move on. Note, I'm just talking about the use of language here, not trying to discern who are the bad guys in this particular dispute.
  - enriquto 7y ago
    The word "violence" has a similar problem in spanish and catalan discourse. It has been used to describe the acts of blocking a street, moving dustbins around, or simply covering your face. The worst perpetrators of this semantic drift turn out to be catalan "extreme" pacifists, who aggressively condemn anybody who does these things in demonstrations. They are mockingly called the "dustbin protection society".

ricardbejarano 7y ago

I'd rather not to take anyone on Spain very seriously about this, as this is a very "with me or against me" kind of problem, and practically everyone has a strong opinion. Everyone will tell you their side of the story, with half-truths and euphemisms wherever they need them. Source: I'm Spanish, currently living in Barcelona.

StavrosK 7y ago
It's true, and neither side is handling this very well. The government could have let the referendum happen but campaign against it, appeasing the people who wanted a democratic vote but still winning. Instead, they went full suppression and made themselves look much worse.
- petre 7y ago
  It's against their constitution to do so. My country has similar wording in its constitution. Nevertheless, independence can happen if there's enough support for it, either through peaceful means or not. Unfortunately the central goverment's actions only escalate the situation further. It's like they've learned nothing from the Basque conflict.
- ricardbejarano 7y ago
  The thing is, the government can't let a "comunidad autonoma" organize a binding referendum about a region's secession of Spain, because that would put the region's sovereignty on the region's people, and that's against the Spanish constitution (art. 1.2, the sovereignty of the entire Spanish territory is of all Spanish citizens). That also infringes Spanish constitution's 2nd art., "the Constitution is fundamented atop the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation". It's not that they "should have let them vote", it's that they can't, unless the Spanish citizens reform the constitution and remove those articles. The separatist movement is blocked in that regard, and unless all other UN countries were to recognize Catalonia as an independent state, they are locked in as a "comunidad autonoma" until a constitution reform happens.
  - 7y ago

swebs 7y ago

Basically Catalonia, the region of Spain that includes Barcelona, is attempting to gain independence. The Spanish government is attempting to prevent that. These protests are a result of this tension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Catalan_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Catalan_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...

zozbot234 7y ago
It's worth noting that much of this "independence" business is not as serious as outsiders might assume. The Spanish government largely brought this 'independence' movement on themselves by rejecting requests for more sensible forms of increased local self-govenment. To a mildly-sophisticated observer, this just looks like a whole lot of overstated politicking. (This is also why PSOE - the party with the more "sensible" position within the Spanish govenment - is pushing for a soft approach. They realize that this will easily blow over as soon as the government comes to their senses.)
- kgwgk 7y ago
  It’s also worth noting that Spain is already one of the most decentralised countries in the OCDE and Catalonia is one of the regions which a higher level of self-government in the country. Including its own police force, which results in the amusing situation that the regional government is at the same time encouraging the masses to revolt and sending the police to repress the revolts.

joking 7y ago

The tsunami app it's trying to build a decentralized network on a way that anonymous individuals can control and send messages to specific peers, to coordinate "peaceful" demonstrations and make noise on their independence desire. They managed to close the access to Barcelona airport and disturb the lives of thousands of individuals, and their plan is to continue doing so in an anonymous and unaccountable way. Spanish government on the other side, it's trying to find who is behind this network, and making some bold moves, not because their effectiveness, but more to say that it's doing something instead of sitting idle.

StavrosK 7y ago
> their plan is to continue doing so in an anonymous and unaccountable way. I mean, the politicians who tried to do this in an eponymous and accountable way got prison sentences, so...
- joking 7y ago
  They misused the political institutions for their benefit and pushed their agenda even when they have been warned several times of the penal consequences. There can be disagreement with the conviction time, but they are not innocents.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    What is their agenda? Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it?
    - joking 7y ago
      that's a large simplification of the problem. ¿Can Barcelona where people is less independent secede from the rural Catalonia? ¿Can the rich secede from the poor? As a matter of the actual law, only all the Spaniards can vote for a change like that, but Catalonians will never accept such thing because they will never be able to convince that the separation of Catalonia is a good thing for both sides.