The sacked leader of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, has told a press conference in Brussels that he will continue the struggle for Catalan independence from Belgium, and will only return to Catalonia if given “guarantees” by the Spanish government about the conduct of any future trial.
Puigdemont, speaking in French, English and Catalan, confirmed he was not seeking asylum in Belgium and that he would accept the results of the snap election Madrid called for December 21. He called on Madrid to do the same.
The Spanish Attorney General, José Manuel Maza, is seeking charges of sedition, rebellion, and misuse of public funds against the separatist leaders for their role in Catalonia’s parliamentary declaration of independence. Under the Spanish legal system, it is now up to a judge to consider the attorney general’s requests. The charge of rebellion carries up to 30 years in prison. Formal charges could polarize Catalan society further, since the issue of independence has been deeply divisive.
According to Spanish newspaper El País, the attorney general recommended charges against ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and his cabinet to Spain’s National Audience, a senior court. Maza also recommended charges against Speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Carme Forcadell, and a handful of separatist lawmakers to Spain’s Superior Courts of Justice.
The chief prosecutor also said he would seek preventative charges against the secessionist leaders who allowed the vote on independence to go through. The prosecutor did not specify whether these measures included immediate arrest and detention before trial, as reported by AP.
Puigdemont’s trip to Brussels followed Madrid stripping Catalonia of its autonomy over the weekend – the first such action since the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government temporarily dissolved Catalonia’s semi-autonomous status, imposed direct rule over the region’s government (Generalitat) and called for early regional elections to take place on December 21, 2017. The moves were a direct response to the Catalan parliament’s declaration of independence on Friday, October 27.
On Sunday, October 29, hundreds of thousands of pro-Spain demonstrators congregated in Barcelona to express their support for the central government’s decision. Supporters of continued union waved Spanish and regional flags, called for reconciliation between Spain and Catalonia, and demanded the jailing of separatist political leaders.
Fears surrounding the potential for civil disobedience on Monday, October 30, of 200,000 civil servants employed by Catalonia’s dissolved administration. However public employees returned to work and secessionist parties accepted Madrid’s calls for regional elections.
Meanwhile, some legal scholars questioned the validity of the Catalonian parliament’s process. According to a column in Spanish digital newspaper Publico.es, the Catalan parliament’s vote is “a resolution without legal force despite having political value.” It also quotes Spanish legal scholars who say the legal manoeuvring is part of Puigdemont strategy to downplay the legal force of the separatists’ political declarations in preparation for potential legal battles in Spain’s courts. WikiTribune was unable to independently corroborate the information.
I appreciate the “WikiTribune was unable to independently corroborate the information.” at the end of a paragraph.
I was wondering if it would make sense to have a different text style for statements that could not be confirmed?
More or less in the same way quotations are surrounded by quotation marks. This way readers can identify it as a quote (or in this case, un-corroborated statements) while their reading it rather than after reading it.
Hi Julian, I think that’s a really interesting idea. I’ll bring it up at the next news meeting. Thanks
… Feel free to add to the news agenda — under projects!
On it
I am not sure about the neutrality of El Confidencial… Maybe find other sources?
Why are you not sure about El Confidencial’s neutrality? What other sources would you suggest?
Well… nothing is neutral, that’s why we are making this project 😛
I think it’s more about how to manage the “proportionality” of facts, some sources emphasize in less relevant things to be more aligned with the political view of their readers.
When I checked the headlines of El Confidencial today it seemed to me that some of headlines are even making fun of some politicians.
I’m wondering how WikiTribune can manage this. Do we need side notes for the sources we are mentioning? Like, “This is a conservative newspaper […] which might have this headline for X and Y reasons…”.
Your point of signposting the political alignment of different newspapers is very interesting. I sought to balance the piece by having El Confidencial followed by El Periodico de Catalunya.
In any case, we updated the story today with news from Puigdemont’s speech in Brussels. Many of yesterday’s questions regarding his travel to Brussels were answered in today’s announcement.
Having balance between papers of opposed views is a good idea, it actually solves neutrality in a way 🙂
What about having an explanatory page of each newspaper somewhere in WikiTribune, and linking them from the articles? Could be political views, how are they funded, controversies in the past, etc.
Sounds handy. Would you like to give it a go?
Something like this?
https://www.wikitribune.com/?post_type=projects&p=16159
George, I suggest you include the idea expressed in this article in your in-depth story, it may be important for future judicial repercussions: http://www.publico.es/politica/realmente-aprobo-parlament-viernes-independencia-catalunya.html
Hi Guillermo, thanks for this. Will take it into account.
“Many didn’t in order to boycott the referendum.” Where does it say so?
Hi Hector, thanks for your comment. A couple of things. We trimmed the story down given the latest developments so that bit you mentioned isn’t in there anymore.
However, that line was based off information in these sources:
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-29478415
– https://apnews.com/5341651334024917ad52c0cfa96c3cfd
– https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spain-politics-catalonia/catalonia-moves-to-declare-independence-from-spain-on-monday-idUSKCN1C9109
I am aware that because 57 percent of the electorate didn’t vote, it is impossible to ascertain with precision how many of those didn’t with the express purpose of boycotting the vote.
But, as I’m sure you’re aware, national political parties boycotted the vote because it lacked legal guarantees and had been suspended by Spain’s Constitutional Court.
The pro-Spain demonstrations on October 8 and October 29 further support the notion that many Catalans who didn’t vote on October 1 didn’t do so in order to boycott the event.
Opinion polls in the lead-up to the poll suggested more people were in favour of “No”: http://ceo.gencat.cat/ceop/AppJava/loadFile?fileId=25317&fileType=1.
While I also understand that some people might have been put off by the police charges of October 1, I think it’s still fair to assert that “many did not vote in order to boycott the referendum.”
Finally, many Catalans I spoke to while I was reporting from Barcelona last week/weekend told me they didn’t vote because they didn’t want to seem to legitimise the vote on October 1.
You are making a lot of fair points there, but the word “boycott” does sound a little disproportionate. Anyway, I was mostly pointing out the lack of supporting source for that claim, regardless whether or not I agree with it. I reviewed the particular article and could not find anything related to “boycotting”. Perhaps, “not deeming the referendum as an official” would be a more fortunate statement. Still, as I’m seeing now, that part has been removed from the article. How come?
I must have linked my assertion to the wrong Reuters article. My apologies. Thanks for insisting on more rigorous attribution, it’s one of the reasons why you, and our community, are so important to WikiTribune’s success.
But I stick by the word “boycott” because it was the word used by many pro-Spain Catalans I interviewed when describing why they hadn’t voted on October 1. It was also the word used by many trustworthy news agencies, including by those I linked in response to your first comment.
A whole section was removed from the story, including the statement in question, because we had already made many of the same points in other stories throughout the site.
The link to “(see our in-depth coverage)” is not working.
Hi Guillermo, you’re right. We haven’t yet published the in-depth story. It should be going live later today. Apologies for the confusion.