Catalonia wants out; Spain says no

The new president of Catalonia, Quim Torra, has insisted he has a strong mandate to push for another independence referendum, as he visited Scotland for a meeting with the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon.

Despite a recent poll in the Catalan newspaper El Periódico, which showed only 21.5% of Catalans want an independent republic, with 62% in favour of increased self-government, Torra told the Guardian: “These surveys also always show 80% say that this should be solved by voting, so there is a consensus.

“Spain never has an answer to our question: why don’t we do something like the Scottish people did? We even tell them: remember that the pro-independence side lost in Scotland. Holding a referendum doesn’t mean we are going to win.”

Last week, a German court approved Puigdemont's extradition, but ruled that he couldn't be sent back to Spain on rebellion charges, only for misuse of public funds.

In a decision published Thursday, Spanish Judge Pablo Llarena revoked the arrest warrants against the six Catalan leaders, but criticized the German court's decision, saying it showed "a lack of commitment" in pursuing the fugitives.

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Although he is still subject to a Spanish arrest warrant on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds, the former president said he did not intend to remain abroad indefinitely.

“I don’t know if it’ll be 20 years before I set foot on Spanish soil again, but what I do know is that I won’t wait 20 years to return to Catalan soil,” he said at a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday.

Asked about Spain’s new Socialist government, which has offered to hold talks to try to resolve the Catalan crisis, Puigdemont said he had seen “a change on style, climate and language”. But he said it was time for “deeds, not gestures” on the independence issue.
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The new Spanish government must show its commitment to resolving the Catalan issue through actions, not just words, the region’s president Quim Torra said.

Torra said that he had begun a dialogue with Spanish Prime minister Pedro Sánchez earlier this month, but that the Spanish government needed to show more commitment to resolving the issue politically.

The president was speaking a press conference in Brussels flanked by the region’s former leader Carles Puigdemont who has returned to Belgium after spending a month in custody in Germany where he was detained under a European arrest warrant but subsequently released.

Puigdemont stepped up his criticism of the EU over Catalonia’s bid for independence and the referendum last October which was marred by criticism of heavy-handed policing of the vote. He said he was disappointed with the response from EU leaders.

“I was very disappointed by the reaction of [Commission President Jean-Claude] Juncker and other European leaders not because of their opinions about an independent Catalonia, but for their silence about that kind of violation of fundamental rights in part of the European Union,” the exiled politician said.

“I’m sure the point of view of the majority of European society about our problem or demands are clearly in favour of the fundamental values of democracy,” he added.

Torra told journalists it was a positive step that talks had begun with Madrid. “The idea is that we started a dialogue and imagine how far we have come. That is new,” said the Catalan president. “We think that in the 21st century that if you agree this is a political issue that should be solved politically then the only way to solve that is voting.”

He added that it is now up to the Spanish government to demonstrate its commitment to a dialogue with the Catalan government through action, not only words.

“We are now asking the Spanish government for facts for having not only the sensation that dialogue has started but also implementing things that we can see and touch,” he added.

Puigdemont said he would continue his work from his headquarters in Waterloo — just outside Brussels. He had arrived in the country initially in October in the immediate aftermath of the vote. The former president reiterated that his main responsibility now is to bring the movement for Catalan self-determination across Europe in an effort to build recognition for the cause.

“This will not be my last stop. This is not the end of the journey. From here on, I will continue my journey around Europe. I will travel to the last corner of our continent in order to defend the just cause of the Catalan people, the cause of democracy, cause of freedom and the cause of self-determination,” he said.

The German authorities arrested the former leader in March after Madrid issued a European Arrest Warrant for Puigdemont’s role in Catalonia’s referendum for independence, which had been ruled illegal by Spain’s constitutional court.

A regional court in Germany ruled in early July that the former Catalan president could be extradited to Spain for charges that he misused public funds but not for rebellion, a more serious charge. The Spanish Supreme Court then abandoned its EU-wide arrest warrant because if he were returned to Spain on the lesser charge he could not be tried for rebellion. Puigdemont can still be arrested and charged if he goes back to the country though.

Shortly after the independence vote in October 2017, Puigdemont arrived in Belgium as a political exile.

This time last year the Catalan government was busily preparing for a vote on independence, even though the parliament had yet to give its final approval. One puzzle was how to obtain ballot papers and ballot boxes - and how to prevent them being seized in advance. The BBC's Niall O'Gallagher visited France to discover how the problem was solved.

Group travels 60 miles to take down secessionist symbols in pro-independence town

Fears of an escalation in Catalonia’s “yellow ribbon war” are growing after a group of about 80 masked vigilantes dressed in white boiler suits removed hundreds of the pro-independence symbols from a small town in the north of the region in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

A woman had her nose broken in Barcelona after a man punched her in the face last week because her children were removing ribbons from park railings. He then shouted at the woman, a Russian resident, to “go back where you came from”. Police have arrested her aggressor on charges of committing a hate crime.

Independence sympathisers started wearing yellow lapel ribbons after Spain jailed a number of Catalan political leaders for their role in last October’s illegal declaration of independence.

Supporters soon started spray-painting yellow symbols in the street and on buildings, and tying thousands of ribbons to railings and public buildings. They also planted hundreds of yellow crosses on beaches and in public squares.

The majority of Catalans, whatever their political sympathies, oppose the jailing of the politicians, but the proliferation of yellow ribbons is seen by many as the colonisation by a political faction of what they believe should be neutral public space.

The Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police force, said earlier this month that it had noted the names of 14 people seen removing ribbons in the southern Catalan city of Tarragona. Officers have not intervened to prevent anyone from putting them there.

Inés Arrimadas, the leader of the rightwing Citizens party in Catalonia, accused the the region’s president, Quim Torra, of .

“The police identify people who remove the ribbons but not those who put them there,” Arrimadas said, complaining that the police were taking action only against those who were trying clean up public space, not those who were occupying it.

Torra defended the police, saying: “They have done the right thing and any police force would have done the same, faced with a group armed with knives operating under the cover of darkness.”

María José Segarra, the attorney general, said it “is not a crime to either remove or put up” yellow ribbons and that it was a question of freedom of expression.

The latest incident, in which an organised group opposed to independence drove 60 miles (100km) from Cabrera de Mar to the strongly secessionist town of La Bisbal d’Empordà in order to remove the symbols, marks a significant escalation in the conflict.

Later on Wednesday Arrimadas and Citizens party leader Albert Rivera were seen cutting ribbons in Alella, just north of Barcelona.

The Historical Comparison of the Territory tool allows you to visualize aerial images of Catalan from 1945 until today. The map allows you to select any location and compare aerial images of the area from different years side-by-side. The tool even allows you to create an animated GIF showing how a chosen area has changed over the decades.

The map includes a search facility so you can search for a Catalan location by name. Alternatively you can select a Catalan municipality from the drop-down menu. Once you have centered the map on your chosen location you can choose a year for the two sets of aerial imagery you want to view. The map includes historical imagery from the 1940's, 1950's and for most years since 1983 until the present.

The big yellow button under the map allows you to create an animated GIF for any location. Press the button and the map will create an animated GIF showing your selected area from 1945 to the present day, using all the available historical aerial imagery for your location.

By Raphael Minder
Sept. 9, 2018

MADRID — Almost a year after failing to secede from Spain, the separatist politicians who govern Catalonia plan another show of force on Tuesday, with the celebration of the region’s national day.

In a defiant speech this past week, Catalonia’s leader, Quim Torra, urged people to take to the streets to protest the imprisonment of separatist leaders who carried out a secession referendum last October that prompted the regional Parliament to declare independence.

The referendum had been declared unconstitutional, and the central government then suspended the region’s autonomy and imposed direct rule from Madrid, until Mr. Torra took office in June.

Since then, events “have done nothing but reinforce the legitimacy of the cause for independence and for the republic” of Catalonia, Mr. Torra said in his speech delivered in the Catalan national theater.

That tough talk, though, offered no specifics to put Catalonia firmly back on the road to independence. Mr. Torra’s fragile coalition of separatist parties is split over whether to provoke another clash with Madrid or accept the offer of Spain’s new prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to return to political dialogue.

Separatist leaders also realize that any further violation of the Constitution could land them before the Supreme Court. Roughly two dozen former colleagues are to face trial by the end of the year on charges tied to the secessionist efforts, including some who were denied bail and are in prison awaiting trial. Others, however, including Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan leader who fled to Belgium after independence was declared, have refused to return to Spain to face prosecution.

Just as Mr. Torra’s coalition bonds are weak, so is Mr. Sánchez’s grip on power in Madrid. The prime minister leads a minority Socialist government that is under intense pressure, particularly from the center-right, to resist Mr. Torra and if he refuses to abandon secessionism, to reinstate direct rule over Catalonia.

“We’ve reached a moment of stagnation that has nothing to do with the open confrontation of a year ago,” the Catalan political columnist Josep Ramoneda said in a phone interview. “But it doesn’t mean that we’re close to resolving the problem of Catalonia.”

The Catalan leadership has expressed hope that the national day on Tuesday, known as the Diada, will draw major demonstrations in support of independence as well as widespread displays of yellow ribbons, the symbol of those opposed to the jailing of Catalan politicians. Prominent figures including Pep Guardiola, the pro-independence Catalan soccer coach of Manchester City, have made public statements while wearing the ribbons.

Mr. Guardiola compared Catalans’ wearing of yellow ribbons to the show of support by Tiger Woods and other golfers toward Jarrod Lyle, a golfer who died recently of cancer.

Mr. Torra said he hoped that Tuesday’s activities would feed another upswell of support on the Oct. 1 anniversary of the independence referendum, which was marred by clashes between Spanish police officers and voters. A clear majority of those voting that day approved independence, but the government immediately declared it null and void, since the referendum itself had been illegal and the recount contested.

There is no evidence that voters have shifted their views much over the past year. An election last December yielded almost the same result as the previous one: A slim majority of separatist lawmakers won control of the Catalan Parliament, to the dismay of the national government. Madrid had hoped the vote would deal a major blow to the independence movement after months of turmoil and the announcement by many companies that they were moving their legal headquarters outside Catalonia to avoid more political instability.

Given the region’s deep divisions, it is unclear if the demonstrations on Tuesday and next month will be peaceful. The Spanish government said last week that it would send 600 riot police officers to help Catalan security forces handle the protests and any backlash. Mr. Torra responded over the weekend that Catalonia “doesn’t need so many policemen but more infrastructure.”

In the past few months, thousands of yellow ribbons have appeared in the region’s streets and squares and on its beaches, prompting clashes between supporters and opponents of independence. In late August, Albert Rivera, the national leader of the Ciudadanos Party, removed yellow ribbons in Alella, a town northeast of Barcelona, and made a public display of throwing them in a trash bag, with some residents shouting insults and calling him a fascist.

This past week, Mr. Rivera denounced as an act of hatred a yellow ribbon painted on the shop his mother owns. “History shows that nationalism always uses the same totalitarian methods: fracture society and spread hatred,” he wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Torra’s appointment as Catalonia’s president allowed the region to regain its autonomy just as Mr. Sánchez was taking office in Madrid, providing a kind of new start on two fronts. But Mr. Torra has since shown that he plans to stay true to the separatist cause, pursuing Mr. Puigdemont’s goals after he was ousted.

Mr. Puigdemont continues to influence Catalan politics from Brussels. He has also tried to turn the tables on a Spanish judge, Pablo Llarena, who sought his extradition, filing a lawsuit in Belgium accusing the judge of failing to impartially investigate the organization of last year’s referendum and of violating his right to a fair trial.

A preliminary hearing is expected in Belgium this month. Mr. Puigdemont’s suit has already embarrassed Mr. Sánchez, the prime minister, who agreed that the state should cover the judge’s legal costs.

Catalan and Basque lawmakers played a pivotal role in Mr. Sánchez’s election in June, helping him unseat Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Parliament. Soon after, Mr. Sánchez invited Mr. Torra to Madrid, following up with a good-will gesture by transferring Catalans jailed in Madrid to prisons in their home region, closer to relatives and lawyers.

Mr. Torra has warned though, that dialogue with Madrid was dependent on the exoneration of the Catalan politicians charged with rebellion and other crimes related to last year’s referendum. “We can only accept absolution in the trials — trials which should never be held,” he said in his speech.

The Spanish prime minister has offered Catalonia a referendum on greater autonomy, but he has firmly ruled out a new vote on independence or a unilateral attempt by Catalonia to secede. Mr. Torra quickly rejected the offer, emphasizing the right to self-determination and the need for a new vote on independence recognized by Spain’s central government.

Mr. Torra’s position seems unlikely to shift until the Madrid trial of Catalan leaders or a new round of elections takes place in Catalonia to help break the deadlock.

“Other than plans to call new regional elections,” the newspaper El País, which has strongly opposed secession, wrote in an editorial last week. “Torra lacks a strategy that might lead to the Catalan republic that he keeps promising to some, and which he tries to use as an extortion tool against others.”

Barcelona (Reuters) - Six people were arrested in Barcelona on Saturday as protesters for and against independence scuffled with police, two days before the first anniversary of a vote on secession that polarized the Spanish region.

Two people were arrested after separatist protesters threw powder paint at riot police who were keeping them apart from a rival unionist demonstration.

Another four were arrested later on Saturday.

Fourteen people received treatment for injuries sustained in the protests, all of them minor, local press reported.

Tensions remain high in the independence-minded region a year after the October 1 vote deemed illegal by Madrid but celebrated by separatist Catalans.

Spain's Val d'Aran has a strong regional identity. The people who live in this out-of-the-way valley aren't fond of Barcelona's independence movement. And if push comes to shove, they may opt to leave Catalonia.

On September 11, Catalonia's national day, approximately 1 million angry pro-independence demonstrators took to Avinguda Diagonal, Barcelona's central avenue, waving red-and-yellow flags and shouting. Some were singing songs, while others had brought horns and whistles.

Nearly a year after the 2017 Catalan independence referendum on October 1, many were still dreaming of full regional autonomy.

But some 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of Catalan capital as the crow flies in Val d'Aran, on the border with France, September 11 was a day like any other.

Catalonia's non-Catalans

"We have nothing to do with all that hubbub," said Juan Amiell, a valley local, a few weeks after Barcelona's national day rally. Leaning on his cane, he grinned and added: "We're not Catalans."

Some 10,000 people live in Val d'Aran, surrounded by the verdant Pyrenees Mountains. The region's largest village is Viella with its 5,000 inhabitants; the smallest is Bausen, with a population of just 40. This is where Amiell lives, up a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) serpentine mountain road a stone's throw from the French border.

"We are Aranese people," Amiell explained. The 88-year-old has lived all his life in the mountain village. In the exact same house, in fact. He can see the entire valley from his kitchen window, and knows it like the back of his hand.

Here, he said, most people speak the Aranese language, which has little in common with Catalan. Although Aranese is one of Catalonia's official languages, it's only spoken in Val d'Aran. It's related to Occitan, a language spoken in southern France.

Val d'Aran, which shares its northern border with France, was largely isolated from Spain until 1948. Amiell recalled that most people would spend their entire lives in the valley. "Occasionally we would travel, but the only streets out of the valley led to Toulouse," in France.

"The Aranese language is the most important element of our local identity," said the mayor of Viella, Juan Antonio Serrano. "And because we were cut off from the rest of Catalonia for such a long time, we do not feel very connected to them." His position on last year's Catalan independence referendum is clear: "If Catalonia decides to split off from Spain, we'll decide to split off from Catalonia."

Right to self-determination

A law passed in 2015 allows the region to vote on whether it wants to leave Catalonia and become part of Spain. With Catalonia's independence referendum looming last October 1, plans were drawn up in Val d'Aran for such a vote. "But the referendum was never held," Serrano said.

Leaving Spain would destroy the economy in the region, which is known throughout Europe for the Baqueira-Beret ski resort. It's Spain's largest, and said to be a favorite of the Spanish royal family. During the winter, about 60,000 vacationers glide down the resort's 153 kilometers of trails every hour; the streets of the surrounding towns and villages are lined with hotels and restaurants.

"Our economy largely depends on tourism and gastronomy," Serrano explained. "The income generated in winter gets us though the whole year." If Catalonia — and with it the Val d'Aran — were to split off from Spain, and possibly leave the European Union, that could seriously harm the tourist trade. Serrano doesn't even want to think about what that could mean for his region.

In the warmer months, Juan Estevez works as a farmer. But in winter, the 64-year-old, like many others, earns extra money as a ski instructor. He is well aware of the economic consequences of Catalan independence. But for him, what matters most is his local identity.

"This is not Catalonia, this is the Val d'Aran," he said — even though there are few Aranese flags on display, never mind Catalan flags. Only at the town hall in Viella does the Aranese flag fly, side-by-side, with the banners of Spain and Catalonia. "Without switching on the TV, we would hardly even be aware of what is going on in Barcelona," joked Estevez.

'We don't want trouble'

Estevez lives in Vilac, a district of Viella. There are only a handful of residences here, one of them his farm. It's a quiet area — disturbed only by the hourly church bell and the occasional tractor mowing the grass. Estevez likes it that way. "We don't want trouble," he said. "I would prefer that everything stay just as it is." That way, he said, they wouldn't have to break ties with either Catalonia or with Spain.

In August, many tourists stream into the Val d'Aran to go hiking, said Juan Amiell. But once they are gone, things quiet down considerably until winter. Amiell stopped to chat with a neighbor — in the small village of Bausen, everyone knows everybody. His neighbor, too, wants everything to stay just as it is: "Things are just fine, we are not bothering anyone, and nobody is bothering us." That, he said, is what Aranese people are like.

But if Catalonia wins its independence from Spain, he doesn't want the valley to follow suit. The Spanish government brought many great things to their valley, he said, and built a tunnel to Viella, for instance. He thinks Catalonia's regional government pays little attention to Val d'Aran. So for him the matter is clear. "First and foremost, I am Aranese. Only then do I consider myself Spanish, and lastly Catalan," he said, speaking in Aranese.

Mayor Serrano expects a second Catalan independence vote could happen again soon. "It's just a matter of time," he said. "Pressure is mounting in Barcelona." Then it will be up to the people of Val d'Aran to choose their side: Catalonia or Spain. "But we're ready to vote," he said.

The Spanish government has accused the Catalan president of “encouraging radicals” after a day of protests to mark the first anniversary of the region’s unilateral independence referendum ended with riot police charging demonstrators outside the Catalan parliament.

About 180,000 people were estimated to have gathered in Barcelona on Monday to commemorate the vote and show their support for Catalan independence, many of them carrying banners reading “1 October, no forgiving, no forgetting”.

During the peaceful demonstrations city streets, motorways and a high-speed rail line were blocked, and activists attempted to surround the Catalan parliament and the Barcelona headquarters of the Spanish national police.

Catalonia’s nationalist president, Quim Torra, had praised those undertaking direct action earlier on Monday, urging them to “keep up the pressure”.

The Catalan police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, said 30 of its officers were injured on Monday night as they tried to stop protesters forcing their way into the regional parliament and demonstrating outside the police HQ.

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, urged Torra to rein in those responsible for the violence. “Catalan politics has to come back to the Catalan parliament,” he tweeted on Tuesday morning.

“President Torra needs to fulfil his obligations and not jeopardise the political return to normality by encouraging radicals to besiege the institutions that represent all Catalans. Violence is not the answer.”

The scenes of unrest will be damaging for the Catalan independence movement, which has always prided itself on being peaceful and democratic – even in the face of the violence used by Spanish police to prevent the referendum.

But with the movement increasingly divided and political progress limited, its radical sectors are growing impatient at their leaders’ failure to deliver the republic they promised and some have called for Torra to resign.

The former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium after the Spanish government sacked him and his cabinet for staging the referendum, was among the first to criticise the masked activists who had tried to enter parliament.

“If they’re wearing hoods, they aren’t 1 October people,” he tweeted. “If they use violence, they aren’t 1 October people. We did it with our faces uncovered and in a peaceful way. That is how, a year ago, we overcame an authoritarian state.”

Puigdemont’s former vice-president, Oriol Junqueras – who has been in custody, awaiting trial for almost a year – also called on pro-independence Catalans to remain peaceful in their protests.

“The 1 October taught us that truncheons and blows are always the worst solution and cannot be our way,” he wrote on Twitter. “We still have open wounds, we are people of peace and our is, and always has been, a peaceful movement.”