I am talking about the grassroots organization of citizens across the country who have refused to take sides and instead decided to mobilize to let the parties involved know that “Spain is a better country than those running it”. They have called for citizens to gather in front of their respective town halls to talk, and in so doing, model what they want the independentists in Cataluña and the leaders of the Spanish government to do: enter into dialogue to resolve their differences. [...]
Independent of their views on Catalan independence, many were horrified by the police brutality and the authoritarian stance taken by the Popular Party against peaceful people who were expressing their right to express themselves through a vote. The increase in repression against peaceful protest notably since the mass mobilizations following 15-M is unfortunately not restricted to the recent and most visible manifestation in Cataluña, but has been a source of concern for human rights observers and activists mobilizing against the recent passage of the Law for the Protection of Citizen Security, more commonly known as the Gag Law (or Ley Mordaza). As if that weren’t bad enough, following the fiasco, neither side showed signs of sitting down and opening dialogue, with Catalan Parliament Carles Puigdemont threatening to carry out his original threat to unilaterally declare independence (DUI) following a favourable outcome in the referendum, despite participation of only 43% of the electoral census under conditions that do not guarantee the validity of the results (contrast with the 75% who voted in the 2015 Catalan elections) and the PP government threatening to invoke the never before used article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which authorizes the state to dissolve the powers of the autonomous community by force if necessary in the case of a threat to the general interest of Spain.
The King further fuelled the fire in a hard-line pro-government speech that did nothing to promote a rapprochement between parties and made no mention of the documented police brutality against his subjects in Catalonia. The scenario bodes ill for the safeguarding of peace and wellbeing of citizens in Cataluña. If over 2 million people were willing to defy the ban on the illegal referendum and express their will to vote on October 1, before they had witnessed the police brutality their fellow citizens faced, how many more would be willing to defend their parliament should it come to that? If in a recent poll only 41.1% of Catalonians want independence (49.4% responded no in that poll in June and July of 2017) before the repression against the referendum, according to another poll conducted by Metroscopia for El País, some 82% want the right to vote in a legal negotiated referendum and see that as the best way forward. 82% also answered yes to the question of whether Rajoy’s handling of the question had contributed to an increase in support for Catalan independence?
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