Plaid Ifanc stands in solidarity with the Catalan people, the vast majority of which wish to express themselves in a free and fair referendum on the nation’s constitutional future.
The regressive machinery of the Spanish State in pursuing those who wish to hold this democratic act is rearing its ugly head once again. The countless attacks on freedom of assembly and expression, as well as threatening council leaders wishing to facilitate the holding of the referendum with jail terms, reminds us more of Erdoğan’s Turkey than of a modern European democracy. Today we hear more news of the Spanish police’s raiding of Catalan ministries and detention of government officials.
Anna Gabriel, the leader of the pro-independence party CUP (Candidatura per la Unitat Popular), was last week banned from holding a solidarity event in the Basque city of Gasteiz. As she went ahead with it anyway, local police entered the building in order to send participants home.
The 700+ mayors who have noted their will to collaborate with the Catalan government by facilitating the use of municipal buildings as polling stations, have been notified that they face up to 8 years in prison for doing so.
As if that were not enough, it has even been mentioned that the electric supply and internet service could even be cut to polling stations, making access and the counting process difficult. The official referendum website, as well as the Catalan government’s video to encourage participation, have been shut down and outlawed. Posters and ballot papers have also been seized from the printers by the Spanish Civil Guard. And in the boldest attempt to stop the referendum yet, the Spanish State has seized control of Catalan finances from the Generalitat and has today broken into the offices of the Catalan Government, an unprecedented attack on the Catalan people and its institutions.
If the situation were not as serious as it is, one would be forgiven for thinking that it is comical. Members of the military police, la Guardia Civil, took it upon themselves last week to raid the offices of a small local newspaper, el Vallenc, with a circulation inferior to that of the Rhondda Leader, taking away nothing more than a small office printer. In the Southern Catalan town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita, buckets and brushes were confiscated as not to facilitate people sticking campaign posters before the day of the referendum.
Faced by this flagrant abuse of democratic rights by the Spanish government, Plaid Ifanc is organising acts of solidarity with the Catalan people and have also organised that a delegation of 25 members will be travelling to Catalonia to observe the referendum.
We call on elected members of all parties across Wales, especially council leaders, to express solidarity with the hundreds of mayors putting their careers and liberty on the line to ensure that the democratic will of the Catalan people can be carried out.
We fundamentally believe that self-determination and independence is the only way that the unrepresented peoples of Europe, and the world, will be able to shape their own future. The young people of both Catalonia and Wales must now grasp this opportunity with both hands, and say yes to a confident, profoundly democratic and socially just future for our nations.
Emyr Gruffydd and Sioned Treharne
Co-Chairs of Plaid Ifanc
