Above Photo: President Puigdemont and the deposed minister during an event in Brussels with around 200 Catalan mayors. From CatalanNews.com
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Denounce Spain’s Actions Against Self-Rule and Warn ‘They will never be able to crush our democratic aspirations’
Note: A general strike continues in support of Catalonia independence. Associated Press reports:“National railway operator Renfe said services were halted on dozens of local lines as protesters blocked railway lines. Several national high-speed lines were also affected. In northern Girona, several protesters pushed past police controls to enter the city’s main railway station. Later, dozens of others occupied the tracks.”
The main highway of Catalonia looks like this right now: pic.twitter.com/j20K1phhAR
— Catalans for Yes ????️ (@CatalansForYes) November 8, 2017
High speed train line in #Girona blocked by strikers #FreeCatalanPoliticalPrisoners pic.twitter.com/OXQx5FvVuK — Help Catalonia ???? (@CataloniaHelp2) November 8, 2017
Carles Puigdemont and his four ministers in Brussels have established a “stable administrative structure” in exile. They claim to be the ‘legitimate government of Catalonia’ after being ousted by the Spanish executive during the last week of October. The five have published a letter where they say that a structure has been set up “in order to coordinate the activity of the government” and to denounce the “politicization of the Spanish justice system, its lack of impartiality and its will to persecute the ideas” on an international level. One of the first manifestations of this structure is a new Twitter account, @catalan_gov, which is the “official profile of the office of the legitimate government of Catalonia.”
Call for citizens to ‘sustain democracy’
In the letter, the pro-independence officials in Belgium also ask citizens to “sustain the democracy, which is now threatened by the coalition which enforced Article 155 (direct rule of Catalonia) together with the police and judicial violence and the far-right.” They claim that “the state has placed itself at the periphery of the central democratic European bloc” with its measures against Catalan self-rule. “It is a serious mistake to think that repression is the way to get Catalans to give up their legitimate wishes,” the letter also reads.
- “It is a serious mistake to think that repression is the way to get Catalans to give up their legitimate wishes”
Carles Puigdemont, Clara Ponsatí, Toni Comín, Meritxell Serret, Lluís Puig · Catalan deposed president and ministers in Belgium
‘They will never be able to crush our democratic aspirations’
“They may be able to humiliate and harass us and our families, with the support of the perverse Spanish media system, which has imposed a narrative about governmental institutions and civil organizations that is full of hatred and lies, but they will never be able to crush our democratic aspirations,” Puigdemont and his four ministers add.
The five Catalan leaders make a call for citizens to participate in the demonstration this Saturday and to massively take part in the December 21 election in order to face, with firmness but also peace and respect, a “deranged state which is out of control”. “Let’s not be dragged into following the violent impulses that rule a big part of the Spanish political system, because that is the only area where our defeat is certain.”