Catalan MPS defy dismissal
300,000 demonstrators gather in Barcelona to protest against region’s independence declaration
CATALONIA’S deposed government is heading for a fresh showdown with the Spanish authorities today after Catalan ministers promised they would go to work this morning despite being sacked over the weekend by Madrid.
A source close to Carles Puigdemont, the deposed president, said today is “a working day” for the administration, officially ousted on Saturday under special powers. Mr Puigdemont could face charges of rebellion, a crime which carries a jail term of up to 30 years. However, Catalonia’s deposed vice president, Oriol Junqueras, wrote in a weekend newspaper: “The president of the country is, and will continue to be, Carles Puigdemont.”
The defiance is the first major test for Madrid’s new security powers. Catalan police officers could be called upon to block access to buildings to their former political masters.
Some 300,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Barcelona yesterday to reject the declaration of independence.
THEY were dubbed the “silent majority” but yesterday hundreds of thousands of Catalans who reject the region’s unlawful declaration of independence from Spain made their voices heard under a sea of red-and-yellow Spanish and Catalan flags.
Demonstrators numbering 300,000 according to Barcelona’s police – although the organisers put the turnout at 1.1million – poured into the centre of Barcelona to say that the republic proclaimed by Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s deposed leader, was an illusion with no basis in reality and no hope of prospering. “This is Spain, and so it will stay. We’ve got the law on our side and the rest of the world,” said Alberto Villena, a pensioner who moved to Barcelona from southern Spain half a century ago to “help build Catalonia”.
Dressed in a Real Madrid shirt and draped in a large Spanish flag, Mr Villena was adamant that a majority of Catalans, many with mixed heritage like him, would defeat the region’s separatist politicians.
“I’ve got children born here and grandchildren and we’re all Spaniards. These politicians have been deceiving people saying Catalonia is ‘independent’. We are more Spanish than ever here today.”
Antonia Padilla Vargas, a 45-year-old Barcelona native, struggled to contain her emotion and outrage at what she called Catalan leaders’ “disgusting” campaign to split Spain. “They say if you don’t want independence, you are a bad Catalan. I am a Catalan, and just as Catalan as they are. But I don’t recognise the Catalan republic. I am in favour of unity and Catalonia as a part of Spain. We are stronger together, not separated,” she said, wrapped in both the Spanish and Catalan flags.
Ms Padilla said she was “afraid” for her job as a saleswoman in a shopping centre, where she claimed business is down 40 per cent this month. “It’s not fair for them to take us to the brink like this and threaten our livelihoods. They say to Europe that Spain is oppressing us, robbing us and beating us. But it’s not true.”
Organised by the anti-independence platform Catalan Civil Society, yesterday’s demonstration was supported by the Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s Prime Minister, the main opposition socialists, and Ciudadanos, a centrist anti-nationalist party whose stronghold is in Catalonia.
Spain’s anti-secession forces can take hope from the first major opinion poll published since elections in Catalonia were set for Dec 21 by Mr Rajoy, showing that pro-independence parties are on course to lose their slender majority in the region’s parliament with just 42.5 per cent of the popular vote. Based on polling last week before independence was declared, the Sigma Dos poll for the El Mundo newspaper showed Ciudadanos as the leading force among the pro-unity parties on 20 per cent.
“These elections are the chance of a lifetime to put an end to Catalan nationalism,” said Albert Rivera, the Ciudadanos leader on the sidelines of yesterday’s march, adding that Mr Puigdemont “lives in a parallel reality”.
While many demonstrators shouted “Prison for Puigdemont”, the option that the former Catalan leader could escape the legal consequences of the conflict with Spain’s government by requesting asylum loomed larger yesterday with an invitation to seek asylum in Belgian. “Catalans who feel politically threatened can apply for asylum in Belgium. This includes the minister-president Puigdemont. It’s completely legal,” Theo Francken, Belgium’s secretary of state for asylum and migration, said in an interview with the broadcaster VRT.
Mr Francken, a member of the New Flemish Alliance nationalist party, suggested such a request from Mr Puigdemont was a possibility amid speculation that the erstwhile Catalan leader could be accused of rebellion, a crime which carries a possible jail sentence of 30 years. Esteban González Pons, the leader of the Popular Party in the European Parliament, called Mr Francken’s proposal “an unacceptable attack by a member of the Belgian government against another EU state such as Spain”.