CATALAN DIARY, MONDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2017

Catalan Diary

Monday 27 November 2017 – from anti-fascists in Barcelona

Campaign against teachers, journalists and anti-fascists. Impunity for nazis and serious nazi infiltration in Madrid police.

The leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP) in Catalonia, Xavier García Albiol, has demanded closure of the Catalan public TV3 TV and its reopening “with normal people”.

For Albiol and for the leader of the right-wing party Ciudadanos (Cs), TV3 “indoctrinates” viewers and has become one of the main targets of the Spanish nationalist campaign against the independence movement.

Before the elections in Catalonia imposed by the Spanish government after it jailed the Catalan government that proclaimed the republic, the main parties opposed to the right to self-determination, the PP, PSOE and Cs, have worked to defeat the other parties that want to continue with the independence process if they win the elections again.

Catalan schools have also become an object   of Spanish nationalist hate in which teachers are being accused s of “indoctrinating” students. In La Seu d’Urgell, a court has charged 9 teachers for discussing the police violence on October 1– when thousands of police wounded about 900 people at the polling stations – with students. The teachers are accused of incitement to hatred.

The use of legislation on hate crimes being made by the Spanish government in connection with the conflict in Catalonia is mainly focused on those who have criticised police violence, ignoring the more than 100 fascist attacks that have taken place since September.

This has provoked fierce debate and harsh criticism from experts who have worked for this legislation to protect vulnerable groups and is now being used to hound critics of the government.

In this sense, it also forms the background to the trial of five young anti-fascists in Barcelona accused of attacking a group of nazis in Barcelona on 12 October 2013, at the end of a nazi demonstration. The prosecutor is demanding 17 years in prison for them, while the defence is seeking acquittal after demonstrating the numerous irregularities in the case.

None of the accused was arrested at the time of the attack but they have been charged from images recorded by the police in front the social centre Can Vies (a squat that is a meeting point of several Catalan social movements).

WEBSITE OF THE CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT ANTIFASCISTS:

http://somantifeixistes.org/

Freedom  nazis who attacked sCatalan politicians in 2013

The Second Chamber of the Constitutional Court has agreed to suspend enforcement of the prison sentences imposed by the Supreme Court on nazis who violently assaulted the Blanquerna bookstore in Madrid on 11 September 2013, while a celebration of Catalunya’s national day of Catalonia was taking place.

VIDEO OF THE ATTACK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVT7JnoiG8U

In an application for protection of one of the condemned, Pedro Chaparro, vice president of the nazi National Democracy party, argues that implementation of sentence would result in “irreparable damage” because Chaparro, 30, has a child of two and a half years, stable work since 2015 and has no criminal record.

Chaparro was sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of €1,800 euros for a crime against fundamental rights by inciting hatred against photo-journalist Jordi Borràs.

The assailants, members of the National Democratic Party (DN), National Alliance (AN) and the Falange, had been sentenced to four years in prison by the Supreme Court for the Blanquerna attack.

Iñigo Pérez de Herr Asti, one of those accused of the attack on the Blanquerna Cultural Centre, is aged about 60 and is a leader of the National Alliance, is a cousin of former defence minister Pedro Morenés on his mother’s side.

At the same time, he is also the brother-in-law of Méndez de Vigo, a spokesman for the Spanish government, since his sister, María Pérez de Herrasti, is married to the minister.

In his criminal history, there is a sentence to 14 years in prison in 2000 after he was arrested – along with three other members of nazi groups – with explosives and weapons to attack relatives travelling to Madrid to visit the imprisoned ETA prisoners.

Nazi police in Madrid

A municipal policeman in Madrid reported last week that, in a private whatsapp chat with fellow police officers, threats were being made against the mayor Manuela Carmena and other leftists and pro-independence Catalan leaders and journalists. The digital newspaper eldiario.es unveiled the content of this chat, which is an apology for Nazism and Hitler. For weeks, they also poured out racist filth against immigrants claiming “Killing is our motto”.

A half dozen policemen have repeatedly boasted of their sympathies for Nazism in a communication channel that brings together more than 100 local police from Madrid and was created almost two years ago to deal with labour issues. . One of the officers in the group calls himself “führer” and some of the colleagues refer to him as “comrade 14/88”.

“This man knew how to do things, this man is God, they would be smoking the chimneys without cease if he was in charge,” commented one of these local police after hanging up a portrait of Hitler. “That’s a man, from head to toe,” replied another officer who then called for “erasing the Islamic countries from the map” and even posted an emoticon with the motto “fascism is joy”.

The police officer that reported these incidents is a member of the left-wing Comisiones Obreras union (CCOO) and is under protection, having already received numerous threats from other cops.

Madrid City Council, for its part, has already taken measures against the nazis, sacking three of them while investigating other participants for making racist and fascist threats and statements.