Friday, 28 June 2019

On Trial: 21st Century Coup Against Spain’s Democracy


Headquarters of the European Court of Human Rights


Everybody in the world knows that a dozen Catalan politicians are in prison. Many international journalists who should (and do) know a lot better merely peddle the propaganda that is provided by the Catalan government’s highly active international propaganda wing Diplocat. One reason for this might be that they have willingly allowed themselves to be bought by Diplocat; another is that it’s just so much easier to do so than to get off their backsides and record the truth. One must never forget Humbert Wolfe’s comment:

You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.

But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there's
no occasion to.

However, once in a while there appears an honourable exception to the rule. One such is this article by Carlos Conde Solares, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Northumbria University, Newcastle UK. This article not only describes the circumstances of he trial correctly but also mentions the recent case that was brought to the European Court of Human Rights by members of the former Catalan government appealing against the closure of the parliament. This has gone unreported in the British media, no doubt in part because it was issued only in the French language making it inaccessible to British monoglots.
On May 28, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decreed that the temporary suspension of the Parliament of Catalonia’s plenary in 2017 was a “reasonable response” to “an imminent need” of peacekeeping. The ECHR described the actions of Spain’s constitutional institutions as “necessary in the context of a democratic society’s preservation of public safety, law and order, and for the protection of the civil rights and liberties of all citizens.”
The ECHR ruled that the complaint made by the former Catalan officials was “manifestly ill-founded” in that their own actions effectively “prevented opposition MPs from carrying out their duty of representation.” More recently, on June 12, the ECHR ruled out supporting the defendants’ request to suspend their protective custody.
In brief, the Court took the Catalans’ case, tore it into shreds, and chucked it straight out of the window with the tart comment that it was “manifestly ill-founded”.

Source (in English)
New York GlobePost

(in French)
European Court of Human Rights



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