EU Hypocrisy Exposed Again in Spanish Crackdown on Catalans

The European Union cockroaches were quick on condemning strong leaderships running after terrorists and drug trafficking, yet mum on the daylight police brutality of the Spanish government against the legitimate exercise of political power by the Catalans.

Deafening silence: EU must condemn Spain’s Catalonia crackdown

By Richard Sudan
Over the last few days, tens of thousands of Catalans have mobilized en-masse to take part in a referendum on the future of Catalonia.
Whatever your opinion on the question of Catalonian independence, there can be no doubt the response from the Spanish government has been heavy-handed and excessive.
The Spanish government claimed the referendum, which looks likely to return a resounding ‘yes’ vote and may well have done so by the time you read these words, is illegal.
Indeed, the government has claimed the referendum on independence violates the Spanish constitution. Now, even if one assumes that legality, is a sufficient means to measure right or wrong, illegality, or breaking the law, cannot in itself provide a justification for unprovoked physical violence.
And unprovoked violence is what was seen on the streets of Barcelona and beyond on Sunday.
Video and images of the police beating activists, and those attempting to cast a vote flooded social media as voting began in Barcelona in the early hours of Sunday morning.
I witnessed for myself police trying to control the flood of people entering one polling station in Barcelona, only to fail due to the sheer numbers of those present. A number of videos showed police entering separate polling stations and seizing ballot boxes full of votes that had been cast. Were it not for the large amounts of people occupying the polling station where I spent the afternoon, I believe the same thing would have happened there too.
And this brings us to the crux of the matter: Spain, or any other country, cannot claim for itself the status of ‘a democracy,’ while repressing the fundamental democratic freedoms of its people, in this case, the Catalans. Personally, the situation brings to mind the plight of the Palestinians, who are routinely attacked by the Israeli state while Israel harps on about being a democracy. Hypocrisy of the highest order.
Now, we’ve all the seen the images of the Spanish police beating Catalans, shutting down polling booths, and seizing ballot boxes. What I didn’t see, however, and which is a stark paradox in my mind, were gatherings of neo-Nazi nationalists who were openly doing Nazi salutes in Catalonia Square being challenged with the same vigor, by the very same police who were attacking the polling booths. Why? How can this possibly make any sense?
How can the Spanish police justify their crackdown on voters while allowing neo-nationalists to make open Nazi salutes and parade in Barcelona unchallenged? Are the Spanish authorities really more afraid of the ballot box than neo-Nazis?
The only thing worse than this violence and hypocrisy is the deafening silence from other European and world leaders. The EU as a bloc has failed to take a formal stand against the brutalization of the Catalan people, who are, after all, citizens of the EU. Now, I’m not a fan of the neo-liberal economic program that underpins the EU, and I’m even less of a fan of the ‘leave’ campaign in Britain.
But it cannot be right, that the leadership of the EU is silent on this issue of Catalonia when it is so willing to criticize human rights abuses elsewhere.
If the treatment of the Catalan people had taken place in the Middle East or Africa, the EU and other Europeans leaders would have been quick off the mark to condemn it. There may have even been calls for no-fly zones or intervention.
Or just imagine if the Catalan people had suffered such harsh treatment in Russia? You can almost hear the hypocritical voices aiming their vitriol at Moscow.
To be fair, a handful of leaders including Jeremy Corbyn have condemned the violent treatment of the Catalan people, albeit in a lukewarm fashion given their significant platform. But the Spanish government should hang its head in shame. And so too should its apologists.
During my time in Spain this week, I’ve heard many people forward the argument that because parts of Catalonia are affluent, that somehow makes their case for independence illegitimate. But the right of individuals to determine their own future can never be illegitimate.
And in any case, ironically, the violence of the Spanish state, and the silence of other so-called leaders may have ultimately worked for the Catalan people. The unjust violence toward them is painfully obvious to anyone with eyes to see it.
The silence of other so-called democracies over this issue, in condemning the violence, is deafening.
The willingness of Brussels to highlight human rights abuses in so many non-European countries, while staying silent on Catalonia, is glaring.
Other nations, including the Spanish government, cannot tout words like ‘legality’ and ‘democracy’ while allowing the repression and brutalization of the Catalan people. And the harsh repression of the Catalan people – from the arrest of activists and politicians to the removal of pro-referendum websites – is all I have seen take place over the last few days in Barcelona.

Meanwhile, the Las Vegas shooting, which claimed 58 lives and 515 injured, is being blamed on “a 64-year-old retiree from Mesquite, Nevada, had as many as 10 guns with him, including rifles,” reports said.
A hand grenade would have inflicted the same casualties, if that the was the intention.
Again, the targets are civilians and not erring government officials, which means that the action is meant to sow terror and fear upon the public, and not a legitimate expression of social frustration.
We are suspecting that there could be more than one shooter, and the old man was just a fall guy. Here’s why:

The shooter appeared to fire unhindered for more than 10 minutes as Las Vegas police frantically tried to locate the man in one of the Mandalay Bay hotel towers, according to radio traffic. For several minutes, officers could not tell whether the automatic fire was coming from Mandalay Bay or the neighboring Luxor hotel.

  • https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-02/urgent-police-confirm-reports-of-active-shooter-in-las-vegas

8 thoughts on “EU Hypocrisy Exposed Again in Spanish Crackdown on Catalans”

  1. Well I have often wondered why the world and its wealth has spent so much of it defending the cause of Israel and its legitimacy and yet it cannot allow the same for Catalan and for that matter other colonised countries.
    Hypocrisy………..

  2. The EU has clearly shown who and what they really are. Which is nothing less than a fascist state.
    That what many people saw coming came true. A police state with helmed police in black reinforced clothing, rubber sticks and dark helmets(so that they could not be recognized and put to justice afterwards) against not-weaponed civilians who followed a fully democratic process which is to express their opinion.
    Not only does the EU ignore referenda. Now they even suppress the voting process. And that with shear violence!
    This brings back the memories of India that freed itself from the English suppression.
    At the end the English withdraw. End for the EU the outcome will be no different.
    The end of the EU is near !!!

  3. I wonder why issues about Africa is swept under the carpet. 21 days ago,the south east part of Nigeria was besieged by the rag tag Nigerian army on the spurious reason that the were carrying out military exercise which was dubbed operation python. The real aim of that exercise was to decimate the ibos for crying our loud about fifty years oppression,repression and marginalization. Hundreds were killed to instill fear on the ibos so the won,t clamour for their own republic which the obnoxious British empire trampled upon in their experiment to create Nigeria. No press from the media,east or west highlighted it.The one in cameroun is ignored but Catalonia is being given attention,why? Do you think the deep state is not operating here? By ignoring what the insinuate here,you are providing a lifeline for them to survive.They might as well come over with the little left for them and rebuild for another round of their insidious agendas. we are well aware of their antics and like you know,their puppets and proxies are in charge here in Africa.

  4. Careful Anna. Fascism is not a police state
    Fascism is a termed used to describe Italian politics between WWI & WWII
    The Nazi’s were effectively fascist along with Mosley’s Black Shirts
    I am sympathetic to Fascism
    Democracy is todays enemy which is socialism in disguise and both sides of the democracies are ‘wings of the same bird’ – Gary Allen. The elite/banksters run the whole show. They even fund Greenpeace and the Guardian. They promote privatisations and everything else that is wrong. They are not Right Wing
    The only hope for the word is a Right Wing uprising/backlash
    We need a respect for Nation States not the Globalist nonsense that is now being peddled/promoted
    Globalism is for the private powerful and wealthy elite and serfdom for everyone else hence the reason why it is not voted on

  5. SILENCE FROM THE TRUMP ADM SAYS IT ALL.TRUMP JUST GAVE A SPEECH STATING SOVEREIGNTY FOR ALL. USING SOVEREIGNTY 19 TIMES IN HIS SPEECH.BUT IN ACTUALITY HE IS JUST BLATHERING. AND IF THIS WAS HAPPENING IN SYRIA OR IRAN .THE ZIONIST U S WOULD BE BOMBING HELL OUT OF THEM. AND THE MEDIA CHIRPING LIKE THE DODO BIRDS THEY ARE.

  6. Governments…the bigger they get the more you lose. Only way to stop it is to kill them (politicians) and their children. Police and the military are the two worst aspects of governments. Neither are for the protection of the civilian population, rather, they exist to serve and protect the state.
    Cops, military, and the likes were were able to join these institutions that abhors individual liberty and freedom because such men/women have little to no respect for their own, what makes you think they’ll respect yours?
    Food for thought.

  7. The absolute ignorance that you are demonstrating with the issue of “repression” in Spain against “peaceful” activists, and I say it as democratic and peaceful Spanish, leads me to think that I can not rely on the rest of your articles to be serious minimum necessary to continue reading your page. And for this reason, I unsubscribe and I will not read you again.

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