El Nacional 
Photo: EFE 
Barcelona. Thursday, 22 November 2018


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The Spanish edition of The New York Times has today published an opinion column calling for a referendum on the Spanish monarchy. The author starts by noting that "referendums" on the subject are already being organised at a number of Spanish universities and concludes that Felipe VI should accept the challenge.
According to the article, by the writer and journalist David Jiménez, "the monarchy's defenders, including the political parties which support it, see the consultations as an attack at the heart of the Spanish state". "In reality, it would do well to accept the challenge: the monarchy needs a referendum to guarantee its continuation over the term and to renew its democratic legitimacy," it continues.
Jiménez admits that it's difficult to know how much support Felipe VI enjoys among the Spanish people, although "[he is] seen by his supporters as a figure of stability and unity at a time of political fragmentation and independence challenges in Catalonia and the Basque Country". "The Centre for Sociological Research, the public body entrusted with taking the country's social pulse, stopped asking about the monarchy in 2015, after Juan Carlos I's scandals ruined his popularity," he notes.
The articles says that "the years are long gone in which the monarchy enjoyed an almost perfect idyll with the public, the royal family had an spotless reputation and the debate over Spain's form of government was on the political margins". And he criticises the harm that those close monarch ended up causing: "the press hid [Juan Carlos'] excesses, the politicians looked the other way and the economic elite feted him in the search for privileges and influence, creating a protective wall which was as fawning as it was fictitious".
The writer concludes that, if the Spanish monarchy intends to survive, it can only do so through a referendum.


longwww.elnacional.cat/en/news/new-york-times-annoy-felipe-vi_327501_102.html?fbclid=IwAR3Qn8JIWexqeky-Dkp9c5BpOAmR0xteWXMWOEvwTSApIFWuajIsVy5WzOQ 

 On 22 November 1936, over 500,000 people came out onto the streets of Barcelona to attend the funeral of anarchist militant, Buenaventura Durruti, killed during the Spanish Civil War: the biggest funeral in Spanish history.
​This is a short biography: https://libcom.org/history/durruti-buenaventura-1896-1936ere to edit.



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From Catalan news, 21 November 2018

21 November 2018 04:35 PM
 
byAlan Ruiz Terol | Barcelona
Renewal of chief judges at a standstill after leaked text reveals political meddling

Spain’s justice system is facing an unprecedented crisis following a leaked message scandal that brought out into the open political meddling in the appointment of chief judges.
Manuel Marchena, who was soon to be elected president of the Spanish Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), backed out on Tuesday after a leaked text by People’s Party (PP) spokesperson Ignacio Cosidó revealed that his appointment was seen as serving the interests of the party.
In a Whatsapp message sent to his colleagues, Cosidó said that Marchena’s appointment would mean conservative judges would win against the progressives in most votes, and claimed they would "control from behind the scenes" the court chamber where Catalan independence leaders will be tried.
With Marchena gone, PP broke the deal with the ruling Socialists to renew chief judges—the only major agreement between Spain’s two main parties since president Pedro Sánchez came to power last spring after ousting PP’s former leader.Sánchez accused the conservatives of bringing "democracy’s fundamental institution" to a standstill in order to cover up their "disgrace."Pablo Casado, PP’s new head, responded to Sánchez saying he "did not have any credit," and urged him to call a fresh election "as soon as possible."
The reputation of Spanish courts was already not at its best. In the past year, there have been no shortage of controversies. For instance, the pre-trial imprisonment of Catalan leaders for organizing an independence referendum, the clearing of five men accused of gang-raping a teenager in Pamplona, and a recent ruling favoring banks and forcing customers to pay a tax on mortgages.
Five out of 10 Spaniards rate the independence of Spanish courts and judges as "bad" or "very bad," while four out of 10 approve it, according to the Eurobarometer. The study, conducted before most of the scandals unfolded, puts Spain at the bottom of the EU’s 28 member states, only ahead of Slovenia, Italy, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Croatia.
Judges in Spain went on strike on Monday to demand judicial independence be protected and more resources for courts. "We accept eight chairs being appointed by MPs, but not the other 12," said Mercè Caso, the chief judge in Barcelona. "It's the only way of fighting the notion that the Spanish judiciary is politicized. We're not the only ones saying so: it's also the Council of Europe."
Carlos Lesmes' mandate to be extended
A leadership change in the judiciary was seen as a good opportunity to bring in some fresh air and dispel the bad press. Instead, the parties’ failure to reach a compromise will automatically extend the mandate of the current president, Carlos Lesmes, who has been heavily questioned.
As Sánchez will most certainly fail to pass a new budget, he is now opening the door to a snap election next year. The renewal of the judiciary seems unlikely to take place before a new parliament is elected.
Jailed Catalan leaders request Marchena's recusal
The judiciary, meanwhile, will face an extremely delicate situation with one of its biggest challenges in recent history: the trial against pro-independence leaders.
While some have welcomed Marchena’s decision to back off from presiding over the CGPJ, pro-independence parties are not at all satisfied. The reason: he will continue to preside over the court chamber where Catalan leaders will be tried.
Jailed Catalan leaders requested Marchena’s recusal as a Supreme Court judge, but some say it’s highly unlikely that he will be removed from the case.



www.catalannews.com/society-science/item/spain-s-judiciary-faces-unprecedented-turmoil-here-s-what-you-need-to-know?fbclid=IwAR21q1soi-uJ0awFIwHVH5vf8x-ruZc4dGABGl3kb72Ikg3kdVug8XeXl7M

Spain Digs Up Its Past

PAUL ​
Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right party Vox, with supporters at a gathering in Valencia, Spain, October 2018. 










“Our top story tonight: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.” Chevy Chase’s running gag on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s remains curiously relevant four decades on. Franco, Spain’s longtime military dictator, is still dead—and he continues to be a top story, as a dispute over his final resting place unearths old fissures in Spain’s national consciousness.
Upon his death in 1975, Franco was buried in a monumental tomb in the so-called Valley of the Fallen, a war memorial about an hour’s drive from Madrid. There, the dictator lies below a towering 450-foot stone cross, in a subterranean basilica hewn almost 900 feet into a mountainside. The monument is an unsettlingly bombastic reminder of Spain’s troubled past and a pilgrimage site for Franco’s admirers to this day.
Hoping to change this, the Spanish parliament voted in September to exhume Franco’s remains from the Valley. Franco’s family, the government assumed, would rebury him in a more private location. But the family decided otherwise and announced that it would inter the Generalissimo with military honors in a crypt in Madrid’s largest cathedral. This plan has sparked widespread protest, as it would defeat the government’s purpose of removing the body from public space, but it’s unclear whether the government can do anything to prevent it. 

 The vote to exhume Franco passed with support from Spain’s progressive parties and the Catalan and Basque nationalists. The two main conservative parties, the Partido Popular (PP) and Ciudadanos (Citizens), abstained, but their disdain for the measure is clear. Conservative commentators have railed against what they perceive as a gratuitous affront to a leader whom many on the Spanish right continue to see in a positive light. (In the most recent nationwide poll on the topic, from 2008, more than a third of Spaniards agreed that Franco’s decades-long strongman rule had maintained peace, order, and national unity.) Others, such as former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, are careful not to praise Franco but still warn that revisiting Spain’s violent past is unnecessary and divisive, tantamount to “opening old wounds.” 
Still, the controversy surrounding Franco has fanned the flames of a militant Spanish nationalism that first reemerged last year, following Catalonia’s attempt to declare independence and split from Spain. Although not all Spanish nationalists are nostalgic for Franco, the right’s radical core is. In July, the far-right “Movement for Spain” organized a “pilgrimage” to Franco’s grave to protest the government’s plans. “Half of Spain is opposed to the exhumation of Franco and the profanation and pillaging of the Valley of the Fallen,” the movement’s leaders warned. Images from the gathering show groups carrying Francoist flags, their hands raised in the fascist salute. 
The Spanish legal code, in contrast to those of many other European countries, does not prohibit extolling fascist ideologies.
Events like this have even EU leaders in Brussels worried. In late October, the European Parliament passed a motion against the rise of neofascist violence in Europe that included several incidents in Spain. Among other things, the motion condemned Spain’s Francisco Franco Foundation as “an entity that glorifies a dictatorship and its crimes.” The foundation, dedicated to “spreading and promoting” knowledge of the dictator and his accomplishments, is not only legal in Spain but until 2004 received state subsidies. The Spanish legal code, in contrast to those of many other European countries, does not prohibit extolling fascist ideologies. 
Franco rose to power in 1939, after emerging victorious from three years of bloody civil war. The war had started when Franco helped lead a coup attempting to overthrow the democratically elected government of Spain’s Second Republic, pitting his forces against an alliance of republicans, socialists, and anarchists. Franco prevailed thanks to extensive military support from Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s Italy. From the outset, his crusade against the republic—and its secularism—also enjoyed the full backing of the Vatican. 
Once in power, Franco ruthlessly persecuted his political enemies. In the 1940s, according to the historians Paul Preston and Javier Rodrigo, his regime executed more than 20,000 prisoners. Half a million Spaniards passed through concentration camps, while more than 200,000 went into permanent exile. In addition, Franco allowed the Germans to deport close to 10,000 Spanish exiles from occupied France to Nazi death camps. 


After World War II Franco refashioned himself as “the sentinel of the West” and quickly became a Cold War ally of the United States. At home, the regime continued to persecute dissidents.After World War II—in which Spain officially stayed neutral, although a contingent of Spanish soldiers fought with the Nazis on the eastern front—Franco refashioned himself as “the sentinel of the West” who had valiantly fought the forces of communism. Spain joined the United Nations in 1955 and quickly became a Cold War ally of the United States. At home, the regime continued to persecute dissidents. As late as 1975, it executed five political prisoners. (Surviving torture victims in search of justice have had to resort to an Argentine court, which has investigated Francoist repression under the umbrella of universal jurisdiction since 2010.) 
After several years of declining health, during which he gradually withdrew from his government duties, Franco died on November 20, 1975, at the age of 82. “Despite Franco’s death and expected burial tomorrow,” Chevy Chase remarked on November 22, “doctors say the dictator’s health has taken a turn for the worse.” 


Like most good jokes, Chase’s quips contained a kernel of genuine anxiety. Would Franco continue to rule Spain from the grave? As a soldier and politician, he had been the ultimate survivor. And he’d made careful arrangements for his legacy to continue after his death. In 1969, he announced in his annual Christmas message that he’d leave “everything solidly nailed down.”
A few days after his death, following Franco’s express wishes, Juan Carlos I, the grandson of the country’s last monarch, was proclaimed king. Under Juan Carlos’ oversight, Spain went through a quick and relatively peaceful transition to democracy, brokered between representatives of the regime and the opposition. Political parties were legalized, a general amnesty declared, and a new constitution adopted. Emerging onto the world stage as a young constitutional monarchy, Spain was finally ready to be a part of modern Europe. 
Or was it? Beneath the apparent break with 40 years of authoritarianism was a great deal of continuity. Thanks to the general amnesty, those who had broken the law fighting Franco went free, but so did every member of the regime. In fact, most Francoists in the government, police, army, and judiciary simply held on to their posts. Even the king had been appointed by Franco.
To be sure, the country adopted a modern constitution and instituted free elections. It reorganized itself into 17 “autonomous communities,” a semifederal 



makeup that allowed the Basques, Catalans, and Galicians a measure of self-government that Franco, an obsessive centralist, would never have stood for. In 1982, the center-left Socialist Party (PSOE) came into power in a landslide win; it would govern the country for the next 14 years. Spain underwent a rapid process of cultural and economic modernization. The crowning achievement came in 1992, when Madrid was Europe’s cultural capital, Seville hosted the World’s Fair, and Barcelona held the Olympic Games.
For decades, traces of Francoism remained at every corner.
All this time, however, traces of Francoism remained at every corner. Thousands of street names continued to commemorate the dictator and his generals; hundreds of plaques, memorials, and statues celebrating his rule dotted the country. And the Valley of the Fallen, where the dictator lay buried alongside José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of Spain’s fascist party, remained exactly as Franco himself had designed it in 1939: a 330,000-square-foot esplanade leading up to the subterranean basilica, a giant monument to Franco and his Civil War victory, built in part by political prisoners. 

A first attempt to grapple with this unprocessed legacy came in 2004, when the socialists returned to government. Starting in 2000, grass-roots groups had begun locating and exhuming mass graves holding the remains of the tens of thousands of Spaniards summarily executed during and after the war. Denouncing the “pact of silence” that had accompanied the transition to democracy, these groups called instead for “the recovery of historical memory.” 
In 2004, the government responded to growing pressure from civil society and began working on what would become known as the Law of Historical Memory. Finally adopted in 2007—despite the opposition from the Partido Popular—the law subsidized the exhumations and ordered the removal from public spaces of any symbols extolling Francoism. It also forbade the annual celebration of Franco at the Valley of the Fallen. Yet when the PP returned to power in 2011, it refused to assign a budget for the law’s provisions. In 2015, Prime Minister Rajoy proudly declared that his government had spent “zero euros” on it.
When Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the PSOE, unexpectedly replaced Rajoy as prime minister this June, he announced ambitious plans to update the 2007 law, immediately sparking widespread controversy. In addition to exhuming Franco and reforming the Valley into an educational or commemorative space, Sánchez has mentioned the possibility of a truth commission on the Civil War and Francoism—a recommendation that the United Nations has been making for years—and promised that the administration will take charge of the exhumation of the remaining mass graves. 
That these measures are controversial shows that modern Spain is in some ways still an anomaly in western Europe. As the historian Tony Judt wrote in his 2005 book, Postwar, Europe’s collective identity after 1945 rested on pride in having collectively fought against fascism. In the 1990s, continental leaders began to embrace the idea that to be European also meant coming to terms with a difficult—even fascist or collaborationist—past. There were official expressions of contrition and regret. States built museums and monuments, took judicial action, and worked to provide financial or moral redress for the victims. As countries such as Turkey and Serbia tried to join the European Union, acknowledgment of responsibility for past crimes—and judicial accountability for the perpetrators of human rights abuses—became a more or less explicit condition for EU membership. 
Yet post-Franco Spain, which joined the European Community in 1986, never tied its national identity to anti-fascism or to a sense of collective responsibility. Although many Spaniards had fought against fascism in the Civil War, Spain’s modern democratic governments never sought to turn this fact into a source of national pride. Nor did they embrace as a European virtue the ability to speak frankly about a violent and shameful past.
These anomalies regularly lead to awkward moments. When Spanish politicians wish to present the country as fully European, they have to go into contortions to whitewash its history. Take Albert Rivera, the young leader of the Citizens party, which has consistently avoided condemning the Franco dictatorship or honoring its victims. During an electoral debate in 2015, Rivera argued that Europe should unite in its fight against Islamist terrorism, just as in World War II, “together we beat the fascists.” In October, Inés Arrimadas, the leader of Rivera’s party in Catalonia, raised eyebrows with a comment about Lluís Companys, Catalan’s president in the 1930s. In 1940, Companys was arrested by the Gestapo in France, then executed by the Franco regime. Yet Arrimadas claimed that he had not been killed by the Spanish state—as if Franco’s dictatorship were somehow different from that state.
When Spanish politicians wish to present the country as fully European, they have to go into contortions to whitewash its history.
This stunted national consciousness is also reflected in the political party landscape. On the face of it, Spain has long lacked a far-right, anti-immigrant party comparable to the Front National (now Rassemblement National) in France, the Alternative for Germany, or Geert Wilders’ party in the Netherlands. But while it’s true that immigration was long of relatively little concern to Spaniards, far-right sectors nostalgic for the Franco regime have always existed—they simply felt little need to found their own party. Unlike their counterparts in other European countries, they never stopped feeling at home in the mainstream center-right, in this case the Partido Popular.


The radical right has only recently begun to come out into the open, in part driven by a nationalist backlash against Catalonia’s push for independence last year. Organizations such as Hogar Social, an anti-Islam and anti-immigrant group, and the radical-right party Vox are making inroads into Spanish politics. Vox is still a marginal force, with no seats in parliament, but on October 7, the party gathered 10,000 supporters in Madrid for an exuberant right-wing rally—something the country hadn’t seen since its transition to democracy. The party’s leader, Santiago Abascal, called upon the flag-waving crowd “to make Spain great again” and fight the enemies responsible for Spain’s “division and downfall.” The party, which polls now indicate may win five seats in parliament, has also called for deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally or have otherwise broken the law. 
Vox’s surge has pulled the PP and Citizens further to the right on immigration issues and the Catalonia question. Pro-independence Catalans, meanwhile, cite Spain’s inability to free itself from the Francoist legacy as a major reason for their wish to break with the country. 
t is not clear what exactly will happen to the Valley of the Fallen if Franco’s remains are removed. A 2011 report by a blue-ribbon commission recommended that it be turned into a secular space where the public is taught about Spain’s violent history. The need for such spaces is urgent. In the 2008 poll mentioned earlier, two-thirds of Spaniards said their schoolteachers had paid “little or no” attention to the Civil War and Francoism. The “pact of silence” during Spain’s transition to democracy has allowed Francoist myths to go unchallenged. 
“When Franco died, he left us a magnificent country,” Manuel Fernández-Monzón, a general in reserve, said in a television interview this summer. Fernández-Monzón had just signed a manifesto denouncing the “vile campaign” to tarnish the dictator’s image and the left’s “perverse attempt” to exhume him. “Franco,” the general added, “killed no one.” 

A selection of entries from the prison diary of Joaquim Forn, Catalonia's Interior Minister during the independence referendumJoaquim Forn was Catalonia’s Interior Minister from July 14 to October 27, 2017. In this short period, he had to deal with the terrorist attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils, and with the celebration of the independence referendum held in Catalonia on October 1, 2017. As a result of the independence declaration on October 27, he was removed from office by the Spanish Government, initially went to Belgium and was then remanded in custody upon return to Spain.

english.vilaweb.cat/noticies/diary-of-a-catalan-political-prisoner-1/?fbclid=IwAR3EQ-eUPmydN4HxQVPKZRI12t_K4gmWwl-C4MJZW8Xg6VrNkc8IZbgrb2
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Joaquim Forn has been held on remand without bail nor trial date for exactly one year today. He decided to keep a diary in prison from day one and on September 20, 2018 a book titled Escrits de presó (Writings from Prison) came out, published in Catalan by Enciclopèdia. Thanks to the bookhouse’s permission, we are able to offer our worldwide readers an exclusive selection of some of the diary’s key entries in English language, in what proves to be the honest testimony of the life of a Catalan political prisoner.


November 2, 2017
I’m afraid. I’ll admit it. I would never have thought that I could be sent to prison, and now here I am. I could have imagined living a thousand and one different adventures and misadventures, facing all kinds of unforeseen events and setbacks, now that I am a certain age. But going to prison did not feature in any of my plans. Neither in any of my nightmares. No way. Come to think of it, I suppose that losing your freedom and getting locked up behind four walls doesn’t enter into anybody’s plans. Certainly not in mine. Maybe it’s because my whole life I’ve been told that I’m “a good guy” and I guess I’ve ended up believing it myself. It must be that. Maybe it’s just that I’m naive. “He who does not do evil, does not think evil,” as the saying goes.
Yes, it is true that, as the political situation became more complicated in recent months, the idea that I could end up in jail did cross my mind, and I had even discussed it with Laura, my wife, and with my closest friends. But eventually I always persuaded myself that it was a very remote possibility, which turned out not to be the case. It’s not unlike car accidents: you think that they always happen to other people, that it will never happen to you. I know what I’m doing, you tell yourself.
Josep Rull, Jordi Turull, Raül Romeva, Carles Mundó, Oriol Junqueras, and I — six Catalan government ministers— were processed into Estremera prison this evening. I will never forget this day. I will never be able to get over it, I suppose. Going to prison will stay with me for the rest of my life. I have no doubt about that. Everyone says so, and I don’t think that I’ll be an exception.
The treatment we have received from prison wardens has been good enough. There has been a big difference between the Guardia Civil officers and the prison staff. With us, the Guardia Civil has been unpleasant, while the prison officers have treated us properly. The director of the prison made a positive impression. We spent a long of time with him before we were provisionally assigned a cell. We had to fill out many forms and procedures, such as appointments with a doctor, a social educator, a psychologist… And we have still some things left for tomorrow or who knows when.
Finally, we were provided with a personal hygiene kit, sheets, a blanket, and a towel. OK. And we went to sleep because we were exhausted! I’m sharing a cell with Oriol [Junqueras]. We’re very tired. More than tired —I’m busted. No doubt I’ll sleep very well, I think. Despite everything.
I think that the word Estremera is too similar to the verb “shudder” [“estremir-se” in Catalan]. I remember a novel by Jesús Moncada called Shuddering Memory. I trust that this place will be a page of my life that passes quickly, and that the memory will not make me shudder for the rest of my days.
I am gripped by fear, although I know that jails are no longer like those of the Count of Montecristo. I’m worried on two counts. Firstly, I feel the natural concern that everyone should have when entering such a place. We’ve seen so many films about prisons. We’ve read so many things. We’ve heard so many dark legends.
I think of Midnight Express, a film that has always had an impact on me, and that deals with the life in prison of a young US man who is stopped at Istanbul airport for drug trafficking and ends up in a Turkish prison. I understand that it is a story based on true events. I’m rattled by this memory. I try to get it out of my head. Away!
I also have doubts about the way in which other inmates will receive us and about the degree of violence that may exist in prison and might be “taken for granted”. What do I know?
Nor do I know what image they, the prisoners, will have of us. Of course, I do not think it’ll be very good if everything they know comes from Madrid’s TV stations. We’ll see how it goes.
Fingers crossed.
November 25th, 2017
There is a small store [Economat] where prisoners can buy some basic cleaning products, food, writing material, stamps, phone cards … But nobody should assume that they stock everything. More often than not, you can’t find anything; but it helps to supplement your diet. An inmate runs the Economat store. They tell me that he killed two of his partners, one of them pregnant. He is a curious character. In addition to this activity, he gives talks about philosophy, the origin of the world, and teaches English.
You use a card to shop at the Economat. All of the prisoners have one and we can have a maximum balance of one hundred euros per week. It’s topped up every Wednesday. I don’t spend more than thirty or forty euros a week, now that a lot of people send us stamps inside their letters. Buying them was the biggest expense we had. The stamps are very useful, and the officials haven’t given us a problem about it, although they could, according to the regulations.
One thing that surprised me about the cellblock is that every morning, just before breakfast, a small group of seven or eight people can be found in a corner of the indoor football field, where they embrace and pray. The one who leads the prayer is Akuna, a Nigerian who acts like an evangelist pastor, gesturing and making great exclamations. Akuna is funny, thick-bodied and burly. He says that when he entered prison he was one hundred and thirty five kilos and now weighs one hundred and five, but the truth is that he is pure muscle. As they say, he’s in jail for “refusing to talk”. It seems that there is a bit of truth to this. He is involved in some political plot and seems to be locked up preventively to get him to speak. He does sports (runs and plays soccer) all day, or reads the Bible. He’s positive, or at least always seems content. The others that interact with him are El Niño, Jose, and a black boy whose name I don’t know and who I think is a Muslim.
On Sundays, from 11 to 12, they meet in a room to write, read and discuss some passage from the Bible. One day I went to listen. I’ve never joined the group. They are too noisy.
December 1, 2017
This morning we gave our statements in court. I don’t know how it went. I’m very nervous and, since I can’t sleep, I’ve decided to leave a record of how the day went. I’ve come to the conclusion, the main one, that the prison transfers are hellish. I hate them as I have hated few things in life.
The day started very early. I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night long. We got up at six thirty, and we had to wait for more than an hour in the prison in-processing section until the Guardia Civil drove us to Madrid’s Audiencia Nacional court. All of the Ministers were together as we waited. We were hopeful things would go well, but without euphoria. Not at all.
We were driven in two vehicles: Rull, Turull, Romeva, and I, in a Guardia Civil van, and Junqueras and Mundó, in a Guardia Civil car.
Inside the van there is a small cubicle, completely closed off and with no view of the outside, that can hold to five people. It has dim light and this morning it was freezing cold. We were handcuffed and this time they did secure everyone’s safety belt. This time they didn’t abuse the sirens during the journey, which lasted almost an hour. Both Rull and I got terribly dizzy. We ended as sick as a dog. I had to close my eyes and I was in a cold sweat the whole way.
Once we arrived at the courthouse, they sent us to the same cells that we got to know on November 2. This time we had company. In my case, I was with Raül and Carles. The first to be deposed was Carles, then Raül and finally me, the last.
In the court house, apart from handcuffing us from behind, they once again removed our shoelaces, ties, belts, glasses… it’s police protocol. Our belongings were not returned to us until we were on our way to the Supreme Court.
The transfer to the Supreme Court is five minutes by car from the Audiencia Nacional and we did it in a Spanish Police (CNP) van. The officers were kind. Once inside, I saw Dolors Bassa, who I haven’t seen since November 2. We were able to talk a little during the transfer. She seemed well, and had cut her hair and dyed it a darker shade.
Once at the Supreme Court, they brought us to a room where we weren’t allowed to talk to the rest of our colleagues that were present. In silence, we waited for the judge to call us. I was with Bassa, Rull, Romeva, and Mundó.
When Mundó left after making his statement, they called me. The statement went as planned. I agreed to answer questions from everyone, but was only questioned by my lawyer and the Vox lawyer. The prosecutor did not ask me any questions. I testified for about twenty-five minutes and I was returned to the Court’s holding cell via the same route I had followed an hour earlier.
While returning to the cell, I caught a glimpse of Turull and Cuixart about to be transferred to the Supreme Court. Cuixart has not lost his smile and he looks very well. We only had the chance to exchange four words. I also saw Jordi Sànchez inside a cell, alone. When I moved closer to greet him, I was told off by the police officer who accompanied me.
Inside the cell we met again with Carles and Raül. We spent a few hours locked up, with some fun moments and resting for a while. At times, we laughed a lot. Carles told us some anecdotes about his cell block, frankly hilarious, and there were times when I thought that we would draw attention. We could not stop laughing loudly. We had been needing to do so.
At about three o’clock, they brought me back in handcuffs to the prison of Estremera. This time I went in a car with Mundó. I was able to see and look outside. I enjoyed it. I had a strange feeling while being driven through the center of Madrid in handcuffs. I think it will be a long time before I return as a visitor. I will not forget this experience easily, which I found humiliating.
For the first time, on my way back to prison, I was able to contemplate the landscape. The Spanish landscape that Machado described so well is very nice. The prison area, and especially its tower, can be seen from a long way away. It’s surrounded by fields that, I suppose, must be crops of some kind of grain, although they are cropless right now. From time to time we saw areas with a lot of olive trees. They tell me that the name of Estremera comes from the temperatures that are so extreme here, both in winter and summer.
Although most of my days in Estremera have gone very well, the temperature, especially this December, is very low early in the morning and in the evening. If the sun shines on the prison courtyard, as is usually the case, you can stay there for a good while and even feel warm. When the cold comes, however, it can kill you. I heard once, I don’t know from whom, that the winters in Madrid are like Siberia and the summers tropical. He was absolutely right. I don’t know how the summers might be, but in winter it’s freezing.
The roofs of the different cellblocks are made of metal, and many mornings we can see how ice on the roofs melts when the sun hits them, and how water freezes again when it makes contact with the ground of the yard. Another beautiful thing here is the blue sky, intense and cloudless.
When we left the Supreme Court, they told us that the judge would not decide on our freedom until Monday. We still have two days of suffering. It will be a long weekend.
December 4, 2017
Today, Monday, will be a difficult day to forget. From the first thing in the morning I was eager to know the judge’s decision. The television spectacle began very early. The media announced that the decision would come early on, from 9 am. And they did so anxiously, like those who wait impatiently to find out, once and for all, who won the Oscars. As if they couldn’t wait. As if their life hanged on the balance.
The news was delayed more than expected. Finally, it wasn’t until a quarter to eleven that it was made public. I was in the TV room and it was like a hammer blow. As if the judge had hit right in the head with his gavel. I saw it on La Sexta: “Junqueras and the former Interior Minister have been denied freedom”. I read it on the screen, without sound, as always, and, like me, the rest of the prisoners who were there with me didn’t know what to do or what to say to me. I went to tell Raül, who had preferred to take refuge in the library. He was paralyzed, mute, not knowing how he should react. Later he told me that he was convinced that if not all of us were released, then he would be one of those who would be kept behind bars.
We all ate together and, before leaving, the ministers were able to say goodbye to us, because the lawyers made it possible for us to be together one last time. We could not believe it. We embraced, as if it were the last time. As if we would never see each other again. Those grandparents who had fought in the war said that their trench companions were more than brothers. Now I understand that perfectly. They are blood brothers.
Once the disappointment passed, the truth is that I’m happy for my colleagues and their families. It seems clear to me that it’s better for some to be released than for all of us to remain in prison. At the very least, this allows me to dream that there is some chance of getting out of here. These 32 days I’ve lived together with Raül have been very good. He is a good companion and we have helped each other in everything we have been able to do. I’ll miss him.
From the moment I heard the news, I felt a lot of support from the rest of the inmates. There are many who came to cheer me up and tell me that if they freed six, the rest would be able to leave soon, without a doubt. They can’t know the future. They’re beginning to understand that ours is a very particular case, different, that doesn’t follow the logic they have come to know.
Tonight they’re not letting me sleep alone. Although I’ve insisted on it, protocol dicatates that you spend the night with a cellmate. So one of the officials invited me to choose a cellmate. He suggested that I give him two names, and that they would choose. I gave them two names, one of which was, naturally, that of Celes, my walking companion, the one from the rotisserie, who was the one chosen in the end. He was officially informed and was delighted to be chosen. He reached the cell and asked me how I was; I said that I was fine, and we went to sleep. When he got into bed, he took off his tracksuit jacket and underneath he was wearing a Spanish football team shirt. I am convinced that he did this with all the naturalness of the world, without meaning to bug me. The image seemed comical to me. I think if anyone had seen me, they would have freaked.
VilaWeb newsletter in Englis

​www.elnacional.cat/en/news/bbc-three-historical-catalan-republics_319890_102.html

Go to the page above and watch the video. 
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The BBC has produced a short video on the Catalan people's centuries-long struggle for their own, independent state, introducing the three Catalan republics there have been through history.
The first, which lasted six days, was declared by Pau Claris in 1641, early in the Reaper's War (as it happens, archaeologists recently announced a discovery they believe is linked to that war). Centuries later came Francesc Macià's republic in 1931. That attempt lasted three days and led to the first restoration of the Generalitat, the Catalan government and the first Catalan Statute of Autonomy. The latest attempt came just last year, with a vote in the Catalan Parliament on 27th October 2017, spearheaded by Carles Puigdemont. That time, it formally lasted for a day until the Spanish government applied article 155 of the Spanish Constitution​ and imposed direct rule.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1057284439414312960
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