[banjodeluxe]

For a bit of context I'll leave my two cents here trying to be as objective as possible, leaving politics out of it as much as I can.

Following the judge's veredict of the Catalan politicians who coordinated the "proces", or series of political movements to attempt to secede Catalonia from Spain; demonstrations have arisen within Catalonia protesting said judgement - the politicians were essentially deemed as conspirators against the Spanish constitution and have been given varying prision sentences. Parts of those demonstrations have turned violent: clashes with police trying to stop blockages of streets and railroads, burning of cars and dumpsters, etc...

The Catalonian government's stance on this is difficult: as a pro-independence government they're trying to promote actions against the veredict but in some situations it has gotten out of hand and turned violent - something a government can't really condone.

Tsunami Democratic is an organisation that has been coordinating demonstrations and developed an app that allows people to know where demonstrations are happening, etc - whether these demonstrations turn violent or not is officially out of their control; the Spanish authorities (in this case, a judge in charge of investigating the circumstances around the more violent parts of the rioting) obviously believe that the app is aiding in coordinating violent attacks - whether that's terrorism or just violent rioting is something I don't know and I'm unsure we'll ever fully know.

That's the context, at the end of the day it's a national government asking for a repo to be taken down in accordance to the laws of their country, you might disagree with it happening fundamentally but its nothing new, the Github repo for takedowns has plenty - although they seem to usually be coming from China/Russia.

[iagovar]

IMO the accusation of terrorism is too much, but honestly some of the actions are worrying. I'm against the Catalonian independence, so everyone knows where I'm coming from, but I understand why so many Catalonians are angry and protest for.

But I also understand what different police forces are facing. You get actions like putting trees and blocks of concrete on railroads, making it very dangerous for passengers and workers. They can't just let that happen. And they see this people is using P2P technology which is almost impossible to control, so they use all legal means at their disposal. I'm not a legal expert but I'd bet that going through the terrorism route is the only way they have to do something about it.

We could argue for years about what's legitimate and what's not, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect the police forces to do nothing.

[rtkwe]

> And they see this people is using P2P technology which is almost impossible to control, so they use all legal means at their disposal. I'm not a legal expert but I'd bet that going through the terrorism route is the only way they have to do something about it.

Framing it another way they're using trumped up terrorism charges to invoke powers that were not meant to be used against protests. Police powers are intentionally limited so that the full force of the state doesn't come crushing down on people speeding and using over blown charges to access those additional powers is very reminiscent of past slides away from democracy.

> I don't think it's reasonable to expect the police forces to do nothing.

That's the problem there's always more a police force can do, restricting that impulse to order and action is important to resist the slow slide towards police states.

[lostphilosopher]

This is a fundamental question any government or citizenry has to ask itself:

Under what circumstances, if any, should the police stand down?

[rtkwe]

It's a very tough question and not one that's ever really answered formally. The US Constitution has a vague definition but the line has been redrawn and erased so many times.

[smsm42]

In theory, it's an easy question: when nobody's natural rights are being violated, police should not intervene. In practice, of course, no police force ever limits themselves to that, so the question becomes - how much the citizens would agree to tolerate and under which sauce? Experience shows, that the first is "a lot" and the second is "depending on how much you scare them, if you are good at scaring, you can pull off practically anything".

[deltron3030]

>I'm against the Catalonian independence, so everyone knows where I'm coming from

The question is if a democracy can be called democratic if it's impossible/unlawful for minorities to secede. I also think that a secession wouldn't be the smartest choice, but that's a totally different matter.

A functional democracy implies that the whole has to arrange itself democratically with the parts it consists of, if not it risks degrowth, parts that split off from the whole and form their own units.

Enforcing unity therefore can't be democratic because it lacks democracy at the lowest level. A functional democracy regulates itself through trade offs and common sense. If the outcome of that is something you're opposed to you still have to accept that if you want to live in a real democracy, not just a hypocrite simulation of it.

[iagovar]

> The question is if a democracy can be called democratic if it's impossible/unlawful for minorities to secede. I also think that a secession wouldn't be the smartest choice, but that's a totally different matter.

I don't think I'm in position to have a long discussion about this in english, but I thought about it and reached no conclussion.

If I'm against the Catalan independence it's basically because of practical reasons. I don't think it will solve any problem, but create many more, make many people from Catalonia and from outside miserable and it's also the question of how this momentum has been achieved, which actors have been involved, and in what way.

Currently the independence movement is probably, and for the most part, outside the control of PDCAT and ERC, which are the two main independence parties.

But I can't just erase my memory and forget how it got here, and on what arguments.

I have Catalan friends and relatives, as well as two ex-girlfriends, so I don't live in a television reality (exclusively), and the situation hurts me a lot, and I can understand how the Catalan perception of events develops, and I am perfectly aware of the failures of the Spanish state, but I can only be in favour if I do a very selective memory exercise.

All this without forgetting that there is a legal way, which is to reform the constitution. But it is difficult and requires a political capital that the parties that (now) are idependent have burned long ago.

And I can imagine what a politician sitting in his office thinks when he observes that he has never had better material and symbolic conditions, and that if he wanted support from other regions he would have to recover the capital lost in the last, I don't know, fifteen years.

[deltron3030]

Yeah, economically it would be likely a disaster without quick integration into the EU on a higher level. That's another topic, why can't the EU sort them out?

Or why can't they rejoin with Spain after trying and failing? I don't think that people would deal with a failure like that, they'd vote to rejoin, and the bond would be stronger afterwards.

I think their movement wouldn't have gotten that much steam with a legal possibility to secede though.

I'm interested in the mass psychology behind it, why Spain and their politicians think that it's a good idea to point out that the constitution of Spain and their unitarian aspects are untouchable.

[dcabrejas]

> I'm interested in the mass psychology behind it, why Spain and their politicians think that it's a good idea to point out that the constitution of Spain and their unitarian aspects are untouchable.

I can give you my point of view as a Spanish person. I am not part of the goverment by any means. Just a normal citizen living in the middle of the country.

The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.

The goverment of Spain has a responsability to protect all citizens. Independece creates problems for all those people. It also costs the country millions of euros that have been invested in the region. It will have an impact on people across the country if the economy slows down, not only there. Therefore it is a decision that needs to be taken by the whole country, not only people in that region. Suggesting anything else is ludicrous.

Spain is a country, catalonya doesn't have the power to raise its middle finger to everyone else in the country whenever they please just like any other region in the country. We are one, period.

[pmontra]

I understand that but I think that the economic objection doesn't carry much weight: I guess that Catalonya paid its own share of the infrastructure of the other regions of Spain. Same thing with Brexit: the EU benefited from having the UK in the Union (money and not only that) and viceversa. Then the UK voted to go and they go (well, maybe, the way they're handling it is so weird.)

I think it ends up to what people living in a part of a country / union want to do, if they want to be one or not. My impression from far away was that the last time they had a kind of vote in Catalonya it was like about half of the people living there wanted to secede and half didn't. Probably not enough given the circumstances but I'd like to live in a place with clear procedures for secessions. I'm not (most of us don't) even if the EU has them for its member countries.

[tassl]

> The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.

That is not true. Most of the investment in trains, port, highways in Catalonia started as private investment, mostly because it was one of the first places where they were being built (roads and train are the best examples).

And in the more recent years, and considering public investment, Catalonia is clearly under invested (specially Rodalies, according to most news and friends in the area). The budget for transportation is lower than the GDP and population in average, and most years less than half the budget is executed [1][2]

In terms of airports, 1/2 of the revenue of the airports in Spain come from Barcelona's airport [3].

The more I look at the numbers, the more clear it is that Spain's interest in Catalonia is $$$.

[1] https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2018/10/02/companias/... [2] https://www.lavanguardia.com/economia/20190120/454182028060/... [3] https://www.elperiodico.com/es/economia/20150327/el-prat-aen...

[_vrmm]

Are you kidding me? The connection between madrid and barcelona came after madrid and sevilla (very logical in an economical sense). The highways are payed by us (by tolls) thanks to president Pujol and his friends (irony). Only tolls in rich regions. Our trains (renfe) lack a total need of investment for years. Catalunya gives more money to the rest of Spain than it receives, because it’s one of the economic motors of Spain. We are self sufficient.

Yes I see the problem as you point out, we pay too many things, Spain cannot afford losing us. That’s the only reason you want to keep us, economic matters. At least talk about other reasons to keep us united, not just money. It’s not just about money! It’s culture, it’s many years of oppresion, of not letting a nation decide it’s laws... like the ‘estatut’. it’s not reconizing dictatorships that have hurt so much Catalan culture... a lot of people don’t feel any attachment to Spain, we do not share the government attitude, culture, language... Spain has to learn it’s a multicultural country, Spanish is not the only language...

[filomeno]

> The infrastructure of catalunya (high speed trains, ports, highways, etc...) have been paid by all spaniards during many, many years. Like ways, may people from all over Spain live and work in catalunya and viceversa.

It's not like it was paid only by people from outside Catalonia. In fact, the catalan people, pay taxes as well, and that money was used to fund developments outside Catalonia too. And this not only happens at a country level, there are for example funds from the European Union like the ERDF. Does that mean that Scotland should never leave the UK (and therefore the EU) because their roads -for example- have been paid by the european people for many, many years?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Regional_Development_...

[ErneX]

To the EU this is an internal matter, plus, most of the countries of the EU have regions with similar intentions (of secession), it would be like shooting themselves in the foot.

Plus new state members of the EU have to be approved by every current member IIRC.

[repolfx]

The EU is absolutely happy to interfere with internal matters when it suits them, to a huge degree. Look at how they have been treating Poland and its reforms of its court system. Or look at how the EU is trade sanctioning Switzerland due to a dispute over Swiss internal working regulations.

The Commission is all about "European values" and how they're going to impose penalties when a country is doing something unaligned with their own agenda. But their agenda is to destroy all European nations and merge them all into one super-nation controlled by itself. As part of that they desperately want people to feel patriotism and nationalism towards their new nation called Europe, not existing countries. See how disrespecting the EU flag is now illegal in some countries.

From their perspective Catalonian independence = more countries = harder to unite Europe. Therefore it's fine to crush the resistance. "European values" have mysteriously gone missing.

[Discombulator]

> That's another topic, why can't the EU sort them out?

What do you think the EU should even do about this, based on which principles? To me this is entirely unclear.

There is no right to secede from a country, in fact, the territory is usually part of the identity of a country, also legally speaking.

[dcabrejas]

100% people talk about the catalonya issue like they should just be able to break free without understanding the first thing about the issue. It just proves that people are so easy to manipulate with propaganda-like videos that catalonya pro-independence parties put online. I wonder what they would think if it was their countries that were trying to be broken.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

> There is no right to secede from a country

> legally speaking

I don't see how any of these things matter.

If there's no right, if there's no legal means, then wage war. Die trying.

I'm not suggesting I support either position, but pointing out that, ultimately, laws and opinions don't matter.

[ErneX]

Constitution reform is the only way and yet lots of people keep pointing to other things, this is the reason we are stuck in this situation now. That road is long and requires actual politics, what they have done is taking a shortcut to nowhere.

[ivalm]

Catalan are not majority of Spain. They cannot themselves change the constitution, yet they do not want to stay in Spain. So it's a fake "way." The majority should not be allowed to bully the minority.

[ErneX]

So if I don't want to be part of the new Catalonia I can secede my home or join with a few neighbors to be independent from Catalonia? We have a constitution for something it's a not a Chinese vase to glance at it.

[Jare]

But if Catalonia secedes, the majority (they're not, but for argument's sake) of independentist catalonians will be bullying the minority of non-independentist catalonians, right?

It's turtles all the way down.

[iagovar]

I don't understand your point. Nobody is the majority of Spain, but certainly most regions are far away of the power Catalans have in their hands, be it because of their population (gets you more seats in the central parliament) or because of the money they manage.

Every region has its own parliament and has representation in the central parliament. If you want something for your region you have to negotiate with others. And most regions have it way more difficult than Catalans to achieve whatever they want.

[anigbrowl]

If the Constitution is too hard to amend then that is as oppressive as any other method. Deliberately making political change too slow to accomplish is how you get revolutions, sooner or later.

[cfv]

It's neither impossible nor unlawful though, they just need the rest of the country to agree with them leaving. The fascist dictator who formed modern Spain made it so its constituent lands can expel a part of it but no one part of it can choose to leave.

This is the root of why the procés is illegal, and why they are being charged as violent agitators. They are seen as young kids trying to leave their parent's house and taking their bedrooms and console with them.

If they amended the constitution, changed the rules, THEN left, that would change things. Problem is, that's even harder to do, in a country where the aforementioned military dictator died free, of old age, and he and his legacy are greatly revered by a whole lot of people.

[romaaeterna]

Right to exit is an important foundation of legitimate rule. Plato's Crito has Socrates make the point that, even sentenced to death, he was bound to respect the laws of Athens as he was someone who had made the voluntary choice to remain in the city all of his life until then and under those laws.

[xyzzyz]

Right to exit is an important foundation of legitimate rule.

For individuals, sure, and I'm quite sure Catalonians are free to leave Spain and go somewhere else.

[romaaeterna]

Good, I'm glad that we're agreed on the individual right.

Now what is the right of the group? What rights does Spain as a nation have and what right to do the Catalonians have as a people, and where do such rights come from?

The answer to each question will have a lot to do with how much you love each one.

Someone who hates Spain and the Spanish would certainly suggest that their course is to be a grubby landlord, trying to get every cent out of a tenant before kicking them out the door. Someone who loves them would hopefully never think of them as the sort of nation that would wish to impose on a free people or steal anything from a people, especially not land or property.

Lovers of Spain, properly, will think of their rights as rights of attraction, and free association, and from the governors to the governed. Haters will think of the Nation's rights as something to be imposed, and their duties as something to be extracted from their subject peoples.

What do you think of Spain? Is it love or hate?

[rndgermandude]

>It's neither impossible nor unlawful though, they just need the rest of the country to agree with them leaving.

Why do they need the approval of people living elsewhere?

[yiyus]

For the same reason they include Barcelona in their hypothetical new country when most people there do not want independence or the same reason a state with 80% of democratic vote has to accept a republican president voted by people "living elsewhere". That's just how democracy works, else I can just secede if I don't like the result of the elections.

[vkou]

> That's just how democracy works, else I can just secede if I don't like the result of the elections.

What's wrong with self-determination?

[rtkwe]

It's just the way nation-states are setup, as part of being in the union constituent states give up part of their autonomy. This happens all the way down the governmental ladder. The other states (or regions I'm not sure how Spain is divided so I'll just say states) also definitely have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the whole nation. Over the years money has flowed both ways both from the other states to Catalan and from Catalan to the other states.

[anigbrowl]

This is a general state problem, to be sure. It always ends up as an older generation imposing rules on a younger generation that lacks the political autonomy to change them.

[rndgermandude]

That's all fine and dandy, but it presumes the participating states actually want to be part of the union. Otherwise it's tyranny in my humble opinion.

[SiempreViernes]

It's a tightly integrated part of the economical and political system, the people elsewhere would also be severely affected. Why is it obvious that they get to break the system unilaterally?

[rndgermandude]

The UK is tightly integrated into the EU economical and political system. They are breaking away unilaterally. The reason they can do so is that they wouldn't have entered in the first place if there was no instrument to leave again like this (Article 50).

The Catalans never voluntarily agreed to be part of Spain as far as I know. They were essentially annexed a long time ago. And yet Spain says they have to stay no matter what. This doesn't sound right to me.

[logfromblammo]

Generally, it's so that the national polity can invest in specific regional polities without fear that they'll take the money and run, or abscond with strategic assets critical to the development of other regions.

It's basically a checklist item for a negotiated diplomatic withdrawal, to avoid triggering a knee-jerk military suppression of the unlawful rebellion. If "the rest of the country" does not agree, and won't negotiate, secession is still possible, it just means winning the civil war.

[maximente]

it would be ridiculous to expect a colony of a monarchy to be expected to overthrow the government in order to "legally" split off. i'm not sure why this is any different - if they win, then the new country obviously won't be held to whatever rules the old one had. this is sort of the nature of the game - successful nations splitting off get to "live to tell the tale".

[JetSpiegel]

Not to mention the current Prime Minister (he's only PM because the support of the pre-independence parties) dragged his feet for months instead of start discussing a federal Spanish state or some other solution. Radio silence until the procés.

[droithomme]

> they just need the rest of the country to agree with them leaving

I wonder if the American colonies which seceded from Great Britain in 1776 received the agreement of King George or of the people of Great Britain in general. Secession without consent of the sovereign was not part of their law, so the action was clearly illegal and unethical and the colonists simply in the wrong, do you think? Also there is the matter of them using violence and acts of terrorism as part of their secession process. Clearly wrong, correct?

[david-gpu]

The comparison is flawed because Catalonia, like all other regions of Spain, is represented in the Spanish parliament through a democratic election process.

In contrast, the US was a colony of the UK with no direct representation. Also note how, just like in Spain, the US Constitution today does not allow for a state to secede, and in fact there was a civil war when some states tried to do just that.

The potential independence of Catalonia is a complex matter and these simplistic comparisons are unhelpful.

[tassl]

> The comparison is flawed because Catalonia, like all other regions of Spain, is represented in the Spanish parliament through a democratic election process.

That's irrelevant for minorities; it's the tyranny of the majority.

> Also note how, just like in Spain, the US Constitution today does not allow for a state to secede, and in fact there was a civil war when some states tried to do just that.

That's false.

[droithomme]

> the US Constitution today does not allow for a state to secede

This is completely untrue. The US Constitution has no such clause. Let's have a wager. We both transfer $10,000 to an independent bookie. Then we each submit our evidence that the US Constitution prohibited secession in 1861. An independent panel of judges rules and winner takes all. I'll give you 30 minutes to accept the wager and transfer your contact info.

The War between the States was an illegal war. Because the Northern Aggression won and wrote the textbooks of course they justify their illegal actions, just as the US currently justifies its illegal war crimes in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Disagree? Under what legal theory does the US have the right to seize Syrian oil fields as it is currently doing? That's the latest action this week. There are similar absurd and illegal claims of the US government going back centuries. What legal theory do you think the US claims for their seizure of native american lands and parallel mass genocide? Are you aware it's not the Doctrine of Conquest, but the Doctrine of Discovery that the US Supreme Court cited as legal justification? That the first Christian to eye lands held by non-christians permanently and irrevocably has sovereign ownership of the lands, as well as the right to enslave and kill the "pagan" populace. Do you believe this Doctrine of Discovery is a valid legal principle? Or do you agree the US has no legitimate legal claims whatsoever over the much of its territory, which it seized through genocide and deceit and spurious insane pseudo-legal principles. The Doctrine of Discovery has as much validity as the spurious claim that there was anything questionable or illegal or especially unconstitutional about southern secession, and as much rational basis as the european and puritan claims that witches can be detected by attempting to drown them, pile stones on them until they asphyxiate, or that werewolves are responsible for crop failure.

[t_rope]

Well, talking about the US, a group of states tried to secede from the union and there was quite a large war to stop them.

It's not legal for a state to secede from the US at all without other states agreeing to it.

[xyzzyz]

Catalonia is free to try to win the war of independence, of course, just like the US did.

[dmaldona]

In order to have a healthy democracy we first need the rule of the law.

Constitutions are made to define the foundations of those laws and protect citizen minorities against majority abuses: what if 80% of the population of a region decides to expel the other 20% because of whatever reasons?

The fact that the state tries to preserve the integrity of the country is necessary to keep the rule of the law. For if it just renounces to a region, its power to enforce its law is lost in such region.

Now let's assume a particular region decides to secede. That region's people, industry and such is the product of a historical process: there has been some migration, investments in the region and outside the region, etc... Thus, in case of secession under what law its decided how that secession is done? Who has legitimacy to define the rules of the law?

[nitwit005]

It's not entirely sensible to talk about "rule of law" when it comes to secession. Most countries exist in violation of some earlier set of laws. They were part of some nation and broke away, or they replaced their own government with another form through revolt.

[ErneX]

I think you meant "secession". A really small minority is actually revolting, thankfully. Lots of pro-independence people are protesting peacefully. There's also the other side that don't want to hear anything about seceding that are just looking at these events unfold pretty worried.

[nitwit005]

Yes, thanks. My brain refuses to see typos and I just read back what I intended to write.

[vidarh]

In order to have a healthy democracy, we first need legitimacy. In other words, those who are part of the entity need to consider it to have authority.

Nobody should be surprised if an entity you can not leave if the majority oversteps their perceived bounds ceases to have legitimacy in the eyes of those who are forcibly prevented from leaving.

By all means seek to ensure all interests are taken into account, but you don't do that by holding people against their will.

[My favorite discussion on the topic of democratic legitimacy is Robert A Dahl's "After the Revolution? Authority in a good society" (Yale University Press) that goes through this issue in a very approachable way]

[zozbot234]

> The question is if a democracy can be called democratic if it's impossible/unlawful for minorities to secede.

Well, as both Americans and Spanish might say, "we had a war to settle that issue." The U.S. have been a republic (what you call a "democracy") for the entirety of their history as a nation, and yet unilateral secession is clearly forbidden.

[AsyncAwait]

I think OP is asking whether such countries, including the US, are indeed democratic, or just called that like Congo is called democratic, (not to the same degree obviously, but the same principle).

[wang_li]

Can a country be called democratic if me and six friends are not allowed to draw a random border around a house and then vote to murder the residents with only our votes counting because only those inside the arbitrary border we drew are allowed to vote?

[AsyncAwait]

Ugh. By your logic once India was conquered by the British, all attempts at independence were six friends drawing a random border around their house.

[vidarh]

Unless the residents you vote to murder are also given the same freedom to secede and draw a border that excludes you because they do not consider your rule legitimate, this certainly would not be democratic.

Your analogy illustrates why a right to secede matters: It is the ultimate peaceful (if the right is protected) tool for those who feel disenfranchised, whether by being robbed off the chance to vote or because they are a persistent minority, to ensure that either their rights are protected because the government do not want them to leave, or that they have an escape hatch against a majority abusing their power.

It is saying "we no longer accept that this government legitimately represents us," and the right and ability to do that seems to me to be the most fundamental concept of democracy - but only if it is extended to everyone, which takes away the problems of your example; you and your six friends would have no rights to draw a new border that includes other residents without they too having a say, including the right to themselves secede if you do not offer them something they are willing to see as legitimate.

As such it provides an important incentive against over-reach and towards negotiated settlements that does not exist when there is no realistic mechanism for a minority to vote for their region to leave.

You can mitigate the need for a right to secede by giving sufficient protections for minorities against the choices of the majority; but whenever secession gains substantial support, that is evidence that whatever mechanisms are in place are insufficient.

To me, a government that feels a need to deploy police to stop a region from demanding independence is inherently illegitimate.

At the same time, I am all four having secessionists be made to understand the consequences, in that if you a house and decides your house should secede, then fine, but you e.g. have no inherent right to then be allowed to cross the border, or expect your new neighbouring state to provide you with any services, and you can expect them to act with force to protect the interests of any of their citizens resident on "your territory" who do not want to secede and who are not offered sufficient protections - including their own right to secede from "your state" and rejoin their preferred state.

In practice I think that taking such a right to secede to it's full consequence would minimize actual uses - anyone wanting to do it would need to take into account the problems of whether or not they'd e.g. end up with enclaves, eroded borders, exclaves, and whether they'd even end up with a contiguous territory of significance at all if they have majority support in a region but also lot of resistance, and would be forced to actually negotiate to solve such issues in a way that is not inherently detrimental to both sides. At the same time this would also apply to the state you seek to leave.

[JCharante]

Wouldn't the analogy be better if you lived in a dorm building, and your friends voted to draw the border around the dorm?

[maxwell]

Perhaps the American Republic ended in 1869 with Texas v. White, succeeded by the American Empire.

[EthanHeilman]

I do not buy the argument that unilateral secession is clearly forbidden in the US and I don't think the American Civil War settled that point. The Confederates stood a decent legal chance to secede from the Union. It was a constitution crisis. Instead the Confederates choose to throw constitutional avenues away and engage in a war of aggression against the North. The South didn't need to raise armies and launch an attack on Fort Sumter. However personally I'm grateful for their gross incompetence both in starting the war and their conduct throughout the war because it brought about the end of Chattel Slavery in North America.

Furthermore I would argue there is a large legal and ethical difference between:

1/ a largely peaceful movement for secession which is suppressed and then responds with riots

2. and a landed gentry rising up in open war and invasion because they lost an presidential election and they want to preserve their right to strip freedom from their countrymen.

[billiam]

I'm sorry but your misreading of American history is substantial. Texas v. White in 1869 made official that which Shay's Rebellion, the annexation of the Texas Republic, and the Civil War had established by actions--that secession in the US is illegal.

[EthanHeilman]

Illegal and forbidden are not synonyms. Political actions especially with respect to territorial integrity can both be illegal and allowed to happen i.e. not forbidden.

>Well, as both Americans and Spanish might say, "we had a war to settle that issue."

My main point was reacting to your statement above. A particular set of wars does not settle those issues.

What prevents a secessionist legal action to be heard by the Supreme court and for them to overturn the Texas v. White decision?

[squiggleblaz]

> Well, as both Americans and Spanish might say, "we had a war to settle that issue." The U.S. have been a republic (what you call a "democracy") for the entirety of their history as a nation, and yet unilateral secession is clearly forbidden.

That's not a fair analogy. If Texas decided, tomorrow, that they wanted to pursue independence, I'm reasonably confident that at no point would the federal government dismiss the state government, arrest their members and throw them in prison. They might say, "We're incapable of having any discussion on the matter until a bill passes the US Congress permitting us to negotiate" or "We'll negotiate, but terms cannot be settled and finally agreed to by us; we will need a constitutional amendment" or "Sure why not". (The US President is, after all, the president of the United States, and so their agreement is tantamount to the consent of the states. Moreover, if US federal power is withdrawn from Texas by the order of the US president, legal or not, such that it takes a revolution to regain it, it's fair to say it's happened, whether it's legal or not.)

[nl]

The section on "Self-determination versus territorial integrity" on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination addresses the different arguments here.

[ErneX]

91% of the people of catalonia voted for the current spanish constitution back 1978, these are the rules of play for all us.

Any change to that constitution should be made by the mechanisms it itself provides, and even in the case a new one is made, it'd have to be voted by the whole country in a referendum.

This crisis has been provoked by irresponsable politicians that have taken shortcuts clearly out of the law in order to secede a whole region of Spain from it, and we also need to keep in mind half of the people from or living in Catalonia do not want to split from Spain.

My 0,02.

[snvzz]

>91% of the people of catalonia voted for the current spanish constitution back 1978,

Many of these people are dead. There was no alternative to this constitution as it happened in a very unstable climate after the death of the dictator, where the constitution was seen as the one way to stabilize the country and advance towards a democracy.

>This crisis has been provoked by irresponsable politicians that have taken shortcuts clearly out of the law

These "irresponsible" politicians exhausted all avenues and did what they did because they had no alternative left to actually act on what their constituents, the people who voted for them, put them in place for.

And the fact people want this is in no way unrelated to what happened to the Estatut d'Autonomia, which defines the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. The current version of the document was written in Catalonia, revised and cut several times until Spain was OK with it, then voted in a referendum in Catalonia and put into effect, only to be cut down dramatically shortly after by the constitutional court, acting on the behalf of a Spanish nationalist political party which gets almost no votes at all in Catalonia. This was perceived as a massive insult to Catalan people.

Not only the situation was not repaired, but Spain's attacks on Catalonia's self government continued. This is the main reason why independence took a hold, perceived as the only option going forward.

>and we also need to keep in mind half of the people from or living in Catalonia do not want to split from Spain.

I have to ask for the source of this data. Certainly not a referendum, nor an election. At best, some newspaper poll.

My 2¢.

[ErneX]

Data is actually the Catalonian government statistics office (Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió):

https://elpais.com/ccaa/2019/07/26/catalunya/1564132750_8266...

This and all the recent catalonian parliament elections, you clearly see the split between pro independence parties and not pro independence.

The 1978 constitution is the current rule of law, it can be changed, but that needs political support in the spanish congress. If you want to simply ignore the rule of law because you don't like the constitution or "many of the people that voted for it are dead" that's your problem (sorry to be blunt, but that can't be a serious argument).

[snvzz]

The CEO is just an opinion poll, but it shows that there's a lot of people for independence, if anything.

The two referendums (the older non-binding "consultation", and the newer binding), along with the results of elections, and the fact the current government is pro-independence, are the best data we've got, by mere size of sample.

[zozbot234]

> You get actions like putting trees and blocks of concrete on railroads, making it very dangerous for passengers and workers.

There are laws against doing such things on the books, I'd assume - even if the motive were "just" to block railway traffic. The government should focus on investigating those responsible. It's not at all clear that blocking an app that might have countless legitimate, non-violent uses is the right choice.

[iagovar]

If I was from the police I'd probably want to block the chance to coordinate such attacks, not only do an investigation to track certain individuals. What would be the point to spend many resources to put a guy or a few of them in jail when they can be easily replaced.

[acollins1331]

Sure, that's what you'd want. And everyone in the police here wants video and audio recording of every persons movement at all times so they can solve every crime.

Sometimes the police want bad things.

[commandlinefan]

"A police officer's job is only easy in a police state"

[zozbot234]

Of course it depends how many people are involved in such things, and whether the app specifically is allowing them to coordinate these attacks. Most of the commentary so far has been about demonstrations, sometimes turning into violent riots. Purposely sabotaging/obstructing a piece of critical infrastructure is something rather different, although whether it could be defined as "terrorism" is somewhat ambiguous.

[iagovar]

> whether it could be defined as "terrorism" is somewhat ambiguous.

I won't define it as terrorism, but if you are in the Police and you really have no other legal tool, what do you do? If the boundary is fuzzy enough, they're gonna push for it.

In the end they'll probably have a hard time proving that to a judge, but as a temporary measure they probably think it's useful.

[zozbot234]

Actually, my main point was that it could qualify. Attacks on critical infrastructure have been deemed as such, and the implied risk to human life makes this an even stronger possibility. If these things are actually happening, it's quite appropriate to bring them to light.

[AnimalMuppet]

You don't have to call it terrorism. Vandalism, reckless endangerment, malicious mischief... there are a bunch of different laws that apply.

[nl]

It's worth noting that this conflict has previously had groups who were terrorist (the bomb planting kind).

[hootbootscoot]

it's worth noting that spanish over-reactions may be rooted in memories/fears of ETA, which is an entirely different group from an entirely different region also seeking secession.

the concern is the "suppress this at any cost" approach.

the heavy sentences can be seen as provocative (13 years for holding an "illegal" election is indefensible. it's pure authoritarian slapdown, reeks of hubris, and spits in the face of actual violent crime convictions. you can get less for murder in Spain!)

this fuels sympathy for a movement that otherwise smelled a bit like the "Piadina" secessionists: a rich region seeking to "unburden" itself of it's poorer compatriot region

such is the unreformed state of spanish nationalism that Madridenses literally will see nothing wrong with extreme civil rights breaches by G.C. etc.

let's not forget that Spain just sold a large order of bombs to Saudi Arabia, so the epiphet "terrorist" is not to be taken seriously, as in the American Gov't etc.

I'm in no way interested in Catalunyan independence, but this posturing by the Spanish Gov't looks RIDICULOUS and should be ridiculed as such.

[pas]

Wasn't this app purposefully made and has been branded as such for this group and their cause?

[tempguy9999]

I am not at all familiar with this situation, but these quotes

> but I understand why so many Catalonians are angry and protest for

and

> But I also understand what different police forces are facing

gives the impression the police may be paying the price for some politicians' bad decisions.

[zadkey]

What in your views would you say are valid grounds to seek independence?

If you are going to say Catalonia shouldn't seek independence, perhaps you can enlighten the rest of us on the ethical criteria to seek independence?

[vitobcn]

The takedown is referring to charges of terrorism: "the movement Tsunami Democratic has been confirmed as a criminal organization driving people to commit terrorist attacks. Tsunami Democratic's main goal is coordinating these riots and terrorist actions by using any possible mean."

Can anybody point me to such terrorist actions? Tsunami Democratic is indeed organizing demonstrations and protests, but I don't understand that to be terrorism, especially if they are doing so repeatedly calling for "non-violence". Straight from their page: https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html

I don't necessarily agree with their actions, but to attempt to take down a website / app on trumped up charges doesn't seem appropriate for an established western democracy...

[ojosilva]

As I understand the Spanish police and courts have framed Tsunami Democratic as part of the ongoing terrorism investigation similar to the "Judas Operation" [1], where 7 members of the CDRs have been arrested allegedly with raw materials and instructions to build explosives and were charged with terrorism. Within the investigation, the National Police has tied the CDR's and Tsunami as being the same organization [2].

Not saying they're right or wrong in their alleged charges, arrests or decision to link Tsunami Democratic to terrorism, but it's all being run by the same investigating judge [3] which explains the mindset behind the decision. The presumed "terrorist actions" could be easily justified as preventive and explain the injunctions.

[1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operaci%C3%B3n_Judas

[2] https://www.elconfidencialdigital.com/articulo/seguridad/cdr...

[3] https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/19/inenglish/1571484159_00...

[tassl]

For context, other people have been convicted for terrorism with this list of materials: a mask of an activist [1], a printed map of a city [1], bleach, cabbage and a tweet saying "Goku still lives" [2].

But yet the terrorist attack in Barcelona that killed 15 people is not being investigated because of the connection of the master mind with the Spanish CNI [3] and its knowledge of the attack beforehand [4].

[1] https://www.publico.es/public/repressio-precedent-d-adria-i-... [2] https://elpais.com/politica/2018/07/26/actualidad/1532619800... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/world/europe/spain-barcel... [4] https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/spanish-intelli...

[zozbot234]

> developed an app that allows people to know where demonstrations are happening

Sounds like a bit of welcomed transparency to me. The Spanish police, concerned citizenry, etc. can use the app just as much as anyone else, to prevent things from getting out of hand.

(*Edited for consistency with newly-provided info in this HN thread.)

[jannes]

I believe the app requires you to be invited via QR code by an existing member to gain access.

Of course, the police would be able to infiltrate this with a bit of effort.

[iagovar]

> The Spanish police, concerned citizenry, etc. can use the app just as much as anyone else, to prevent things from getting out of hand

They can't. The app uses some kind of location data to silo information. So for example if they want to make an action in Tarragona, people from Barcelona is not going to know about it.

It is likely, seeing some threads of people who have analyzed the application, that the administrators, or whoever is behind it, will be able to know how many people are available in a particular location, and isolate that information in a kind of opsec.

[saagarjha]

Can't you spoof location data?

[iagovar]

I guess so, I didn't do the analysis, but I'm pretty sure the guys who did the app already thought about that possibility.

[jarfil]

It's transparency when the information is about protest planned for the next day or further in the future.

It's less clear cut when it becomes more of a "barrier has been breached on this street" along with "cops are moving to this other street" in realtime.

[banjodeluxe]

Yeah I agree that there's a chance that might be the case - might be outrageous misrepresentation, takedown to crackdown on the movement, etc.. But I personally decide to give the system a little trust at least at first and like to think that the Spanish authorities who ordered this will have real reasons to base their decision on - with time we'll see I guess.

[yeahforsureman]

With all respect, I guess you haven't been following the Catalonian affair that closely then. To me it unfortunately looks like enforcement of laws around this issue has long become politicized to the point of endangering the rule of law, fair and objective administration of justice and the protection of fundamental rights such as the freedom of speech and assembly.

[tumetab1]

Not sure what people opinions are when the judicial system has

> the movement Tsunami Democratic has been confirmed as a criminal organization driving people to commit terrorist attacks

So any material support to a criminal organization is criminal per se in most jurisdictions.

[enriquto]

the quoted sentence is false. The tsunami democratic has not been confirmed as a criminal organization.

[joking]

the app attemps to hide that, it's using geolocation to promote and comunicate only with a subset of the app users, police could infiltrate and gain access to some of the groups, but it will never get access to the full network, so the contrary of transparency.

[sparrc]

> the Github repo for takedowns has plenty - although they seem to usually be coming from China/Russia.

The other takedowns are 100% from China and Russia. Spain is joining two of the most censor-heavy (and undemocratic) countries in the world by issuing this takedown.

[kiliancs]

I'd like to point out that most of the demonstrations where there's been problems (I think calling them violent is an exageration, and also its origin is largely disputed as many blame the police) have nothing to do with Tsunami Democràtic.

Tsunami Democràtic's goal is to encourage and coordinate massive civil disobedience and protests, and that's what they've done so far. Their app even has a check box about non-violence you are forced to to log in. It's hard to imagine how they came to the conclusion that this is a terrorist organization except if you take into account the political views of the Spanish government and all its branches and Tsunami Democràtic.

[smsm42]

> but its nothing new

It's nothing new but we're getting more and more of it, and if before it was Russian where one doesn't expect much and China where one doesn't expect anything, now it's a EU member country. Pretty soon there would be no country where software freedom still exists. Maybe there isn't already (US banned CAD files that describe weapons, for example). That's sad development.

[major505]

Weel, I guess one can argue that every violent Riot is in itself an act of terrorism.

[ryanlol]

>Following the judge's veredict of the Catalan politicians

Not just politicians, but activists too. Jordi Cuixart is doing 9 years for organizing protests.