[gjulianm]

I'm not one to approve of the spanish government management of the crisis, which was terrible, but there are quite a lot of missing things here that are important to the story.

> vote with over 80% for their indipendence from Spain

The 2017 referendum vote ended up with 90% of votes for independence. However, only 43% of the census participated, mainly due to the fact that this referendum was not binding at all, and wasn't even "legal". Other referendums have had similar results.

> And then stuff happens that I only read from bad China and bad Russia.

I think regular media picked up on that with no issues. I remember reading detailed articles on Politico or The Guardian, for example.

> Those political leaders are arrested.

They were arrested not for explaining their goal of independence but because they exceeded their functions and competences when they held the referendum. Now, there's a lot of discussion to be had about the political motivations of those charges and the punishments, but I think the reality that they used public resources to hold a referendum that they legally couldn't hold is undeniable. That was the trigger, not just saying they wanted independence.

> Spain then acts hard on the region, holds a gun against the head of many businesses located in the Catalonian region so they have to move out from there.

That's not exactly what happened. Some companies legally moved headquarters from Catalonia to other regions, and some new investments were reduced, but those are mainly motivated by the legal insecurity about what was going to happen (and also, take into account that businesses are led by people with their own ideologies and biases of the situation). But it hasn't been that impactful overall.

> I cannot stop overseeing the paralls to other conflicts around the world, very hot conflicts.

For starters, other than the police action in the referendum, there's been a remarkable lack of violence on both sides. I mean, every 11th of september there are demonstrations for independence around the Diada (day of Catalonia) celebrations, political calls to action and such, and those things are not repressed. So I don't think pointing parallels to "very hot conflicts" is warranted.

[kspacewalk2]

> Some companies legally moved headquarters from Catalonia to other regions, and some new investments were reduced, but those are mainly motivated by the legal insecurity about what was going to happen (and also, take into account that businesses are led by people with their own ideologies and biases of the situation).

This happened in Montreal. It was the business capital of Canada until the referendums. Now Toronto is.

So it goes.

[denton-scratch]

> they used public resources to hold a referendum that they legally couldn't hold is undeniable

If the constitution says that calling for secession is a criminal offence, it follows that holding an indendence referendum is also criminal. I'd argue that a constitution that criminalises campaigning for secession is a bad constitution, and that the central government should have (a) staged the referendum and (b) campaigned in it.

[gjulianm]

Calling for secession is not directly a criminal offense. The charges were sedition and misuse of public funds. The latter is fairly clear, the former is a more gray area (in Spain, sedition is a public tumultuous rising to stop laws from applying, using violence or illegal methods) and one could debate whether it applies or not. But in both cases, the reasoning was that the Catalan government did not have the competence to hold that referendum, was notified of that by legal means and they disobeyed those orders. That was the core of the decision, not about the contents of the referendum but the fact that they didn't have the authority to do it and did it nevertheless.

> and that the central government should have (a) staged the referendum and (b) campaigned in it.

When some people think that giving Catalonia enough entity to even consider independence is too much, a referendum is out of the question. If the central government had been open to hold the referendum they would also have been open to previous smaller claims from Catalonia that would probably have satisfied enough people and dropped support for independency.

[ipaddr]

Those are crushing numbers. 90% of 43% of voters who made a choice to vote and leave. Such overwhelming numbers. Do you think the other side would have gotten everyone who didn't vote?

[gjulianm]

Not everyone, but a majority. Going to vote was strongly correlated with being for independence: it was clear the referendum wasn't legally binding and wasn't approved by the Spanish government. People who didn't want independence didn't even bother to vote in that.

And it's not an hypothesis: polls and parliament votes have shown for years that the support for independence (or for independentist parties) has been fairly stable at around 45-50%. Support for a referendum vote has been wider (up to 70-80% depending on the poll and how you count some party's positions) but similarly fairly stable over the years.

[rosndo]

Remember that in many places it was very difficult to vote due to violent interference by Guardia Civil.

[zozbot234]

90% of 43% is less than 40% voting for independence. Hardly overwhelming numbers, for a referendum that everyone knew would not actually matter.

[denton-scratch]

> for a referendum that everyone knew would not actually matter.

Surely if people thought the referendum "didn't matter", then they'd be less, not more likely to cast a ballot? I'd say that 40% is a pretty strong vote, in those circumstances (and given the risk of being beaten up by riot police).

[pvaldes]

Not, because here lies the trap. This was a farce, not a real election.

It was practically guaranteed that the votes would be replaced later in the cardboard urns guarded exclusively by the separatists. The obvious plan was to drag as many millions of people as possible to vote and then use this number as new upper limit to made up a separatist support number (see? 80% of this new cipher voted separatist, we counted the votes ourselves, [invented a number], and this is two million more of supporters than before, so I'm right. Now lets negotiate how money you own me to not secede).

It must be noticed that they printed 10 millions of ballots, for a pool of voters much lower. Why they needed to have like two ballots for each possible vote?... well, fill the dots.

The only good move in that situation is avoid voting

[Darmody]

Everybody who wished independence voted. 90% of 40% is nothing when voting for serious matters.

In most places that wouldn't even be considered a valid referendum.

[denton-scratch]

It wasn't a valid referendum. It was illegal, and everyone knew that it was against the Spanish constitution. 90% of 40% in what amounts to an opinion poll is not "nothing" - it's a remarkable turnout, given that voters knew the Spanish government had sent in shiploads of non-Catalan riot police to suppress voting.

[raverbashing]

90% of 43% is 38%. Hardly overwhelming numbers.

[kspacewalk2]

Can't tell if this comment is tongue in cheek. 40% is crushing and overwhelming? Like, maybe next time all those other supposed hidden supporters of independence can be arsed to get off their butts and show up to the most important vote of their life (at least if it was binding or legal according to Spanish law).

[cracrecry]

>The 2017 referendum vote ended up with 90% of votes for independence. However, only 43% of the census participated.

That is not true. Those are the numbers given by the independentist people themselves, with some people voting 5 times as there were no the required warrantees(as it was an illegal referendum).

The real numbers are those that supported an independentist party for the local elections, over 50% of the electorate.