Parties stand by ANC; membership surges

  • Forcadell fears illegalization, says ANC is in the "crosshairs"

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20.03.2014 - 11:01

La premsa lliure no la paga el govern, la paguen els lectors


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Since last week when the first threats against the ANC surfaced in the ABC editorial, the group has welcomed more than one thousand new members, with 363 signing up yesterday alone, more than in the whole first two weeks of March. In total, the group has some 22,700 members. Among the newcomers are Xavier Sala i Martin, Columbia University professor who said that he had decided to join the group because of the threats it had received. “That they be accused of planning a coup or being violent and that they’re being threatened with prison is so out of place, so outrageous, and so ridiculous, that I decided to break my normal rule of not joining groups, collected the little money it cost, and signed up.”

The attacks against the ANC also generated widespread rejection from pro-sovereignty political parties. ERC’s Marta Rovira said that the Spanish State was trying to discredit in any way possible “a grassroots process”. She added, “I can’t imagine that in a democratic state that a democratic association could be illegalized, a group that is one of the primary actors of independence. What has the ANC done? The only thing that is has done is organize absolutely peaceful demonstrations, on the streets. If they prohibit the right of assembly and of demonstrating we will become a dictatorship because that would destroy democracy. I don’t see the way, any excuse for them illegalizing the ANC. They can’t do it just because of the ANC’s ideas.”

Jordi Turull of the ruling CiU party said “If they make an organization illegal that dedicates itself to mobilizing people to hold hands, there’s a big problem. Some European institutions might reconsider who should be in Europe, and who shouldn’t.

David Fernàndez of the CUP called the threats a “frontal attack on civil rights”. “I see a state strategy,” he said. “In the Spanish state, all anti-democratic illegalizations have always been preceded by the creation of a state of opinion in which the big media outlets play the important role preparing the terrain for a ‘landing’ Right now, the ties between state power and media directors is undeniable: El País doesn’t just go write editorials of its own accord. There is always a prior calculation. On the other hand, it’s important to state categorically that this is all much more symptomatic of weakness when faced with the democratic will of our people rather than strength.” 

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The Catalan National Assembly is in the crosshairs. That’s how the president of the group, Carme Forcadell, sees it, after the accusatory and threatening editorials in ABC and El País and the declarations of Ciutadans’ candidate Juan Carlos Girauta. “The ANC forms part of the process and we know that at any moment, we can be in the cross-hairs, we knew that one day it might end up happening,” said Forcadell in an interview with TV3. Now, she added, she is afraid that the group could be illegalized, but she said that for the moment, she doesn’t have any direct evidence that anyone has asked that she be investigated.

Yesterday, the former director of Barcelona daily La Vanguardia, José Antich, said that he had heard that leaders of the ruling PP had asked the Ministry of Justice to urge the prosecutor’s office to investigate the ANC in order to illegalize it. According to Forcadell, those that accuse the Assembly of fomenting a coup “either haven’t read the roadmap or they are distorting it”. She made it clear that “all of the possibilities proposed in the roadmap are democratic and peaceful”.

Also see: Them’s Fighting Words

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