{"id":26004,"date":"2017-09-22T16:12:10","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T21:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26004"},"modified":"2017-09-22T16:12:10","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T21:12:10","slug":"it-gets-ugly-in-catalonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26004","title":{"rendered":"It Gets Ugly in Catalonia"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2017\/09\/21\/catalonia-independence-repression-by-spain\/\">It Gets Ugly in Catalonia<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"ssba ssba-wrap\">\n<div><strong>Spain\u2019s \u201cships of repression\u201d are coming to help out.\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Madrid\u2019s crackdown on Catalonia is already having one major consequence, presumably unintended: many Catalans who were until recently staunchly opposed to the idea of national independence are now reconsidering their options.<\/p>\n<p>A case in point: At last night\u2019s demonstration, spread across multiple locations in Barcelona, were two friends of mine, one who is fanatically apolitical and the other who is a strong Catalan nationalist but who believes that independence would be a political and financial disaster for the region. It was their first ever political demonstration. If there is a vote on Oct-1, they will probably vote to secede.<\/p>\n<p>The middle ground they and hundreds of thousands of others once occupied was obliterated yesterday when a judge in Barcelona ordered Spain\u2019s militarized police force, the Civil Guard, to round up over a dozen Catalan officials in dawn raids. Many of them now face crushing <em>daily<\/em> fines of up to \u20ac12,000.<\/p>\n<p>The Civil Guard also staged raids on key administrative buildings in Barcelona. The sight of balaclava-clad officers of the Civil Guard, one of the most potent symbols of the <a href=\"https:\/\/riggedgame.blog\/2013\/09\/19\/fear-loathing-and-resurrected-ghosts-in-spain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">not-yet forgotten Franco dictatorship<\/a>, crossing the threshold of the seats of Catalonia\u2019s (very limited) power and arresting local officials, was too much for the local population to bear.<\/p>\n<p>Within minutes almost all of the buildings were surrounded by crowds of flag-draped pro-independence protesters. The focal point of the day\u2019s demonstrations was the Economic Council of Catalonia, whose second-in-command and technical coordinator of the referendum, Josep Maria Jov\u00e9<b>,<\/b>was among those detained. He has now been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lavanguardia.com\/politica\/20170921\/431448427077\/guardia-civil-atribuye-numero-dos-junqueras-delito-sedicion-referendum.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">charged with sedition<\/a> and could face between 10-15 years in prison. Before that, he faces fines of \u20ac12,000 a day.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It Gets Ugly in Catalonia Spain\u2019s \u201cships of repression\u201d are coming to help out.\u00a0 Madrid\u2019s crackdown on Catalonia is already having one major consequence, presumably unintended: many Catalans who were until recently staunchly opposed to the idea of national independence are now reconsidering their options. A case in point: At last night\u2019s demonstration, spread across [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[117,5660,968,672,9099,743,6118],"class_list":["post-26004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-catalonia","tag-don-quijones","tag-independence","tag-referendum","tag-secession","tag-spain","tag-wolf-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26005,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26004\/revisions\/26005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}