Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
github.com
github.com
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.
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.)
Of course, the police would be able to infiltrate this with a bit of effort.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also the sentencing was not the harshest by far: rebellion was dropped, state attorney demanded up to 25 years, and “acusación particular” (VOX) was asking to up to 74 years.
Sometimes the police want bad things.
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.
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.
For individuals, sure, and I'm quite sure Catalonians are free to leave Spain and go somewhere else.
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?
The nation of Spain certainly is sovereign on the territory it occupies, so it is bound only by the rules it imposes on itself (and of course, external powers which might impose other rules upon it). The nation of Spain chose to specify the rights extended to its people through the constitution, and through specific laws. From that, Catalonians, as part of the Spanish nation and subject to its sovereignty for as long as they reside under its jurisdiction, stem the rights Catalonians have as people.
Look, I'm not a lover or a hater of Spain, but what I learned so far about how the world works is that it is divided into countries, which set the rules, called law, on their territories, and get to enforce it. If you don't like the rules, usually there's a mechanism to change those, but if you can't make it work through that mechanism, your only option is to assert your own sovereignty, and hope to prevail over the existing contender. So far, the separatists in Catalonia hasn't been successful neither the former nor the latter. I might sympathize with them, but certainly I do not think that they have any right whatsoever to secede.
Interesting. I belong to a country where we think of ourselves as telling our rulers what our rights are -- deriving from God, some say -- and certainly not coming down to us from those rulers in any way. Sometimes we have to fight for these rights. It has been violent sometimes. Other times the process has been used. Some of our rights have yet to be asserted.
But try telling an American that George Washington and company gave us our rights, and you'll see who far that gets you. We love our country.
I hope that the people of Spain can love their country too.
These nations bootstrap their nationhood, and are first legitimate after the fact.
One would hope that we will extend civilization to the point where people who want independence don't need to kill to prove they're serious.
Why do they need the approval of people living elsewhere?
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.
But sure, the EC not having had a defined process there was an oversight. But it was clear that the EC would not prevent the UK or any other member from leaving should they have chosen to do so. They wouldn't have arrested the Queen and replaced the UK members of parliament with EC people.
Article 50 really is just about establishing a procedure for an orderly withdrawal from the union (well, not that orderly in practice it would seem).
When did that happen?
Since then. I think that the source of conflict is that, for multiple reasons, catalans wanted to be part of a bigger political reality, but in "their" terms. And Spain, as a centralized system, didn't like that, doesn't like that and will not like that. To Spain, Catalonia is a property, why would they let it go? After all, it's their right (of conquest) to keep it.
Anyway, they level of independence that Catalonia has had in the last decades is much higher that before that “annexion”.
I am sorry to say, but this is the misleading part. You can't compare the situation hundreds of years ago with today's standards. Politically, Catalonia has less level of independence than 300 years ago. After all it had its own political institutions, courts, laws and coinage of money; all of them separated from the Kingdom of Castile.
The annex I was referring to was political, economical, legal and monetary unification after Catalonia defended a different candidate for the crown. And this is the level of autonomy that some Catalans wanted to regain.
That’s a very good point. But for some reason some people can’t leave 1714 behind!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_the_European_U...
It also seems like if we follow that all the way down where does the fracturing stop and how do you maintain a larger society? Does every sub division of administration have that same right to just say screw the rest of you I'm going home? Allowing it all the way down seems like a ticket straight to fractious setup of loosely associated towns and cities. There's reasons we built up the larger groups over time and part of accessing those benefits requires gluing those partisan impulses together to resist tribal urges.
The results of the elections and the independence referendum strongly disagree.
>Most people in Catalonia (1978) voted in favor of these constitution,
Unlike those that voted the Estatut d'Autonomia (see below), 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.
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.
Nobody took a "carte blanche" to secede. The succession of pro-independence governments were put in there by voters. These governments exhausted all possible avenues with the spanish goverment, which refused to even talk about the topic.
Catalan people were then asked explicitly whether they wanted it, in the referendum that's famous for the violence of the spanish police that were sent to prevent it. And even after that, the Catalan government tried again and again to establish dialogue with Spain, to no avail.
Spain then went on to suspend catalan government, put everybody they could in jail, and to force an election in Catalonia. An election from which yet another pro-independence government was formed.
And to date, Spain has refused any and all dialogue, and the politicians in Jail have been given a judgement that most people in Catalonia cannot agree with, by a trial that independent international observers found outrageously biased and unfair.
This is why we are where we are. The people have taken to the streets because that's what's left.
If the trial was fair, why is the majority of the sentence an explanation about how fair they were? One doesn't need to explain how clean they are, they just need to be clean.
Why were policemen allowed to explain their fears, but not the defense witnesses?
Why were only some of the defense witnesses warned that omitting the truth would be considered perjury but no single accusation witness was? The Spanish politicians were really withholding a lot.
The minister in charge of taxes said, on the trial, that there wasn't an euro unaccounted for. So where is the mishandling of money? The law was stretched thin on this.
But all these expert seem to ignore that these people can appeal their sentences if they don't agree with them. Spain, at difference of authoritarian countries, is subjected to international law. Do you accept these international courts or are they fascists too? Because if the whole world think that what these politicians did was wrong maybe, just maybe, you should consider that there is a possibility that what they did was wrong.
The Spanish government has made many mistakes, and I am very sure they will make many more, no matter who wins the elections. But the Generalitat cannot just take the law into their hands. Everybody knew it would have legal consequences. Most of them can be out early next year. Do you think this an injustice that deserve rioting and burning your city? That is what I would call an stretch.
How justice works is to usually make the initial judgement on a low court and the recourses go to higher ones. Not on this, it was directly judged on the higher one and no recourse can be made about the judgement, only about how it was reached.
This ruling is not something that "deserves" rioting, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I am talking about official positions, not "interventions". Please, show me all those countries that have condemned Spain for its fascist non-democratic practices.
And, I repeat than I am not a layer, but as far as I understand this sentence can still be appealed in international courts.
In a shallow search I've found this, from just before the trial [0] Iceland, and Scotland, ask for democratic solution. Couple of quotes: "The Icelandic Government has called upon their Spanish counterparts to look for a negotiated solution, emphasising the need to respect human rights.", "Scottish minister reiterates support for “the people of Catalonia to determine their own future”". February 15th 2019.
I've heard interventions on the EU parliament to talk about the issues, but it was voted against.
On the other hand I've seen no country saying that Spain is doing great with their police. Almost the opposite, with China saying that Hong Kong police are better than Spanish police and the press is the other way around [1].
Then, again, the appeal to the sentence to international courts will do nothing. The appeal, even if it prospered, it would do nothing against the ruling, at most it would ask a revision of the trial [2]. And that's from a pro-independence source, so you can imagine what others might say.
[0] https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/13862/iceland-becomes-... [1] http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1168214.shtml [2] https://www.naciodigital.cat/noticia/189638/exvicepresident/...
You show the case of Iceland. They have "expressed concern". That's fine. I'm concerned too. And Scotland asks for a "democratic solution". A democratic solution cannot include breaking the law or ignoring court orders from a democratic country. I think both sides are guilty of not finding a democratic solution, don't you agree? Don't you think that these people refused the democratic solution the moment they decided to ignore the law? And, if you really think Spanish police is worse than the Chinese one, well... you should go there and check by yourself, I sincerely don't know what to say about such statement.
But let's forget for a second about the other comments and, please, answer me one question: what do you want? What should happen now to make you happy (or at least to stop spreading FUD about our country)? Should the government go against the court rule ignoring separation of powers? Should they allow the kids to burn Barcelona? What exactly do you want?
On that "both sides are guilty" I could find all the times the Catalan government has tried to talk and the Spanish response has been "no". It's hard to reach a consensus when one side is so fixed on not taking.
I haven't said, and neither think, that the Spanish police is worse than the Chinese one. But if they can make the comparison it's because the way the Spanish police is acting is quite unprofessional and unworthy of a force acting in a democratic country.
What do we want? Lots of things, because there are lots of "factions", each with different needs. I'll try to summarise the principal, some of which I may not agree with. I won't enter into wether they are real or not, some you might think they are not and I'm tired of explaining the same to different people in different media, I should make a github repo.
* Cultural freedom. Catalan culture feels the constant oppression of centralist Spanish culture trying to reduce it to folk usage, like it has almost done with Galician and Valencian (which is the Catalan spoken in Valencia).
* Our money. Catalonia gives more money than it receives.
* End of corruption. We are tired of the rampant corruption in Spain. And yes, Catalan corrupts should go to jail too, starting with Pujol.
* A future. The young ones don't have a future. There is no money, there are no jobs, the world is being destroyed.
* Improve public services. They are being destroyed, in the name of profit (for friends of the different ruling parties).
These are different things that different people want, there are probably more (like letting the political prisoners out and remove the occupation forces). Some are right wing, some left wing, and most of them would sit well with Spanish people.
This is not Catalonia against Spain, it's not even left vs right, it's up vs down.
If you don't mind, I will response to your points one by one. Feel free to not respond if you don't feel like it.
> Cultural freedom.
I think we will agree the situation has greatly improved in the last 40 years. I also agree with you it has to improve more. There is indeed some reject to everything related to Catalan culture by a minority in the centre of Spain. I have seen similar attitudes in the other side (hate for everything related with Spain). At least where I'm from (deep Castille), most of these people will be death in the next 20 years. Unfortunately, this is changing right now, due to the last events (from both sides).
> Money.
Any wealthy region has to help poorer regions for the greater being. Where to put the line is a matter of personal opinion. Although I don't share it, I respect your opinion that the line should be the border of Catalonia.
> Corruption.
This is as much a Spanish problem as a Catalan problem. Everybody in Spain (and everywhere else) is against corrupt politicians (even the corrupt politicians if you ask them!).
> Future and public services.
Again, everyone wants that, and this is not an "Spanish problem".
As you correctly say, it's up and down. Up is powerful, really powerful. When you need to fight a powerful force, looking for cooperation is always more useful than confrontation. You will find strong support all over Spain for these demands, or most of them. As you will find support to have a fairer justice system, or against the anti-riot police (everyone who has been at the other side at some point hates them). I understand these problems, but I do not see how independence will solve them. In some cases, I think all this "proces" is just making it worse.
But we do not need to agree. It is ok if we have different opinions. Again, thank you for a civilized discussion (it's getting harder and harder these days).
If these problems were solved without us having to resort to become independent we would not do that. In fact if most of them were "solved" the independence movement would diminish a lot.
But right now there's too much immobilism and cronyism in Spain. There are some of these questions that are met with a direct "no" from some parties (culture), and most of them are guilty of the main problems (corruption and public services) and will not solve them.
Having a blank slate would make it easier to solve them (theoretically).
Do you want to help solve the independence "problem" without "breaking" Spain up? Vote correctly this weekend, and help others choose any of the correct options, that do not want the power for the sake of the power.
The turn out in the 2017 one was 43% and iirc at the time those against the referendum were encouraged to and did sit out as a way of saying 'this is not legitimate' which kind of muddies the water a bit on the actual numbers. [0]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
[0] Of course this is the problem with any low turn out election, how do you account for the people that don't turn out? Are they protesting, happy with either choice or something else?
What's wrong with self-determination?
If it worked the way you imply what would be the limit to what you can justify with “self determination”?
Existing laws may be undemocratic and unjust. If your bar for secession is legality, I will have to point out that the United States should still be part of the British Empire (The revolution was illegal), Hong Kong should pipe down, and stop protesting (They are bound by CPC laws, which have ruled the protests illegal), and most of Africa should still be governed from London and Paris (Most of it did not leave in the context of existing laws.)
> what would be the limit to what you can justify
There really isn't one, but six people seceeding their house is not going to be a minimally viable country for very obvious reasons. When you secede, you lose a lot of benefits, including economic, military, etc, protection from neighboring states.
So you can find a limit. What if Barcelona does not want to be in that new country (and they don’t)? Will the borders of that new country inside which you start counting votes include Barcelona against their will? What freedoms do people who want to stay with the "original" country get? They suddenly become the oppressed minority. How many splinters is too many?
You object to the “dictatorship” of democracy in Spain but the plan is do do the exact same at a smaller scale in the new country to a newly created minority. The reason we’ve had the longest period of peace and prosperity in Europe’s history is that the rules are as they are now and they're the best compromise. Any “improvement” you want to get for yourself comes at a major cost for everyone.
Catalonia should have a right to poll its people about whether to engage in negotiations, and to discuss terms with Spain (who, naturally, should represent coherent minority interests in Catalonia who do not want to depart).
Spain should have a right to say "Well, look, the border should not include Barcelona since 60% of them (or whatever the figure might be in a just and fair plebiscite) have expressed a desire to remain".
Once fair negotiations have taken place and each side has accepted that they have won some and lost some, Catalonia could have another referendum, and it might turn out that no-one wants independence from both Madrid and Barcelona.
Spain says it's illegal to start, middle and end the process. If the Catalans don't really want to separate, then starting is free. It will almost certainly increase the order and decrease the tension if they let a plebiscite go forward.
(The last paragraph is an irrelevance, since there's no evidence that a European Union of many smaller states, incapable of independently sustaining a modern armed force, will be any more likely to go to war than a European Union of fewer larger states, capable of independently sustaining modern armed forces. In fact, even putting the argument down in black on tan really brings out its ridiculousness.)
Polling someone about something implies one of the results is perfectly possible. I considered that as being the final result for the purpose of the discussion because that's the crux of the matter. So yes, that is the only side that matters. There are no "fair" negotiations to be had. Spain has nothing to gain. It would not only show willingness to let illegal activity go unpunished and worse, it encourages it by negotiating.
What happens next time someone wants something illegal according to country laws and constitution? Negotiate every time? There is no negotiation that will please everybody and at best you'd end up with a random collection of patches where 100% of the population wants independence (since you don't want to oppress anyone).
> Spain should have a right to say "Well, look, the border should not include Barcelona since 60% of them (or whatever the figure might be in a just and fair plebiscite) have expressed a desire to remain".
What about the 40% (just to fit the math) that want the independence in Barcelona? Aren't they to Barcelona what Catalonia is to Spain? Should they splinter from Barcelona? How many times do you splinter? How long until you say "well I think we have enough"? And when you do isn't that arbitrary and hypocritical?
Both results of asking Catalonia whether or not it should start negotiating with Spain as to what independence would look like are completely possible. It's up to Spain to accept that possibility, though, not Catalonia.
> There are no "fair" negotiations to be had. Spain has nothing to gain.
Internal stability, an end to social unrest, and doing the right thing, by letting people govern themselves, is not something to gain?
You shouldn't block your spouse from divorcing you in a broken marriage, and you should generally not keep people who want to leave, in your country.
> What happens next time someone wants something illegal according to country laws and constitution? Negotiate every time?
Generally speaking, when there's a large demand in a democracy for an unjust law to be changed, the correct thing to do is to, in fact, change the law.
> What about the 40% (just to fit the math) that want the independence in Barcelona? Aren't they to Barcelona what Catalonia is to Spain? Should they splinter from Barcelona? How many times do you splinter? How long until you say "well I think we have enough"? And when you do isn't that arbitrary and hypocritical?
That's the whole point of going to the negotiating table, in good faith. To discuss the options, to figure out how edge cases will work. If Barcelona wants to remain in Spain, I see no reason for why Catalonian secession should have to include it. Catalonia can then make the choice of whether or not it wants to secede without Barcelona. It will probably choose to not do so, and you will solve your problem without turning to violence and repression.
Of course, this requires negotiating in good faith, which seems to be anathema.
It appears that most of the country (Spain) does not agree hence the existing laws. It's questionable whether even most of Catalonia agrees. Just because a small minority thinks that it's the right thing means nothing in the context of a whole country.
> You shouldn't block your spouse from divorcing you
If you have to use broken analogies to make the point then you don't have much of a point. It should be pretty clear right now that unlike divorce, what we're talking about here is illegal. You don't get to vote whether laws apply to you or not. The country as a whole votes what happens to the country.
> when there's a large demand in a democracy
Spain is the democracy, not Catalonia. And Spain's laws/constitution are pretty clear. The only democratic process that would be valid right now is to change the laws as a country, and then do anything about independence.
You seem to think democracy is this weird selective process where you can take an arbitrary group of people and as long as they mostly agree on something then everyone should submit to that.
Your logic above is perfectly able to justify anything, even genocide, as long as laws no longer apply because (local) majority consensus exists.
Also, in every case you mention, there were international support for the secession, while the Catalan independist movement, in spite of its strong efforts, has got almost zero support. By the way, this is the same international community who thinks that Spanish laws are not undemocratic or unjust.
I don't think that's really the right reason for saying a house isn't valid. Catalonia is a well defined, self-governing region of Spain. That means the Spaniards have already admitted that they're basically a sensible territory for being an independent state.
You could probably argue, in a case like the US, that New York isn't a valid territory for independence since it was created a long time ago prior to much settlement in the area - but the self government isn't revokable under the US constitution.
Catalonia has no such problem, since its autonomy is a relatively recent gift and is constantly revokable, so the fact that the Spanish haven't done it is proof that they think it's reasonable.
Even then, you still have places like Monaco and San Marino, which are very small. It's hard to argue they're minimally viable countries, just places history forgot, but they are independent.
At difference than Norway, there is a silent majority in Catalonia that is fuming. They had being opressed in the last decades by separatism. Now they can't exit home without finding a burning barricade and the pavement vandalised, can't go to work without finding the highway blocked by a group of clowns sit singing kumbaya, can't enter in the university without the permit of masked people boycotting the classes and closing the doors (It does not really matter because they will not find a local job anymore in the 5000 companies that have quited the area by this permanent climate of confrontation).
Poor workers struggling to survive, students from modest families, owners of small family bussiness sued by using spanish in their small shops, elders that can't sleep by youngs playing war games all night... Being poked in the eye each month, each day, hour and minute, by children demanding permanent attention. Children that want to steal their rights and identity, make their lifes miserable and chase them off from their homes and properties...
In some moment of the future this silent half will face some apparently trivial issue, reach boiling point, explode and raise in a bloodthirsty rage swirl.
Separatists crave to achieve a reaction from Spain that would justify their agenda, but trust me, the mortal hit will come from inside.
The rest of Spain will take some popcorn and enjoy the carnage and backstabbing on TV
Why do you insist on keeping people who feel that way in the country, against their will?
It's something that often puzzles me against political stances that oppose separatism. Often, they both express contempt for the people who want to leave, while at the same time, not allowing them to.
No-one is opposing separatism by the way, it's just that the whole country has to agree. The catalans signed up to the constitution like everyone else.
Why should they be able to shit all over it? And by the way is less than half of catalans who want this.
This awfully sounds like:
"We know better" "Hey Catalans, you guys don't really know what's good for you, so we are taking decisions on your behalf"
All your argument can only be explained from the right of conquest.
Hey Catalans, you guys really know what's good for you!, you are trying to get out of Spain and EU all in the same step. Hooow foxxxyyy!
You don't want to be like those savages that speak spanish in Chile, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Los Angeles or Madrid! you are too good to speak the language of torturers!
You can insult your main customers six times a day because you are best buzzinezmen in the world!. Customers love a "meneíto" and everybody will kill for buying your stuff made of pure freedom vapour! at any price!.
Independence will raise your economy to the stratosphere like a Winged San Jorge ascending to heaven with a choir of Xavier Cugats playing golden trumpets in the background!. The world will worship you as the first really freemocratic potency in Europe and you are zupaclever and megasmart and have a solid economic plan for the future.
...
That would be better for you?
Lies feel warm?
You seem to be implying that you know more than me by taking the higher road, you dictator! :P
> Trust me, in this case will be war
Sorry, after reading your text the one thing I can't do is to trust you.
> At difference than Norway, there is a silent majority in Catalonia that is fuming.
I would love to see data on that; right now, pro-independence parties are majority in the parliament and have had 10x times the amount of people on the streets (without the need of bringing outsiders). That majority is not silent, is inexistent.
> Now they can't exit home without finding a burning barricade and the pavement vandalised (...)
All that is false. I have multiple friends in Barcelona and protests have been focalized in a small area (spanish police station in Via Layetana).
> It does not really matter because they will not find a local job anymore in the 5000 companies that have quited the area by this permanent climate of confrontation
That is also false. There were some movements of the headquarters address that didn't really affected the business. The part that should be scary to all democrats is how the Spanish government created a law specifically to facilitate this change of address and how the king of Spain started calling companies to do that change.
> The rest of Spain will take some popcorn and enjoy the carnage and backstabbing on TV
This is pretty disgusting and telling.
Spanish democracy is malapportioned: Basically, rural voters get more of a say than urban voters. The pro independent parties have a majority in the Spanish parliament for the same reason that Republicans have a majority in the US Senate: Americans and Spaniards prefer havoc and civil war to democracy, so they'll do everything they can to make sure their parliaments are illegitimate. It's worked for them both before.
This seems often like trying to explain colors to blind people. Even worse, to people that are not blind but refuse to understand even really simple concepts that everybody out of the bubble can see inmediately.
The population in Catalonia is 7,5 millions, and the people that voted independentist parties are 1,6 millions. Have you consider the possibility than not all those "inexistent" people are independentists?.
Lets assume that some strangers would appear at your door requiring politely you to leave your home and work and go away because you aren't in the right kind of thinking and your bloodlines are Spainted. Oh, and you are not a US citizen (or a german citizen, french, whatever...) anymore.
Would you fight back for defending your rights and your home?
If the separatists really expect all this millons of people lowering their head, going to the exile and leaving in peace without a word they are even dumber than they seem. They will wake up and eat them alive.
> protests have been focalized in a small area, a single street...
If you really want to educate yourself, a simple search in youtube will provide you with plenty of data that debunk this idea. Think about it.
> I don't trust you
Good. As I'm just a stranger in internet, this is the right thing to do. By the way, I don't care about who do you trust either, so is not a problem at all. Go out and explore the world by yourself. Cheers.
7.5 million including kids and people who don't vote. 5.5 million people that can vote, ~4.3 that voted (2017 numbers). Over 2 million votes that voted explicitly pro-independence parties [1].
Those are the real numbers.
> Lets assume that some strangers would appear at your door requiring politely you to leave your home and work and go away because you aren't in the right kind of thinking and your bloodlines are Spainted. Oh, and you are not a US citizen (or a german citizen, french, whatever...) anymore.
That's sci-fi. It hasn't happen. It won't happen. If Catalonia would become independent, why would they kick anybody out?
> If you really want to educate yourself, a simple search in youtube will provide you with plenty of data that debunk this idea. Think about it.
Go to Barcelona, report back if that's a war zone or not. The problems/fires have been extremely focalized.
Because is easy to see that they wouldn't tolerate anything remotely "spanish" tomorrow in their cuckoopia and nobody would stop them to continue to make the life impossible to this people and increase the pressure until they go away, (except a resistance movement).
The rest of us know that you permit democratic expression so that the force is spent at a ballot box. Most people don't want needless change (in fact, the countries first used referendums used them precisely to prevent change).
If Catalonia had've been permitted to vote in a fair referendum, it would've been lost 45 to 55 and there would be peace and order in the streets of Barcelona, just like Glasgow.
Instead, the ignoramouses in Madrid thought force was the first choice, and now everyone in Barcelona suffers - those who want change, and those who don't.
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.
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?
It's not legal for a state to secede from the US at all without other states agreeing to it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Most countries today are independent even though it was illegal for them to become independent before they did. Poland or Estonia would still be part of the Russian empire. Austria and Hungary the same country, same with Czech Republic and Slovakia would still be Czechoslovakia. Malta and Cyprus would be part of the UK. And this is just a quick look to Europe of the 20th century.
We can go back and argue that the US couldn't/shouldn't be independent of the UK. And Cuba part of Spain. The question remains the same: why do people, outside of a territory, control the political status of this territory, going against international law?
"Article 1 1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."
What Spain is saying, and some Spanish people justifying, is that Catalonia doesn't have that right, and Catalans should never freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Then reinforce that lack of freedom with charges of sedition if you try and charges of terrorism if you protest.
https://www.thejournal.ie/catalan-independence-ban-ki-moon-2...
More reductionist argument. Catalonia, and any other region in Spain voted between a constitution and a possible new dictatorship. Trying to imply that, since a group of people signed something 40 years ago, everybody in that region is rejecting their rights not explicitly expressed in that constitution is dishonest. And what is worst, the argument seems to be made that it will remain like this forever or until the majority of Spain decides. Again, the tyranny of the majority.
> the right of self determination does not apply to it when it's an autonomous region
The right of self determination is not yours (or Ban Ki-Moon) to give, it is for people to take.
> that is part of a functioning modern democracy
Clearly it doesn't function that well, or most [1] Catalans wouldn't be so eager to leave.
[1] http://icps.cat/recerca/sondeigs-i-dades/sondeigs/sondeigs-d...
Why is the tyranny of the majority wrong (this is what most people would call democracy) but you see no problem with the tyranny of a minority?
> Why is the tyranny of the majority wrong (this is what most people would call democracy) but you see no problem with the tyranny of a minority?
Tyranny of the majority is not what you think it is. It happens when a some minority is part of a larger group that limits their freedom because of its larger number. This minority is usually focused on a specific region, and one of the the tools used by the majority to restrict this freedom is centralization and uniformity.
A good example of this are the 32 laws the Catalan government tried to push that the Spanish government sent to the constitutional court to be banned [1]. As a reminder, members of the constitutional court are selected by the main Spanish parties.
[1] https://ca.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llista_de_recursos_o_sent%C3...
Because they are not outside of, they are part of. The rest is a made up fantasy which a bunch of nationalists have used to rile people up, create a "common enemy" and a "them vs us" narrative and gain power for themselves.
This process is absolutely not new and has caused terrible harm throughout history, yet here we are in the 21st Century, seeing Trumps and Brexits and all this bullshit again because we don't fucking learn.
The democratic means for eventual independence are HARD and SLOW because they HAVE to be. You should need a lot more than a loud voice and a molotov cocktail in your hand to push more than half of your presumed co-citizens out of their country against their will.
No, it's just because they can. They are strong enough to do it.
Pro independence movements are orthogonal to nationalism.
> This process is absolutely not new and has caused terrible harm throughout history, yet here we are in the 21st Century, seeing Trumps and Brexits and all this bullshit again because we don't fucking learn.
I am sure Norway is hating that they split from Sweeden.
> The democratic means for eventual independence are HARD and SLOW because they HAVE to be. You should need a lot more than a loud voice and a molotov cocktail in your hand to push more than half of your presumed co-citizens out of their country against their will.
That's exactly why pro-independence Catalan movement has been asking for a referendum.
It sounds like you're arguing that to democratically separate, using a referendum isn't sufficient. Instead, you have to have a molotov cocktail and something else - presumably heavier, more effective weapons?
What the rest of the world hears Spain saying is, Catalonia cannot separate and even asking the question and discussing the matter is a criminal offence. When people are locked up for making sure there's interest before they start negotiating, what's left isn't "the democratic means for eventual independence are hard and slow because they have to be". What's left is "there's no democratic means for eventual independence; if you want to separate, it's over my dead body". And that means war.
The democratic means to separate can only be a democratic majority vote in the territory concerned. Otherwise it is by definition not democratic. Likening Catalonia's actions to Trump and Brexit and presenting Spain as the side of the lessons of the 20th century is hilarious. Catalonia said "let's have a vote on it, oh look independence won [in a questionable referendum], let's have a discussion". Spain said "you can't have a vote on it, you can't discuss it, thanks for trying: now you'll spend a decade in prison". Spain and rSpain do not have to agree with independence to have respect in this - they just have to not lock people up for democratic expression.
Spain and the EU are losing a lot of respect in this process.
For it to be a democratic process, there must be a way for this to happen, and there must be a way for this to happen that sees Catalonia exiting even though everyone else in rSpain is unhappy about it. Yes, of course, that means Catalonia will be paying a price when exiting. Maybe they will lose some of their territory or continue to pay some taxes for a certain number of years. And that price might mean they decide not to leave at this time, democratically.
But if the price is too great, if rSpain says "we will unhappily allow you to leave but we will veto your EU membership application and close the borders", if the price is something that Catalonia could never pay, then the democratic process will still be stifled and Spain will continue to be taught the lessons of the 20th century because, as you say, the Spanish "don't fucking learn".
This is false, absurd, and most definitely not what the rest of the world is hearing. Please we're adults here.
Signed by Spain in 1976, and that the Spanish constitution (10.2) accepts.
It's turtles all the way down.
The real issue here is not about the identity of the Catalonian people, it's about money. The catalan politicians have instigated nationalism but real issue is money, as in "why we catalans should contribute this much to the other regions of Spain that don't produce as much?"
If Spain really wanted to quiet down the independence movement in Catalonia, they could actually introduce a democratic, non malapportioned voting system. Americans would be proud of the Spanish non-democratic electorates.
The Spanish have basically gone off and said "how can we make an on-paper proportional voting system repeatedly return majorities for the minority who we hate and who are destroying our country". The problem is, as always, that no politician would ever vote themself out of power, and so no-one in Spain will ever propose a democratic reapportionment.
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.
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.
Plus new state members of the EU have to be approved by every current member IIRC.
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.
The Swiss aren't in the EU.
I also think that we have a wide range of problems which cannot be solved at national level.
So why it is bad if EU wants to have less of that?
One of the initial premises of EU was to facilitate cooperation between states which were at war for lenghty periods of time. And by facilitating collaboration the making them feel more “together”.
Also, don't for one second think the EU is against nationalism or patriotism. They desperately chase both. Why do you think the EU has a national anthem? Why do it's supporters say things like, "we Europeans". The entire EU project is a project to craft a new form of loyalty to the state and a self-sense of tribal belonging. Those who don't think this new nation, with its so called "European values", is better than their current nations ... well, they're treated with contempt.
Finally, there are no problems to which the solution is empires. The world has more countries than ever, yet is also richer and healthier than ever. This correlation and trend can easily continue for long time.
> Literally all the bloodshed and horrors Europe went through in the 20th century were caused by attempts to unite it into a single empire. The bizarre lesson some people see in this is to keep trying
Here is a response to this from [0]:
> Within the zone of integration, there has been no conflict since 1945, making it the longest period of peace on the western European mainland since Pax Romana
So from this there are two possible conclusions:
1) Either empires are good for peace
Or
2) EU is not an empire and it is not trying to be
Regarding:
> Finally, there are no problems to which the solution is empires
First: there are problems which cannot be solved by each state. See global warming for example
Second: The collaboration between countries is not mandatory to be an empire as form.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Europaea
Edit: formatting and adding quote author
Firstly, yes, empires can be good for peace in some ways. The Roman Empire had Pax Romana. But the Soviet Union was also internally fairly peaceful, at least as much if not much more than the Roman Empire. Oddly enough, lots of people didn't want to be a part of either empire. There are downsides to empires that outweigh enforced "peace".
Secondly:
EU is not an empire and it is not trying to be
I think you missed a possibility: the EU is not an empire yet but is trying to be, and this is already causing various kinds of conflict. The fact that it's not creating World War 3 is no excuse: the Soviets didn't cause World War 3 either but not many people think the USSR was a good thing.
For an empire to dominate people it must have at least two things. One, a large number of people physically within that population who are loyal to the regime. Two, military strength to swiftly put down any rebellions and ensure the loyalists remain in power.
The EU has the first in abundance, as the horrible situation in the UK is showing. People were given a vote. The British establishment are refusing to implement it, as they're more loyal to the EU than to their own voters. This is no surprise because the same pattern is observed throughout Europe, where the EU creates a constant series of constitutional crises. Democracy is being crushed throughout the continent without a shot being fired due to the massive weight of regime loyalists already in positions of power.
The EU doesn't yet have the second. But it wants it very, very badly and has identified an EU army which reports directly to the Commission as its new top priority. Why does the EU need an army when NATO exists and works? Nobody can quite explain that. But let's face it: people keep voting in anti-EU politicians throughout Europe and if current trends continue, eventually one of these power struggles will be lost by the loyalists. The only way the EU could then keep control is by suppressing anti-EU citizens through force. If the local police won't do it, an EU army will be ready to step in and enforce Commission policy. It's hardly going to be useful for major conflict anytime soon given its size and newness, but as a form of ultra-loyal police it won't be half bad.
I'm personally planning based on the belief that the EU will be a new USSR-style empire before I reach retirement, complete with ability to put down insurrections, a large propaganda apparatus and ideological loyalty of at least 100 million people. I expect to die of old age with it firmly in control of most of Europe.
Finally:
Second: The collaboration between countries is not mandatory to be an empire as form.
I completely agree, so why are we building one? The useful work the EU does could be better done by a constellation of standards bodies and independent political alliances. The politics of unity and Europeanism that comes with it is unnecessary and dangerous.
Someone wants to have a European Civil Code, and they say "but I already know the rules to trade with 30 million people". When you cut up the countries, they say "but if I want to trade with someone an hour's drive away, the rules are different - it's better to unify".
There's more boundaries where rules change, so there's more motivation to smoothe them out.
There's less power for each individual government, because their voice is 1 in 60 instead of 1 in 28. You'll quickly come to an understanding that the rules of European decision making have to be standard federal rules, rather than some compromise between federal and international rules.
The motivation for European integrationists is absolutely and solely for Catalonia and other places to become direct members of Europe.
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.
> 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.
Yes. That's ultimately why the Cataluña thing is a paper tiger issue: Catalans are too rich and too soft to really break away.
I'm not saying they're not allowed to have grievances, nor that they don't have any legitimate ones, but these people live extremely comfortable lives in a highly (_highly_) autonomous part of a relaxed, modern, Western nation. The independence stuff is mostly posturing. There's a good saying in Spain about this these days, roughly translating to "Catalans don't want to secede; they want to be secessionists."
It's cosplay revolution, and the rest of Spain has a good case for losing its patience with it. They want to break away, but no, sorry, the rest of the country is not allowed to have a say in the matter? Some Catalans (a minority, everyone seems to forget!) want their own country, but they also want it to be handed to them voluntarily by their "oppressor" in Madrid? They want to commit crimes but they expect not to be sent to jail?
At this point I'd almost be grateful for a Catalan Lenin of some sort; at least then we'd know there's an adult in the room.
Quite frankly I find it baffling that people care so much about violently forcing provinces they don’t even live in to stay in their country.
People were disrupting public order and doing an illegal activity (referendum) with public money. Normal people couldn't get to work or go to the doctor because people were blocking roads.
That is what police is for basically, I am glad we have police to protect us.
Maybe your constitution is different than ours, I don't tell Canada how to rule itself. I find it baffling that people think they can tell other countries how to govern themselves from so far away!
What I saw in the news at the time was that the rest of Spain shipped in armed goons from outside Catalonia in to beat people up who were trying to vote in the independence referendum.
Did that not happen?
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.
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.
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...
Spain can afford it
By the way, all the part about dictatorship, oppression and the rest is false.
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_...
Do you want to propose a solution to people who live in catalunya and don't want independence? A referendum is a stupid idea frankly, it divides sociaties between those who want to leave and those who want to say.
People in catalunya only want independence because they are richer. What happened to solidarity?
They just want to kick Spanish people out (by the way they are spanish too in spite of all their bullshit), becuase they see them as the Nazis saw the Jews.
Let's call things by what they are. We aren't going to stand by and abandon half if catalan people who don't want to lose their rights to live and work in Spain.
You can do that in other countries if you want.
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...
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.
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.
And to the rest of the planet is totally legit
Deploying police when there are serious disturbs by groups of organised people that are purposely preventing people from leading a normal life, ravaging and creating really dangerous situations for everybody is: NORMAL.
Name a country in the planet. Whichever country. This is exactly what the government of that country will do in the same situation.
Maybe for a few people is a videogame and lots of fun, but for the rest of us is a rock put in the path of the train when we or our loved ones are travelling. You will eat this rock if I would see you doing that.
For the rest is their small shop set in flames or ravaged. Is huge bills in damages and healthcare that they will have to pay. Is, undoubtely and crystal clear, Terrorism.
And deliberately sending your minions to disturb the peace and convivence of the society, unless you agree to "talk with me" accept my new twisted concept of "democracy" and gave me something for telling my people to stop and go home. Well, this has a name also in any part of this planet and the name is blackmail.
And if you are trying to suggest that the police is sent to stop the region each time the people demands peacefully independence because, duh, "Spain, evil people", let me inform you that this only happens in your imagination.
The main festivity in the region has been replaced by groups of people showing flags and asking for indepencence, year after year, after year. Everybody can find decens of videos on internet. Do you know what? As everybody can confirm easily, the number of people detained for asking independence peacefully in this kind of events is: zero.
Every independentist is crying slogans, singing and walking with banners and flags. No police is sent to stop any of their performances or demand silence, we are a society proud of granting an extensive freedom of speach
...with some limits of course. Like in many democracies, there are laws pursuing libel and protecting right to honour. You can't claim anything you want from other people without showing proofs, and this is not a bad thing
An extensive freedom of -> speech
No. I agree that there are actions that are legitimate to stop by force. Demanding independence is not one of them. Using violence while demanding independence if you have other means of obtaining independence would be; using violence against people who are not representing the government denying your claim, would be.
Notably Spanish police were deployed to stop the independence vote itself. To me that means the Spanish government inherently lost legitimacy. They are oppressors, and by extension Spain is denying democracy to a substantial portion of its population. I'd hesitate to call Spain democratic at all as a result.
The supporters of independence are dealing with an oppressive government that are denying them rule by consent, and which by extension they have every reason to see as illegitimate, and they have no reason to respect that governments right to a monopoly on the use of force.
Subsequent actions are largely secondary effects; you can not expect people to remain peaceful in the face of an oppressor.
But that does not mean that violence or destructive actions targeting people who have nothing to do with the oppression they face is acceptable.
> And if you are trying to suggest that the police is sent to stop the region each time the people demands peacefully independence because, duh, "Spain, evil people", let me inform you that this only happens in your imagination.
Again, I've never suggested this. You seem incredibly intent in reading things into what I wrote that is simply not there.
You know that both the first and the second referendum were just clownery and embezzlement. Everybody knows it yet.
We know now that of the around 300 detained for violent disturbs, 32 were directly incarcered for their participation in the most severe disturbs. Of this 32 people 27 where Catalonian independentists. Not evil spaniards "infiltrats" as they claimed. The rest were well known foreigners "professionals of violence" (from Italy and France for example).
We know that the anticapitalists can't build a Tsunami democratic app. For common people is just technically too expensive to hire programmers for that and maintain the system running. Only relatively rich people with lots of money to burn could be at the other extreme of the app.
Enough is enough. All the lies were exposed again and again by proven facts. Nothing that came from separatism mouths is trustable anymore.
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.
>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?
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.)
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?
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]
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.
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¢.
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).
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.
There was plenty of turnover, and plenty of No votes, in the referendum famous for the use of force by the Spanish "Guardia Civil" police.
There just happened to be a lot more Yes votes. Like how people voted in another pro-independence government again in the Catalan elections organized by the Spanish government after they forcibly disolved the Catalan government, just a few weeks after this referendum.
Plus there was no active voting census and people could vote multiple times, you can't seriously consider the turnout from those events as valid in any way.
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.
Under what circumstances, if any, should the police stand down?
> 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.
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?
Not just politicians, but activists too. Jordi Cuixart is doing 9 years for organizing protests.
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.
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...
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...
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...
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.
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.
The original language in the last paragraph is "...para solicitar la retención del contenido y los datos relacionados con la investigación antes mencionada."
The Github English translation of this is (caps are mine) "...in order to request both WITHHOLDING the content and data related to the aforementioned investigation."
However, I believe a more accurate translation is "...in order to request PRESERVATION of the content and data related to the aforementioned investigation."
If you look up the Spanish verb "retener", it can have, broadly, two applicable meanings in this case: "withhold" or "preserve".
I don't believe the language in the order should have been interpreted as "withhold", because they are ordering to perform an action on the content AND the "data related to the [...] investigation." This would be IP addresses, access timestamps, GitHub account information, etc., I would presume. It doesn't make much sense to "withhold" that sort of data. It makes more sense to "preserve" it.
To me, this appears to be a request to preserve data, not to remove data.
A case can therefore be made that the GitHub decision to remove content went above and beyond what was expressed in the received written order.
It's not a very common usage in English though.
Edit: In place of "la retención".
Or is everyone confused because a critical meaning is lost in translation.
> Además, se han creado otros repositorios con la misma información para evitar que el contenido se retenga.
So I'm inclined to believe that the translation is correct.
(I'm also a Castilian Spanish speaker :)
We really need to see the actual court order. Github has not included it in this repo.
Does anybody know how to access Spanish court orders online? Are they public?
E.g
> judicial authorities are responsible for the supervision and control of websites in order to prevent the dissemination of criminal content
> other repositories with the same information have been created to prevent the content being withheld|preserve.
It is quite clear they meant withhold. The document just does not "click" anymore if you parse it as "preserve".
Also: No one in Spain would use "retener" to mean "preserve" as a synonym of "archive", anyway. "Retener" might loosely translate to preserve as in "to remain unchanged during a flow/process", but not in any of the other senses, and this is not the sense that is used here.
And, if there are was possibly any doubt left, Spain actually blocked the corresponding github.io subdomain (redirecting it to the usual "Your national FBI equivalent has blocked this domain for your protection" page) before sending this Github takedown notice (likely because they did not dare "withhold" the entirety of github.com itself).
The contents seem pretty clear to me. An investigation is undergoing, the spanish law that makes mandatory keeping logs (also exist in Portugal, 6 months min.) is referred and github.com was asked to keep this data.
By the way, Tsunami Democràtic explicitly rejects violent action: https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html
https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/
This is quite shameful.
If you think the age of the constitution means anything at all, then I am scared. Countries that do well, like Norway or Australia, have old constitutions — it means they have practice. Some good, safe democracies, like New Zealand, don't even have a constitution at all. Most of the remainder have constitutions that are old but have been comparatively recently re-enacted to make some superficial change here or there. (In the top ten, Iceland, Finnland and Ireland are probably the countries with the genuinely youngest constitutions.)
And anyone who has seen the Spanish handling of this situation, who thinks that Spain has separation of power, deserves the completely abandonment of the rule of law that is just around the corner.
>In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary.
Contrast that with [0], which states "El Gobierno es el principal pilar del Estado; ... ejercicio del poder ejecutivo del Estado", the latter of which links to [1], which clarifies, "el poder ejecutivo es una de las tres facultades y funciones primordiales del Estado".
Are the Guardia Civil and the judicial branch not part of the government in Spain? I mean, it's still the Spanish government right?
Just for context, in the US we have police and national guard and judges and prosecutors, etc. But we would consider them all to be part of the government.
And it's clear that this lack of separation is rooted in the minds of Spanish politicians and governors. Here's the Vice President of Spain basically threatening the Belgium Executive if the Belgium Courts don't extradite Carles Puigdemont
https://thediplomatinspain.com/en/2019/10/spain-tells-belgiu...
1. Communism is the devil, whose purpose is to destroy humanity.
I highly value freedom of expression, and it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well, and fights to preserve that freedom on their platform. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future.
I see you've linked your Github in your profile. Why not put your money where your mouth is and delete your Github account now?
Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws?
Most governments ( no doubt, yours too), want companies operating under their jurisdiction to obey their laws (Things get complicated on the web but the basic premise holds), to say nothing of the fact that freedom of speech is not absolute (not condoning or condemning the current action)
It doesn't end well for the people, sadly.
Absolutely. Companies and the individuals who make up companies should not comply with unethical laws just as people at large should not comply with unethical laws. Ethics stands above the law.
This is pretty naive
Who decides what is ethical? I might think it's unethical to finance my government given its record of military adventures around the world. Does that mean that I'm off the hook on income tax?
I think you may be misunderstanding me. Ethics stands above the law in that if ethics and law conflict, a person ought to do the ethical thing rather than the legal thing. It does not mean that people who disobey the law should be off the hook so long as they were obeying their own personal code of ethics.
If this view is naive, then I believe most all work in moral philosophy is naive. I don't think there are any major viewpoints that would elevate obedience to the law as being a concern higher than ethical behavior.
Do you think that the entire field of business ethics is bunk and can be reduced to the single maxim, "Follow the local law"? Is the code of ethics by which I would be required to abide[1] if I became a professional engineer an unnecessary restriction?
If I made an app which mocked the King of Thailand, and Thailand demanded Github remove the app because it's against Thai law to mock the King of Thailand, what would you want to happen? How about an app which helped Uighurs avoid concentration camps, which China demanded the removal of?
Github has made that very clear when they took down the parody feminist programming language C+=. There were no legal notices or government threats or anything. They simply did not like the message.
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/12/14/1618239/github-take...
I beg your pardon, are you gaslighting Hacker News?
I saw videos of protests. Were those fake?
I have friends from Catalonia who tell me there is an issue. Are they lying to me?
Whether you agree that Catalonia should leave Spain or not, whether you agree that Spain should jail the leaders of a movement to leave Spain or not, there clearly is an issue. There clearly is some dissent, some controversy, something going on.
As for referendums... Seems to me there was a referendum a while back, and the vote was declared illegal. I saw video of law enforcement preventing people from voting.
Was that fake? if not, do you count it amongst your evidence of the people of Catalonia refusing to leave Spain?
Your friends probably didn't tell you, that ordinary justice condemns the political leaders, not because organizing a referendum, but for public funds misappropriation, corruption and refuse to follow the law. Something reasonable, since on other countries and 99% of history when you revolt, either you win or you will get your head off. The trial was public, documented and fair. Probably an exemplary for the future on how to deal when a corrupt government wants to take over.
You also need to go back a few years and read what happened on the previous referendum, that they were legal because they were organized following the rules and because this is a democracy. If you don't like the rules you have a political parliament and elections to change the laws. Thats fine.
I could say almost all the same things about whether the people of Québec want to leave Canada or not, and whether the tactics of those who want to leave are legitimate or not.
But I would never say there is no separation issue in Québec.
There is a HUGE issue, where people on both sides have been abusing the system for their own gains. Both political sides know that as long as they can keep the people fighting and "hating" each other, they can continue with the corruption that exists here.
Catalan identitarianism is very very recent. Culturally they are as Spanish as any other region (spain is relatively federal more so than a single monolithic culture like France). Some of the main reasons for claimed independence are "Spain steals from us". Now this is insulting to many Spaniards as the implication is that they pay taxes so everyone else can be lazy and fuck about. Essentially its based on them wanting a similar tax treaty to the basque country, another rich area who pays much less in tax than other areas with similar average salaries. In other words, rich not wanting to pay their fair share.
Slogans like that have alienated the discussion massively in Spain. Then they elected a local government that made their own campaign about leaving Spain. So kinda like the Brexit party in the UK they had to deliver, so they took crazy drastic measures, government escalated the problem massively and now we are here in no mans land.
Back to your original statement, when do you give legitimacy to a movement?
Catalunya has no historical, political, religious or ethnic divide with Spain. Literally 0. Their tripartit is gonna be mimic now by Cuidadanos, PP and PSOE. Their elites are just as corrupts as madrid. They are as religious as anywhere else in Spain. Catalunya has never been a historical region unless you concede Aragorns crown to be fundamentally Catalan but even then it is ages ago.
Basque country has a much better claim to indepdence in my opinion, and I still do not think they deserve the right of self determination. Not only in part because a great claim of their ethnic difference is still based in anti Spanish racism.
The 9N consultation came out with what, 80% support for independence?
I was responding to the OP's statement:
> We must remember that Catalonia has already held two legal referendums, where the result has been a refusal of the Catalan people to leave Spain or Independence.
That's not true, I think you are confusing Catalonia with Scotland.
Preciselly one of the main issues is that a part o Catalonian society (I would say a big one, from both sides, independentist and non independentists) wants a referndum, but Spain refuses to do it.
As I said in my previous comment, there haven`t been any referendums about independence in Spain (I live in Spain so I think I know about what I'm talking), basically because the spanish goverment doesn't want to, and on the other hand, the so called "rigth to choose or decide" with a referendum is one of the things Catalonians (and also Basks) want.
This takedown was to an app that was used to organize a blockage of a major airport. I do not agree with the takedown, but I do not think it's such a clear cut that it's 'freedom of expression'.
If it was not politically possible to dismiss them, then spending public resources on a policy which is the raison d'etre for the governing parties but which is outside the competence of that government should merely be considered a cost of the distribution of power.
Other democracies constantly have disputes about whether such a use of funds is within the competence of a specific government. And they find that, no, it is not within the competence of a specific government. And they manage to cope without charging anyone with embezzlement despite the money having been irrecoverably spent.
If this is too much for Spain, then Spain should remove the statutes of autonomy.
The fact that lots of people in Europe wouldn't touch him anymore with a fifty foot pole and that Canadians panicked this same week about the idea of receiving him in Canada, is probably related with the fact that he can talk, but is definitely unable to stop talking.
The politicians are free to have independentist ideology, and they can put it into their political program. But if they try to execute some pro-independence laws, they are blocked by the overuse of judiciary system in Spain and threatened (or punished).
So yes, the Catalan independentists are there for their ideas. Carme Forcadell is going to spend 10 years in jail while the rest of the table members of the parliament are being accused of disobedience [1]. Other Catalan politicians have seen reduced the accusations because they abandoned politics (Mundo or Santi Vila[2]).
> This takedown was to an app that was used to organize a blockage of a major airport. I do not agree with the takedown, but I do not think it's such a clear cut that it's 'freedom of expression'.
It's the right to protest.
[1] https://www.ccma.cat/324/el-suprem-jutjara-el-govern-puigdem... [2] https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20191014/47901534881/c...
And Carme Forcadell is not going to spend 10 years in jail. I would bet she will be out next year.
Please, stop spreading lies.
In case you want to also made the uneducated point that the violence is necessary, I want to remind you that the fact that people manifest doesn't automatically mean there exist oppression from the state, as in this case, there is none.
What an ironic couple of sentences tied together... In Spain we have rappers who have been sentenced to jail time for having lyrics criticizing the King. If that isn't limiting freedom of expression, I don't know what is.
Reference: https://www.elperiodico.com/es/ocio-y-cultura/20180221/valto...
2. The fact that a judge was the one who ordered the limiting of freedom does not make it any less limiting.
3. Censoring an entire platform because it was used for evil purposes (I haven't personally confirmed that this is the case) is easily within the definition of limiting freedom of expression.
Don't create central points of vulnerability to coercion. That multiplies the effectiveness of coercive force. Create decentralized systems. Git, not GitHub. Bitcoin, not Citibank. Email, not Gmail — although we still need to free email from DNS.
Never forget how the Spanish Inquisition — the origin, in the West, of these sorts of degraded "laws" against "criminal content" — treated the Jewish people and the keepers of the quipu. Reaching back further, remember how Qin Shi Huang treated the Mohists, infinitely his superiors in every respect.
People will say it's justified because the Catalan separatists are fascists, terrorists, pedophiles, or whatever. It's not justified. The rulers of al-Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the genocidal nightmares the Inquisition concealed with its censorship.
Today we are building the systems we will live in tomorrow. Do you want a future of a thousand Inquisitions or a thousand Miltons and a thousand Humboldts? Do you want Jefferson's future or Stalin's? A new Dark Age or a new Enlightenment? Will a thousand schools of thought contend, or will the people of the world suffer a sanitized environment devoid of "degenerate art" and "bourgeois ideals"? Will they remember what really happened, teasing the truth out of biased accounts written from many points of view, or will they only be able to read history as written by the victors, the version whose "correct ideology" earns it the censor's imprimatur?
It depends on how vulnerable our systems make human rights, and in particular the right to knowledge.
As a hacker, you decide what tomorrow's books are made of. Will they be printed on celluloid, which goes up like gunpowder with a spark? Or will they be etched in bright sheets of stainless steel?
Because governments burn libraries.
But cypherpunks write code.
† That's "states" to you Brits.
[edited extensively]
That's not true. The Almohads, unlike the almoravids, forced christian and jews to convert, under threat of death.
Bartolomé de las Casas relates stories of cruelty beyond belief, inhuman monstrosities beyond imagining, atrocities whose publication he delayed for more than thirty years, finally publishing pseudonymously. How many such true accounts have been forgotten because they were denied the Inquisitor's imprimatur? But the Aztecs' human sacrifices to the sun god, used to justify the bringing of "civilization" to the "savages", remain notorious today.
There wasn't much to start with, since the moorish conquest didn't displace the people but "incentivized"(ahem...) people to convert.
> How many conversos did the Inquisitors burn at the stake, generations after their ancestors converted, on the strength of rumormongering by jealous neighbors?
It's hard to know, but I've seen stimates around 3k-5k. Germanic wytchhunts probably had a much higher number of victims. The Inquisition was a pretty bureacratic institution, and it had proper trials with defence lawyers, questioning of witnesses, etc... Inquisitor [Alonso de Salazar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Salazar_Fr%C3%ADas) for example, saved probably thousands of people by setting high standards in Inquisition trials.
Yes, it was VERY BAD and TERRIBLE, I'm not condoning it, but it wasn't the worse that humanity has seen. By far.
I brought it up because the centuries-long intellectual blight that resulted from it is a salient example of the corrupt fruits of the poisoned tree of state censorship, a tree whose root in European history is that very Inquisition.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21397905 for a slightly longer disquisition on that theme.
Genocidal nightmares? I get that you are attempting to be poetic but do inform yourself about the historicity of your claims:
> The Inquisition was originally welcomed to bring order to Europe because states saw an attack on the state’s faith as an attack on the state as well.
> The Inquisition technically had jurisdiction only over those professing to be Christians.
> The courts of the Inquisition were extremely fair compared to their secular counterparts at the time.
> The Inquisition was responsible for less than 100 witch-hunt deaths, and was the first judicial body to denounce the trials in Europe.
> Though torture was commonly used in all the courts of Europe at the time, the Inquisition used torture very infrequently.
> During the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition, between 3,000-5,000 people were sentenced to death (about 1 per month).
> The Church executed no one.
https://strangenotions.com/spanish-inquisition/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revision_of_the_Inq...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition
> he Spanish Inquisition is often cited in popular literature and history as an example of religious intolerance and repression. Some historians have come to conclude that many of the charges levied against the Inquisition are exaggerated, and are a result of the Black Legend produced by political and religious enemies of Spain, especially England.
Please, feel free to point me to any unbiased source.
For every Giordano Bruno burned at the stake, a thousand monks prudently refrained from exploring controversial issues, and a hundred thousand loyal Catholics remained fettered in an intellectual darkness so profound they could not even see their chains.
The cost of the Inquisition is not to be measured only in the smoking corpses of scholars and Jewish and Muslim people, or even those falsely accused of practicing Judaism, but in the lost memory of entire civilizations, and in the books that were never written. It is to be weighed by the end of Galileo's scientific career, in Descartes' cowardly refusal to publish his greatest work until after his death, and in his inability to learn from the criticisms that ensued. It is evident in the near absence of Iberian and Italian philosophers from the birth of physics, chemistry, and the calculus; even Lagrange left Italy in the end.
That today we fly through the air like birds; that we live in artificial mountains of glued-together stone; that we walk on the moon; that we use precious steel where our great-grandparents used wood; that only one in thirty children die before reaching adulthood, instead of one in five, as through all human history; that we routinely cure cancer; that I am writing you this note in letters of lightning playing over the surface of tiny stones from the other side of the world — these miracles are all thanks to the fact that the Inquisition did not reach England, or Prussia, or the Low Countries, except briefly. These miracles are thanks to the noble fruits of free inquiry.
About your comments, I can point to some excerpts in the Inquisition wikipedia article:
> The Inquisition was established as a genocidal institution against the Jewish and Muslim populace of Iberia,
"The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism"
There was no genocidal intention, its a nuance but important. It wasn't established to "find every Muslim and put it on a stake".
> For every Giordano Bruno burned at the stake, a thousand monks prudently refrained from exploring controversial issues, and a hundred thousand loyal Catholics remained fettered in an intellectual darkness so profound they could not even see their chains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Censorship
"The censorship of books was actually very ineffective, and prohibited books circulated in Spain without significant problems. The Spanish Inquisition never persecuted scientists, and relatively few scientific books were placed on the Index. On the other hand, Spain was a state with more political freedom than in other absolute monarchies in the 16th to 18th centuries."
"Despite the repeated publication of the Indexes and a large bureaucracy of censors, the activities of the Inquisition did not impede the development of Spanish literature's "Siglo de Oro", although almost all of its major authors crossed paths with the Holy Office at one point or another."
> The cost of the Inquisition is not to be measured only in the smoking corpses of Jewish and Muslim people, or even those falsely accused of practicing Judaism, but in the lost memory of entire civilizations, and in the books that were never written.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#Death_toll...
"evertheless, some authors consider that the toll may have been higher, keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively, and estimate between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed" [...] "In either case, this is significantly lower than the number of people executed exclusively for witchcraft in other parts of Europe during about the same time span as the Spanish Inquisition (estimated at c. 40,000–60,000)."
How many potential Spinozas did we lose to the Inquisition because they had the misfortune of being born in Spain instead of in the Low Countries?
England and Holland were certainly guilty of atrocities, at home and in their colonies abroad, but the indigenous peoples of many of their colonies retained their cultures. The Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee survives today, and possibly it inspired the revival of democracy in Europe. Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and Buddhism survive in India today, as does knowledge of Vedic, Pali, and Sanskrit, despite centuries of English enslavement and exploitation. Contrast this with the fate of the cultural legacies of the Inka, the Maya, the Caribs, and the Quilmes.
Genocide does not require extermination. Cultural obliteration and mass expulsion — the explicit intent of the Inquisition, and to a very great extent achieved throughout Iberia and the Spanish colonies in America — are equally genocidal.
So, I say, do not accept censorship. It is a poisonous remedy, and it kills what is most precious in human culture before it begins to cure the illness for which it was prescribed.
From the Wikipedia article you mention:
>A number of procedures and protections restricted the torture of the accused, although much torture could be inflicted, and capital punishment was executed by secular authorities due to the clerical prohibition on shedding blood.
"We didn't execute anyone! We just decided who would be executed!"
> governments burn libraries
Not really.
> Catalan separatists are ... pedophiles
Is there really anyone who said so? Or are we a bit hyperbolical today?
Regarding the libraries comment, it happens plenty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries#Hu...
GP may be a bit verbose and dramatic, but the parallels between the Inquisition (a form of censorship) and current events happening in the same geographical location seem to be quite appropriate. He also brings up China besides Spain, so maybe you read too much into the country-specific reference with regards to the original topic.
I think it's a valid warning. All humans equally deserve knowledge, and as long as we have centralized systems then some humans will attempt to censor others. Simple as that.
> Regarding the libraries comment, it happens plenty
Plenty? It happens, yes, but it is not just governments: individuals organize book burnings, authors too: Vergilius wanted to burn his Aeneis. Meanwhile, the RC church had another tool (the Index), and almost no government burns libraries. I think even the Nazis didn't, and certainly the government of my country isn't burning them. I can see one right across the street, and while it's ugly, it's not on fire.
The comment above mine is all hyperbole and whataboutism, probably meant to provoke.
I'm not condoning the approach of the Spanish government to github, BTW. All of their governments seem to shoot into a reflex when the unity is at stake, from the Second Republic up to Sánchez.
There is a thoroughly-substantiated and fairly comprehensive list of library burnings at the link in the comment above yours that you have apparently failed to read. Nearly every single one of them was committed by a government; one of the few exceptions was committed by Nazis.
The argument you are using here could as easily, and as falsely, prove that heart attacks do not kill people; it reads like a satire of illogical reasoning from anecdotes. "My heart attack didn't kill any people. There's a person right across the street from me, and while she's ugly, she's not dying of a heart attack." Still, about one out of five humans eventually die of a heart attack, and when libraries are burned, nearly always a government is the culprit.
Moreover, the entire reason we are discussing governments burning libraries is an attack by the current Spanish government on GitHub, an electronic library that is one of the greatest libraries humanity has ever created; among its endless collections of worthless trivia, it contains comprehensive repositories of mathematical, algorithmic, electronic, chemical, and physics knowledge, amounting to a substantial fraction of what humankind can be said to know.
This attack perhaps does not amount to a burning of a library, only a bookshelf within it — and a failed burning at that, since evidently the information has been preserved intact and remains available. But it takes a particularly extreme kind of arrogant foolishness to interpret that situation as demonstrating the nonexistence of the menace rather than its omnipresence.
In short, your vicious comment is simultaneously intentionally insulting, diametrically opposed to well-documented objective facts that you knew or should have known (which is to say, it is a lie), and very poorly reasoned. You should not have posted it.
> Jefferson's future or Stalin's
You know, there is an awful lot of space between the two, the entire globe doesn't need to adopt US mores on everything or is inevitably an oppressive dictatorship shipping folks off to the Siberian gulag. That kind of black and white expression of the "correct ideology" helps no one.
FWIW I happen to have a fair amount of sympathy for the Catalan separatists in light of the draconian Spanish response to a group seeking self-determination. Hopefully Spain can first achieve less anachronistic law on secession, as I generally think what the locals want is what matters most. They should have opportunity to vote for independence -- or remain part of Spain.
I have no sympathy for the Catalan separatists; I think they are a bunch of nationalist clowns. I think dark days will come to Catalunya if they succeed in their secessionist mission. But I think that is a far less important issue than preserving the intellectual heritage of humanity, rather than subjugating the noble pursuit of reason and freedom to the depraved animalistic contest of dominance that these "laws" serve.
It would also involve Github taking sides in a very divise political issue that is far from black and white.
At worst, it could get GitHub blocked in Spain, or a local Microsoft office might get a stern look or two before Spain renews its Office 365 contract or whatever.
There seems to be this belief in the atmosphere that companies of all sizes should blithely ignore content takedowns when the alternative is large fines or exclusion from a country. This is not a realistic demand and you will be disappointed every time if you maintain it.
Unlikely, as the local executives likely didn't make this decision and don't have control over it. Guilt by association (employer) is not legal, even in Spain.
https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/26/3413476/google-brazil-you...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-arrested-in-...
I wouldn't rule it out regardless of the country involved.
https://twitter.com/armadillu/status/1186315453108555778?s=2...
That removes the biggest and most important component of activism: People's authentic willingness to sacrifice in exchange for the greatest good.
People need to make a free and willing choice to engage in civil disobedience.
---
Now that being said, there's another thing on which we might agree. Even if they don't break the law, I am prepared to disapprove of companies that are complicit in wrongdoing.
Complicity is looking the other way or participating. For example, supplying goods and services to ICE is being be complicit in ICE's actions.
I am not going to be angry with someone who complies with a court order to supply, say, employee information to ICE. But I will be angry with a company--cough, Microsoft, cough--who provides billions of dollars in services to ICE.
How is your stance not in line with people insisting on niceness from people belonging to historically oppressed classes?
Shutting down emotions isn't activism. Standing in solidarity and elevating the voice of the oppressed, angry or not, is.
GitHub's compliance with the court order was voluntarily and discretionary; just like how if the North Korea courts told me to shut down my site, you have every right to say no.
Sure while they're just a US company. What happens when they open an office in Spain?
Also, GitHub happily accepts money from companies in Spain. This mean they have economical activity there and fall under Spanish jurisdiction.
At a guess this is the one, and it still seems to be on GitHub:
https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu...
The GitHub pages hosted website still seems to be online too:
https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io
Perhaps GitHub is publishing the request, but isn't complying with the takedown?
> [we] limit the geographic scope of the takedown when possible and include that as part of the notification
On the other hand if you say that someone was arrested for arson, assault, or unauthorized possession or explosives then some objective reasoning can sort things out rather than having to fall back on an endlessly subjective debate of what is or isn't terrorism.
The phrase "hate crime" is another example of this problem. Someone being arrested for assault is pretty straightforward to investigate and adjudicate. If you also want the police to make some additional determination as to their motive and thoughts in order to make it a "hate crime" then everything is much more complicated. How about just punish appropriately for the assault and move on.
Note, I'm just talking about the use of language here, not trying to discern who are the bad guys in this particular dispute.
Everyone will tell you their side of the story, with half-truths and euphemisms wherever they need them.
Source: I'm Spanish, currently living in Barcelona.
That also infringes Spanish constitution's 2nd art., "the Constitution is fundamented atop the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation".
It's not that they "should have let them vote", it's that they can't, unless the Spanish citizens reform the constitution and remove those articles.
The separatist movement is blocked in that regard, and unless all other UN countries were to recognize Catalonia as an independent state, they are locked in as a "comunidad autonoma" until a constitution reform happens.
Then an illegally-binding referendum was organized by the Catalan government on October 1st, 2017. The result was 90% leaves, but yet again, 43% voter turnout, and there were no democratic guarantees, as some people were caught voting multiple times, the census was obtained illegally, etc.
After that illegal referendum, the Catalan government decided to secede and declare independence. That's why they were prosecuted and recently convicted. Declaring the independence of a part of Spanish sovereign territory is explicitly forbidden under the name of "secession" in Spanish constitution, and because it goes against the nation's own sovereignty it is considered a very serious crime, that's why they were convicted up to 13 years.
From my POV, as a Catalan citizen, this is ordinary application of law, the law that we all agreed upon in the first place, and the riots and violent scenes seen recently are simply caused by a minority of the pro-independent minority which want independence at all costs, and police forces can't allow that, thus, conflict.
It seems as though the Spanish constitution was written for the primacy of a centralized state, rather than federated government down to the individual. I suppose the idea that sovereignty is effectively granted by the central state is a result thereof. Maybe reforming that would be a good first step.
Self-determination is a right you reject when you step foot on Spain (and practically every other country).
We might have to change that, I don't know, but the Spanish constitution is no fascist rule, or else almost all modern democratic states are, too.
It is very complicated.
* Please don’t quote me on this since it’s been 12 years I did constitutional law
I am from Australia. To my best recollection, Australia's constitution never mentions the topic of secession, neither positively or negatively. But, territories of Australia have become independent before. Same is true of United States.
But, some will say a territory is not fully integrated, unlike a state or province, and a state or province would be different.
People say the US constitution doesn't allow secession of a state (as opposed to a territory) without a constitutional amendment. Not directly, but indirectly it does:
1. It is accepted that a territory (as opposed to a state) can secede and become a new country with consent of Congress
2. The US constitution allows a state to surrender some of its territory to the federal government (most obvious case is District of Columbia, but actually a lot of the Midwestern states were formed out of territory originally surrendered by the Eastern states which used to be a lot bigger than they are now)
3. So, a state wishes to secede could surrender all its territory to the federal government, and then Congress allows that territory to become independent.
Objection: States can only surrender some of their territory, not all of it.
Reply: Even if that is true, there is a workaround. Two states are allowed to merge with consent of Congress and their state legislatures. So, seceding state could merge into a neighbouring state, and then the new state would surrender the former territory of the seceding state to the federal government, and then Congress would grant that federal territory independence. (This would of course require the cooperation of a neighbouring state, which might be thought unlikely, but maybe not impossible – the neighbouring state might be pleased to see the seceding state go; the seceding state might sweeten the deal somehow by letting the neighbouring state keep part of its territory.)
Of course, the US Supreme Court might decide this is against the "spirit" of the US constitution. But they aren't compelled to conclude that it is against the letter. Strict constructionism would suggest this would be constitutional.
Congress granting a territory (or state, directly) independence isn't secession, whether or not it is allowed. Secession is unilateral, grants of independence are a different thing.
Madrid insists they couldn't allow Catalonia to become independent even if they wanted to.
Many people in Spain outside of Catalonia are resolutely opposed to Catalan independence, under any circumstances. By contrast, most people in UK outside of Scotland don't really care, and even the vast majority of those opposed to it would be willing to accept it if a referendum voted in favour. (Even those opposed to a second independence referendum, their argument is "too soon" rather than "never again"). In this regard, Spain is culturally more like China than the UK – pro-Beijing people get terribly upset at the idea of any territory claimed by the PRC ever becoming independent of it.
Which may or may not be a correct interpretation of the Spanish Constitution, but what the US Constitution does or does not allow regarding either secession or Congressional grants of independence is not really germane one way or another. They aren't even products of the same legal tradition such that analysis of one might be illuminating on the other.
So the question of what other countries' constitutions allow is relevant to the debate.
And the comment I was initially responding to was suggesting that the UK could only allow Scotland the choice of independence because it has an unwritten constitution. Explaining how other country's written constitutions could allow grants of independence to parts of the country is a relevant response.
You will read several comments here saying similar things (I have read something like that this constitution was only voted because the only other option was another war), but it is simply not true, as you can easily check in any independent source.
If a dictatorship offers people democracy on its terms, people will accept it. But, was their choice really free? Would they have agreed to the same terms if the threat of dictatorship wasn't there? (1978 was only three years after Franco died, Spanish democracy was very young, and it was entirely believable in 1978 that it might not have lasted.)
Ultimately we need to answer one question: is the current Spanish Constitution democratic or not? if it is, it does not matter how it came to be. Any changes could be done by a democratic process. If it is not, then all the Spanish citizens are affected and a whole new constitutive process is needed where all the citizens vote, not only Catalans.
I expect in vast majority of cases of gaining independence from a country with existing constitution it wasn't something along the lines of: "OK, so you want independence? Fine, just wait a bit until we change the constitution". Then again, and sadly, it probably wasn't happening without violence either.
Here's a list of unilateral declarations of independence, some more successful than others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_declaration_of_inde...
And let's not forget that a lot of cases of gaining independence happened after someone lost a war. Maybe let's not go there?
The Spanish central government and court system didn't have to try to physically stop the referendum. They could have just declared it illegal but then ignored it rather than seeking to physically prevent it. They could have followed the same approach as Iraq. They chose not to. Likewise, rather than imprisoning those who declared unilateral independence, they could have just declared the act legally void and then pretended it never happened.
Governments (and judicial systems) always have discretion about enforcing the law. A wise government knows when to step back. A foolish government demands it be enforced 100% of the time. (And I guarantee you, that there will be other issues, on which the Spanish government and judiciary make no such demand for 100% enforcement – prosecutorial discretion exists in every country, Spain included.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Catalan_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
They managed to close the access to Barcelona airport and disturb the lives of thousands of individuals, and their plan is to continue doing so in an anonymous and unaccountable way.
Spanish government on the other side, it's trying to find who is behind this network, and making some bold moves, not because their effectiveness, but more to say that it's doing something instead of sitting idle.
I mean, the politicians who tried to do this in an eponymous and accountable way got prison sentences, so...
They did vote for it, and pro-independence political parties failed to win the popular vote in the last democratic election of catalonia in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_regional_election
That is, there is no majority of voters in Catalonia that want independence, according to the last election.
Failing to win the popular vote, all independence parties left any ideological differences aside and united forces to obtain majority in the parliament, using that majority to push for an illegal referendum that most of the population in Catalonia didn't took seriously. They then tried to used the results of the illegal referendum, where mostly only those citizens pro-independence went to vote to try to push for independence, ignoring the will of the 53% of the voters that voted against them in the last democratic election.
All in all, a pretty good shit-show, that has resulted in a couple of politicians accused of treason and in jail or in exile.
IMO the worst parts of this are that (1) ~50% of the population has a different opinion than the other 50%, and they will need to manage to live together independently of how things turn out, and (2) Catalonia's politicians do not care about their constituents, and only appear to care about those constituents that voted for them. I personally think that's pretty shameful, and don't have any respect for any of the politicians on either side.
Indeed, but I didn't say "a majority". This is exactly why I said "remain" would have won, Spain could have ruled it void anyway, and everyone would have been happy.
This would have sent the message that it is ok for public servants to ignore the will of half the people they are responsible for, and that they are above the law.
That's a dangerous message to send.
What was stupid was sending the police against the voters. That was completely unnecessary and gave the independence movement a lot of "legitimacy" in the international community.
They should just have arrested the organizers of the referendum on that same day and call it a day. Instead, they let them flee to brussels.
That's pretty exactly the UK/Brexit problem as well. :(
You could literally s/Catalonia/UK/g and have the sentence be 100% valid for the UK too. :)
If this is a common sentiment in Spain on how to resolve such issues, I wouldn't call it a democracy. The UK has many problems, but it handled the Scottish referendum much better.
If you think that not allowing a minority to impose their ideas on a majority is not democratic, then I do not know what democracy is.
[1] This report is by the (independentist) government of Catalonia, and clearly says that according to their polls less than 44% wants to leave and more than 48% wants to stay in Spain: http://icps.cat/archivos/sondeigs/dossiersc2019cat.pdf?noga=...
There are the CDRs, PicnicxRepublica, Omnium, ANC,... And probably many more.
In fact there are suspicions about tsunami not being "good enough" by some independentists.
Don't attribute to one what comes from another.
Anyway, there's a huge leap from riots (and, please, look at riots in other countries...) to terrorism.
Either way, GitHub is only complying with Spanish law, and that laws existence is not GitHub's fault, but the fault of the spanish people.
No “abuse” necessary: this has been the plan all along. It’s taken a little longer than expected, but things are finally falling into place now.
From the take down notice:
> In Spain, judicial authorities are responsible for the supervision and control of websites in order to prevent the dissemination of criminal content as it is specified in the article 35 of our Law 34/2002 and the article 13 of our Criminal Procedure Code.
Granted here it is used as the omnibus term as opposed to its own division.
From the context of this subthread seems like the Spanish think of government as executive and legislature, with judiciary separate too.
Guardia Civil is really a police force like the french Gendarmerie, seen it described as paramilitary is a bit odd, tbh.
An American reading the title wouldn't be mislead (we're generally confused when other countries talk about forming new governments) but an English-fluent person from another parliamentary country might be misled.
As long as Spain's judiciary still sees it fit to hand out multi-year sentences to people peacefully following democratic principles, they seem very much an extension of the government and not an independent body.
There's nothing in that paragraph that qualifies as an argument against the separation of powers. In fact, I'd say that's pretty much the opposite, considering that PSOE has been pressuring for lower sentences.
There are such arguments, like how the Constitutional Court judges are elected, but in the end it's up to the Judiciary branch to decide what to do about, and nobody can interfere.
The judiciary follows the laws, which are written by the senate, which is elected by the spanish people.
So those "people peacefully following democratic principles" being arrested is the will of the Spanish people. If they don't like it, they should have voted better.
In both cases due to an ongoing investigation, not based on any conviction.
Not that Spanish courts are to be trusted on matters like this, but still...
I wouldn't attack a country's justice system that gratuitously.
B) can the app really be spreading that fast, if people are having to download it from github, and override their devices security settings to install it?
Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some reason. It sounds like it's right out of some dystopian movie.
It's unclear who translated the letter. It may have been a github employee.
In the original it says "graves desórdenes públicos" which could also be translated as "grave public disturbances". The word "desorden" definitely doesn't have a medical connotation as "disorder" has in English.
For example, https://batasnatin.com/law-library/criminal-law/crimes-and-p...
It's also one of the serious security problems with this app, you can't have an official source, and forcing people to install through direct apk installation, it can be replaced by a rogue modified version very easily.
I suspect widespread public dissent does require quite a lot of motivation. Sending an APK file over Bluetooth or a web link is most likely not that much of a hassle in that situation.
> Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some reason. It sounds like it's right out of some dystopian movie.
Yeah, it's outright scary, and the fact that the local news outlets here barely mentions it doesn't make that feeling any better. I'm sure there's a rational explanation but it still feels... disturbing...
Whether one agrees or not with the demands, both HK and Barcelona are serious, public, and the opposite of order.
If this is not a serious public disorder, you'll tell me what it is.
To be frank anyone unironically speaking something like that brings to mind ethical arguements about smothering baby Hitler.
It's the Guardia Civil (police) requesting the takedown.
It seems like he sees terrorism everywhere when he looks at Catalans.
It appears to still be online from UK, dunno about ES
> When we receive a notice from an official government agency that identifies illegal content and specifies the source of the illegality, we ... limit the geographic scope of the takedown when possible and include that as part of the notification
[0] https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/README.m...
It returns a "Repository unavailable in your location" message, which is kind of ironic since the website itself is still accessible from https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io
Based on your comment, it suggests that the takedown request is for the website, not the application repo, which is interesting in a way.
This is the new normal :/
On the other hand by mixing their content in centralized websites, they need to send takedown requests to every single one of them, since they would block legitimate traffic otherwise[1]. It's basically a workaround for IP and TLS SNI blocking.
Of course this is all to make it simple for non-techies to access their website / application. If they required using a VPN/Tor their adoption would probably plummet.
[1] Actually they blocked an IPFS gateway before so it's more like "well-known centralized websites".
They used this app to organize violent riots, taking advantage of the pacifist demonstrations organized by the pro-secession political parties.
The big problem in Catalonia is exactly that the ratio is around 50%-50%, but the status quo is that Catalonia is part of Spain, so the pro-secession will keep protesting, and the government shutting them down, and more important, defending the 50%+ of Spaniards which live in Catalonia and want to remain part of Spain. No one talk about these ones!
They also used this app to organize non-violent protests, but why say that when you can tell half the truth to tell your story? I'm sure Whatsapp, Telegram, Messenger good ol' SMS were used to organize violent riots, but we won't close those right? I'm sorry but your argument is as week or worse than the one used to take down HK's map.
They closed other sources such as websites, and VPS hosting mirrors. You cannot simply "close" WhatsApp or Telegram or SMS, that is not how it works, unless you just cut the service for everybody, or go down the rabbit hole of chasing hundreds if ad-hoc groups.
Still, the real victims here are the 50%+ of Spaniards who want to remain being Spaniards. In my opinion, while there are people who want to continue being part of Spain, the government is doing right protecting the law and shutting the secessionists down.
It's the same reason a thermostat is not constantly switching on and off when you cross the set temperature. Heating will start when you go a couple of degrees below the desired temperature, and it will only stop when you reach a couple of degrees more. Else, you have an unstable system (this is not my opinion, it's very basic control systems theory).
No one talks about the ones who want to remain? No one besides all the media in the whole country, you mean?
C'mon.
According to you, the victims are some 50%-ish of people, but somehow the other 50%-ish (that is implied in what you say) is not?
Violent riots? Do you know what a violent riot is? Have you seen the police actions? Have you been on the streets these days? Let's stop with the lie spreading.
- Github blocking the repo: Not sure if many of you know it, but the App was involved "directly or indirectly" on organising demonstrations with the purpose of blocking certain infrastructures, like airports. So I'm not really surprised that it got blocked.
- Catalonian independence movement: For those who are not up-to-date, this is a very complex topic. There are not good or bad people here. Spanish government is preventing that the country gets dismembered, specially by the rich regions who prefer not to support the poor ones (originally, they started the movement with the phrase "Spain steal from us"). Those politicians incarcerated broke the law in several occasions even after being warned, so the court decision is understandable (even if I don't agree with it). They are not the ones who need to solve a political problem, only apply the law.
In regards to solving this conflict, no side is willing to step back, so I'm afraid that this issue won't be solved on my generation. Spanish citizens strongly believe that they all (including all regions) should be able to decide the future of their country. Separatist believe that only them (Catalans) should be able to decide, so here lies the problem. The situation is not comparable to Scotland as Catalonia was never a separate entity, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon centuries ago. There was not prior agreement between countries, in contrast with Scotland and England.
It's also clear that using GitHub for Tsunami Democràtic was a poor choice. Because GitHub is obviously vulnerable to such takedowns.
Self hosting on a more or less "bulletproof" server would have made far more sense. If I were doing it, I'd probably use a Tor onion server, with clearnet gateways via disposable VPS, using domain names that were difficult to revoke.
It created publicity for the movement.
I mean, how many non geeks have ever heard of GitHub?
However the project got publicity. it could have used a different backend.
It is the nesting doll situation of splinter separatist groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_nationalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Countries
Ultimately reminds me of the Monty Python skit from the Life of Brian - The People's Front of Judea:
Is Dat another option?
[1] https://elpais.com/politica/2016/06/28/actualidad/1467119956...
That ship sailed when the US government classified an attack on a military ship in a conflict zone as terrorism. I mean WTF!
These days I read terrorism as "things X government doesn't like". You'll be surprised of how much sense news makes.
You can publish to github, bitbucket, gitlabs, netlify, neocities, heroku, reddit, HN, youtube, blogger, facebook etc, like 100 different places.
Then any govt that wants to orders a take down, has to reach out to all those places, but the main thing of course is that most of these places shouldn't be in US, some should be in EU, Russia, China.
The idea being that bureaucracy will get in the way of taking some down.
GitHub should ask further information regarding this statement: '''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'''
There's a copy on IPFS already: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUFcAKdPUnZwz5AZA6gANbqVfADXw61znPosMJ...
People installing binary blobs from anonymous github repos which are politically charged while granting location permissions... what could possibly go wrong?